W.Va. shooting — A retired police officer armed with an assault weapon and a handgun fired up to two dozen shots at a U.S. courthouse in West Virginia on Wednesday before police returned fire and killed him, authorities said. Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger identified the gunman as Thomas J. Piccard, 55, of Bridgeport, Ohio. He was a retired Wheeling police officer. Schwertfeger did not say whether Piccard used both weapons during the assault on the Wheeling Federal Building or speculate on a motive. Officials said they had no knowledge of any sort of note left behind by Piccard.

Admiral demoted — The deputy commander of U.S. nuclear forces, Vice Adm. Tim Giardina, was notified Wednesday that he has been relieved of duty amid a military investigation of allegations that he used counterfeit chips at an Iowa casino, the Navy said. The move is exceedingly rare and perhaps unprecedented in the history of U.S. Strategic Command, which is responsible for all American nuclear warfighting forces, including nuclear-armed submarines, bombers and land-based missiles. The Navy’s top spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said Giardina, who had held the job since December 2011, is being reassigned to the Navy staff pending the outcome of the probe by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Florida voter rolls — Paving the way for a new attempt to remove noncitizens from voter rolls, Ken Detzner, Florida’s election chief, tried to stoke confidence on Wednesday in the revamped plan before a largely skeptical crowd in immigrant-heavy South Florida. Designed to assure voters that the same mistakes will not be repeated, the new plan to review voter registration rolls for noncitizens will rely chiefly on the Homeland Security database. The database, which does not include the names of citizens, is used by the federal government and states to see if immigrants, depending on their status, are eligible for benefits.

Saudi women drivers — Saudi women on the ultraconservative kingdom’s top advisory council have called for a discussion on the sensitive issue of allowing women to drive, a move that could embolden reformers pushing to lift the ban. The official request was made this week to the head of the Shura Council, council member Latifa al-Shaalan said, to address all “excuses” raised to keep women from driving since Islamic law and Saudi traffic laws do not forbid it. Women seeking the right to drive in Saudi Arabia have been energized by a campaign calling on them to drive on Oct. 26. Saudi law does not explicitly prohibit them from driving, but religious edicts are enforced by the police, effectively banning it.

Kenya extremism — Terrorism experts are warning that Kenya may be the breeding ground for a growing extremist threat. Ever since the Kenyan military stormed into southern Somalia two years ago, many Kenyan fighters have been coming back home, local leaders and experts say, creating a larger, increasingly sophisticated network of trained jihadists. Outside of Somalia itself, Kenya sends more fighters to al-Shabab, the group believed to have conducted a bloody raid at a Kenyan shopping mall last month, than does any other country, analysts say.

Jupiter mission — NASA’s Jupiter-bound spacecraft hit a snag Wednesday soon after it used Earth as a gravity slingshot to hurtle toward the outer solar system, but mission managers said it’s on course to arrive at the giant planet in 2016. Juno emerged from Earth’s shadow in safe mode, a state that spacecraft are programmed to go into when there’s some trouble. Despite the problem, “we believe we are on track as planned to Jupiter,” said project manager Rick Nybakken of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the $1.1 billion mission.