By Ian Simpson and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several people were killed and others injured when at least one gunman opened fire at the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington on Monday, authorities said. A Washington police spokesman said five people had been shot at the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters, including a District of Columbia police officer and one other law enforcement officer. The Navy did not elaborate.

NBC News, citing a senior naval officer at the Navy Yard, said at least 12 people had been shot, with four killed and eight wounded. This could not be independently confirmed. A Navy official told Reuters a suspected shooter has been contained, adding that several people died and several others were injured. The total number of victims was unclear, he said on condition of anonymity.

Another Navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said more than one shooter may have been involved. The Washington Post reported that there were several shooters. The Navy said in a statement the shooting took place at the heavily guarded headquarters, where about 3,000 people work. Dozens of police and emergency vehicles surrounded the complex in southeast Washington, which is about a mile south of the U.S. Capitol, local media reported.

Helicopters circled the headquarters with some touching down on the building's roof, according to a live feed by Washington's WJLA TV. A Washington police spokesman said the first reports of shots were received at 8:36 a.m. EDT (1236 GMT).

A White House official said President Barack Obama had been briefed on the shooting. The shooting briefly shut down flights at Reagan National Airport. The Navy Yard dates to the 18th century and is the oldest Navy installation. It houses a museum, the residence of the chief of naval operations and is responsible for weapons development, among other functions.

(Additional reporting by the Washington bureau; Editing by Vicki Allen and Doina Chiacu)

A supporter of U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning protests outside the main gate before the reading of the verdict in Manning's military trial at Fort Meade, Maryland July 30, 2013. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan

The verdict will be issued at 1pm ET by Lind sitting alone in the courtroom at Fort Meade, Maryland, in the absence of a jury – an arrangement made at Manning's own request. The soldier's decision to put his faith in a military judge, rather than in a panel of his peers – the military equivalent of a jury – was a big legal gamble whose merits will become clear when the verdict comes in.

In another huge legal roll of the dice, Manning decided to plead guilty to a lesser version of 10 of the 21 counts of which he is accused, carrying a possible maximum sentence of 20 years in military jail. He did so with nothing in return in the form of a plea bargain, a highly unusual step in criminal proceedings.

Legal experts said an aiding-the-enemy conviction could set a precedent because Manning did not directly give the classified material to al Qaeda, but to the Wikileaks website, which then published many of the documents.

"Most of the aiding-the-enemy charges historically have had to do with POWs who gave information to the Japanese during World War II, or to Chinese communists during Korea, or during the Vietnam War," Duke law school professor and former Air Force judge advocate Scott Silliman told The Associated Press.

Air Force Reserve Lt. Col. David J.R. Frakt, a visiting professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh, said a conviction on the most serious charge, if upheld on appeal, “would essentially create a new way of aiding the enemy in a very indirect fashion, even an unintended fashion.”

Bradley Manning read out a personal statement to the court in Fort Meade, Maryland, at a pre-trial hearing over his prosecution for leaking the largest trove of state secrets in US history. It provides the first account in his own words and under his own name of how he came to download hundreds of thousands of classified documents and videos from secure military databases and transmit them to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

The US government has refused to publish contemporaneous transcripts and documents from the Manning court martial, prompting legal complaints from open government groups. In the absence of a full official copy of Manning's statement, journalists covering the case have had to rely on their own note-taking from the courtroom.

Reuters Video: U.S. soldier Bradley Manning arrives in court ahead of the verdict on whether he will face life in prison without parole in the WikiLeaks case. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).

By Nick Carey

DETROIT (Reuters) - Detroit filed the largest-ever municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history on Thursday, marking a new low for a city that was the cradle of the U.S. automotive industry and setting the stage for a costly court battle with creditors. In a letter accompanying the filing, Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder said he had approved a request from Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection noting, "Detroit simply cannot raise enough revenue to meet its current obligations, and that is a situation that is only projected to get worse absent a bankruptcy filing."

Snyder, a Republican, named Orr in March to tackle the city's spiraling long-term debt, which is estimated at $18.5 billion. Detroit was once synonymous with U.S. manufacturing prowess. Its automotive giants switched production to planes, tanks and munitions during World War Two, earning the city the nickname of the "Arsenal of Democracy."

Now the city's name has become synonymous with decline, decay and crime. Detroit has seen its population fall to 700,000 from a peak of 1.8 million people in 1950. The city's government has been beset by corruption cases over the years. Waning investment in street lights and emergency services has left it struggling to police the streets.

The city's murder rate is at its highest in nearly 40 years; only a third of its ambulances were in service in the first quarter of 2013; and its nearly 78,000 abandoned buildings create "additional public safety problems and reduces the quality of life in the city," the governor noted in his letter.

In June, Orr presented a proposal to creditors offering them pennies on the dollar. His plan had met with resistance from some creditors, most notably Detroit's two pension funds representing retired city workers. The funds recently filed lawsuits in a state court challenging the governor's ability to authorize Orr to file for bankruptcy.

Creditors are expected to mount a stiff challenge to the bankruptcy, which was filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of Michigan. Douglas Bernstein, a bankruptcy attorney at Plunkett Cooney in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, said he expected the case would last one-to-three years and would be very costly.

"This could run to tens-of-millions to hundreds-of-millions of dollars," he said.

(Reporting by Nick Carey; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)