ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A student opened fire randomly at two classrooms at a middle school in southeast Turkey on Wednesday, killing four people and wounding 20 others, an official said, in the second such shooting in the country in two days.

The student, who was also killed, arrived at the school, armed with guns believed to belong to his father, a retired police officer, Kahramanmaras provincial Gov. Mukerrem Unluer said. The gunman was carrying five firearms and seven magazines.

The victims included a teacher and three students, Unluer said. At least four of the wounded were in serious condition. The motive of the attack wasn’t immediately known.

The attack came just a day after 16 people, mostly students, were wounded when a former student opened fire at a high school in nearby Sanliurfa province. The assailant later killed himself.

Until this week, such school shootings were rare in Turkey.

Earlier, media reports said that authorities sent police and ambulances to the school in the Kahramanmaras’ Onikisubat district, after gunfire was heard there. Images from the scene showed at least two people being put into ambulances.

Parents rushed to the school after hearing reports of an armed attack, NTV television reported, adding that police took security measures around the school.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A former student opened fire at a high school in southeastern Turkey on Tuesday, wounding at least 16 people, before killing himself, an official said.

The 18-year-old attacker fired randomly inside a vocational high school in Siverek, Sanliurfa province. He later killed himself with the same shotgun after being “cornered by police,” Gov. Hasan Sildak said.

The attack wounded 10 students, four teachers, a canteen employee and a police officer, Sildak said. While most of them were being treated in Siverek, five of the teachers and students were transferred to a hospital in the provincial capital because their conditions were more serious, the governor said.

The motive for the attack was unclear. School shootings are rare in Turkey.

The attacker did not have a criminal record, Sildak said. The school had been declared safe and no permanent police officer was assigned to protect it, he added, calling the shooting an “isolated incident.”

NTV television and other media reports said the assailant had threatened an attack on the school on social media prior to the shooting.

One student told the state-run Anadolu Agency that he and a friend jumped out of their classroom window to flee the attacker.

“He suddenly entered the classroom and fired. He fired four or five times. Two people were hit. He then went into the next classroom,” Anadolu quoted Omer Furkan Sayar as saying. “We first threw ourselves to the ground and then two of us jumped out of the window.”

Sayar continued: “He didn’t say anything, he entered and started to shoot directly.”

Earlier, media reports said all students were evacuated and police special operations units were deployed after the assailant refused to surrender.

“The individual was cornered inside the building through police intervention and died after shooting himself,” Sildak told reporters, adding that a “comprehensive” investigation into the shooting would be carried out.

Video footage showed dozens of students running out of the school toward the gate and onto the street.

The United States is familiar with Australia, Paraguay and Turkey heading into their World Cup Group D matchups.

The U.S played all three opponents in friendlies last year, losing 2-1 to Turkey in June and defeating Australia and Paraguay by 2-1 scores last fall.

The Group D games will be played in Vancouver, British Columbia; Seattle; Santa Clara, California, south of San Francisco; and Inglewood, California, next to Los Angeles.

This group is one of only four played within one time zone, joined by Group G on the West Coast and C and I on the East Coast.

United States

The Americans have their weakest goalkeeper group since the 1980s and only one central defender playing in a top European League, Chris Richards.

However, they benefit from being seeded as a co-host of the tournament, The 16th-ranked U.S. opens against No. 27 Australia before facing 40th-ranked Paraguay and No. 22 Turkey.

Christian Pulisic, the top U.S. player, entered April in a scoring slump and hasn’t gotten an international goal since 2024.

Midfielder Tyler Adams and right back Sergiño Dest, veterans of the 2022 team that lost to the Netherlands in the Round of 16, faced fitness issues ahead of the tournament.

No U.S. team has reached the semifinals since the first World Cup in 1930 and the Americans haven’t advanced to the quarterfinals since the 2002 team sparked by 20-year-olds Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley.

Coach Mauricio Pochettino replaced Gregg Berhalter after the U.S. was knocked out in the group stage of the 2024 Copa America.

Turkey

The Crescent Stars reached the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup and 2008 European Championship but missed five straight World Cups before qualifying this year by beating Kosovo in a playoff. This will be just the third World Cup appearance for the Turks, who reached the tournament for the first time in 1954.

Captain Hakan Çalhanoğlu has 22 international goals and Kerem Aktürkoğlu has 15, including the winner against Kosovo.

Coach Vincenzo Montella, a former Roma striker, took over from Stefan Kuntz in September 2023 and led the team to the quarterfinals of the 2024 European Championship.

Turkey needed to win playoff games against Romania and Kosovo to reach the World Cup. It hasn’t faced Australia since 2004 and met Paraguay for the only time in 1995.

Paraguay

La Albirroja earned the sixth and final automatic berth from South America with a 0-0 draw against Ecuador, returning to soccer’s top event for the first time since 2010.

Paraguay will be appearing in its ninth World Cup. Its best performance was reaching the 2010 quarterfinals, where it lost to Spain on David Villa’s 83rd-minute goal.

Miguel Almirón, 32, and Antonio Sanabria, 30, are the veterans who head the offense while 22-year-old Julio Enciso and Diego Gómez, 23, have provided an injection of youth.

Gustavo Alfaro took over as coach from Daniel Garnero following an 0-3 performance at the 2024 Copa America.

Australia

After four straight group stage eliminations, the Socceroos beat Tunisia and Denmark at the 2022 tournament and then were knocked out by eventual champion Argentina, which won their round of 16 game 2-1.

Goalkeeper Matthew Ryan, the team captain, is headed to his fourth World Cup.

Former Australia defender Tony Popovic replaced Graham Arnold as coach in September 2024 after a home loss to Bahrain and a draw against Indonesia in qualifying. Arnold, who had been in his second stint as Socceroos coach, was hired to coach Iraq in May 2025.

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ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish authorities have detained nine people as part of an investigation into an attack on police outside a building housing the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul that left one assailant dead, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported Wednesday.

Two other assailants were wounded and captured during Tuesday’s shootout in the city’s financial and business district, while two police officers sustained slight injuries, officials said.

Israel had withdrawn its diplomats from Turkey over security concerns and deteriorating relations with Ankara shortly after the start of the war in Gaza, and officials said the consulate was closed at the time of the attack.

Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said one of the assailants had links to a group that he said “exploits religion,” without naming the organization.

The Islamic State group has carried out deadly attacks in Turkey in the past.

Anadolu Agency reported that security forces detained nine suspects in operations conducted in Istanbul as well as in the provinces of Konya and Kocaeli. They were being questioned along with the two injured assailants, the agency reported, without providing further details.

Cifti said the attackers had traveled from the city of Izmit, in Kocaeli province, in a rented car. The two wounded assailants are brothers, identified as Onur C. and Enes C. The first has a criminal record related to drugs.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned the attack and praised the Turkish authorities for preventing further violence.

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Mircea Lucescu, the Romanian soccer great who was a serial trophy winner as a player and a coach, has died. He was 80.

Lucescu’s death was confirmed by Bucharest University Emergency Hospital on Tuesday. He had been hospitalized after reportedly suffering a heart attack on Friday morning.

“Mr. Mircea Lucescu was one of the most successful Romanian football coaches and players, the first to qualify the Romanian national team for a European Championship, in 1984,” the hospital said in a statement. “Entire generations of Romanians grew up with his image in their hearts, as a national symbol.”

Lucescu had a lengthy coaching career and was in his second spell with the Romanian national team until stepping down last Thursday after falling ill during training. Three days earlier, Romania had missed out on qualification to the World Cup after losing to Turkey in a playoff.

As a player, Lucescu captained his country at the 1970 World Cup.

Lucescu’s coaching career spanned almost half a century, from late-1970s Romania to 2026 World Cup qualifying, as Eastern European soccer was transformed by political and economic changes after the fall of communism, and later by the effects of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Lucescu spent 12 years as coach of Shakhtar Donetsk, where billionaire Rinat Akhmetov’s backing assembled a squad filled with up-and-coming Brazilian talents. Lucescu forged a team that became a Champions League regular and won the UEFA Cup in 2009.

By the time Lucescu left in 2016, Shakhtar had left its home city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine after a takeover by Russia-backed separatists.

His later moves to Russia’s Zenit St. Petersburg and to Shakhtar’s bitter Ukrainian rival Dynamo Kyiv were less well-received by Shakhtar fans.

Internationally, Lucescu coached Turkey as well as Romania. His second spell with Romania started in 2024, 38 years after he’d left the national team the first time. His last game was the loss to Turkey.

Lucescu coached Pisa, Brescia, Reggiana and Inter Milan in Italy and is remembered fondly in the north of the country, especially at Brescia — despite his tenure being marked by several ups and downs.

His team there was dubbed Brescia Romeno after Lucescu signed four of his compatriots, including one of Romania’s greatest ever players Gheorghe Hagi — between stints at Barcelona and Real Madrid.

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ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish lawmakers kicked off a debate Tuesday on a draft law package that includes restricting access to social media platforms for children under 15, making Turkey the latest country to seek measures to protect young people from dangerous online activity.

If it becomes law, the bill would force social media platforms to install age‑verification systems, provide parental control tools and require companies to rapidly respond to content deemed harmful. It’s unclear how long the parliament debate will last.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ’s government says the proposal aims to mitigate the online risks to children’s safety and privacy.

“Protecting our children from all kinds of risks, threats and harmful content is our top priority,” Mahinur Ozdemir Goktas, Turkey’s minister for family and social services, said earlier this year.

The main opposition party — Republican People’s Party or CHP — has criticized the proposal, saying children should be protected “not with bans but with rights-based policies.”

Under the draft proposal, digital platforms — such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and others — would have to block children under 15 from opening accounts and introduce parental controls that would manage children’s access.

Online game companies will also be required to appoint a representative in Turkey to ensure they abide by the new regulations. Potential penalties include internet bandwidth reductions and fines imposed by Turkey’s communications watchdog.

The Turkish government has a recent record of restricting online platforms as they have grown as a means of expressing dissent. Online communications were widely restricted during last year’s protests in support of Istanbul’s jailed opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu.

Restrictions on social media access for children under 16 first began in December in Australia, where social media companies revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children.

Last month, Indonesia began implementing a new government regulation banning children younger than 16 from access to digital platforms that could expose them to pornography, cyberbullying, online scams and addiction.

Some other countries — including Spain, France and the United Kingdom — are also taking or considering measures to restrict children’s access to social media amid growing concern that they are being harmed by exposure to unregulated social media content.