BARRON, Wis. — A Wisconsin man was sentenced Friday to life in prison for kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and killing her parents after the girl told the judge she that wanted him “locked up forever” for trying to steal her.

Jake Patterson, 21, pleaded guilty in March to two counts of intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping. He admitted he broke into Jayme’s home in October, gunned down her parents, James and Denise Closs, made off with her and held her under a bed in his remote cabin for 88 days before she made a daring escape.

Jayme didn’t appear at Patterson’s sentencing hearing Friday, but a family attorney read her first public statements about her ordeal to Judge James Babler.

“He thought that he could own me but he was wrong. I was smarter,” the statement said. “I was brave and he was not. He thought he could make me like him, but he was wrong. For 88 days he tried to steal me and he didn’t care who he hurt or who he killed to do that. He should be locked up forever.”

The judge called Patterson the “embodiment of evil” before sentencing him to consecutive life sentences without the possibility of release on the homicide charges. He also ordered Patterson to serve 25 years in prison and 15 years of extended supervision on the kidnapping count.

“There’s no doubt in my mind you’re one of the most dangerous men to ever walk on this planet,” Babler said.

Patterson sat shaking his head during most of the hearing. Offered a chance to speak, he said he would do anything to take back what he did.

Trump sidesteps Congress to clear military hardware sales

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified lawmakers Friday that President Donald Trump is invoking his emergency authority to sidestep Congress and complete 22 arms deals benefiting Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries that lawmakers have blocked from being finalized.

Both Republicans and Democrats urged the Trump administration this week not to take the rare step of exploiting a legal window to push through deals, worth about $8 billion.

Pompeo’s notification letters don’t note the nature of the emergency but effectively give the administration a green light to transfer bombs, missile systems, semiautomatic rifles, drones and a controversial sale of precision-guided munitions that lawmakers fear Saudi Arabia may use against civilians in Yemen’s civil war.

Judge temporarily blocks Miss. abortion law; suit filed in Ala.

JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge is temporarily blocking a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions once a co-called fetal heartbeat is detected.

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves on Friday issued an order to stop the law from taking effect July 1. He heard arguments Tuesday from attorneys for the state’s only abortion clinic, who said the law would effectively eliminate all abortions in the state because cardiac activity is often first detectable around six weeks, when many women may not know they are pregnant.

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to block an Alabama law set to go into effect in November that would make performing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony.

Climate protesters turn out as Europe votes on parliament

BERLIN — Protesters — many of them too young to vote — took to the streets Friday across the European Union to demand tougher action against global warming as the 28-nation bloc elects a new parliament.

From Portugal to Finland, from Italy to Britain, students followed the call of Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg to stage ‘school strikes’ against climate change.

The issue has come to the fore ahead of the elections that began Thursday and end Sunday for the EU’s 751-seat assembly. The vote is expected to boost parties that have a strong environmental message.

Thunberg, who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, said she consciously chose the run-up to the EU vote to organize another continent-wide protest.

Move made against transgender health protection

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration moved Friday to revoke newly won health care discrimination protections for transgender people.

The Health and Human Services Department released a proposed regulation that in effect says “gender identity” is not protected under federal laws that prohibit sex discrimination in health care. It would reverse an Obama-era policy.

The administration also has moved to restrict military service by transgender men and women, proposed allowing certain homeless shelters to take gender identity into account in offering someone a bed and concluded that federal civil rights law does not protect transgender people from discrimination at work.

The proposed rule change faces a 60-day comment period and another layer of review before it can be finalized.

Terror probe opened after ‘low force’ blast in France

LYON, France — A “low force” blast hit a busy pedestrian street Friday in the French city of Lyon, injuring seven people as it shattered the glass from a refrigerated cooler in a bakery, a local official said.

France’s anti-terrorist office opened an inquiry into the blast and soldiers secured the area.

France is jittery from a spate of attacks in recent years, some of them deadly, carried out by people ranging from extremist attackers to mentally unstable individuals. Five people were killed Dec. 11 in an attack on the Christmas Market in Strasbourg, in eastern France.

French media quoted the mayor of Lyon’s second district, Denis Broliquier, as saying that an image of the man who deposited a sack or suitcase that apparently exploded at about 5:30 p.m. was captured by surveillance cameras.

In space: SpaceX has launched 60 little satellites, the first of thousands that founder Elon Musk plans to put in orbit for global internet coverage.

The recycled Falcon rocket blasted off late Thursday night. The first-stage booster landed on an ocean platform following liftoff.

Musk said Friday all 60 flat-panel satellites were deployed and online a few hundred miles above Earth. Each weighs 500 pounds and has a single solar panel and a krypton ion-powered thruster for raising and maintaining altitude. The orbiting constellation — named Starlink — will grow in the next few years, Musk said.

The satellites have the capability of automatically dodging sizable pieces of space junk.