Smoke rises from burning tires on Saturday as demonstrators gather in Thakeyta Township, Yangon, to continue their protest against the military coup in Myanmar.
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Smoke rises from burning tires on Saturday as demonstrators gather in Thakeyta Township, Yangon, to continue their protest against the military coup in Myanmar.
Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Local media in Myanmar say security forces killed at least 114 civilians in 40 cities and towns on Saturday, in what appears to be the deadliest day of protests since the coup last month.
The brutal crackdown came as the military marked the annual Armed Forces Day holiday.In a televised speech in the capital, Naypyitaw, coup leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing continued to justify the coup by accusing the government of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi of failing to investigate the military’s accusations of voter fraud in the November general election — which saw Suu Kyi’s party win in a landslide.
Min Aung Hlaing addressed the ongoing protests against the military indirectly — denouncing demonstrations against the coup as “terrorism” that is “harmful to state tranquility.” The general promised fresh elections, but did not provide details on when a new vote would be held.
The deaths of 114 protesters on Saturday comes in addition to the 328 killed by the junta since the coup, according to figures released Friday by theactivist group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. AAPR notes that around a quarter of those killed died from shots to the head, which the group says raises concerns that demonstrators are being targeted for killing. In addition to the dead, more than 3,000 demonstrators have been arrested, charged or sentenced since the start of the coup, according to AAPR.
As violence continues to escalate, so too do fears that armed groups who oppose the military coup are positioning themselves to join the fray.
“The Myanmar Armed Forces Day isn’t an armed forces day, it’s more like the day they killed people,” said Gen. Yawd Serk, chair of one of Myanmar’s ethnic armies, the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army-South, in an interview with Reuters. “If they continue to shoot at protesters and bully the people, I think all the ethnic groups would not just stand by and do nothing.”
In a statement on Twitter, the U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar, Thomas L. Vajda, denounced what he described as “horrifying” bloodshed and called for “an immediate end to the violence and the restoration of the democratically elected government.”
“These are not the actions of a professional military or police force,” Vajda said. “Myanmar’s people have spoken clearly: they do not want to live under military rule.”
The European Union, which earlier this week sanctioned 11 people in relation to the coup, called the killing of unarmed civilians — including children — “indefensible” in a post on Twitter. “This 76th Myanmar armed forces day will stay engraved as a day of terror and dishonour,” wrote the bloc’s delegation to the country.
Other global observers of the crisis, like historian Thant Myint-U, have warned of the international implications if the violence in Myanmar continues to spiral out of control.
“A failed state in Myanmar has the potential to draw in all the big powers – including the US, China, India, Russia, and Japan – in a way that could lead to a serious international crisis,” he wrote on Twitter.
Michael Sullivan contributed reporting to this story.
“The View” co-host Meghan McCain blasted the media Friday over its coverage of President Biden’s first formal press conference.
McCain began on Friday by disclosing that she “loves” Biden as a person, but expressed that “our role as the fourth estate” is to “told the president and the press’ feet to the fire.”
“I just want to present a scenario where somehow magically President Trump got re-elected. And in the first 60 days of him being reelected. he didn’t do a press conference. When he finally did a press conference he didn’t talk or answer one question about the pandemic and he didn’t answer any questions from any media that didn’t agree with him,” McCain explained. “Peter Doocy, was not called on, Fox News wasn’t called on, which I think is a huge miss for President Biden yesterday.”
“Then on top of that in the news cycle, if President Trump had fallen down Air Force One or if his son was involved in some very serious reports involving the Secret Service and a handgun … I believe we would be having a very different Hot Topic today,” McCain continued. “And I think it is incumbent on us and the press not to be deleterious in the way that we cover President Biden.”
The conservative co-host went on to say just because Trump was “horrible” to the press “doesn’t mean that we should be giving Biden passes.”
“We’re still in a pandemic, there are still a bunch of crises, and I don’t think he answered nearly enough questions that I, for one, would have liked to see him answer and I think the coverage has been really disconcerting,” McCain said. “I was watching some shows this morning — there’s no need to slobber all over Joe Biden right now. He’s still the president of the United States. And I think our role in the fourth estate is to hold his feet to the fire and to ask serious questions and ‘give him time, let him be president,’ yes, but we didn’t give this [leeway] to President Obama or to President Trump.”
Much of the mainstream media showered Biden with praise. Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin declared that the president “excelled” during the press conference and NBC News reporter Jonathan Allen claimed that Biden was “knocking this out of the park” before later acknowledging that the president seemed “tired” and started “trailing off” in his responses.
Even Drudge Report founder Matt Drudge trumpeted Biden’s performance on his website with headlines like, “JOE’S NO DRAMA PRESS CONFERENCE” and “CHILL STYLE.”
It’s a moment that has managed to wrap Bernie Sanders’s mittens, jokes about poor drivingskills and timeless office humor into one.
Initially it was the sheer oddity of a ship being stuck in the Suez Canal, single-handedly snarling global trade in a world already mired in a pandemic, that grabbed the online world’s attention. But it was the photo of a tiny digger working away at its mammoth task that sealed the Ever Given’s fate as the foundation for thousands of relatable memes.
Was the digger — which was trying its hardest to dislodge the vessel despite a titanic size difference — the perfect metaphor for thinking we can make any dent in our to-do lists, finally manage to stop procrastinating or get our thousands of unread emails down to zero?
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) – Two people are dead and eight people were wounded in shootings along Virginia Beach’s oceanfront, police said Saturday.
Eight people were shot just after 11 p.m. Friday, Virginia Beach police said in a news release. All eight were taken to local hospitals, with some of their conditions ranging from serious to life-threatening.
One woman died of a gunshot wound on the scene, the release said. At an earlier news conference, police Chief Paul Neudigate said the death possibly stemmed from an unrelated shooting.
The release also said one officer suffered minor injuries. Neudigate had said the officer was struck by a vehicle during the investigation.
A different officer fatally shot a man at the shooting scene.
While officers were investigating the original shooting, shots were fired nearby, Neudigate said. The officer confronted the man, leading to the deadly gunfire.
The officer has been placed on administrative leave. He has been with the department for five years and is assigned to its special operations division.
The original shooting and the officer shooting were being investigated concurrently, the release said.
“We have a very chaotic incident, a very chaotic night,” Neudigate said during the news conference.
No suspect information was immediately available. Neudigate said several people were in police custody but their possible involvement in the shooting was still under investigation.
Multiple roads were blocked off throughout the night while police worked in the area.
Former President Trump is applauding a Republican-led election reform bill in Georgia, a state he narrowly lost in November in a defeat he falsely chalked up to voter fraud.
“Congratulations to Georgia and the Georgia State Legislature on changing their voter Rules and Regulations,” Trump said in a statement through his PAC Save America.
“They learned from the travesty of the 2020 Presidential Election, which can never be allowed to happen again. Too bad these changes could not have been done sooner!”
The election overhaul bill was signed into law Thursday. It limits the window in which absentee ballots can be requested, and cuts the number of locations and times ballot drop boxes can be accessed.
Demonstrators stand outside of the Capitol building in opposition of House Bill 531 on March 8, 2021. Megan Varner/Getty Images
The measure also allows state lawmakers to appoint the chair of the election board and remove and replace county election officials, in a rebuke of the power of elected officials.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who was in charge of the election process under the old rules, refused Trump’s post-election demands to “find 11,780 votes,” to swing the contest for him and the GOP.
The Georgia election bill was signed into law this Thursday. Megan Varner/Getty Images
“Among the outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over,” Biden said.
Kimberly Latrice Jones speaks during a gathering outside of the Georgia State Capitol to protest HB 531 on March 4, 2021.Dustin Chambers/Reuters
“It adds rigid restrictions on casting absentee ballots that will effectively deny the right to vote to countless voters. And it makes it a crime to provide water to voters while they wait in line — lines Republican officials themselves have created by reducing the number of polling sites across the state, disproportionately in Black neighborhoods.”
Proponents claim the new measures will improve election integrity.
President Biden has criticized Georgia’s election bill.Megan Varner/Getty Images
When the city swiftly fenced off Echo Park and prodded people out of a sprawling camp that had taken root along its scenic lake, it was an extraordinary move in a city full of homeless encampments.
Nighttime crews hustled to erect a metal fence wrapped in green fabric around the park. Police descended and ejected irate protesters. Outreach workers were sent out to offer hotel rooms and other shelter to homeless people before a looming deadline to vacate the soon-to-be-shuttered park.
Even some of the dwindling numbers of people who lingered in the encampment this week were taken aback by the singular effort focused on Echo Park, as hundreds of homeless camps remain in other neighborhoods and parks. If the city claimed to be helping people, asked Isabel Castro, why were they zeroing in so intently on this one encampment?
“Go take a walk at MacArthur Park,” Castro urged this week outside her tent. “See if you truly care for the people.”
Uprooting the Echo Park camp drew protests, condemnation from the American Civil Liberties Unionand even criticism from some within City Hall. On Thursday night, police arrested 182 protesters and briefly detained journalists, including an L.A. Times reporter.
But in some corners of the city, residents were envious, wanting to know why the same moves had not been made in their neighborhoods. Progressive activists, in turn, fear the aggressive tack at Echo Park could become a playbook.
LAPD and protesters square off in Echo Park as an imminent city closure draws near.
At a press conference Friday, Mayor Eric Garcetti framed the effort as a success, calling it “the largest housing transition of an encampment ever in the city’s history.” He suggested that in some cases, it could be replicated.
“Nobody dreamed that we’d be able to house more than 200 people when they started,” the mayor said.
Councilman Joe Buscaino, who represents a district that stretches from Watts to San Pedro, also praised the Echo Park effort, saying in a written statement that the “approach of intensive outreach followed by a ‘choice date’ must become the standard if we are going to move people living on our streets into a better situation.”
“We no longer have the luxury to wait until people are ready,” Buscaino said.
In Venice, Brian Averill and his newly formed group are pushing Councilman Mike Bonin to undertake a similar effort to remove a beachfront encampment that has grown to more than 200 tents. “Venice is a powder keg right now,” Averill said. “We need to see the city take some step to show they’re serious right now. We haven’t seen it.”
The Venice Boardwalk Action Committee is proposing a four-week program to conduct extensive outreach involving L.A. city sanitation, county mental health and the Los Angeles Police Departmentto find housing for 250 people and then keep the beach free of tents. Averill said the Echo Park closure could be a model, but said he hoped that “we learn from the mistakes Councilman (Mitch) O’Farrell made over there with the police presence.”
Venice resident Brian Lindner, who goes to its boardwalk regularly to cycle and swim, said he got involved in such efforts after his daughter was approached by a drunken homeless person. The Echo Park closure gave him some hope, he said, although he wondered if it would also push more homeless people toward Venice.
For the Venice Beach boardwalk, “can something like that happen, to get that back into useful condition?” he asked.
Echo Park Lake is hardly the first place where L.A. has sought to clear a homeless encampment, but it became a flashpoint for many reasons. Homeless activists defined the camp as a community and mobilized others — including Echo Park residents who aren’t homeless — to rally to their cause. Angelenos troubled by the encampment, in turn, were emotionally invested in a beloved park that had undergone tens of millions of dollars in renovations years earlier.
“I’m not sure how many privileged residents on Nextdoor badly want to reclaim an alley in South L.A.,” said Bill Przylucki, executive director of the progressive group Ground Game LA. “Caving to that pressure is part of how we got to the response we saw.”
Another factor is who leads the council district: O’Farrell, who represents the area, drove the decision to temporarily close the park, arguing that it had become a chaotic and dangerous place where assaults and other criminal activity flourished. The closure would allow for repairs, he said.
“This situation was never intended to last indefinitely,” he said of the park encampment. With hotel rooms and shelter beds being offered, he said, “it is long past time to move on. And that is exactly what we are doing.”
Others on the council have criticized the move. “The sudden closure of the park, the massive LAPD presence, the use of force against protesters, the enclosure of unhoused people who were in the process of placement into hotel shelters … none of it needed to happen,” said Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who visited Echo Park amid the furor.
Meanwhile, some residents in her district said they were frustrated that Raman had not taken similar action to eliminate an encampment along Berendo Street in Hollywood, which has spurred complaints about illegal activity.
“She has time to show up for a photo op in Echo Park, but she cannot come down and meet with the neighbors who have been asking for months to meet her face to face,” said Charlie Collins, who said he is part of a committee concerned about encampments in Los Feliz and Hollywood.
A Raman spokesman said her staff have met regularly with Berendo residents and that the councilwoman had visited the encampment and agreed to a Zoom meeting with neighbors.
In Boyle Heights, Veta Gashgai said she would welcome the city doing in Hollenbeck Park what it had done in Echo Park. A homeless camp has persisted there for years and disabled the park restrooms, Gashgai said.
“We want help for them, but they can’t just be taking over the park,” said Gashgai, who works with a group called Organized Blocks of Boyle Heights. She argued that the residents should all be offered housing and that if “they choose not to go, they should be forced out.”
Some homeless people elsewhere in the city said that they envied the way protesters had rallied behind the Echo Park Lake encampment. “When they kicked us out, there weren’t a lot of people here,” said Tammy Vindiola, who said she had been ejected from a street in South Los Angeles. “There were the police.”
Although Garcetti praised the efforts at Echo Park, he specified that such an approach would work “when we need to do public works improvements or restore parks.” However, “in most places, we’re not going to have that situation,” he said.
Shayla Myers, senior attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said she was worried that “this is not an isolated strategy.” Singling out particular camps, flooding them with “interim resources” to house people temporarily, and then barring people with fences, signs or policing is “incredibly dangerous,” she argued.
Hotel rooms offered through Project Roomkey, for instance, are “an incredibly scarce resource and the city is deploying that resource at the whim of council members — not to the most vulnerable residents,” Myers said. “It’s a strategy to address the visible evidence of homelessness, but it does nothing to solve the crisis.”
More than a day after the city fenced off Echo Park, the last residents to remain — Ayman Ahmed and David Busch-Lilly — were arrested Friday morning after spending a final night along the lake.
Along Sunset Boulevard, the chaos of recent days seemed to have dissipated. Steps from where police had encircled and arrested protesters along with journalists, the back patio of Stories Books and Cafe was packed with patrons.
A few buildings away, outside the back entrance to O’Farrell’s district office, former park resident Valerie Zeller argued with her new husband, Henry, as he tried to coax her into sorting through the few possessions she had gotten out of the park. The couple had gotten married in the park last weekend.
They met on a cold night, both taking refuge in the waiting room at Union Station, then upgraded to a tent in the homeless camp on the banks of Echo Park Lake.
“If you don’t decide what we should store, we’re gonna have to carry it,” Henry said.
The couple, who had slept Thursday in an alley, were later connected with a room for the night. Outside the fenced park, police were preventing former residents of the encampment from returning to look for their valuables. One woman yelled that she needed to get inside to find her birth certificate.
Beyond the police tape, dozens of sanitation workers in white suits divided the park into zones and mapped out the tents before sorting through them — a fraught process of categorizing what are personal belongings and what is trash or hazardous waste. Things that were deemed to be personal items went into trash bags, which then went into storage boxes, headed for a downtown facility where they could eventually be retrieved.
The crews hoped to finish the job Friday and brought in flood lights so they could work deep into the night. In one of their large yellow dumpsters sat a poster that read: “Welcome to our Wedding. Valerie & Henry. March 20, 2021.”
Staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.
Authorities on Friday said they are still investigating why a Colorado man drove 20 miles from his house and fatally shot 10 people at a Boulder supermarket Monday, but a motive has so far eluded more than two dozen law enforcement agencies.
“Like the rest of the community, we too want to know why. Why the King Soopers Why Boulder? Why Monday?” Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold said in a press conference Friday. “It’ll be something haunting for all of us until we figure that out. Sometimes you just don’t figure these things out, but I am hoping that we will.”
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, a 21-year-old resident of the Denver suburb of Arvada, faces 10 counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder in the first degree. He was ordered held without bail Thursday, pending an assessment “to address his mental illness.”
Twenty-six law enforcement agencies have been working around the clock to determine a timeline of events leading up to Monday’s shooting, Herold said. Officers have collectivelyworked more than 3,000 hours on the investigation and are still parsing through the “complex” crime scene, she said.
“Picture a supermarket,” said District Attorney Michael Dougherty. “Picture all the shelves, all the products everything. They’re going through every single shelf, pulling everything off the shelf, looking at the walls. And that’s going to continue throughout the weekend.”
One officer who fired at the suspect was on administrative leave, per department protocol for officer-involved shootings, Herold said. None of the victims were hit by shots fired by police, she said.
Asked if terrorism was a possible motive, Dougherty said “it’s still very early in the investigation.” Investigations “are doing a deep dive into the offender’s background, as well as the background of everybody involved in this incident. At this point, we don’t have any particular information to share in that regard,” he said.
Police also confirmed Friday the suspect used a semiautomatic Ruger AR-556 pistol in the shooting that he legally purchased from a gun store in Arvada days before the attack. The gun looks and operates like a rifle, but it’s smaller, more maneuverable and easily concealable, according to experts. It also isn’t bound by the strict regulations that a rifle of its size would.
The man was also in possession of a 9mm handgun, but police said they did not believe the gun was used in the shooting. Officers were investigating whether “other firearms might be connected” to the suspect, Dougherty said.
In court Thursday, the man appeared wearing a mask and jail scrubs and sitting in a wheelchair. A judge approved defense lawyer Kathryn Herold’s request that the next hearing be delayed for at least two months to allow for a mental health assessment.
The man didn’t speak, other than to say “yes” when asked by the judge whether he understood the charges against him. He could face a maximum penalty of life in prison without parole if convicted. Colorado abolished the death penalty a year ago.
Witnesses to the shooting Monday said a gunman opened fire outside, hitting at least one person, before entering the store. Chaos ensued as customers and employees raced for cover amid the barrage of bullets.
Eric Talley, the first Boulder police officer to respond to the frantic 911 calls, was fatally shot. The gunman was shot in the leg and taken from the scene via ambulance. He was hospitalized overnight before being booked into county jail.
The Boulder victims were identified as Talley, 51; Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jodi Waters, 65.
Contributing: John Bacon, Trevor Hughes, Elinor Aspergen
Home to less than 3% of the world’s population, Brazil currently accounts for almost a third of the daily global deaths from Covid-19, driven by the new variant. More than 300,000 have died, and daily deaths now top 3,000, a toll suffered only by the far more populous U.S.
“We’re in the trenches here, fighting a war,” said Andréia Cruz, a 42-year-old emergency-ward nurse in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. In the past three weeks alone, the surrounding state of Rio Grande do Sul has seen nearly 5,000 people die from Covid-19, more than in the final three months of last year.
The spread of the virus in Brazil threatens to turn this country of 213 million into a global public-health hazard. The so-called P.1 strain, present in more than 20 countries and identified in New York last week, is up to 2.2 times more contagious and as much as 61% more able to reinfect people than previous versions of the coronavirus, according to a recent study.
The P.1 is now responsible for the majority of new infections in Brazil, with many doctors here saying they are seeing more young and otherwise healthy patients falling ill. About 30% of people dying from Covid-19 are now under 60, compared with an average of about 26% during Brazil’s previous peak between June and August, according to official figures analyzed by The Wall Street Journal.
In his statement, released on Friday, Mr Biden said: “Recount after recount and court case after court case upheld the integrity and outcome of a clearly free, fair, and secure democratic process.
SUEZ, Egypt (AP) — A giant container ship remained stuck sideways in Egypt’s Suez Canal for a fifth day Saturday, as authorities prepared to make new attempts to free the vessel and reopen a crucial east-west waterway for global shipping.
The Ever Given, a Panama-flagged ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, ran aground Tuesday in the narrow canal that runs between Africa and the Sinai Peninsula.
The massive vessel got stuck in a single-lane stretch of the canal, about six kilometers (3.7 miles) north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez.
Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, the salvage firm hired to extract the Ever Given, said the company hoped to pull the container ship free within days using a combination of heavy tugboats, dredging and high tides.
He told the Dutch current affairs show Nieuwsuur on Friday night that the front of the ship is stuck in sandy clay, but the rear “has not been completely pushed into the clay and that is positive because you can use the rear end to pull it free.”
Berdowski said two large tugboats were on their way to the canal and are expected to arrive over the weekend. He said the company aims to harness the power of the tugs, dredging and tides, which he said are expected to be up to 50 centimeters (20 inches) higher Saturday.
“The combination of the (tug) boats we will have there, more ground dredged away and the high tide, we hope that will be enough to get the ship free somewhere early next week,” he said.
If that doesn’t work, the company will remove hundreds of containers from the front of the ship to lighten it, effectively lifting the ship to make it easier to pull free, Berdowski said.
A crane was already on its way that can lift the containers off the ship, he said.
An official at the Suez Canal Authority said the authority planned to make at least two attempts Saturday to free the vessel when the high tide goes down. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief journalists.
Egyptian authorities have prohibited media access to the site. The canal authority said its head, Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei, would hold a news conference Saturday in the city of Suez, a few kilometers (miles) from the site of the vessel.
Yukito Higaki, president of Shoei Kisen, the company that owns the giant container ship, told a news conference in Imabari, Japan on Friday night that 10 tugboats were deployed and workers were dredging the banks and sea floor near the vessel’s bow to try to get it afloat again.
Shoei Kisen said Saturday the company was considering removing containers to lighten the vessel if refloating efforts fail, but that would be a difficult operation.
The White House said it has offered to help Egypt reopen the canal. “We have equipment and capacity that most countries don’t have and we’re seeing what we can do and what help we can be,” President Joe Biden told reporters Friday.
An initial investigation showed the vessel ran aground due to strong winds and ruled out mechanical or engine failure, the company and the canal authority said. GAC, a global shipping and logistics company, had previously said the ship had experienced a power blackout, but it did not elaborate.
A maritime traffic jam grew to around 280 vessels near Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea, Port Suez on the Red Sea and in the canal system on Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake, according to canal service provider Leth Agencies.
Some vessels began changing course and dozens of ships were still en route to the waterway, according to the data firm Refinitiv.
A prolonged closure of the crucial waterway would cause delays in the global shipment chain. Some 19,000 vessels passed through the canal last year, according to official figures. About 10% of world trade flows through the canal, which is particularly crucial for transporting oil. The closure could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East.
It remained unclear how long the blockage would last. Even after reopening the canal that links factories in Asia to consumers in Europe, the waiting containers are likely to arrive at busy ports, forcing them to face additional delays before offloading.
Apparently anticipating long delays, the owners of the stuck vessel diverted a sister ship, the Ever Greet, on a course around Africa instead, according to satellite data.
Others also are being diverted. The liquid natural gas carrier Pan Americas changed course in the mid-Atlantic, now aiming south to go around the southern tip of Africa, according to satellite data from MarineTraffic.com.
___
Associated Press writer Mike Corder at The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.
Authorities on Friday said they are still investigating why a Colorado man drove 20 miles from his house and fatally shot 10 people at a Boulder supermarket Monday, but a motive has so far eluded more than two dozen law enforcement agencies.
“Like the rest of the community, we too want to know why. Why the King Soopers Why Boulder? Why Monday?” Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold said in a press conference Friday. “It’ll be something haunting for all of us until we figure that out. Sometimes you just don’t figure these things out, but I am hoping that we will.”
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, a 21-year-old resident of the Denver suburb of Arvada, faces 10 counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder in the first degree. He was ordered held without bail Thursday, pending an assessment “to address his mental illness.”
Twenty-six law enforcement agencies have been working around the clock to determine a timeline of events leading up to Monday’s shooting, Herold said. Officers have collectivelyworked more than 3,000 hours on the investigation and are still parsing through the “complex” crime scene, she said.
“Picture a supermarket,” said District Attorney Michael Dougherty. “Picture all the shelves, all the products everything. They’re going through every single shelf, pulling everything off the shelf, looking at the walls. And that’s going to continue throughout the weekend.”
One officer who fired at the suspect was on administrative leave, per department protocol for officer-involved shootings, Herold said. None of the victims were hit by shots fired by police, she said.
Asked if terrorism was a possible motive, Dougherty said “it’s still very early in the investigation.” Investigations “are doing a deep dive into the offender’s background, as well as the background of everybody involved in this incident. At this point, we don’t have any particular information to share in that regard,” he said.
Police also confirmed Friday the suspect used a semiautomatic Ruger AR-556 pistol in the shooting that he legally purchased from a gun store in Arvada days before the attack. The gun looks and operates like a rifle, but it’s smaller, more maneuverable and easily concealable, according to experts. It also isn’t bound by the strict regulations that a rifle of its size would.
The man was also in possession of a 9mm handgun, but police said they did not believe the gun was used in the shooting. Officers were investigating whether “other firearms might be connected” to the suspect, Dougherty said.
In court Thursday, the man appeared wearing a mask and jail scrubs and sitting in a wheelchair. A judge approved defense lawyer Kathryn Herold’s request that the next hearing be delayed for at least two months to allow for a mental health assessment.
The man didn’t speak, other than to say “yes” when asked by the judge whether he understood the charges against him. He could face a maximum penalty of life in prison without parole if convicted. Colorado abolished the death penalty a year ago.
Witnesses to the shooting Monday said a gunman opened fire outside, hitting at least one person, before entering the store. Chaos ensued as customers and employees raced for cover amid the barrage of bullets.
Eric Talley, the first Boulder police officer to respond to the frantic 911 calls, was fatally shot. The gunman was shot in the leg and taken from the scene via ambulance. He was hospitalized overnight before being booked into county jail.
The Boulder victims were identified as Talley, 51; Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jodi Waters, 65.
Contributing: John Bacon, Trevor Hughes, Elinor Aspergen
(Reuters) -Myanmar’s security forces shot and killed at least 64 people – including a young boy – on Saturday, news reports and witnesses said, even as the ruling junta’s leader said the military would protect the people and strive for democracy.
Protesters against the Feb. 1 military coup came out on the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other towns, defying a warning that they could be shot “in the head and back”, while the country’s generals celebrated Armed Forces Day.
“Today is a day of shame for the armed forces,” Dr. Sasa, a spokesman for CRPH, an anti-junta group set up by deposed lawmakers, told an online forum.
The deaths on Saturday, one of the bloodiest days since the coup, would take the number of civilians reported killed to nearly 400. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in parts of Myanmar on Saturday.
A boy reported by local media to be as young as five was among at least 13 people killed in Myanmar’s second city of Mandalay. The Myanmar Now news portal said 64 people had been killed in total across the country by 2.30 p.m. (0800 GMT).
Three people, including a man who plays in a local under-21 football team, were killed in a protest in the Insein district of Myanmar’s biggest city Yangon, a neighbour told Reuters.
“They are killing us like birds or chickens, even in our homes,” said Thu Ya Zaw in the central town of Myingyan, where at least two protesters were killed. “We will keep protesting regardless… We must fight until the junta falls.”
Deaths were reported from the central Sagaing region, Lashio in the east, in the Bago region, near Yangon, and elsewhere. A one year-old baby was hit in the eye with a rubber bullet.
Meanwhile, one of Myanmar’s two dozen ethnic armed groups, the Karen National Union, said it had overrun an army post near the Thai border, killing 10 people – including a lieutenant colonel – and losing one of its own fighters.
Myanmar’s ethnic armed factions will not stand by and allow more killings, the leader of one of the main armed groups said on Saturday.
A military spokesman did not respond to calls seeking comment on the killings by security forces or the insurgent attack on its post.
After presiding over a military parade in the capital Naypyitaw to mark Armed Forces Day, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing reiterated a promise to hold elections after overthrowing elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, without giving any time-frame.
“The army seeks to join hands with the entire nation to safeguard democracy,” the general said in a live broadcast on state television, adding that authorities also sought to protect the people and restore peace across the country.
“Violent acts that affect stability and security in order to make demands are inappropriate.”
SHOTS TO HEAD
In a warning on Friday evening, state television said protesters were “in danger of getting shot to the head and back”. The warning did not specifically say security forces had been given shoot-to-kill orders and the junta has previously suggested some fatal shootings have come from within the crowds.
But it showed the military’s determination to prevent any disruptions around Armed Forces Day, which commemorates the start of the resistance to Japanese occupation in 1945 that was orchestrated by Suu Kyi’s father, the founder of the military.
Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s most popular civilian politician, remains in detention at an undisclosed location. Many other figures in her party are also being held in custody.
In a week that saw international pressure on the junta ramped up with new U.S. and European sanctions, Russia’s deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin attended the parade in Naypyitaw, having met senior junta leaders a day earlier.
“Russia is a true friend,” Min Aung Hlaing said. There were no signs of other diplomats at an event that is usually attended by scores of officials from foreign nations.
Support from Russia and China, which has also refrained from criticism, is important for the junta as they are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and can block potential U.N. actions.
Gunshots hit the U.S. cultural centre in Yangon on Saturday, but nobody was hurt and the incident was being investigated, U.S. embassy spokesperson Aryani Manring said. The United States has led criticism of the killings of protesters.
Protesters have taken to the streets almost daily since the coup that derailed Myanmar’s slow transition to democracy, despite the mounting toll.
“The Myanmar Armed Forces Day isn’t an armed forces day, it’s more like the day they killed people,” General Yawd Serk, chair of the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army – South, told Reuters in neighbouring Thailand.
“If they continue to shoot at protesters and bully the people, I think all the ethnic groups would not just stand by and do nothing.”
Author and historian Thant Myint-U wrote on Twitter: “A failed state in Myanmar has the potential to draw in all the big powers – including the US, China, India, Russia, and Japan – in a way that could lead to a serious international crisis (as well as an even greater catastrophe in Myanmar itself)”.
Reporting by Reuters staff;Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Michael Perry
New York’s new Excelsior Pass will help New Yorkers share vaccination and COVID-19 negative statuses with entertainment venues and other businesses.
New York State
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New York State
New York’s new Excelsior Pass will help New Yorkers share vaccination and COVID-19 negative statuses with entertainment venues and other businesses.
New York State
New Yorkers will become the first Americans to try out a new digital pass that shows their vaccination status and COVID-19 test results. It’s an effort to help venues open up to larger groups, says New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo announced Friday that the state’s health status certification, called the Excelsior Pass, will help New Yorkers voluntarily share vaccination and COVID-19 negative statuses with entertainment venues and other businesses to put the state’s economy back on track.
The state describes the pass this way:
Businesses and venues can scan and validate your pass to ensure you meet any COVID-19 vaccination or testing requirements for entry. Along with your Pass, you’ll be asked to show a photo ID that shows your name and birth date to verify that the Pass belongs to you. Adults may hold passes for accompanying minors.
Once you and your party enter an establishment, you will still be asked to follow State and CDC guidance regarding social distancing, face coverings and hand hygiene.
Participation in Excelsior Pass is voluntary. New Yorkers can always show alternate proof of vaccination or testing, like another mobile application or paper form, directly at a business or venue.
“It’s time to turn the page,” Cuomo said, crediting vaccination efforts and lowered infection rates as an indication that the state is ready for a tool to help jumpstart the state’s entertainment-driven economy.
The pass could see New York’s Broadway theaters, concert venues and sports arenas fill seats again after closures that started in March of 2020.
President Biden’s 200-page strategy for confronting the global coronavirus pandemic asked government agencies to “assess the feasibility” of linking coronavirus vaccine certificates with other vaccination documents, and producing digital versions of them. Airlines and technology companies have been working on developing technology to do so, but New York’s is the first pass being made widely available to residents.
The idea is similar to mobile airline boarding passes: they can be printed or stored on smartphones, and participating businesses and venues can use a companion app to confirm patrons’ health status.
Madison Square Garden in New York City has been part of the program’s pilot phase. Both it and the Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y, will begin using the passes by early April. Other businesses and venues will follow soon, according to the state.
IBM General Manager Steve LaFleche, whose company helped develop the new tool, called it “flexible and accessible,” claiming technologies like blockchain and encryption make the pass secure. However, blockchain encryption has been hackable in the past.
The Wall Street Journalnotes “some health authorities are worried that vaccine passports could give people a false sense of security.” For example, rather than boost the economy and encourage vaccination, efforts like the Excelsior Pass could wind up further spread of variants. It’s also still not clear that vaccinated people cannot spread the virus to people who have not been vaccinated.
Another concern is fraud. Some worry that the passes might encourage fraud and increase the spread of the virus by people who claim to be vaccinated or COVID-19 negative but aren’t. According to Open Access Government, “the key to the success of the vaccine passport is trust. Trust that the credentials within it are 100% genuine, and trust that the passport itself is beyond suspicion of fraudulent activity.”
New Yorkers will have a better sense of that next week.
Joe Biden has invited 40 world leaders to a virtual summit on the climate crisis, the White House said in a statement on Friday.
Heads of state, including Xi Jinping of China and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, have been asked to attend the two-day meeting meant to mark Washington’s return to the front lines of the fight against human-caused climate change, after Donald Trump disengaged from the process.
“They know they’re invited,” Biden said of Xi and Putin. “But I haven’t spoken to either one of them yet.”
The start of the summit on 22 April coincides with Earth Day, and it will come ahead of a major UN meeting on the crisis, scheduled for November in Glasgow, Scotland.
Biden’s event is being staged entirely online due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The president kept his campaign pledge to rejoin the Paris climate agreement on his first day in the White House, after Trump pulled out of the deal.
The return of the world’s largest economy and second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide became effective on 19 February and means almost all countries are now parties to the agreement signed in 2015.
By the time of the summit, the US will have announced “an ambitious 2030 emissions target”, according to a White House statement, and it will encourage others to boost their own goals under the Paris agreement.
“The summit will also highlight examples of how enhanced climate ambition will create good-paying jobs, advance innovative technologies, and help vulnerable countries adapt to climate impacts,” the White House said in a statement.
The US has invited the leaders of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, which includes the 17 countries responsible for about 80% of global emissions and GDP, as well as heads of countries that are especially vulnerable to climate impacts or are demonstrating strong climate leadership.
The US president has placed global heating at the heart of his agenda and has already made waves domestically by pledging to make the energy sector emissions-neutral by 2035, followed by the economy as a whole by 2050.
He has also placed a hold on new oil and gas drilling on federal lands and offshore and is expected to soon seek a $2tn infrastructure package from Congress that would serve as the engine of future economic growth.
Biden dispatched his climate envoy, the former secretary of state John Kerry, to prepare the ground for the summit in meetings with European leaders earlier this month.
The meeting comes as the world is lagging badly in its efforts to limit end-of-century warming to 1.5C (2.7F), which scientists say is necessary to avoid triggering climate tipping points that would leave much of the planet inhospitable.
In an assessment of pledges made in recent months by around 75 countries and the European Union, UN Climate Change said that only about 30% of global emissions were covered in the commitments.
A large container ship got stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal on Tuesday, March 23, halting marine traffic through one of the busiest waterways in the world.
The ship, a vessel named the Ever Given, ran aground after strong winds and a sandstorm caused low visibility and poor navigation, the Suez Canal Authority said in a statement. The ship was en route to the Dutch point of Rotterdam when it was knocked off course.
The Ever Given, at 400 meters (1,312 feet), is almost as long as the Empire State Building is tall.
The Suez Canal accounts for about 30% of global container ship traffic each day, according to the Reuters news agency. Experts worry that if the Ever Given isn’t freed soon, the logjam could impact the oil market, shipping and container rates, leading to a rise in the cost of everyday goods.
“Recount after recount and court case after court case upheld the integrity and outcome of a clearly free, fair, and secure democratic process,” Mr Biden said in the statement, released on Friday.
Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary, says he’s ‘never seen anything like’ President Biden reading answers ‘verbatim’ from cards during his first solo press conference.
Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician, believes that President Biden’s press conference performance raises questions about his fitness for office.
The Texas congressman told Fox News on Friday that Biden’s behavior at his first solo press conference Thursday — which came 64 days after he took office — “should concern every American who wants to know that their President is fit for duty and in control.”
“The President of the United States was armed with a picture book of friendly reporters to call on and with what appeared to be prepared answers, but he still could barely make it through his first press conference,” said Jackson.
“If President Biden cannot handle questions from his cheerleaders in the White House press corps, then it is concerning to think about how he represents the American people when speaking to foreign leaders,” the former White House physician continued.
“Politics aside, this should concern every American who wants to know that their President is fit for duty and in control.”
Biden, 78, stumbled multiple times and fell as he boarded Air Force One last week. White House press secretary Jen Psaki later dodged questions about whether the president was examined by a doctor after the fall.
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