Charleston South Carolina

Amid singing and prayer, a communitywide memorial service remembering the victims of the Charleston church shootings got underway Friday in a sports arena a few blocks from Emanuel AME Church.

A friend of the white man accused of fatally shooting nine black parishioners in Charleston last year pleaded guilty Friday to lying to federal authorities during their investigation. He also revealed that the suspect told him he planned to kill himself after the slayings, which he had planned for months.