People in the town of Uvalde, Texas, are trying to come to terms with the shooting Tuesday that claimed the lives of at least 19 students and two adults at an elementary school. The 18-year-old gunman died at the scene in a confrontation with law enforcement officers. As Mike O’Sullivan reports, the tragedy touches community members and those who came to mourn alongside them.
Camera: Mike O’Sullivan
…
Month: May 2022
Russia Slams Sanctions, Seeks to Blame West for Food Crisis
Moscow pressed the West on Thursday to lift sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, seeking to shift the blame for a growing food crisis that has been worsened by Kyiv’s inability to ship millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products due to the conflict.
Britain immediately accused Russia of “trying to hold the world to ransom,” insisting there would be no sanctions relief, and a top U.S. diplomat blasted the “sheer barbarity, sadistic cruelty and lawlessness” of the invasion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi that Moscow “is ready to make a significant contribution to overcoming the food crisis through the export of grain and fertilizer on the condition that politically motivated restrictions imposed by the West are lifted,” according to a Kremlin readout of the call.
Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but the war and a Russian blockade of its ports has halted much of that flow, endangering world food supplies. Many of those ports are now also heavily mined.
Russia also is a significant grain exporter, and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said the West “must cancel the unlawful decisions that hamper chartering ships and exporting grain.” His comments appeared to be an effort to lump the blockade of Ukrainian exports with what Russia says are its difficulties in moving its own goods.
Western officials have dismissed those claims. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted last week that food, fertilizer and seeds are exempt from sanctions imposed by the U.S. and many others — and that Washington is working to ensure countries know the flow of those goods should not be affected.
With the war grinding into its fourth month, world leaders have ramped up calls for solutions. World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said about 25 million tons of Ukrainian grain is in storage and another 25 million tons could be harvested next month.
European countries have tried to ease the crisis by moving grain out of the country by rail — but trains can carry only a small fraction of what Ukraine produces, and ships are needed for the bulk of the exports.
At the same time, the Russian Defense Ministry proposed corridors to allow foreign ships to leave ports along the Black Sea, as well as Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.
Mikhail Mizintsev, who heads Russia’s National Defense Control Center, said 70 foreign vessels from 16 countries are in six ports on the Black Sea, including Odesa, Kherson and Mykolaiv. He did not specify how many might be ready to carry food.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said his country was ready to agree on safe corridors in principle — but that it was not sure it could trust that Russia “will not violate the agreement on the safe passage and its military vessels will not sneak into the harbor and attack Odesa.”
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Putin was “trying to hold the world to ransom” by demanding some sanctions be lifted before allowing Ukrainian grain shipments to resume.
“He’s essentially weaponized hunger and lack of food among the poorest people around the world,” Truss said on a visit to Sarajevo. “What we cannot have is any lifting of sanctions, any appeasement, which will simply make Putin stronger in the longer term.”
Putin said “it’s impossible, utterly unrealistic in the modern world” to isolate Russia. Speaking via video to members of the Eurasian Economic Forum, which is comprised of several ex-Soviet nations, he said those who try would “primarily hurt themselves,” citing broken food supply chains.
Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, urged its members to provide Ukraine with what it needs to defend itself against Putin’s “revanchist delusions.”
If Russia achieved “success” in Ukraine, “there would be more horrific reports from filtration camps, more forcibly displaced people, more summary executions, more torture, more rape and more looting,” Carpenter said in Vienna.
…
Nigerian Albinos Demand Authorities Restore Free Cancer Treatment
Nigerian Cynthia Ukachi, who has albinism, first noticed the changes on her skin in 2018. When she went to the hospital, she was told it was an early stage of skin cancer, and that it had started because of exposure to the sun.
Thanks to a government support scheme that offered free skin cancer care for albinos, she had surgery to remove the affected areas and was treated.
However, Ukachi says the malignant skin cells returned months ago, long after the government ended its free treatment plan.
“I have three on my neck, I have two at my back and I just have this on my forehead here,” she said. “It looks very small but it’s very painful and it can bleed.”
Without the government support, about 4 million albinos in Nigeria could be at risk of skin cancer, according to aid groups.
Too expensive for her
Ukachi says she cannot afford the treatment. Every affected skin area can cost up to $350 to treat.
“Noticing this issue again, I already knew what it was, but I couldn’t go back to the hospital, knowing I’ll be asked to pay, and the money is what I do not have,” she said. “If the government wants me to live, if the government wants persons with albinism to live, they should reinstate the free cancer treatment.”
Nigerian authorities started the program in 2007, and the Albinism Association of Nigeria says around 5,500 patients including Ukachi benefited from it before it was discontinued for lack of funding.
Jake Epelle, a skin cancer survivor and AAN’s president, said, “Even the current administration started the skeletal implementation at the beginning of their tenure but then reneged. The reason is simply the poverty of funds and the fact that they cannot continue to offer this treatment. The effect is that persons with albinism are dying in droves.”
Medical experts say albinos in sub-Saharan Africa are a thousand times more likely than the general population to develop skin cancer because of the partial or complete absence of melanin, a pigment responsible for eye, hair and skin color.
In Nigeria, myths and discrimination associated with the condition make it far more difficult for albinos to get jobs and afford skin cancer treatment.
Authorities respond
This month, during a national awareness day to remember people living with albinism, AAN renewed its call for the government to reinstate the free skin cancer treatment.
Nigerian authorities responded. James David Lalu, executive secretary of the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities, said, “We had discussions with the permanent secretary of the federal ministry for health for us to be able to revisit this. We’re going to provide some funding support to do that. Additionally, by next year we’re going to provide proper budgetary allocation that will support this cancer treatment for our people.”
AAN cautions there is no time to lose as free treatment is the only lifeline for people around the country like Ukachi, who fears she will run out of time.
…
Nigerian Albinos Demand Authorities Restore Free Cancer Treatment
The Albinism Association of Nigeria is petitioning the government to resume free cancer treatment for albinos. It was stopped years ago because of a lack of funding. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
…
Turkish Officials Claim Capture of New Islamic State Leader
The reign of new Islamic State terror group leader Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi may be over, less than three months after it began.
The Turkish website OdaTV first reported the arrest of Abu al-Hassan Thursday, saying Turkish police captured him without firing a single bullet during a raid on a house in Istanbul last week.
The website further reported the IS leader was being questioned and that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to formally announce the arrest and share additional details in the coming days.
Separately, two senior Turkish officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed the arrest to Bloomberg News, adding that Erdogan has been informed.
U.S. officials, however, remained cautious.
“[We] can’t confirm the reports about al-Qurashi,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters Thursday. “Obviously we’ve been looking at this all day, but we’re just not in a position where we can actually confirm that press reporting.”
IS named Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi as the terror group’s third leader in March, saying he took over shortly after the death of his predecessor during a raid by U.S. special forces in northwestern Syria in February.
IS followers quickly lined up behind the new leader, with the terror group’s media division sharing photos and videos of fighters from Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Somalia, Afghanistan, the Philippines and elsewhere pledging their allegiance to Abu al-Hassan.
Yet despite the show of support, there are still questions about the new leader’s true identity, which may be making it more difficult to verify Turkey’s claims.
Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi is a nom-de-guerre meant to indicate the new leader is a descendant of the Hashemite clan of the Qurashi tribe, which by bloodline would link him to Prophet Muhammed — an IS requirement for any would-be caliph.
And so far, Western counterintelligence officials have yet to form a firm consensus about who is really leading IS.
There are, however, several theories.
New Lines Magazine in February identified Bashar Khattab Ghazal al-Sumaidai as next in line to lead the terror group.
“Known by numerous noms de guerre, including Ustath Zaid (Teacher or Professor Zaid), Abu Khattab al-Iraqi, Abu al-Moez al-Iraqi and Abu Ishaq, he returned to Syria from Turkey about a year ago,” New Lines said, adding that al-Sumaidai had become increasingly popular in jihadist circles.
But Iraqi and Western officials told Reuters in March that the new leader was actually Juma Awad al-Badri, the brother of former IS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Still, no matter who it is that Turkey ultimately captured, some analysts say as long as Turkish officials have a senior IS leader, it could help further weaken IS operations.
“It could end up being an intelligence boon once he’s interrogated and questioned,” Colin Clarke, director of research at the global intelligence firm The Soufan Group, told VOA.
“We’ve long known that the organization’s financiers and logisticians had strong networks in Turkey, but now it seems like senior leadership is active there as well,” Clarke said.
“A country like Turkey is a double-edged sword for groups like ISIS,” he added, using another acronym for the terror group.
“On the one hand, Turkey has capable security forces,” Clarke said. “On the other hand, unlike a country like Afghanistan that is somewhat isolated, Turkey can serve as a safe haven for terrorists, and it’s connected to the illicit financial system, communications, [and] transportation.”
your ad hereHusband of Teacher Killed in Texas School Dies in Wake of Massacre
The husband of a fourth-grade teacher killed in this week’s mass shooting at a Texas elementary school has died from a heart attack, family members told The New York Times.
Joe Garcia was preparing for the funeral of Irma Garcia, his high school sweetheart and wife of 24 years, when he collapsed and died on Thursday, the newspaper reported.
The two leave behind four children, according to the report.
Irma Garcia, 46, was one of two teachers killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, along with 19 children.
Relatives briefed by authorities said Irma Garcia and her co-teacher Eva Mireles died trying to protect their students.
NBC News also reported on the death of Joe Garcia citing son Christian Garcia and a nephew, John Martinez.
“EXTREMELY heartbreaking and come with deep sorrow to say that my Tia Irma’s husband Joe Garcia has passed away due to grief, i (sic) truly am at a loss for words for how we are all feeling,” wrote Martinez on his Twitter account, using the Spanish word for “aunt” and requesting prayers for the family.
“God have mercy on us, this isn’t easy.”
Joe Garcia died after returning home from delivering flowers to a memorial for Irma Garcia, Martinez told NBC.
…
China, Russia Veto US Push for More UN Action on North Korea
China and Russia vetoed on Thursday a U.S.-led push to impose more U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its renewed ballistic missile launches, publicly splitting the Security Council for the first time since it started punishing Pyongyang in 2006.
The remaining 13 council members all voted in favor of the U.S.-drafted resolution that proposed banning tobacco and oil exports to North Korea, whose leader Kim Jong Un is a chain smoker. It would also blacklist the Lazarus hacking group, which the United States says is tied to North Korea.
The vote came a day after North Korea fired three missiles, including one thought to be its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, following U.S. President Joe Biden’s trip to Asia. It was the latest in a string of ballistic missile launches this year, which are banned by the Security Council.
Citing the council’s silence on North Korea, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said this month that “it is time to stop providing tacit permission and to start taking action.”
Over the past 16 years the Security Council has steadily, and unanimously, stepped up sanctions to cut off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. It last tightened sanctions on Pyongyang in 2017.
Since then, China and Russia have been pushing for an easing of sanctions on humanitarian grounds. While they have delayed some action behind closed doors in the Security Council’s North Korea sanctions committee, the vote on the resolution on Thursday was the first time they have publicly broken unanimity.
Not ‘helpful’
“We do not think additional sanctions will be helpful in responding to the current situation. It can only make the situation even worse,” China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun told reporters earlier Thursday ahead of the vote.
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told Reuters on Wednesday that he did not believe U.N. action would be “very conducive” to engagement with North Korea.
China has also been urging the United States to take action to entice Pyongyang to resume talks that have been stalled since 2019, after three failed summits between Kim and then-U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The United States, as a direct party, should really take meaningful and practical actions to resume their dialog with DPRK [North Korea],” Zhang said, noting that included Washington lifting some unilateral sanctions.
Pyongyang had put testing on hold during the past few years, but in the past few months has resumed long-range ballistic missile launches. The United States and South Korea have warned that North Korea is preparing for a seventh nuclear test.
…
Russian Forces Make New Push in Eastern Ukraine
Russian forces in northeastern Ukraine, already pushed back to near the Russian border, appeared Thursday to be launching a new counteroffensive as the three-month-old war morphed into what some Western officials described as a “scrap” with no end in sight.
Authorities in Ukraine’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv, said Russian shelling had killed at least seven civilians and wounded 17 others, while heavy fighting raged north and east of the city.
Witnesses in Kharkiv also reported hearing repeated explosions as Russian forces appeared to try to fortify positions north of the city.
Russian forces near Kharkiv had been steadily pushed from the city to close to the Russian border following a Ukrainian counteroffensive earlier this month. But officials said it appeared Moscow had decided to push back.
“It’s too early to relax,” said Kharkiv region Governor Oleh Synehubov. “The enemy is again insidiously hitting the civilian population, terrorizing them.”
Russian officials have not yet commented on the developments near Kharkiv, though the Russian military’s social media feeds touted continued success against Ukrainian forces, including in the Donbas region.
A senior U.S. defense official said Thursday that despite reports of increased fighting around Kharkiv, there had been “no major changes” on the ground.
“We still assess that Ukrainian forces have continued to push Russian forces further away [from the city],” the official said, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence.
“It’s a range of a few kilometers to more than 10 kilometers within the Russian border,” the official added.
But in other parts of eastern Ukraine, Russia was able to make what the official described as “incremental gains,” including in the city of Popasna and in Sievierodonetsk, the easternmost city under Ukrainian control.
“We believe that Russian forces have been able to seize most of northeastern Sievierodonetsk,” the U.S. defense official said. “But they haven’t been able to cut it completely off because the Ukrainians are still fighting over it.”
Ukrainian officials on Thursday acknowledged Russia was making a push to surround its troops fighting in the east with advances both on Sievierodonetsk and the nearby city of Lysychansk.
“Russia has the advantage, but we are doing everything we can,” General Oleksiy Gromov, with Ukraine’s general staff, told Reuters.
“It is clear that our boys are slowly retreating to more fortified positions — we need to hold back this horde,” added Luhansk province Governor Serhiy Gaidai.
In a show of support Thursday, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin visited Kyiv, plus the towns of Irpin and Bucha, the scene of alleged Russian war crimes.
“We, Finland, support all the actions of the International Criminal Court to consider these crimes, collect evidence for future proceedings and convict Russia,” Marin said following a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy, in a post on social media, thanked Finland for its support.
“Finland’s military assistance is very valuable,” he wrote. “Weapons, sanctions policy and the unity of our partners in the issue of Ukraine’s accession to the EU — this is what can provide strength in the defense of our land.”
Despite the back-and-forth nature of the fighting and Russia’s superior numbers, Western officials continue to laud Kyiv for mounting a stiff resistance and for making good use of security assistance that continues to pour into the country.
Ukraine’s military has likewise shared some optimism about its ability to counter Russian forces, claiming it has killed 29,600 Russian forces since the start of the February 24 invasion.
U.S. estimates of Russia’s material losses, shared Thursday, are slightly more conservative than those coming from Kyiv. But the senior U.S. defense official said Russia has lost about 1,000 tanks, almost 40 aircraft, more than 50 helicopters and 350 pieces of artillery.
The official declined to share any estimates on Russian casualties but said the losses have not been insignificant, though things have changed since the start of the war.
“The Russians lose soldiers every day, but it’s a different … number based on the kind of fighting we’re seeing,” the official said. “The fighting is now largely over smaller pieces of turf with smaller units.”
Russia’s military Thursday issued its own estimates of Ukraine’s losses, saying its forces had so far destroyed 179 planes, 127 helicopters, more than 1,000 drones, hundreds of anti-aircraft systems, and more than 1,600 Ukrainian artillery and mortar systems.
In the meantime, key Western leaders Thursday emphasized the need to continue backing Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “must not win his war, and I am convinced he will not win,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
He also said Russia should not be allowed to dictate the terms of a peace agreement.
“Ukraine will not accept this, and neither will we,” Scholz said.
Separately, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told the forum Ukraine was the “key for freedom in the world.”
“We’re defending not just our family and our children, we’re defending you, because we have the same values,” Klitschko said, adding that Russia would go as far as it was allowed to go.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…
Facing Public Backlash, Erdogan Pledges Mass Return of Syrians
Turkey‘s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is pledging to return as many as one million Syrians amid growing public animosity against the refugees. Their presence is a potential political liability for Erdogan but as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, his plan for the refugees’ repatriation is already drawing criticism Producer: Rob Raffaele
…
US Offers $2M for Kenyans Wanted for Drug, Wildlife Trade
The United States has announced rewards of up to $1 million each for information leading to the arrest of two Kenyans wanted on charges of drug and wildlife trafficking.
Kenyan security agencies are searching for the two fugitives, Badru Abdul Aziz Saleh and Abdi Hussein Ahmed.
Speaking to reporters Thursday in Nairobi, the head of Kenya’s criminal investigation unit, George Kinoti, said the two Kenyan nationals were wanted for drug and wildlife trafficking worth millions of dollars.
“They were involved in transportation, distribution and smuggling of 190 kilograms of rhinoceros horns and 10 tons of elephant ivory from different countries in Africa, including our country, Kenya, and they transported these things to the United States,” Kinoti said. “They were also involved in transportation and distribution of one kilogram of heroin from Kenya to the United States.”
Kinoti said Saleh was arrested in June 2019 and arraigned in a Kenyan court, where he was released on bail. He was last seen in December 2019.
Kinoti made no mention of Ahmed.
Saleh and Ahmed were indicted in the United States in 2019 and the international police organization Interpol issued a red notice against the suspects.
Eric Kneedler, charge d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, said in a statement that eradicating drug and wildlife trafficking was a priority of President Joe Biden’s administration and that the U.S. would work with Kenya to stamp out the crimes, which are affecting both countries.
Information on the reward offer can be found on the U.S. Embassy website.
In July 2020, another suspected wildlife trafficker, Abubakar Mansur Mohammed Surur, was arrested and extradited to the U.S. Surur is believed to have been involved in the illegal poaching of at least 35 rhinos and more than 100 elephants.
…
Ray Liotta, ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘Field of Dreams’ Star, Dies
Ray Liotta, the actor best known for playing mobster Henry Hill in “Goodfellas” and baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams,” has died. He was 67.
A source at the Dominican Republic’s National Forensic Science Institute who was not authorized to speak to the media confirmed the death of Ray Liotta and said his body was taken to the Cristo Redentor morgue. The Hollywood Reporter and NBC News cited representatives for Liotta who said he died in his sleep Wednesday night. He was in the Dominican Republic to film a new movie.
The Newark, New Jersey, native was born in 1954 and adopted at age six months out of an orphanage by a township clerk and an auto parts owner. Though he mostly grew up playing sports, including baseball, during his senior year of high school, the drama teacher at the school asked him if he wanted to be in a play, which he agreed to on a lark. And it stuck: He’d go on to study acting at the University of Miami. After graduation, he got his first big break on the soap opera “Another World.”
Liotta’s first big film role was in Jonathan Demme’s “Something Wild” as Melanie Griffith’s character’s hotheaded ex-convict husband Ray. The turn earned him a Golden Globe nomination. A few years later, he would get the memorable role of the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams.”
His most iconic role, as real life mobster Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” came shortly after. He, and Scorsese, had to fight for it though, with multiple auditions and pleas to the studio to cast the still relative unknown.
…
Zimbabwe President Praises China, Slams West in Column
If there’s a new cold war brewing and both China and the United States are trying to get African countries on their side, it’s clear where Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s allegiance lies.
In his latest column in the local Sunday Mail newspaper, the 79-year-old president slammed the West and lavished praise on Beijing.
“Unlike Western interests which have been exploiting our continent even well before its formal occupation,” the Chinese “have now come back to the continent they helped liberate as new, non-traditional investors,” he said, referring to Beijing’s backing of Zimbabwe’s independence war against white minority rule.
“Here in Zimbabwe, China has helped fund and implement several projects in the sectors of energy, air transport, water, real estate, industrial value addition, mining and defense,” the president said. “All these have secured and bolstered our independence while changing the structure of our economy in this season of punitive Western sanctions.”
The United States and European Union have maintained sanctions on Zimbabwean individuals and companies for two decades, since longtime president Robert Mugabe was accused of election rigging and human rights abuses in the early 2000s. Western nations have resisted calls to remove the sanctions, pointing to the ruling ZANU-PF party’s continued suppression of protests and opposition figures.
Beijing has stepped into the void left by Western powers — offering generous loans that aren’t dependent on democratic reform — to become the country’s top investor. It has invested heavily in the lithium-rich country’s mines and is funding the country’s massive new parliament building.
While Washington says it’s not in competition with China in Africa, officials have warned governments here against what are often dubbed China’s “debt trap” loans. Meanwhile, the U.S. has been trying to win support for its stance on the war in Ukraine — something that many governments on the continent, including Zimbabwe’s, have been loathe to give.
When asked about the war of words with the West, Zimbabwe government spokeswoman Monica Mutsvangwa echoed the president’s remarks.
“A number of Zimbabwe’s detractors have long hidden behind the false veil of democracy and human rights gauntlet. … This heinous policy has met its match in the sly and alert president,” she told VOA.
“More and better money is winning the day,” she added in apparent reference to Chinese investment.
Mutsvangwa pointed to several Chinese-owned lithium mines and a steel plant being built by Chinese mining giant Tsingshan Group Holdings as proof that Zimbabwe’s detractors had been “shunted by the wayside.”
Media Allegations
Zimbabwe’s state-run media, too, is echoing the government’s anti-U.S. stance, with articles accusing the country’s opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), NGOs and civil society organizations of being U.S. “proxies” intent on regime change.
Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Harare is adopting an increasingly shrill tone in tweets frequently accusing U.S.-backed organizations of paying journalists to write anti-China articles.
Last September, the embassy’s official Twitter page coined the hashtag
“Mr1K,” retweeting an article in The Herald newspaper that claimed, “The United States is sponsoring a strategy to undermine Chinese investments in Zimbabwe … through disinformation, lies and sensationalism in independent media and on social platforms.”
The article in The Herald, which is closely aligned to Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party, said the U.S. Embassy in Harare had funded a training session for independent journalists and that reporters who pitched negative stories on Chinese businesses were being paid $1,000 per article.
The Chinese embassy renewed its #Mr1K tweets this month after the Standard newspaper published an investigation into labor violations at a Chinese-owned coal mine, and declared reporting had been “supported by the U.S. Embassy’s public diplomacy section.”
“Smearing Chinese investment hurts Zimbabweans’ interests and helps illegal sanctions. Clowns like #Mr1K & their master need to realize China-Zim friendship & cooperation is unshakable,” the embassy tweeted last week.
Asked about such comments, the Public Diplomacy Section at the U.S. Embassy in Harare replied to VOA by email. “We routinely provide training and U.S. exchange opportunities to journalists and other professionals in Zimbabwe and around the world to build expertise.”
The embassy said it had supported a September journalism workshop on labor rights and natural resource governance reporting that “did not focus on any particular country, government, or company. “
But an article this week in China’s Global Times showed Beijing isn’t letting up.
“The U.S. is playing a part in smearing Chinese investment in Zimbabwe, in a malicious attempt to incite anti-China sentiment in the country and sabotage China-Zimbabwe economic and trade cooperation,” it read.
your ad hereTrump Loses Appeal, Must Testify in New York Civil Probe
Former President Donald Trump must answer questions under oath in New York state’s civil investigation into his business practices, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.
A four-judge panel in the appellate division of the state’s trial court upheld Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 17 ruling enforcing subpoenas for Trump and his two eldest children to give deposition testimony in Attorney General Letitia James’ probe.
Trump had appealed, seeking to overturn the ruling. His lawyers argued that ordering the Trumps to testify violated their constitutional rights because their answers could be used in a parallel criminal investigation.
“The existence of a criminal investigation does not preclude civil discovery of related facts, at which a party may exercise the privilege against self-incrimination,” the four-judge panel wrote, citing the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Message seeking comment were left with lawyers for the Trumps and with James’ office. The Trumps could still appeal the ruling to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.
James, a Democrat, has said her investigation has uncovered evidence Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, used “fraudulent or misleading” valuations of assets like golf courses and skyscrapers to get loans and tax benefits.
Thursday’s ruling could mean a tough decision for Trump about whether to answer questions, or stay silent, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Anything Trump says in a civil deposition could be used against him in the criminal probe being overseen by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
At a hearing prior to Engoron’s Feb. 17 ruling, Trump’s lawyers argued that having him sit for a civil deposition is an improper attempt to get around a state law barring prosecutors from calling someone to testify before a criminal grand jury without giving them immunity.
A lawyer for the attorney general’s office told Engoron that it wasn’t unusual to have civil and criminal investigations proceeding at the same time, and Engoron rejected a request from lawyers for the Trumps to pause the civil probe until the criminal matter is over.
Last summer, spurred by evidence uncovered in James’ civil investigation, the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged the Trump Organization and its longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, with tax fraud, alleging he collected more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation. Weisselberg and the company have pleaded not guilty.
…
US Making COVID Antiviral Drug More Available at Test Sites
The White House on Thursday announced more steps to make the antiviral treatment Paxlovid more accessible across the U.S. as it projects COVID-19 infections will continue to spread over the summer travel season.
The nation’s first federally backed test-to-treat site is opening Thursday in Rhode Island, providing patients with immediate access to the drug once they test positive. More federally supported sites are set to open in the coming weeks in Massachusetts and New York City, both hit by a marked rise in infections.
Next week, the U.S. will send authorized federal prescribers to several Minnesota-run testing sites, turning them into test-to-treat locations. Federal regulators have also sent clearer guidance to physicians to help them determine how to manage Paxlovid’s interactions with other drugs, with an eye toward helping prescribers find ways to get the life-saving medication to more patients.
Despite a nationwide surge in COVID-19 cases, deaths from the virus have remained largely stable over the past eight weeks, as vaccine booster shots and widely accessible treatments have helped to delink infections and mortality.
Confirmed infections in the U.S. have quadrupled since late March, from about 25,000 a day to more than 105,000 daily now. But deaths, which have tended to lag infections by three to four weeks over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, have declined steadily and are now plateaued at fewer than 300 per day.
It’s the first time in the course of the pandemic that the two have not trended together, said White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha. He called it an important development in helping Americans get back to normal life.
“What has been remarkable in the latest increase in infections we’re seeing is how steady serious illness and particularly deaths are eight weeks into this,” he said. “COVID is no longer the killer that it was even a year ago.”
Jha said that given the wider use of at-home rapid tests, whose results often go unreported to public health officials, the true number of daily infections is likely 200,000 or more — double the reported rate — which he said only makes the death rate plateau more significant.
He credited vaccines but also a more than four-fold increase in prescriptions over the last six weeks for the highly effective treatment Paxlovid.
Jha said about 25,000 to 30,000 courses of Paxlovid are being prescribed each day. When administered within five days of symptoms appearing, the drug has been proven to bring about a 90% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe disease.
Due to a change in the way Paxlovid is allocated to states, the number of pharmacies where it is available has doubled in the last month to almost 40,000.
“We are now at a point where I believe fundamentally most COVID deaths are preventable, that the deaths that are happening out there are mostly unnecessary, and there are a lot of tools we have now to make sure people do not die of this disease,” Jha told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
As the summer months approach, Jha said the “number one” thing people need to do is to “go and get boosted” — and if they have a breakthrough infection, they should consult with their doctor about getting Paxlovid. He said gatherings of all sizes can take place more safely because of the tools available — if people make use of them.
“In places in the country where boosting rates are much lower, where the infection is starting to spread more, I am absolutely concerned that we’re going to see, unfortunately, we may see more serious illness,” he said.
“Being vaccinated and boosted is a huge part of making sure that those kinds of activities are substantially safer,” he added. “And then, of course, we want to make Paxlovid as widely available across the entire country, so that if you do end up getting a breakthrough infection, you’re still protected against serious illness.”
The U.S. has ordered 20 million courses of Paxlovid from the drugmaker Pfizer, and the country risks running out this winter if the drug continues to be used widely. The White House has been pressing Congress for additional funds for months to support purchasing more Paxlovid and other treatments, as well as additional boosters.
While the administration has started planning for the potential need to ration the federal supply of vaccines if Congress doesn’t act, Jha said right now his message to prescribers is that they shouldn’t worry about the supply.
“I believe that we should be using as much as it’s necessary to protect Americans now,” Jha said.
…
Blinken Outlines US Strategy to Outcompete China, While Not Seeking ‘Decoupling’
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a major China policy speech Thursday, outlined the Biden administration’s strategy to out-compete China in the next decade by investing in critical infrastructure and working with allies to bolster supply-chain security, while preventing unintended crises.
WATCH THE SPEECH LIVE:
The administration is not seeking to “decouple” from China, according to senior officials. The term refers to progressively severing economic and trade linkages between the United States and China and was often heard during the administration of former President Donald Trump.
“The secretary will make clear that the United States is not looking to sever China’s economy from ours or from the global economy,” one senior administration official said during a background call to preview Blinken’s China speech.
Another senior official said “we certainly welcome trade and investment between the United States and China as long as they are transparent, they are fair and they are secure.”
Blinken’s speech at George Washington University will focus on the theme of “invest, align and compete.”
A new independent analysis from Bloomberg Economics projected that for the first time since 1976, the United States economy is poised to grow at a higher average annual growth rate than the Chinese economy this year.
The White House has touted how it says last year’s bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, will rebuild America’s roads, bridges and rails, help ease inflationary pressures and strengthen supply chains by making improvements in U.S. ports.
Blinken is expected to describe U.S. efforts, working with allies and partners to maintain and improve the international order, 16 months into the Biden administration.
This U.S.-China competition “is not about a new Cold War” or “dividing the world into rigid ideological blocks,” one of the senior administration officials said.
“It is about upholding and revitalizing international order in a way that protects the core principles,” the official said.
Top officials from the United States and its Asian allies have said Russia’s aggression against Ukraine undermines the foundation of the international order, and any attempt to change the status quo by force in Asia or in other parts of the world is unacceptable.
Washington has also acknowledged its ability to change the Beijing government is very limited, though.
This week, China and Russia conducted a joint military exercise over the Sea of Japan, East China Sea and the Western Pacific, the first since Russia invaded Ukraine. It came as U.S. President Joe Biden was visiting the region for meetings with Japanese, Indian and Australian leaders.
China has refused to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a “no-limits” strategic partnership between the two countries just weeks before the February 24 invasion.
One of the senior officials who briefed reporters on Wednesday evening said the United States has been working with China on open lines of communications to reduce risk of miscalculations, or what Biden called “guardrails” to avoid unintended conflicts between the two countries.
“There are no specific plans at this time” for Biden to hold another meeting with Xi following their virtual meeting last November, according to the official.
U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs, however, will have their first in-person meeting during this year’s annual Shangri-La Dialogue, to be held June 10–12 in Singapore.
Blinken is expected to renew Washington’s profound concerns over China’s human rights practices, including genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.
Blinken’s remarks would follow the release of the so-called Xinjiang Police Files, which are “a cache of data hacked from police computer servers in the region,” according to the BBC.
The information includes thousands of photographs — including mug shots — and documents that show the Chinese government targeting Uyghurs for their ethnicity and Islamic faith.
In January 2021, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally classified China’s policies toward Uighurs as genocide and crimes against humanity. Blinken has endorsed his predecessor’s assessment that the Chinese Communist Party has engaged in genocide against the Uighur Muslim population in Xinjiang.
On Taiwan, Blinken will reiterate that Washington’s policy is not changed and that the United States remains committed to its One China policy, which has been guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three joint communiques and the six assurances.
Earlier, Biden said the U.S. would be willing to intervene militarily to defend Taiwan if China were to invade the island democracy. Biden later said there is no change to the U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan.
…
Fire Kills 11 Newborn Babies at Senegal Hospital
Senegal’s President Macky Sall said on Wednesday that 11 newborn babies died in a fire at the neonatal section of a regional hospital in the town of Tivaouane, around 120 kilometers (74.56 miles) east of the capital Dakar.
“I have just learned with pain and consternation the death of 11 newborn babies in the fire that occurred in the neonatology department of the Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh hospital in Tivaouane,” Sall said in a tweet without giving further details about the fire.
“To their mothers and their families, I express my deepest sympathy,” Sall, who is on a state visit in Angola, added.
Senegal’s health minister, Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr, said on private Senegalese television TFM that “according to preliminary investigation, a short circuit triggered the fire.”
Sarr, who is in Geneva for the World Health Assembly, said he would cut short the trip and return to Senegal immediately.
Demba Diop Sy, the mayor of Tivaouane, one of Senegal’s holy cities and a transport hub, said police and fire service were still at the hospital, but did not provide further details.
…
Kyiv Mayor: Ukraine is ‘Key for Freedom in the World’
Calling Ukraine the “key for freedom in the world,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko urged support Thursday for his country in the face of what he called “this senseless war” with Russia.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Klitschko said Ukraine is a peaceful country that was not aggressive to anyone, and that Ukrainians want to be “part of the European family” with a priority on human rights, press freedom and “democratic standards of life.”
He said the Russian government wants to rebuild the Soviet Union and would not stop with a takeover of Ukraine.
“We’re defending not just our family and our children, we’re defending you because we have the same values,” Klitschko said, adding that Russia will go as far as it is allowed to go.
He thanked those who have supported Ukraine politically, economically and by sending weapons, and those who have taken in Ukrainians refugees.
Noting that it has been more than 90 days since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Klitschko said it feels to him like “one long, long day.”
In an address late Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected the idea of ceding parts of Ukraine to Russia to reach a peace agreement.
Zelenskyy said those who make such suggestions disregard “the millions of those who actually live on the territory that they propose exchanging for an illusion of peace.”
“We always have to think of the people and remember that values are not just words,” he said.
Fighting in recent weeks has been focused in the eastern Donbas region where Russia has been trying to seize control after failing to topple Zelenskyy or capture Kyiv.
The Ukrainian governor of the eastern region of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, described the situation around the industrial hub of Severodonetsk as “very difficult” and said there was “already fighting on the outskirts.”
“Russian troops have advanced far enough that they can already fire mortars” on the city, he said.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin issued an order that would fast-track Russian citizenship to people living in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. There is already a program to fast-track citizenship for people living in the Donbas.
Meanwhile, the European Union, Britain and the United States announced the creation of what they called the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group to coordinate with Ukraine on investigations of possible Russian war crimes during the three months of fighting.
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…
Texas Governor: Teenager Warned He Was About to Attack Elementary School
The U.S. teenage gunman who killed at least 19 children and two adults warned in a private message on a social network shortly ahead of time that he was about to shoot up an elementary school, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Wednesday.
Abbott described Salvador Ramos as an 18-year-old high school dropout. The governor blamed mental health issues for Ramos’ assault Tuesday on the Robb Elementary School in the small city of Uvalde, Texas, which ended when a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot Ramos dead.
But Abbott said officials had not discovered any mental health care concerns officially registered about Ramos, although news outlets reported that on occasion Ramos had randomly fired a BB gun at people on the streets of Uvalde and thrown eggs at cars. Acquaintances said he was angry because he had not completed enough classes to graduate this week with his classmates.
Abbott said that 30 minutes before Ramos stormed into the school, he posted a message on Facebook saying, “I’m going to shoot my grandmother,” with whom he lived, and went on to fire a shot at her face. The woman, Celia Martinez, 66, survived the attack, was hospitalized, and is reported in serious condition.
Moments later, he said in another message, “I shot my grandmother.”
Then, in a third message, Ramos warned, “I’m going to shoot an elementary school,” Abbott recounted.
Andy Stone, the spokesman for Facebook’s parent company Meta, clarified the text messages were sent to one person but did not disclose which of Meta’s platforms the gunman used.
After Ramos crashed his car in a ditch near the school, police officers employed by the school district “engaged with the gunman.” There are conflicting reports about whether gunfire was exchanged. Ramos then carried an assault weapon into the school and killed all his victims in the same fourth-grade classroom, a law enforcement official told CNN.
Abbott said 17 others were injured in the attack, but none had life-threatening injuries. A spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said the injured include “multiple children” who survived gunfire in their classroom.
The issue of gun control and the sale of guns are among the most contentious in U.S. politics, and Abbott’s news conference was no exception. As the governor, a gun-rights advocate, finished speaking, Beto O’Rourke, his Democratic gubernatorial opponent in the November election, shouted at him, “You are doing nothing!” to prevent gun violence.
“Abbott made it easier to carry guns in public,” O’Rourke said on Twitter. “The moment to stop the next slaughter is right now.”
U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he and first lady Jill Biden would visit Texas “in coming days,” adding that “the idea that an 18-year-old can walk into a store and buy weapons of war designed and marketed to kill is, I think, just wrong, just violates common sense.”
“The Second Amendment is not absolute,” Biden said as he called for new limits on guns. When the constitutional amendment was written, he said, “you couldn’t own a cannon. You couldn’t own certain kinds of weapons. There’s always been limitations. But guess what — these actions we’ve taken before, they save lives. They can do it again.”
It was not immediately clear that the latest mass killing changed the minds of any opposition Republican lawmakers in the Senate, who in the past have blocked more restrictive gun measures favored by Biden and Democratic senators.
At least 10 Republican lawmakers would need to join all 50 Democrats in the chamber to pass gun control legislation.
Some lawmakers talked of trying to reach legislative compromises that would require further background checks of gun buyers, extend the time frame for such checks, or ban the sale of guns over the internet.
From 1994 to 2004, the U.S. banned the sale of assault weapons, often used in mass killings and, according to police, in Tuesday’s attack. Congress did not renew the law.
Legislative attempts to tighten gun laws have been adamantly opposed by lobbyists for gun manufacturers and pro-gun lawmakers who cite Americans’ rights to gun ownership enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
Tuesday’s attack was the deadliest school shooting in Texas and the deadliest elementary school shooting since the 2012 attack on Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 26 people dead, 20 of them schoolchildren.
Law enforcement officials say that Ramos legally purchased two assault weapons days after his 18th birthday a couple of weeks ago, along with 375 rounds of ammunition. He posted pictures of the weapons on a social media account attributed to him.
Abbott and Texas Senator Ted Cruz were among a group of Republican figures, including former President Donald Trump, scheduled to appear Friday in Houston at the annual convention of the National Rifle Association, the gun rights group that has opposed gun control measures.
Cruz has also received $176,274 in campaign contributions from the NRA, according to Brady United, a nonprofit organization advocating for gun control.
The Texas elementary school has an enrollment of about 600 students in the second, third and fourth grades and sits in a mostly residential neighborhood of modest homes. The town has a population of about 16,000 people and is the seat of government for Uvalde County. It is about 135 kilometers west of San Antonio and about 120 kilometers north of the border with Mexico.
Texas has been the scene of several mass shootings over the past five years. A year before the Santa Fe, Texas, school shooting in 2018, a gunman at a Texas church killed more than two dozen people during a Sunday service in the small town of Sutherland Springs. In 2019, another gunman at a Walmart in El Paso killed 23 people in a racist attack.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…
‘Horrifying’ Conspiracy Theories Swirl Around Texas Shooting
By now it’s as predictable as the calls for thoughts and prayers: A mass shooting leaves many dead, and wild conspiracy theories and misinformation about the carnage soon follow.
It happened after Sandy Hook, after Parkland, after the Orlando nightclub shooting and after the deadly rampage earlier this month at a Buffalo grocery store. Within hours of Tuesday’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, another rash began as internet users spread baseless claims about the man named as the gunman and his possible motives.
Unfounded claims that the gunman was an immigrant living in the U.S. illegally, or transgender, quickly emerged on Twitter, Reddit and other social media platforms. They were accompanied by familiar conspiracy theories suggesting the entire shooting was somehow staged.
The claims reflect broader problems with racism and intolerance toward transgender people and are an effort to blame the shooting on minority groups who already endure higher rates of online harassment and hate crimes, according to disinformation expert Jaime Longoria.
“It’s a tactic that serves two purposes: It avoids real conversations about the issue (of gun violence), and it gives people who don’t want to face reality a patsy, it gives them someone to blame,” said Longoria, director of research at the Disinfo Defense League, a non-profit that works to fight racist misinformation.
In the hours after the shooting, posts falsely claiming the gunman was living in the country illegally went viral, with some users adding embellishments, including that he was “on the run from Border Patrol.”
“He was an illegal alien wanted for murder from El Salvador,” read one tweet liked and retweeted hundreds of times. “This is blood on Biden’s hands and should have never happened.”
The man who authorities say carried out the shooting, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, is a U.S. citizen, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a news conference on Tuesday.
Other social media users seized on images of innocent internet users to falsely identify them as the gunman and claim he was transgender. On the online message board 4Chan, users liberally shared the photos and discussed a plan to label the gunman as transgender, without any evidence to back it up.
One post on Twitter, which has since been deleted, featured a photo of a trans woman holding a green bottle to her mouth, looking into the camera, headphones hanging from one ear.
“BREAKING NEWS: THE IDENTITY OF THE SHOOTER HAS BEEN REVEALED,” claimed the user, saying the shooter was a “FEMBOY” with a channel on YouTube.
None of that was true. The photo actually depicted a 22-year-old trans woman named Sabrina who lives in New York City. Sabrina, who requested her last name not be published due to privacy concerns, confirmed to The Associated Press that the photo was hers and also said she was not affiliated with the purported YouTube account.
Sabrina said she received harassing responses on social media, particularly messages claiming that she was the shooter. She responded to a number of posts spreading the image with the misidentification, asking for the posts to be deleted.
“This whole ordeal is just horrifying,” Sabrina told the AP.
Another photo that circulated widely showed a transgender woman with a Coca-Cola sweatshirt and a black skirt. A second photo showed the same woman wearing a black NASA shirt with a red skirt. These photos didn’t show the gunman either — they were of a Reddit user named Sam, who confirmed her identity to the AP on Wednesday. The AP is not using Sam’s last name to protect her privacy.
“It’s not me, I don’t even live in Texas,” Sam wrote in a Reddit post.
Authorities have released no information on the gunman’s sexuality or gender identification.
Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar fit both unfounded claims about Ramos in a single now-deleted tweet that also misspelled his name. “It’s a transsexual leftist illegal alien named Salvatore Ramos,” Gosar tweeted Tuesday night.
Gosar’s office did not return a message seeking comment.
In some cases, misinformation about mass shootings or other events are spread by well-intentioned social media users trying to be helpful. In other cases, it can be the work of grifters looking to start fake fundraisers or draw attention to their website or organization.
Then there are the trolls who seemingly do it for fun.
Fringe online communities, including on 4chan, often use mass shootings and other tragedies as opportunities to sow chaos, troll the public and push harmful narratives, according to Ben Decker, founder and CEO of the digital investigations consultancy Memetica.
“It is very intentional and deliberate for them in celebrating these types of incidents to also influence what the mainstream conversations actually are,” Decker said. “There’s a nihilistic desire to prove oneself in these types of communities by successfully trolling the public. So if you are able to spearhead a campaign that leads to an outcome like this, you’re gaining increased sort of in-group credibility.”
For the communities bearing the brunt of such vicious online attacks, though, the false blame stirs fears of further discrimination and violence.
Something as seemingly innocuous as a transphobic comment on social media can spark an act of violence against a transgender person, said Jaden Janak, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas and a junior fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies.
“These children and adults who were murdered yesterday were just living their lives,” Janak said Wednesday. “They didn’t know that yesterday was going to be their last day. And similarly, as trans people, that’s a fear that we have all the time.”
…
Latest Developments in Ukraine: May 26
For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.
The latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. All times EDT:
2:03 a.m.: The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, says that Russian forces are dealing with an increasing scarcity of high-precision weapons. “The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) noted that up to 60% of Russia’s high-precision stockpile has already been exhausted,” the Institute said in a recent update. Additionally, it said, Russia is trying to force Ukrainians in occupied areas to cooperate with “occupation organs” and is trying to get Ukrainians into the Russian army.
1 a.m.: Russian troops continue to attack eastern Ukraine, reports The Guardian. Ukrainian military, says the report, say 40 towns in the Donbas region are under fire.
12:02 a.m.: Al Jazeera reports that Russia has promised to allow foreign ships to leave ports in the Black Sea. A defense ministry official says 70 foreign vessels from 16 countries are currently in six ports in the Black Sea.
…
Niger Says Army Killed 40 Boko Haram Fighters on Lake Chad Islands
The Niger government said Wednesday that the army had killed around 40 Boko Haram jihadis in overnight fighting on islets in Lake Chad.
…
Vigil, Rally Planned for 2nd Anniversary of Floyd Killing
A candlelight vigil to honor George Floyd ‘s memory at the intersection where he died was among the remembrances scheduled for Wednesday’s second anniversary of the Black man’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.
Activists planned the vigil, along with a rally at the governor’s residence in St. Paul, for the two-year anniversary of Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, which ignited protests in Minneapolis and around the world as bystander video quickly spread.
The intersection of 38th and Chicago streets became known informally as George Floyd Square in the wake of his death, with a large sculpture of a clenched fist as the centerpiece of memorials. The city planned to unveil a street sign officially dubbing the corner George Perry Floyd Square just ahead of the vigil, with Floyd’s brother Terrence among those attending.
“Today we honor two years since George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement. “Each day since, we have remembered George Floyd’s life and legacy as a friend, father, brother, and loved one. His name has been heard in every corner of our world.”
Colten Muth, 32, visited the intersection Wednesday to “make sure I’m paying homage because his sacrifice made a huge impact on the world.”
Muth, who identifies as mixed race, recalled watching the bystander video of Floyd’s dying moments from his home in the Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville. He said it hit him especially hard because he grew up just blocks from the corner, walking to the convenience store there many times as a kid.
“That could’ve been me face down in the pavement,” he said. “It shook me to the point like even where I was living I had a sense of fear just walking around my own neighborhood.”
Muth called Chauvin’s conviction a “first step” toward holding police accountable but said the city has done nothing substantial to improve policing and the conditions that led to Floyd’s killing. And he said the lack of federal policing reforms after two years was disappointing.
On Wednesday in Washington, with Congress deadlocked over how to address racism and excessive use of force, President Joe Biden signed an executive order on policing to mark the second anniversary.
Later events in Minneapolis include a Thursday gathering of families of loved ones who have died in interactions with police and a fundraising gala Friday aimed at raising money to preserve offerings left by protesters and mourners at the intersection where Floyd was killed.
An all-day festival and a concert at the intersection were also planned for Saturday.
Floyd, 46, died after Chauvin, who is white, pinned his knee on Floyd’s neck for 9½ minutes as Floyd was handcuffed and pleaded that he couldn’t breathe.
Chauvin is serving 22 ½ years in prison after being convicted of state charges of murder and manslaughter last year. The ex-officer also pleaded guilty to violating Floyd’s civil rights in a federal case, where he now faces a sentence ranging from 20 to 25 years.
Former officers J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao are scheduled to stand trial on state charges in June. Thomas Lane pleaded guilty last week to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter for his role in Floyd’s killing, months after all three former Officers were convicted in February of federal charges of willfully violating Floyd’s rights.
…
‘Precious Individuals’ Taken in Texas School Shooting
One student was an avid runner, so fast she swept the races on field day. Another was learning football plays from his grandfather. One girl sensed something was wrong and wanted to skip school.
On Wednesday, stories began to emerge about the lives of the 19 children — “precious individuals” according to the school district superintendent — and their two teachers who were gunned down behind a barricaded door at Robb Elementary School in the southwestern Texas town of Uvalde.
Vincent Salazar said his 10-year-old daughter, Layla, loved to swim and dance to TikTok videos. She was fast — she won six races at the school’s field day — and Salazar proudly posted a photo of Layla showing off two of her ribbons on Facebook.
Each morning, as he drove her to school in his pickup, Salazar would play “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” by Guns N’ Roses, and they’d sing along, he said.
“She was just a whole lot of fun,” he said.
‘All gone now’
Manny Renfro lost his 8-year-old grandson, Uziyah Garcia, in the shooting.
“The sweetest little boy that I’ve ever known,” Renfro said. “I’m not just saying that because he was my grandkid.”
Renfro said Uziyah last visited him in San Angelo during spring break. “We started throwing the football together, and I was teaching him pass patterns. Such a fast little boy, and he could catch a ball so good,” Renfro said. “There were certain plays that I would call that he would remember, and he would do it exactly like we practiced.”
Javier Cazares said he found out Tuesday afternoon that his 9-year-old daughter Jacklyn Cazares was killed in her classroom. She was with a group of five girls, including her second cousin, Annabelle Rodriguez, who formed a tight group of friends.
“They are all gone now,” Cazares said.
The extended families of the slain cousins gathered Wednesday to mourn and comfort each other over barbecue.
Cazares described his daughter as a “firecracker” who “had a voice. She didn’t like bullies. She didn’t like kids being picked on.”
“All in all, full of love. She had a big heart,” he said.
Veronica Luevanos, whose 10-year-old daughter, Jailah Nicole Silguero, was among the victims, tearfully told Univision that her daughter did not want to go to school Tuesday and seemed to sense something bad was going to happen. Jailah’s cousin also died in the shooting.
All of the dead were in the same fourth-grade classroom, where the shooter barricaded himself Tuesday and opened fire on the children and their teachers, Texas Governor Greg Abbott told a news conference Wednesday. He said the gunman used an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle in the attack and posted on Facebook shortly before the shooting: “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.”
‘They were loved’
Schools Superintendent Hal Harrell fought back tears as he spoke of the children and their teachers.
“You can just tell by their angelic smiles that they were loved,” Harrell said of the children. “That they loved coming to school, that they were just precious individuals.”
The two teachers “poured their heart and soul” into their work, Harrell said.
Teacher Eva Mireles, 44, was remembered as a loving mother and wife. “She was adventurous. … She is definitely going to be very missed,” said 34-year-old relative Amber Ybarra, of San Antonio.
In a post on the school’s website at the start of the school year, Mireles introduced herself to her new students.
“Welcome to the 4th grade! We have a wonderful year ahead of us!” she wrote, noting she had been teaching 17 years, loved running and hiking, and had a “supportive, fun, and loving family.” She mentioned that her husband was a school district police officer, and they had a grown daughter and three “furry friends.”
The other slain teacher, Irma Garcia, wrote about her four children, including one who was in the Marines, in a letter introducing herself to the class. Garcia’s 21-year-old nephew, John Martinez, told the Detroit Free Press the family was struggling to grasp that while Garcia’s son trained for combat, it was his mother who was shot to death.
Relatives of 10-year-old Eliahna Garcia recalled her love of family.
“She was very happy and very outgoing,” said Eliahna’s aunt, Siria Arizmendi, a fifth-grade teacher at Flores Elementary School in the same district. “She loved to dance and play sports. She was big into family, enjoyed being with the family.”
Lisa Garza, 54, of Arlington, Texas, mourned the death of her 10-year-old cousin, Xavier Javier Lopez, who had been eagerly awaiting a summer of swimming.
“He was just a loving … little boy, just enjoying life, not knowing that this tragedy was going to happen,” she said. “He was very bubbly, loved to dance with his brothers, his mom. This has just taken a toll on all of us.”
She lamented what she described as lax gun laws.
“We should have more restrictions, especially if these kids are not in their right state of mind and all they want to do is just hurt people, especially innocent children going to the schools,” Garza said.
Arizmendi also spoke angrily, through tears, about how the shooter managed to get a gun.
“It’s just difficult to understand or to put into words,” she said. “I just don’t know how people can sell that type of a gun to a kid 18 years old. What is he going to use it for but for that purpose?”
As Ybarra prepared to give blood for the wounded, she wondered how no one noticed trouble with the shooter in time to stop him.
“To me, it’s more about raising mental health awareness,” said Ybarra, a wellness coach who attended Robb Elementary herself. “Someone could possibly have seen a dramatic change before something like this happened.”
Even for the survivors, there was grief.
Lorena Auguste was substitute teaching at Uvalde High School when she heard about the shooting. She began frantically texting her niece, a fourth-grader at Robb Elementary, until Auguste heard from her sister that the child was OK.
Auguste said her niece asked her that night, “Tia, why did they do this to us? We’re good kids. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home, which is located across the street from Robb Elementary School, said in a Facebook post that it would be assisting families of the shooting victims with no cost for funerals. GoFundMe pages were set up for many of the victims, including one on behalf of all victims that has raised more than $1.5 million.
…
Scars of War Seem to be Everywhere in Ukraine After 3 Months
Piano music wafted from an apartment block on a recent spring evening in Kramatorsk, blending with distant artillery fire for a surreal soundtrack to a bomb-scarred neighborhood in the eastern Ukrainian city.
Everywhere in Ukraine, the 3-month-old war never seems to be far away.
Those in towns and villages near the front lines hide in basements from constant shelling, struggling to survive with no electricity or gas — and often no running water.
But even in regions out of the range of the heavy guns, frequent air raid sirens wail as a constant reminder that a Russian missile can strike at any time — even for those walking their dogs, riding their bicycles and taking their children to parks in cities like Kyiv, Odesa and Lviv.
Curfews, checkpoints and fortifications are commonplace. So are fresh cemeteries, uprooted villagers and war-scarred landscapes, as Moscow intensifies its attacks in eastern and southern Ukraine.
“City residents are trying to return to regular life, but with every step, they stumble upon either a crater or a ruined house or a grave in the yard,” said Andriy Pustovoi, speaking by phone to The Associated Press from the northern city of Chernihiv. “No one is cooking food over a bonfire or drinking water from a river anymore, but there’s a long way to go to a normal life.”
Chernihiv was in the way of Russian forces as they advanced toward Kyiv early in the war. It was heavily bombarded, and Mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko said about half of its buildings were damaged or destroyed. At least 700 residents were killed, and part of a city park now holds a cemetery, where some of them are buried.
Its streets are mostly empty now, half of the shops have not reopened and public transportation is not working properly, said Pustovoi, a 37-year-old engineer.
Rail service to Kyiv was only restored this month, but people who fled are in no rush to return.
“The scariest thing is that neighboring Russia and Belarus are not going away from Chernihiv, which means that some of the residents that left when the war started may not come back,” Atroshenko said sadly.
Few people are seen on the streets of Kramatorsk, where storefront windows are boarded up or protected by sandbags, and it’s no wonder.
The eastern city has been hit several times, with the deadliest attack April 8, when a missile struck near its train station where about 4,000 people had gathered to be evacuated before fighting intensified. In an instant, the plaza was turned into a scene of horror, with bodies lying on bloodstained pavement amid discarded luggage. A total of 57 people were killed, and more than 100 wounded.
Kramatorsk is one of the largest in the industrial Donbas region of eastern Ukraine that has not been taken over by Russian forces. The region has been the site of battles between Moscow-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces since 2014.
Elsewhere in the Donbas, the picture is even bleaker.
Ryisa Rybalko fled the village of Novomykhailivka, where she had been living first in a basement and then a bomb shelter at a school because of frequent shelling.
“We haven’t been able to see the sun for three months. We are almost blind because we were in darkness for three months,” Rybalko said. She arrived with her family in the town of Kiurakhove, driven by a fellow villager, and waited on Monday for a westbound bus.
Her son-in-law, Dmytro Khaliapin, said their village was pounded by artillery.
“Houses are ruined. It’s a horror,” he said.
In neighboring Luhansk province, 83-year-old Lida Chuhay left the hard-hit town of Lyman, also near the front line.
“Ashes, ruins. The northern parts, the southern parts, all are ruined,” she said Sunday as she sat on a train heading west from the town of Pokrovsk. “Literally everything is on fire: houses, buildings, everything.”
Chuhay and others from Lyman said much of the town was reduced to rubble by the bombardment. Anyone still there is hiding in shelters because it is too dangerous to venture out.
“They ruined everything,” said Olha Medvedeva, sitting opposite Chuhay on the train. “The five-story building where we were living, everything flew away — the windows, the doors.”
In cities farther from the front lines, air raid sirens sound so often that few pay attention and continue their daily business.
After Russian forces failed to capture Kyiv in the opening weeks of the invasion and withdrew to the east, residents started to flow back into the capital. The nightly curfew has been cut by an hour, and public transportation started running longer to accommodate passengers.
Residents face long lines at gas stations, and the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnya, has weakened from 27 to the dollar at the start of the war to 37.
“Ukraine is being destroyed — not just by Russian bombs and missiles,” said Volodymyr Sidenko, an analyst at the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center think tank. “The fall in GDP (gross domestic product) and the sharp reduction in the revenue side of the budget have already been felt by every Ukrainian today. And this is just the beginning.”
But the National Opera resumed performances last week in Kyiv, with the audience advised how to reach the air raid shelter. No Russian operas are on the program.
And some restaurants, cafes and shops in cities such as Odesa and Zaporizhzhia have reopened.
Lviv, the city in western Ukraine about 70 kilometers from the Polish border, has been inundated with more than 300,000 people fleeing the war. About 1,000 arrive at its railway station daily.
“We judge the intensity of the fighting in the east not by (what) the news says but by waves of refugees, which have been growing in recent weeks again,” said Alina Gushcha, a 35-year-old chemistry teacher who volunteers at the rail station to help arrivals.
Hotels, campgrounds, universities and schools ran out of space long ago, and the city has built temporary housing that resembles shipping containers in city parks.
“In the months of the war, I’ve learned to be happy about every day without shelling and bombardment,” said Halyna Shcherbin, 59, outside her container-like home in Stryiskyi Park, where she lives with her daughter and two granddaughters. That gratitude is perhaps linked to the fact that they left Kramatorsk the day before the deadly missile attack.
Lviv also comes under regular Russian bombardment because it’s the gateway for Western military aid. Its Old Town architectural treasures, including the Boim Chapel and the Latin Cathedral, are protected by either metal shielding or sandbags.
In cities and towns of southern Ukraine, not far from the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014, the war continues to flare with regularity.
Parts of the city of Mykolaiv often come under attack, and its streets are mostly empty and businesses closed. In some neighborhoods, the scars of war are clear, with blast marks on sidewalks, burned-out stores and shrapnel embedded in walls. The Russian-occupied city of Kherson is only 58 kilometers to the east.
In the village of Velyka Kostromka, south of the city of Kryvy Rih, the remaining residents try to go on with life despite the occasional shelling. At least 20 houses were damaged on a recent morning, including three that were destroyed. A woman and her three children narrowly escaped with their lives.
Hours later, a farmer was back in his potato field, surveying a small crater left behind. With barely a shrug, he raked over it.
…