A 37-year-old man was charged Thursday with attempted arson, reckless endangerment and trespassing after he walked into St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on Wednesday with two full gasoline cans, lighter fluid and lighters, police said.

The incident occurred two days after a massive fire severely damaged the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, causing global shock and sorrow. That blaze was most likely the result of an accident though a major investigation is under way.

A New York City Police Department official said Marc Lamparello was charged with second-degree attempted arson, second-degree reckless endangerment and trespassing on Thursday after he entered the Roman Catholic cathedral in midtown Manhattan just before 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT) on Wednesday and was confronted by a security guard.

As the man turned to leave, gasoline spilled onto the floor and the guard alerted police officers stationed outside.

Lamparello is a resident of New Jersey and a faculty member in the philosophy department at the City University of New York, according to the university’s website. Local media reported that he has previously been arrested in New Jersey for trespassing.

He has no arrest record in New York, a New York Police Department official said.

It was not immediately clear if Lamparello had a lawyer.

Officers caught up with Lamparello on Wednesday and he was taken into custody after questioning, said John Miller, deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism for the NYPD.

“An individual walking into an iconic location like St. Patrick’s Cathedral carrying over four gallons of gasoline, two bottles of lighter fluid and lighters, is something we would have grave concern over,” Miller told reporters.

Asked if terrorism was a possible motive in the incident, Miller said Wednesday it was “too early to say that.” But, alluding to worldwide publicity about the Notre Dame fire, he added: “This is an indicator of something that would be very suspicious.”

Lamparello’s alleged arson attempt comes only a few weeks after a man was arrested and charged with arson and hate crimes for burning down three predominantly African-American churches in Louisiana between March 26 and April 4.

Lamparello told police he was taking a short cut through the cathedral to get to Madison Avenue from 5th Avenue to return to his van, which had run out of gasoline, Miller said.

When police checked the vehicle they found it was not out of fuel, at which point the man was arrested, he said. “He is known to police and we are looking into his background. We don’t know what his mindset was, what his motive was.”

St. Patrick’s, a neo-gothic church across from Rockefeller Center, has stood in the heart of Manhattan since 1879 and is considered one of the most important symbols of the Catholic Church in the United States.
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The United States supports a democratic and peaceful transition in Sudan led by civilians who represent all Sudanese, the State Department said on Thursday, as protesters in Khartoum kept up demands that the country’s military hand over power to civilians.

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Sudan remained labeled by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism, and emphasized that Washington’s policies toward Sudan would be based on “our assessment of events on the ground and the actions of transitional authorities.”

She said the U.S. was “encouraged” by the release of political prisoners and the cancellation by the transitional military council of a curfew.
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U.S. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday he plans to introduce legislation to raise the minimum age for buying tobacco products, including vaping devices, to 21 from 18 to curb their “epidemic” use among teens.

McConnell said the bill would be introduced in May.

Shares of Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc, which owns a 35 percent stake in e-cigarette maker Juul, fell 3 percent on the news. Philip Morris International and U.S-listed shares of British American Tobacco were also trading lower.

“For some time, I’ve been hearing from the parents who are seeing an unprecedented spike in vaping among their teenage children…. Unfortunately, it’s reaching epidemic levels around the country,” the Republican senator from Kentucky said in a statement.

McConnell’s proposal comes as states and cities across the United States have moved to raise the legal age for purchasing tobacco in an effort to prevent addiction at young ages. A 2015 study from the National Academy of Medicine found that among adults who became daily smokers, about 90 percent started using cigarettes before they were 19.

The study found that raising the minimum legal age to 21 would prevent 223,000 premature deaths.

So far 12 states have enacted laws to raise the minimum age to 21, including New Jersey and California. Lawmakers in New York state and Maryland have also approved legislation.

In a statement, Altria Group Chief Executive Howard Willard said the company “strongly supports” McConnell’s move, calling it “the most effective action to reverse rising underage e-vapor usage rates.” A representative for British American Tobacco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

E-cigarette makers are already under pressure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which laid out plans in March to clamp down on the use of the popular nicotine devices among teens.

Altria made a big bet on e-cigarettes in December with its $12.8 billion purchase of a 35 percent stake in Juul Labs Inc, which makes a sleek line of devices that became popular among teenagers, prompting an FDA crackdown.

Altria Group has been a major contributor to McConnell’s campaigns, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. McConnell’s campaign received $31,900 from Altria employees or political action committees in the most recent election cycle, making him one of the top four recipients of campaign cash in Congress, according to the data.

 
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Ivanka Trump, U.S. President Donald’s Trump’s daughter and senior White House adviser, spoke Wednesday to a summit of women entrepreneurs in the Ivory Coast.

“Societies that empower to succeed are more peaceful and more prosperous. And this is evident in all the research that we see,” Trump told an auditorium full of female business owners, community organizers, politicians and students.

Her appearance at the Women Entrepreneurs Financial Initiative (WeFi) summit in Ivory Coast was Trump’s last stop on a four-day tour of Africa to promote a $50 million initiative signed by her father in February that is aimed at encouraging women’s employment in developing countries.

“We launched WGDP, the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, in February of this past year. It is the first ever whole-of-government approach to women’s economic empowerment in the developing world, and the goal is to empower 50 million women by 2025,” she said at the summit.

The WGDP is one of many international funding projects that will work with the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank to distribute money to projects throughout the continent.

Backbone of African economies

“It’s very known that women form the backbone of African economies … yet they’re very much marginalized in terms of their access to most productive resources, from land to finance to acquiring information,” Vanessa Moungar, director of Gender, Women and Civil Society at the African Development Bank, told VOA.

Moungar gave the example of one specific program, Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA), which was developed to bridge the gap between men and women in how they gain access to capital.

The summit touted successful businesswomen speakers and panels, mixed with representatives like Moungar to discuss the potential of women in business on the continent.

Change for the better

And many left the conference feeling inspired about their future.

“From what I’ve heard today, I do believe that things are going to change for the better,” Tatou Dembele, who owns the food marketing company Ivorian Food, told VOA.

“I believe that there is a strong will to help women in their own businesses. I believe this is the most important thing and we need to focus on that, whether or not we receive or might receive so much money or less money,” Dembele added.

​$2 million for cocoa

Earlier Wednesday, at a cocoa farm about 100 kilometers from Abidjan, Trump announced a $2 million commitment to help women in Ivory Coast’s cocoa industry.

Speaking at Cayat, a cocoa cooperative in the town of Adzopé, Trump said the $2 million, promised by USAID and private chocolate companies, would go toward savings associations, which are a popular way for businesswomen to gain capital in the West African country.

Cayat is an example of one company that was able to grow through use of a savings association. It is a company, however, in an industry largely run by women, but where women are still outearned by men.

“Oftentimes women are left out of the decision-making process. Women do a lot of the work, but women often don’t have the ability to own land,” Tim McCoy, vice president of country relations for the World Cocoa Foundation, told VOA.

“So what we’re seeing here is a change in that and an example of women really taking responsibility and exercising really amazing leadership,” he added about Cayat.

“Thanks for allowing us to highlight a best-in-class example,” Trump told an audience of Cayat employees after touring the facilities Wednesday.

Trump was received warmly both in the town and the cocoa cooperative. Dozens of people wearing shirts with Trump’s photo lined the streets to greet her.

“We are ready to work with them,” Adingra Yawa, a Cayat employee, told VOA after Trump’s announcement. “We want our children to be able to go to school. We want to be happy like other women.”
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A federal appeals court Wednesday scheduled a hearing over whether to stop the Trump administration from forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their immigration court hearings.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set a hearing for April 24 in San Francisco over whether a lower court ruling to block the policy should go into effect while the case proceeds.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg ruled April 8 that the unprecedented policy violated U.S. law and should be halted because it failed to evaluate dangers migrants face in Mexico.

He issued an order to stop the policy, but gave the government time to appeal, which it did, claiming the ruling was erroneous and would endanger the public.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit issued a temporary stay last week — leaving the policy in place — and requested written arguments from the government and immigrant advocates before setting the hearing date, now set for next week.

Policy introduced in January

The administration introduced its “Migrant Protection Protocols” policy Jan. 29 in San Diego and later expanded it to Calexico, California, and El Paso, Texas. Homeland Security officials have said they planned to sharply expand enforcement along the entire border with Mexico.

Families seeking asylum that typically would have been released in the U.S. with notices to appear in court, were instead sent back to Mexico to await their hearings.

Eleven Central Americans sued to challenge the policy, arguing it jeopardized asylum seekers by forcing them to stay in Mexico, where crime and drug violence are prevalent.

According to the Mexican government, Central American asylum seekers have been returned to Mexico 1,323 times to await court dates in the U.S.

The U.S. stopped returning people to Mexico in the immediate aftermath of Seeborg’s ruling and at least some who reported to court that week were allowed to stay in the United States.
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The remains of precious religious objects lay charred on the church floor, black and smoldering after a devastating fire. 

But this wasn’t Notre Dame, the Catholic cathedral known as the “Heart of Paris,” parts of which collapsed in flames this week as millions watched in horror on broadcast news. This was three small Baptist churches in rural Louisiana.

While these churches in a stubbornly segregated part of America’s South were destroyed by suspected arson over several days, they received scant attention on the news landscape. (The 21-year-old son of a local sheriff’s deputy has been charged with arson and hate crimes.) 

“I think it’s a question that we all have to ask ourselves: Why is it that we can be more moved by the destruction of a beautiful but inanimate object rather than, say, the death of refugees in the Mediterranean or elsewhere? Or the continuing and growing problems of climate change, and the deaths of animal species?” asked Nick Jubber, a travel writer in London who lived in Paris.

The Twittersphere agreed. After an overnight of collective grief and social mourning over the 850-year-old Paris cathedral, people started to talk about priorities. 

“My heart is broken over the loss of Notre Dame,” tweeted Megan Romer of Lafayette, Louisiana, just south of the parish where the Baptist churches burned. “If you are going to donate money to rebuild a church this week, I implore you to make it the black churches in St. Landry Parish.

“I am not saying this to minimize any suffering. Loss is loss and it all hurts,” Romer continued. “But if you happen to be reading this, remember that famous history isn’t the only history. Imagine the courage it took to build and fill a black house of worship in postbellum rural Louisiana. AND NOW.” 

While Notre Dame receives about 30,000 visitors a day as one of the biggest attractions in the world, the predominantly black Louisiana churches receive little tourism attention or dollars. Instead, tourists in that part of Lousiana come to admire the plantations constructed before the Civil War by wealthy white landowners who built their sizable fortunes on generations of enslaved black people. 

Besides the Louisiana churches, people worldwide noted the outflow of money going to Notre Dame, while, in their eyes, other parts of the world were burning.

Three French “billionaires have pledged 600+ million euros for the Notre Dame reconstruction in less than 12 hours,” tweeted Iman. “Let that put into perspective how easily billionaires could end world hunger, poverty, lack of access to healthcare/clean water/education but choose not to.” 

“The 800-year-old Keriya Aitika mosque in China’s Xinjiang province was also razed to the ground by the Chinese (government), the latest in a string of historic mosques destroyed,” tweeted Kaveh Akbar. “Pray for these histories, too.”

“Masjid Al-Aqsa got burned and there’s not media coverage??! But Notre Dame fire is on every news channel??? Ok,” lamented @Salmaabellaa, referring to a fire at Islam’s Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

When others with significant social media followings tweeted about the inequity, the Baptist churches were no longer anonymous. A GoFundMe account asking for donations to restore the churches raised close to $1.5 million by Wednesday afternoon EST. 

Nearly 27,000 donations were made worldwide to the Seventh District Baptist Association, a 149-year-old nonprofit religious organization comprised of 60 Baptist churches in southwest Louisiana, which includes the three churches affected by the recent fires, the GoFundMe webpage states.

“As we hold Paris in our thoughts today, let’s also send some love to our neighbors in Louisiana. Three historically black churches have burned in recent weeks, charring buildings and scattering communities. If you can, contribute to rebuilding funds …” tweeted former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Jubber explained that the outpouring for the Catholic cathedral is because Notre Dame “is just as alive as any person and, perhaps, more so … because it’s been there and present through so much history, it has this living force that gives it this emotional power. … It feels like more than just a building … its so permanent. I never would have imagined that Notre Dame would have burned. It seemed like something that was always there. It was always something so stable.

“It will never be the same,” said Jubber, who recently published “Epic Continent: Adventures in the Great Stories of Europe.” 

“There may seem something perverse about this display of grief when species are falling extinct on a regular basis, and we’re increasingly faced with the effects of climate change. But it reflects a truth that is increasingly apparent: We look to the past for our collective identity.”
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