NEW YORK, NY – A 38-year-old woman was the victim of the latest groping incident in New York City on Friday as she was forcibly touched inside a store at 666 Morris Park Avenue. Police said the incident happened at 1:55 pm when a man approached the woman from behind and grabbed her buttocks over her clothing.
The man is described as having dark hair, a man bun, and a slender build. He was wearing shorts, slides and socks; and a sweatshirt.
Location: Manhattan, NY
NEW YORK, NY – A heinous act was committed by an unknown suspect on the New York City subway platform located at 68th Street at Hunter College. On Saturday, a man shoved a female victim to the ground and then forced her to watch him “caress his genital area” according to the New York City Police Department.
The act is the latest behavior of sexual deviancy in the New York Subway system, where women are being groped, fondled, and assaulted on a near-daily basis this spring.
The incident happened at around 3:47 am on the southbound 6 train platform.
Location: Manhattan, NY
OLD LYME, CT- Police in Old Lyme are searching for a wallet thief and his female getaway driver who entered a car that wasn’t theirs at a local gas station, stealing a wallet
According to the Connecticut State Police, the female suspect driving a recognizable Volkswagon Beetle on Thursday at approximately 2:18 p.m. entered the station and committed their theft.
“Two individuals in a Volkswagon Beetle drove into the Mobile gas station on Halls Road in the town of Old Lyme,” Connecticut State Police said in a statement. “One female with blue hair approximately 5 foot 4 inches exited the driver’s side door. A white male, approximately 5 foot 7 inches with short hair, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, exited the passenger side of the vehicle.”
Police said the man then went into an unoccupied vehicle at a separate gas pump and took a wallet from the vehicle. The Volkswagon then took off, heading northbound on Halls road. Anyone with information relative to this investigation is asked to contact Trooper Bly #1420 at Troop F 860-399-2100
SEOUL – South Korea’s POSCO said on Sunday it plans to halt production at some of its plants in the country from Monday due to a glut of finished products that could not be shipped due to a strike by truckers.
A company spokesperson said the decision affects plants in Pohang, adding that production at its steel plants in Gwangyang will continue.
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Choonsik Yoo; Editing by William Mallard)
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – The Baltimore Police Department is investigating a shooting that left one woman injured on last night. This incident happened on the 500 block of Rose Hill Terrace in Northern Baltimore
According to detectives, “At approximately 10:32 p.m., Northern District patrol officers were dispatched to the 500 block of Rose Hill Terrace to investigate a reported shooting. When officers arrived at the location they observed a 36-year-old female suffering from a gunshot wound to the elbow. The victim told investigators she was shot in the 800 block of Benninghaus Road and drove to Rose Hill Terrace to call police. Northern District Shooting detectives responded to the scene and assumed control over the investigation.”
If you have any information about this incident, contact Northern District detectives at 410-396-2455 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7Lockup.
NEW DELHI – The leader of India’s main opposition party, Sonia Gandhi, has been admitted to hospital in New Delhi with health issues related to COVID-19, her Congress party said.
The party tweeted the announcement but gave no other details.
Italian-born Gandhi, widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, is the longest-serving president of the Congress party, which ruled India for decades after its founders led the country to independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Gandhi, 76, is credited with reviving the Congress when it won a surprise victory in legislative elections in 2004.
Following that election success, she would have become India’s first foreign-born and first Roman Catholic prime minister, but she surprised everyone by turning down the top post and nominating economist Manmohan Singh to be prime minister.
In recent years, Gandhi has travelled several times to the United States to deal with health issues.
Her party’s fortunes have declined precipitously since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP party defeated it in the general elections of 2014 and 2019.
(Reporting by Neha Arora; Editing by Rupam Jain and Frances Kerry)
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – The Baltimore Police Department is investigating a shooting that left one man injured yesterday. This incident happened on the 500 block of Presstman Street in Central Baltimore.
According to police, “At approximately 11:46 a.m., Central District patrol officers were dispatched to the 500 block of Presstman Street to investigate a Shot-Spotter alert for gunfire in the area. When officers arrived at the scene, they canvassed the area for potential victims, witnesses and suspects. Officers did not locate a victim. Approximately an hour later, located a 38-year-old male suffering from a gunshot wound to the foot walked into an area hospital seeking treatment. Central District Shooting detectives responded to the scene and assumed control over the investigation.”
If you have any information about this incident, contact Southeast District detectives at 410-396-2411 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7Lockup.
By Kanupriya Kapoor
SINGAPORE – Ukraine has established two routes through Poland and Romania to export grain and avert a global food crisis although bottlenecks have slowed the supply chain, Kyiv’s deputy foreign minister said on Sunday.
Dmytro Senik said global food security was at risk because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had halted Kyiv’s Black Sea grain exports, causing widespread shortages and soaring prices.
Ukraine is the world’s fourth-largest grain exporter and it says there are some 30 million tonnes of grain stored in Ukrainian-held territory which it is trying to export via road, river and rail.
Ukraine was in talks with Baltic states to add a third corridor for food exports, Senik said.
He did not give details on how much grain has already moved or would be moved through these routes.
“Those routes are not perfect because it creates certain bottlenecks, but we are doing our best to develop those routes in the meantime,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of an Asian security summit in Singapore.
The Ukrainian rail system operates on a different gauge from European neighbours such as Poland, so the grain has to be transferred to different trains at the border where there are not many transfer or storage facilities.
Re-routing grain to Romania involves transport by rail to ports on the Danube river and loading cargoes onto barges for sailing towards the port of Constanta, a complex and costly process.
Moscow, which calls the war a special military operation and denies hitting civilian and agricultural targets, blames Western sanctions on Russia and sea mines set by Ukraine for the drop in food exports and rising global prices. It is also a major exporter of grain.
The war in Ukraine dominated proceedings at the Singapore meeting, the Shangri-La Dialogue. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed the delegates via video link on Saturday, telling them their nations’ support was crucial not just to defeat the Russian invasion, but to preserve the rules-based order.
(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Elaine Hardcastle)
FRANKFURT – German Economy Minister Robert Habeck plans to present concrete proposals to tighten the nation’s antitrust laws and give the Federal Cartel Office more powers, according to a position paper circulated by his ministry on Sunday.
The move comes amid his concerns that energy companies are not passing on to consumers a recent cut in tax on fuel that was enacted to help offset soaring inflation.
The ministry foresees reducing hurdles to confiscate profits and giving the cartel office additional powers to intervene, according to the document dated June 11.
“Although such a tightening of competition law cannot have a short-term effect in the current situation, it can give the state the necessary strength to intervene more effectively in the future,” the paper said.
(Reporting by Tom Sims, editing by Ed Osmond)
LONDON -Legislation that Britain will unilaterally bring forward on Monday to scrap some of the rules that govern post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland will not break international law, minister Brandon Lewis said on Sunday.
“The legislation that we will outline tomorrow is within the law; what we are going to do is lawful and it is correct,” the Northern Ireland Secretary told Sky News.
When Britain left the EU, Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed a protocol that effectively left Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market and customs union to preserve the open border with Ireland specified in the Good Friday peace agreement.
Any unilateral move by London to override the treaty will inflame a simmering argument with the European Union.
Ireland’s Sinn Fein, the nationalist party that won a historic victory in the Northern Ireland Assembly election last month, said on Sunday Britain would “undoubtedly” break the law by imposing unilateral changes to the protocol.
Lewis said however the protocol needed to be changed because it was “fundamentally undermining” the Good Friday agreement.
He said it was disrupting the lives of people in Northern Ireland, was stopping government institutions functioning, and was not respecting the UK’s own internal market.
Lewis declined to say how the protocol would be changed, but said the government would set out the legal basis on which it was bringing forward the legislation.
Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald said London could work with Dublin and Brussels to improve the application of the protocol.
“There is a willingness here, there is a willingness to engage by the European Commission, but the British government has refused to engage,” she told Sky News from Dublin.
“It has not been constructive, it has sought a destructive path, and is now proposing to introduce legislation that will undoubtedly breach international law.”
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Catherine Evans and Jan Harvey)
By Chen Lin
(Reuters) -The war in Ukraine and China’s increasingly tense relationship with the United States featured in nearly every session of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, which ended on Sunday after three days of discussions.
Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe, who gave one of the featured speeches on the meeting’s final day, said it was up to the United States to improve the bilateral relationship with his country, as ties were at a critical juncture.
“We request the U.S. side to stop smearing and containing China. Stop interfering in China’s internal affairs. The bilateral relationship cannot improve unless the U.S. side can do that,” Wei, dressed in the uniform of a general in the People’s Liberation Army, told delegates.
The Shangri-La Dialogue is Asia’s premier security meeting and this year attracted 575 delegates from 40 countries – including diplomats, defence officials and weapons makers.
Austin said in his speech at the meeting on Saturday that there had been an “alarming” increase in the number of unsafe and unprofessional encounters between Chinese planes and vessels with those of other countries. He added that the United States would stand by its allies, including Taiwan.
U.S.-China relations usually dominate the annual meeting in Singapore – held for the first time since 2019 because of the pandemic – but this year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was in the foreground.
The highlight was an address to the meeting via video link by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who warned delegates that the invasion of his nation threatened the rules-based order and put the entire world in danger of famine and food crises.
Several delegates questioned China’s relationship with Russia.
Wei said that China supported peace talks and that Beijing had not provided any materiel to Russia. He said providing weapons and imposing sanctions would not help the situation.
Meia Nouwens, a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Wei’s speech was consistent with Beijing’s official line on Russia-Ukraine issues.
“He did also underline that China is a partner of Russia and not an ally of Russia and that they do not have an alliance,” Nouwens said. “They’re underlining that at the end of the day, Chinese policy has always been to pursue China’s own interests and not tie itself to those other countries.”
Russia was not invited to the meeting, which Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said was understandable, although he said “the search for compromise, the search for common ground, helps diplomatic efforts”.
Ukrainian deputy foreign minister Dmytro Senik told Reuters on Sunday that more weapons were needed to help his country reclaim territory lost to the Russians, and that the government was working on ways to get grain exports out of the country.
“We’ve established two routes which are helping us export these agricultural commodities,” Senik said. “Those routes are not perfect, because it creates certain bottlenecks, but we are doing our best.”
UNCHANGED ON TAIWAN
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation” that it says is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists.
Addressing the issue of Taiwan, Defence Minister Wei said China’s position on the island, which Beijing views as a province, was unchanged. He said the Chinese government sought “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan but reserved “other options”.
In Taiwan, Premier Su Tseng-chang said on Sunday that the island does not want to close the door to China and is willing to engage in the spirit of goodwill, but on an equal basis and without political preconditions.
South Korean Defence Minister Lee Jong-sup said at the Singapore meeting that his country would enhance its defence capabilities and work closely with the United States and Japan to counter North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat. The South would also help North Korea if it denuclearised, he said.
Fiji’s Defence Minister Inia Seruiratu said that for all the focus on military matters at Shangri-La Dialogue, more pressing threats were being ignored.
“In our blue Pacific continent, machine guns, fighter jets, grey ships and green battalions are not our primary security concern,” Seruiratu said. “The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change. It threatens our very hopes and dreams of prosperity.”
(Reporting by Chen Lin; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Joe Brock and Kanupriya Kapoor; Writing by Gerry Doyle; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
(Reuters) -Iran and Venezuela, oil producers grappling with crippling U.S. sanctions, signed a 20-year cooperation plan in Tehran on Saturday, with the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader saying the allies would continue to resist pressure from Washington.
The signing ceremony, carried by Iranian state TV, was overseen by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro and took place at the Saadabad Palace in north Tehran.
The plan includes cooperation in the fields of oil, petrochemicals, defence, agriculture, tourism, and culture.
It also includes repair of Venezuelan refineries and the export of technical and engineering services.
“Venezuela has shown exemplary resistance against sanctions and threats from enemies and Imperialists,” Iran’s Raisi said. “The 20-year cooperation document is testimony to the will of the two countries to develop ties.”
“Sanctions and threats against the Iranian nation over the past 40 plus years have been numerous, but the Iranian nation has turned these sanctions into an opportunity for the country’s progress,” he said.
Maduro said through an interpreter that a weekly flight from Caracas to Tehran would begin on July 18.
In a meeting with Maduro, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed Iran would continue to back Venezuela in the face of U.S. pressures, according to state media.
“The successful experience of the two countries showed that resistance is the only way to deal with these pressures,” Khamenei said. “The two countries have such close ties with no other country, and Iran has shown that it takes risks in times of danger and holds its friends’ hands.”
Maduro said: “You came to our aid when the situation in Venezuela was very difficult and no country was helping us.”
Defying U.S. pressures, Iran has sent several cargos of fuel to Venezuela and helped in refinery repairs. Last month, Venezuela began importing Iranian heavy crude, widening a swap agreement signed last year to exchange Iranian condensate for Venezuelan heavy crude.
Maduro arrived in Tehran on Friday with a high-ranking political and economic delegation after visiting Turkey and Algeria.
During the visit, Iran delivered to Venezuela the second of four Aframax-sized oil tankers, with a capacity of 800,000 barrels, ordered from the Iranian company SADRA, state media said. SADRA has been under U.S. sanctions for more than a decade over its links to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
In May, Iran’s state-owned National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Co signed a contract worth about 110 million euros to repair Venezuela’s smaller 146,000 barrel-per-day refinery.
(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Jason Neely, Angus MacSwan and Diane Craft)
(Reuters) – China has made “impressive progress” in developing new nuclear weapons, but will only use them for self-defence, and never use them first, Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe told delegates at the Shangri-La Dialogue on Sunday.
In response to a question about reports last year on construction of more than 100 new nuclear missile silos in China’s east, he said China “has always pursued an appropriate path to developing nuclear capabilities for protection of our country”.
He added nuclear weapons displayed in a 2019 military parade in Beijing – which included upgraded launchers for China’s DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles – were operational and deployed.
“China has developed its capabilities for over five decades. It’s fair to say there has been impressive progress,” he said. “China’s … policy is consistent. We use it for self defence. We will not be the first to use nuclear (weapons).”
He said the ultimate goal of China’s nuclear arsenal was to prevent nuclear war.
“We developed nuclear capabilities to protect the hard work of the Chinese people and protect our people from the scourge of the nuclear warfare,” he said.
The U.S. State Department last year called China’s nuclear buildup concerning and said it appeared Beijing was deviating from decades of nuclear strategy based around minimal deterrence. It called on China to engage with it “on practical measures to reduce the risks of destabilising arms races.”
(Reporting by Chen Lin. Writing by Gerry Doyle; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
By Henriette Chacar
MASAFER YATTA, West Bank – Some 1,200 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank region of Masafer Yatta face the risk of forced removal to make way for an army firing zone after a decades-long legal battle that ended last month in Israel’s highest court.
The ruling opened the way for one of the largest displacements since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Middle East war. But residents are refusing to leave, hoping their resilience and international pressure will keep Israel from carrying out the evictions.
“They want to take this land from us to build settlements,” said Wadha Ayoub Abu Sabha, a resident of al-Fakheit, one of a group of hamlets where Palestinian shepherds and farmers claim a historic connection to the land.
“We’re not leaving,” she said.
In the 1980s, Israel declared the area a closed military zone known as “Firing Zone 918”. It argued in court that these 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) along the Israel-West Bank boundary were “highly crucial” for training purposes and that the Palestinians living there were only seasonal dwellers.
“It has been a year of immense grief,” said Abu Sabha, her voice breaking as she sat in one of the few tents left standing, lit by a single light bulb.
The communities in this part of the South Hebron Hills traditionally lived in underground caves. Over the past two decades, they have also started building tin shacks and small rooms above ground.
Israeli forces have been demolishing these new constructions for years, Abu Sabha said, but now that they have the court’s backing, the evictions are likely to pick up.
Steps away, her family’s belongings were reduced to a pile of rubble after soldiers arrived with bulldozers to raze some of the structures. She lamented the significant losses – the dwindling livestock even more than the destroyed furniture.
Much of the argument during the protracted case centered on whether the Palestinians who live across the area are permanent residents or seasonal occupants.
The Supreme Court concluded that the residents “failed to prove their claim of permanent habitation” before the area was declared a firing zone. It relied on aerial photos and excerpts from a 1985 book that both sides cited as evidence.
The book, titled “Life in the Caves of Mount Hebron”, was authored by Israeli anthropologist Yaacov Havakook, who spent three years studying the lives of Palestinian farmers and shepherds in Masafer Yatta.
Havakook declined to comment and instead referred Reuters to his book. But he said he had tried to submit an expert opinion on behalf of the residents following a request from one of their lawyers, and was prevented from doing so by the Israeli defence ministry, where he was employed at the time.
INTERNATIONAL CRITICISM
The United Nations and European Union condemned the court ruling and urged Israel to stop the demolitions and evictions.
“The establishment of a firing zone cannot be considered an ‘imperative military reason’ to transfer the population under occupation,” the EU spokesperson said in a statement.
In a transcript https://www.akevot.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/1981-07-12-%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%93%D7%AA-%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%9C%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%91%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%9E%D7%A1%D7%98%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%92%D7%A8%D7%9E%D7%94.pdf of a 1981 ministerial meeting on settlements uncovered by Israeli researchers, then-Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon, who later became prime minister, suggested the Israeli military expand training zones in the South Hebron Hills to dispossess the Palestinian residents of their land.
“We want to offer you more training zones,” Sharon said, given “the spread of Arab villagers from the hills toward the desert”.
The Israeli military told Reuters the area was declared a firing zone for “a variety of relevant operational considerations” and that Palestinians violated the closure order by building without permits over the years.
According to the United Nations, the Israeli authorities reject most Palestinian applications for building permits in “Area C”, a swathe of land making up two-thirds of the West Bank where Israel has full control and where most Jewish settlements are located. In other areas of the West Bank, Palestinians exercise limited self-rule.
U.N. data also showed that Israel has marked nearly 30% of Area C as military firing zones. The designations have put 38 of the most vulnerable Palestinian communities at increased risk of forced displacement.
Meanwhile, settlements in the area have continued to expand, further restricting Palestinian movement and the space available for residents to farm and graze their sheep and goats.
“All of these olives are mine,” said Mahmoud Ali Najajreh of al-Markez, another hamlet at risk, pointing to a grove in the near distance. “How can we leave?”
The 3,500 olive trees he planted two years ago – he counted each one – were beginning to bud.
“We will wait for the dust to settle, then build again,” Najajreh told Reuters. “We would rather die than leave here.”
(Reporting by Henriette Chacar; Editing by James Mackenzie and Mark Heinrich)
BANGKOK – Myanmar’s junta likely cannot to defeat the rebels fighting its rule and should restore democracy after seizing power last year, a senior U.S. diplomat said.
“It’s hard to see today how they could realistically think they can win,” said Derek Chollet, the State Department counsellor. “They’re losing territory. Their military is taking serious losses.”
Speaking to Reuters and another journalist in Bangkok on Friday, Chollet said the military government is becoming isolated not only internationally but also at home and should end the fight and return to democracy.
The junta overthrew the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and has since used deadly force and mass arrests to suppress demonstrations.
Civilians have taken up arms to fight police and soldiers, answering a call by an alliance of lightly armed rebels for a people’s revolt. The junta has declared the alliance “terrorists”.
A spokesperson for the military did not answer calls seeking comment on Sunday about Chollet’s remarks.
The diplomat is visiting Thailand, Singapore and Brunei to follow up on a meeting last month of the United States and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
In addition to imposing sanctions, Washington is working with ASEAN and countries such as Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia regarding Myanmar, Chollet said.
He expressed hope that China could also be “part of the solution” in Myanmar.
(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Editing by William Mallard)
SINGAPORE – Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said on Sunday that it was up to the United States to improve the bilateral relationship, saying that the ties were at a critical juncture.
“We request the U.S. side to stop smearing and containing China. Stop interfering in China’s internal affairs. The bilateral relationship cannot improve unless the U.S. side can do that,” Wei, dressed in the uniform of a general in the People’s Liberation Army, told delegates at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier security meeting.
(Reporting by Chen Lin; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
LONDON – Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber is showing early signs of making a recovery after he was diagnosed with a virus that left half of his face paralysed, according to a surgeon who specialises in face paralysis.
In a video posted on Instagram, Bieber said he had contracted Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which affected nerves in his ear and face. He noted that his right eye was not blinking.
Charles Nduka, a consultant plastic reconstructive surgeon in Britain and the co-founder of health charity Facial Palsy UK, said about 75% of patients with the syndrome who receive early treatment, including steroids and antivirals, make a full recovery.
“I did notice in the video shared by Mr Bieber that he does appear to have some evidence of recovery, which is encouraging,” Nduka told Reuters.
“With facial paralysis one of the most obvious things is patients are unable to close their eye fully to blink and they are unable to smile,” Nduka added.
“Before the smile recovers, the first thing that will develop is there is increasingly symmetry in the face at rest. So, the base of the nose often elevates slightly, and the mouth becomes more even. On the video that was shared I could see some signs that there is some early recovery.”
Bieber, 28, said he was physically unable to perform his upcoming shows.
Nduka said he works with patients in the entertainment industry and it is important they first address any issues weakening the immune system before returning to work.
“They will be under financial pressures and all sorts of pressures to get back out there as soon as possible, but doing so will only lead to longer term problems,” he said.
(Reporting by Natasa Bansagi; Editing by David Holmes)
By Natasa Bansagi
(Reuters) – A patient with the same facial-paralysis causing virus that has affected Justin Bieber said on Saturday she had been saddened to see what the Canadian pop star is going through and proud that he is making people aware of the illness.
“I’ve watched his video and I’m not going to lie, I shed a couple of tears. I never thought that I would relate to someone so much that I didn’t know,” Nicoya Rescorla told Reuters in a video interview from Marazion, in southwest England.
Former teen star Bieber, 28, disclosed on Friday that he had been diagnosed with a virus that left half of his face paralysed and forced him to cancel some upcoming performances. He said in a video posted on Instagram he had contracted Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which affected nerves in his ear and face, and his right eye was not blinking.
Rescorla said she developed the syndrome 20 months ago, around the time her 11-week-old child was admitted to hospital with a severe infection and her grandfather, who she was caring for, had to move to a care home.
“I think personally for me stress was a huge factor, a huge factor,” said Rescorla, who is also 28 and has three children.
“It’s hard to think of someone else going through something that you’re going through. Obviously, Justin Bieber … he’s a huge celebrity, and I also felt so proud that he was spreading awareness of Ramsay Hunt syndrome.
“It was heartwarming that he was spreading awareness, but also heartbreaking that he was going through it.”
Speaking of the impact of the illness on her life, Rescorla said she can no longer drive or leave the house on her own. She said she has to drink from a straw and has problems with vertigo.
“I went from being so independent, fiercely independent, to having my husband care for me because I haven’t been able to do it for myself,” she said.
(Editing by Frances Kerry and Mike Harrison)
By Joseph Ax
(Reuters) – Police in northwest Idaho arrested more than two dozen members of a white nationalist group on Saturday and charged them with planning to stage a riot near a LGBTQ pride event, authorities said.
Lee White, police chief in the city of Coeur D’Alene, told reporters 31 members of Patriot Front face misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot and additional charges could come later.
A local resident spotted the men, wearing white masks and carrying shields, getting into a U-Haul truck and called police, telling the emergency dispatcher it “looked like a little army,” according to White. Police pulled the truck over about 10 minutes after the call.
Video taken at the scene of the arrest and posted online showed about 20 men kneeling next to the truck with their hands bound, wearing similar khaki pants, blue shirts, white masks and baseball caps.
Police recovered at least one smoke grenade and documents that included an “operations plan” from the truck, as well as shields and shin guards, all of which made their intentions clear, White said.
“They came to riot downtown,” he said.
The men come from at least 11 states, White said, including Texas, Colorado and Virginia.
Patriot Front formed in the aftermath of the 2017 white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when it broke off from another extremist organization, Vanguard America, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
By Trevor Hunnicutt and Andrew Hay
SANTA FE, N.M. -The U.S. government will fund New Mexico’s full wildfire response, President Joe Biden said on Saturday, speaking from Santa Fe amid anger from survivors over the blaze that was started by federal officials.
“We have a responsibility to help the state recover,” Biden told elected officials and emergency responders at an afternoon briefing in New Mexico’s capital, where he was reviewing efforts to fight the Southwestern state’s biggest blaze in recorded history.
“Today I’m announcing the federal government’s covering 100% of the cost,” the president said, though earlier in the day he had said he would need congressional approval for some funding.
“We will be here for you in response and recovery as long as it takes,” he said, adding that he saw an “astounding” amount of the perimeter of the territory that had burned while flying to Santa Fe.
“It looks like a moonscape,” Biden said.
Driven by drought and wind, the fire has destroyed hundreds of homes in mountains northeast of Santa Fe since two prescribed burns by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) went out of control in April.
The White House said in a statement that Biden’s order would cover “debris removal and emergency protective measures” for 90 days, a period to act as a bridge between emergency operations and possible further congressionally mandated assistance.
“This additional support will help ensure that New Mexico has no financial limitations related to immediate lifesaving and life sustaining operations related to the ongoing wildfires,” it said.
Biden told staff at an emergency operations center shortly before he was expected to meet families who had lost homes to the fire that he would support any congressional bill to allow people to completely rebuild.
Air Force One banked and circled around fire damage in New Mexico, allowing Biden to see burned forest and plumes of smoke from the sky before he landed and greeted Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and other elected officials who have called for more financial support from the federal government.
Local officials told Biden that they did not have sufficient resources to predict weather or assist affected residents.
“Our citizens are tired, angry, and afraid of the future they are facing,” said David Dye, New Mexico secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
‘THIS WAS MAN-MADE’
The fire forced thousands of residents to evacuate Indo-Hispano farming villages with twice the national poverty rate. The blaze has upended these fragile economies where residents cut firewood and raise hay to get by.
“This is not a natural disaster, this was man-made by a government entity,” said Ella Arellano, whose family lost hundreds of acres of forest around the village of Holman. “It’s a mess, just a big mess that will take generations to recover from.”
With over 320,000 acres (129,500 hectares) of mountains blackened by the Hermits Peak Calf Canyon Fire – an area about the size of Los Angeles – communities are preparing for mudslides, ash flows and flooding in areas where extreme fire gave forest floors the water absorbency equivalent of asphalt.
So far the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has given over $3 million to more than 900 households. But maximum FEMA payouts of around $40,000 for destroyed houses are in some cases not enough to cover the loss of farm equipment that burned alongside homes, which at one house was likely worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The blaze is burning along with another in southwestern New Mexico that is the second largest in state history, underlining concerns that climate change is intensifying fires that overwhelm firefighters and threaten to eventually destroy most forests in the U.S. Southwest.
Investigators found that a Forest Service controlled burn jumped out of bounds on April 6 to start the Hermits Peak Fire. The Calf Canyon Fire was caused by a USFS burn pile of logs and branches on April 19. The two fires merged on April 22.
To prevent fires from spreading, land managers sometimes use controlled burns to reduce small trees, shrubs and other material that fuel wildfires. The Forest Service has since called for a temporary nationwide halt to the practice while it reviews procedures.
(Reporting By Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico, and Trevor Hunnicutt in Santa Fe; Writing by Michael Martina; Editing by Aurora Ellis, Jonathan Oatis and Kim Coghill)
By Saurabh Sharma and Jatindra Dash
LUCKNOW, India – Two teenagers were killed on Friday in clashes between Hindus and Muslims in eastern India that followed derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammad by two ruling party officials, police said on Saturday.
Police opened fire to break up the violence in the city of Ranchi in Jharkhand state but it was not clear if the two victims were killed by the police or by rioters.
Senior police official Surendra Kumar Jha said at least 14 police officials were injured in the incident in Ranchi and other areas. A curfew was imposed and Internet services suspended to stop the unrest escalating.
In northern Uttar Pradesh state police said they had arrested 230 alleged rioters after unrest spread across several towns after Friday prayers.
Muslims have been protesting about comments made recently by two officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) about the Prophet’s private life, with the demonstrations often turning into violence between Hindus and Muslims.
The BJP has suspended its spokeswoman Nupur Sharma and expelled another leader, Naveen Kumar Jindal, for making the anti-Islamic remarks, which as well as upsetting Indian Muslims caused a diplomatic row from several Muslim countries.
The BJP – a Hindu nationalist party – said the offensive remarks did not reflect the government’s position and that the comments were made by “fringe elements”.
Party leaders have also instructed officials to be cautious when talking about religion on public platforms. Police in New Delhi said on Thursday they had filed a complaint against Sharma and others for “inciting people on divisive lines” on social media.
However, some in the minority Muslim community see this as the latest instance of pressure and humiliation under BJP rule on issues ranging from freedom of worship to the wearing of hijab head scarves.
(Writing by Rupam Jain, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
TAIPEI – Taiwan does not want to close the door to China and is willing to engage in the spirit of goodwill, but on an equal basis and without political preconditions, Premier Su Tseng-chang said on Sunday.
Relations between Taipei and Beijing, which claims democratically ruled Taiwan as its own territory, are at their lowest in decades, with China increasing political and military pressure to get the island to accept its sovereignty.
Earlier on Sunday at a security forum in Singapore, China’s defence minister said the Chinese government sought “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan but reserved “other options”.
Speaking to reporters after China banned the import of grouper fish from Taiwan on safety grounds, a move Taipei called politically motivated, Su said Taiwan has always had goodwill towards China.
“As long as there is equality, reciprocity and no political preconditions, we are willing to engage in goodwill with China,” he said, reiterating a position President Tsai Ing-wen has repeatedly made in public.
“As for China’s harassment of Taiwan with military aircraft, warships, unreasonable suppression and political actions, the one being most unreasonable is China,” he added.
“Taiwan does not want to close the door to China. It is China that has used various means to oppress and treat Taiwan unreasonably.”
China has refused to speak to Tsai since she was first elected in 2016, viewing her as a separatist who has refused to accept that China and Taiwan are part of “one China”.
Tsai says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future, and while they want peace with China will defend themselves if attacked.
Taiwan’s people, who live in one of Asia’s most freewheeling and liberal democracies, have shown no interest in being ruled by autocratic China.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by William Mallard)
(Reuters) – Rogers Communications Inc’s Loretta Rogers who served as a corporate director for over fifty years and the wife of company’s late founder Ted Rogers, died on Saturday at the age of 83.
Chairman Edward Rogers, the only son of Ted said, the family was profoundly saddened by their mother’s passing.
“She lived a full and vibrant life and we, like all those who knew her, will deeply miss her leadership and guidance,” Edward Rogers said.
“A beautiful soul left us today. She was a one of a kind spirit who spread love like wildfire”, daughter Martha Rogers said https://twitter.com/MarthaLRogers/status/1535689152091639814?s=20&t=bh2jxJMfpDh_MbNJDhcgMw on Twitter.
Loretta Rogers served as a director of Rogers Communications since 1964 and was a member of the Advisory Committee of the Rogers Control Trust.
Rogers Communications last week asked a tribunal to scrap Canada competition bureau’s rejection to its C$20 billion ($15.65 billion) purchase of Shaw Communications Inc, arguing the merger would create more competition rather than stifle it.
The Rogers family was in a dispute when Edward Rogers attempted to drop Joe Natale as CEO in September last year. Loretta Rogers had said she supports Joe Natale as CEO and his management team.
The Canadian wireless giant on January appointed Tony Staffieri as president and chief executive officer from interim CEO, following a months-long boardroom battle on who should lead the company.
(This story corrects first paragraph to say Loretta Rogers was the wife of the late founder, not herself the founding president and CEO.)
(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
Akron, OH – This morning, members of the U.S. Marshals Northern
Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force arrested Deshawn Stafford Jr., 20 yrs,
Tyler Stafford, 19 yrs, and Donovon Jones, 21 yrs. The three are wanted
by the Akron Police Department for the fatal beating of Ethan Liming, 17
yrs, outside the I Promise School in Akron on June 2, 2022. Members of the Akron Police Department were able to identify the
suspects and warrants were issued for homicide. Akron Police and the
U.S. Marshals worked together to locate and arrest Deshawn and Tyler
Stafford at a residence located on the 500 block of North Howard Street
in Akron. Jones was arrested at a residence located on the 200 block of
Crosby Street in Akron. “Ethan’s senseless and tragic death has
touched every person in our community,” said Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan.
“These arrests would not have been possible without the dedication of
our Akron Police Department and their collaboration with the U.S.
Marshals Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force. They have worked
around the clock on this case and I thank them for their tireless
efforts. My thoughts and prayers remain with the entire Liming family at
this time.”Akron Police Chief Stephen Mylett added, “I am happy
to report that today, officers with the Akron Police Department, made
several arrests in connection with the death of Ethan Liming. We thank
the members of the community for their outpouring of support that helped
investigators throughout this investigation. We will continue to follow
any leads that will result in bringing those responsible for Ethan’s
death to justice. While I believe the news of the arrests will be
welcomed by Ethan’s family and loved ones, we all recognize that nothing
will bring Ethan back. Violence in this country must stop. We are losing
too many lives to senseless acts of violence.”U.S. Marshal Pete
Elliott stated, “The U.S. Marshals Service will continue to provide all
necessary resources to help our partners at the Akron Police Department
to combat violent crime. This crime impacted an entire community and we
stand alongside the community in seeking justice for Ethan.”
Additional information about the U.S. Marshals Service can be found
at http://www.usmarshals.gov.
####America’s
First Federal Law Enforcement Agency
Toms River, NJ – The driver of a Toms River school bus was taken to Community Medical Center after the bus he was driving was involved in a crash with a roll-off container truck on Route 37 Friday morning.
The Toms River Police Department has not yet released any information regarding the crash. The accident was reported at around noon. Downed utility poles caused a power outage in the area and officials shut down traffic on Route 37 during the investigation, cleanup, and utility repairs.
The crash caused school bus scheduling delays as the Toms River Regional Schools bus depot was located within the detour zone.
Initial reports claim the private vehicle may have been at fault in the crash, but the Toms River Police Department has not yet confirmed this.
Online social media reports that the bus driver fled the scene after the crash appear to also be false at this time.
