The Department of Justice on Friday appealed Summerhays’ decision, though it’s unlikely the restrictions will be lifted by Monday as planned. The administration will comply with the court’s order while the appeal is processed, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement, adding that the White House disagrees with the decision.

“As the appeal proceeds, the Department of Homeland Security will continue planning for the eventual lifting of Title 42 in light of CDC’s public health judgment, at which point anyone who attempts to enter the country unlawfully will be subject to Title 8 Expedited Removal proceedings, if they do not have grounds to remain in the United States,” Jean-Pierre said.

But inside the West Wing, the reaction was far more mixed — with some Biden aides breathing a sigh of relief.

The situation at the southern border had become a political mess for the White House with Republicans playing up the possibility of a massive uptick in migrants crossing from Mexico into the United States. Even some Democrats had openly questioned the White House’s decision to end the policy, arguing that the nation’s immigration system would not be ready to handle the influx, while also worrying about the political ramifications in a midterm year.

And the White House also carefully registered its objections on procedural grounds, that the authority to set policy should lie within the CDC, not the courts. That thinking — much like the administration’s appeal of the decision to overturn the mask mandate on public transportation — was to preserve the power to reimplement such measures if the pandemic were to worsen in the months ahead.

But, broadly, Biden aides felt they had been placed in a no-win situation: if Title 42 were overturned, the resulting flood of migrants could create a Republican talking point. But conversely, leaving it in place could frustrate immigration activists and parts of the Democratic base who believe the asylum seekers should be allowed in, further depressing party enthusiasm ahead of what could be a challenging election year.

Biden ran on revamping the immigration system and putting an end to Trump-era deportation policies, such as Title 42. He kept the policy in place after taking office, citing a raging pandemic.

Republicans on Friday cheered the court’s decision.

“The court made the right decision to keep Title 42 in place. Ending Title 42 would be a complete disaster for a nation already suffering from the Biden Border Crisis,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chair of the Senate Republican Conference, said in a statement. “We have a humanitarian, public health, and national security emergency happening at our southern border. Our border patrol agents are overwhelmed by a stampede of illegal immigrants crossing the border every day. The President was warned over and over not to end Title 42. He ignored those warnings.”

After the CDC announced its intent to lift the restrictions last month, a growing chorus of bipartisan lawmakers accused the administration of not having a plan in place to deal with a surge at the border once the policy expires. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, one of the Democrats who has hammered the White House for not having a post-Title 42 game plan, said Friday that “Arizonans have paid the price for Washington’s failure to plan ahead and secure the border.”

“Today’s decision does not change the fact that there is a crisis at the border and there must be a detailed plan that can be implemented before Title 42 is lifted. Arizonans deserve a secure, orderly, and humane border response and I will continue to hold the administration accountable to that,” Kelly said in a statement.

Summerhays’ ruling, while expected, was a blow for immigration advocates and some Democrats, who have ramped up pressure on the administration to abandon the policy in recent months, as Covid cases plummeted across the U.S. Advocates and lawmakers have expressed concern that Title 42 was being used not as a public health measure, but as a means for controlling the influx at the border.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus called the ruling “outrageous” and “ridiculous” and said lawmakers must pass immigration reform, as Biden has called for.

“Today’s federal court ruling on Title 42 is outrageous, ridiculous, and erodes our asylum system. Title 42 is a public health emergency policy that can be initiated and ended by an administration. It is not a way to manage the border. Furthermore, Title 42 denies asylum seekers their legal rights under American law to due process in the U.S. and goes counter to international humanitarian norms and values,” Chair Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

But another court order puts some limits on Summerhays’ ruling, said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead attorney in the Title 42 lawsuits in Washington, D.C.

On March 4, a three-judge panel in the D.C. Circuit Court unanimously ruled that the CDC could use Title 42 to expel migrant families — but not back to danger without giving them the chance to apply for protection against persecution and torture. Even though the Louisiana court has now stopped Title 42 from lifting on Monday, Gelernt said, the D.C. Circuit Court’s order will prevent it from being used to expel migrant families to persecution or to torture.

Krista Mahr and Marianne Levine contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/20/judge-blocks-biden-administration-from-lifting-title-42-border-policy-00034195

POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russia claimed to have captured Mariupol on Friday in what would be its biggest victory yet in its war with Ukraine, after a nearly three-month siege that reduced much of the strategic port city to a smoking ruin, with over 20,000 civilians feared dead.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin the “complete liberation” of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol — the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance — and the city as a whole, spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

There was no immediate confirmation from Ukraine.

Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti quoted the ministry as saying a total of 2,439 Ukrainian fighters who had been holed up at the steelworks had surrendered since Monday, including over 500 on Friday.

As they surrendered, the troops were taken prisoner by the Russians, and at least some were taken to a former penal colony. Others were said to be hospitalized.

The defense of the steel mill had been led by Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, whose far-right origins have been seized on by the Kremlin as part of an effort to cast its invasion as a battle against Nazi influence in Ukraine. Russia said the Azov commander was taken away from the plant in an armored vehicle.

Russian authorities have threatened to investigate some of the steel mill’s defenders for war crimes and put them on trial, branding them “Nazis” and criminals. That has stirred international fears about their fate.

The steelworks, which sprawled across 11 square kilometers (4 square miles), had been the site of fierce fighting for weeks. The dwindling group of outgunned fighters had held out, drawing Russian airstrikes, artillery and tank fire, before their government ordered them to abandon the plant’s defense and save themselves.

The complete takeover of Mariupol gives Putin a badly needed victory in the war he began on Feb. 24 — a conflict that was supposed to have been a lightning conquest for the Kremlin but instead has seen the failure to take the capital of Kyiv, a pullback of forces to refocus on eastern Ukraine, and the sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

Military analysts said Mariupol’s capture at this point is of mostly symbolic importance, since the city was already effectively under Moscow’s control and most of the Russian forces that were tied down by the fighting there had already left.

In other developments Friday, the West moved to pour billions more in aid into Ukraine and fighting raged in the Donbas, the industrial heartland in eastern Ukraine that Putin is bent on capturing.

Russian forces shelled a vital highway and kept up attacks on a key city in the Luhansk region, hitting a school among other sites, Ukrainian authorities said. Luhansk is part of the Donbas.

The Kremlin had sought control of Mariupol to complete a land corridor between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops to join the larger battle for the Donbas. The city’s loss also deprives Ukraine of a vital seaport.

Mariupol endured some of the worst suffering of the war and became a worldwide symbol of defiance. An estimated 100,000 people remained out a prewar population of 450,000, many trapped without food, water, heat or electricity. Relentless bombardment left rows upon rows of shattered or hollowed-out buildings.

A maternity hospital was hit with a lethal Russian airstrike on March 9, producing searing images of pregnant women being evacuated from the place. A week later, about 300 people were reported killed in a bombing of a theater where civilians were taking shelter, although the real death toll could be closer to 600.

Satellite images in April showed what appeared to be mass graves just outside Mariupol, where local officials accused Russia of concealing the slaughter by burying up to 9,000 civilians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday the evacuation of his forces from the miles of tunnels and bunkers beneath Azovstal was done to save the lives of the fighters.

Earlier this month, hundreds of civilians were evacuated from the plant during humanitarian cease-fires and spoke of the terror of ceaseless bombardment, the dank conditions underground and the fear that they wouldn’t make it out alive.

As the end drew near at Azovstal, wives of fighters who held out at the steelworks told of what they feared would be their last contact with their husbands.

Olga Boiko, wife of a marine, wiped away tears as she said that her husband had written her on Thursday: “Hello. We surrender, I don’t know when I will get in touch with you and if I will at all. Love you. Kiss you. Bye.”

Natalia Zaritskaya, wife of another fighter at Azovstal, said that based on the messages she had seen over the past two days, “Now they are on the path from hell to hell. Every inch of this path is deadly.”

She said that two days ago, her husband reported that of the 32 soldiers with whom he had served, only eight survived, most of them seriously wounded.

While Russia described the troops leaving the steel plant as a mass surrender, the Ukrainians called it a mission fulfilled. They said the fighters had tied down Moscow’s forces and hindered their bid to seize the east.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, described the defense of Mariupol as “the Thermopylae of the 21st century” — a reference to one of history’s most glorious defeats, in which 300 Spartans held off a much larger Persian force in 480 B.C. before finally succumbing.

In other developments Friday:

— Zelenskyy said Russia should be made to pay for every home, school, hospital and business it destroys. He called on Ukraine’s partners to seize Russian funds and property under their jurisdiction and use them to create a fund to compensate those who suffered.

Russia “would feel the true weight of every missile, every bomb, every shell that it has fired at us,” he said in his nightly video address.

— The Group of Seven major economies and global financial institutions agreed to provide more money to bolster Ukraine’s finances, bringing the total to $19.8 billion. In the U.S., President Joe Biden was expected to sign a $40 billion package of military and economic aid to Ukraine and its allies.

— Russia will cut off natural gas to Finland on Saturday, the Finnish state energy company said, just days after Finland applied to join NATO. Finland had refused Moscow’s demand that it pay for gas in rubles. The cutoff is not expected to have any major immediate effect. Natural gas accounted for just 6% of Finland’s total energy consumption in 2020, Finnish broadcaster YLE said.

— A captured Russian soldier accused of killing a civilian awaited his fate in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial. Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, could get life in prison.

— Russian lawmakers proposed a bill to lift the age limit of 40 for Russians volunteering for military service. Currently, all Russian men 18 to 27 must undergo a year of service, though many get college deferments and other exemptions.

Heavy fighting was reported Friday in the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking expanse of coal mines and factories.

Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk, said Russian forces shelled the Lysychansk-Bakhmut highway from multiple directions, taking aim at the only road for evacuating people and delivering humanitarian supplies.

“The Russians are trying to cut us off from it, to encircle the Luhansk region,” he said via email.

Moscow’s troops have also been trying for weeks to seize Severodonetsk, a key city in the Donbas, and at least 12 people were killed there on Friday, Haidai said. A school that was sheltering more than 200 people, many of them children, was hit, and more than 60 houses were destroyed across the region, he added.

But he said the Russians took losses in the attack on Severodonetsk and were forced to retreat. His account could not be independently verified.

Another city, Rubizhne, has been “completely destroyed,” Haidai said. “Its fate can be compared to that of Mariupol.”

___

McQuillan reported from Lviv. Stashevskyi reported from Kyiv. Associated Press journalists Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Andrea Rosa in Kharkiv, Jamey Keaten in Geneva and other AP staffers around the world contributed.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Source Article from https://apnews.com/71d0dfb842caaaad30b92671637c1f3b

Twice more in subsequent months, Cordileone said, he requested meetings with Pelosi, which were denied by the speaker’s staff. And in April, he said, he sent Pelosi a second, more sternly-worded letter specifically threatening her ability to receive Holy Communion.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/20/pelosi-abortion-archbishop-communion/

A tornado touched down in Gaylord during a thunderstorm Friday afternoon, injuring dozens, killing at least one and leaving its residents stunned.

The tornado touched down at 3:45 p.m. and was much longer than the area would expect. It traveled several miles over the course of several minutes, said Jim Keysor, meteorologist at the National Weather Service. It started southwest of Gaylord and moved northeast, but the exact length and path haven’t been determined yet.

“For northern Michigan, it will likely be a fairly long, damaged path,” Keysor said. “(It wouldn’t be long if you) were in tornado alley in the plains, but for northern Michigan where we don’t receive very many tornadoes, it’s a fairly long path.”

It ripped through both residential and commercial areas. The Michigan State Police issued a 7 p.m. curfew.

Source Article from https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2022/05/20/tornado-touches-down-thunderstorm-gaylord/9862070002/

Violence again flared downtown late Thursday when nine people were shot, two fatally, near a fast-food restaurant and CTA station on the Near North Side, a shooting that came just days after the fatal shooting of a teenager near The Bean during a mass gathering of young people last weekend.

The back-to-back high-profile shootings downtown drew further response Friday from the mayor and police leaders, who have struggled to contain the violence as summer looms. Both Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Superintendent David Brown immediately blamed Thursday’s shooting on parents not keeping track of their children and a flood of guns entering the city, many carried by young people who now use them in fights that in years past may not have been deadly.

Lightfoot also again called for a visible police presence downtown, including fixed posts at the corner where the shooting Thursday took place at Chicago Avenue and State Street, and at the Chicago Avenue stop on the CTA Red Line. Brown said police had in fact instantly created a fixed post in the area and at the CTA station in question, in addition to roving units.

Lightfoot said too many youths have said they need to carry guns to feel safe, and that needs to be addressed.

“You have a ticking time bomb in your hand, in your pocket, in your purse,” she said.

The latest shooting happened about 10:40 p.m. Thursday in the 800 block of North State Street outside the Chicago Avenue subway station and a McDonald’s. Police said one person started firing a gun into a crowd during a “personal conflict” outside the fast-food outlet, then the shooter and others fled into the Red Line station where one person was injured on the third rail of the subway tracks.

One person, believed to be the shooter, was arrested and charges were pending, Brown said.

The McDonald’s and nearby blocks have been a hot spot off and on over the past few years. Corporate offices for the fast-food giant declined to comment on the company’s commitment to the location, which was closed by the city Friday.

The mayor resisted any call to bring out the National Guard to deal with violence, as the city saw during days of unrest two summers ago. The main issue is juveniles with guns, the mayor said again, not any issue that military strength could address.

Around lunchtime Friday, State and Chicago was packed with people. Many of them walked up to the closed McDonald’s, which had police tape in front of one door and traffic cones blocking the drive-thru.

One passerby said, “Oh, that was this McDonald’s?”

“Crazy what’s happening in our country right now,” another said, as he changed course from McDonald’s to a Taco Bell next door.

Jim Smaron, a retired accountant who has lived in the area since 2010, said when he first moved to the neighborhood, he considered it safe.

“It seems like in the last three, four years, it’s gotten worse,” Smaron said. “It’s the first time I’ve heard of a fatal shooting in the area from what I can remember.”

He said the area around the McDonald’s, especially with the Red Line right out front, has “always been a problem,” and with the new Whole Foods kitty-corner to the McDonald’s, more and more people will be drawn to the area.

“It goes away a little bit when the police are patrolling, like they are now, but it doesn’t solve the problem,” he said. “Mayor Lightfoot talked about improving crime, and it doesn’t seem to be improved. Not only around here but in all of Chicago. I can’t quite understand what’s going on.”

The 18th District, where the McDonald’s is located, has seen an increase from five to 15 shooting victims this year through May 18, according to official police data. That total is expected to jump after Thursday night’s shooting.

The city had been shocked earlier in the week by the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Seandell Holliday near The Bean in Millennium Park. It was unclear what role new rules that went into effect Thursday closing Millennium Park to unaccompanied minors might have played in moving groups of young people to other parts of downtown.

Brown rejected the idea the Millennium Park limits on youths played into the shooting or the moving of the gathering place for younger people. He noted the corner has been a “long-standing” problem spot and blamed the gunfire on the easy availability of guns.

“It’s not based off anything related to Millennium Park,” Brown said, including the use of police resources there compared to other places in the center of the city.

“This is a gun crime crisis in our city and our country,” Brown said. Because someone in the crowd who was involved in the argument had a weapon, gunfire erupted.

“We are awash in guns,” Brown said.

The person detained in Thursday’s shooting has not yet been identified as police are working with prosecutors to charge the possible shooter, Brown said. Police are “confident our officers captured the shooter and recovered the weapon used.”

Brown again also blamed the court system for gun offenders receiving lower bonds with putting more alleged criminals back onto the streets. Top judges and legal experts have questioned that correlation.

The two fatalities in the shooting included Antonio Wade, 30, who died due to multiple gunshot wounds and his death was ruled a homicide, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Police had said he was shot in the chest and pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

The second person who died was a 31-year-old man, who was shot in the back and pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital, police said.

The most seriously wounded victim appeared to be a 19-year-old man shot in the chest who was listed in critical condition at Northwestern, police said.

On the night of the shooting, a Red Line train traveling through the area was stopped between stations while authorities searched for a weapon on the subway’s rails, said Chief Juan Hernandez, a spokesperson with the Fire Department. He added that the department evacuated the CTA passengers at about 11:30 p.m.

Shortly before then, responders were seen removing people — at least two who appeared to be badly injured — from an area between the McDonald’s and the subway entrance on the northeast corner of State and Chicago.

Amid the chaos of the shooting’s aftermath, a woman yelled at an officer standing near the station entrance, “What hospital? My brother got shot!”

As paramedics and officers worked the scene a fight erupted between two people across the street. Shortly after 11:15 p.m. a group crossed a line of police tape and argued with officers before they were pushed back.

Deonna Jackson, 18, had come downtown to hang out with her friends.

“I was getting off the train and I spotted a group of teens fighting,” Jackson said. “The teens started rushing toward me and they’re all attacking one person — they were jumping someone.”

“I’m kind of used to that happening right here, but I just don’t involve myself.” Jackson separated herself from the tussle and “made it to the corner.”

That’s when a girl approached her, asked what was happening and asked Jackson for help, explaining that she was trying to find her friend who may have been involved in the fight.

Jackson began making her way to a 7-Eleven across the street, but things weren’t over.

“All of a sudden shots went off,” Jackson said.

Chicago Tribune’s Stephanie Casanova and Rosemary Sobol contributed.

pfry@chicagotribune.com

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sahmad@chicagotribune.com

Source Article from https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-shooting-state-street-20220520-5wmewlvx2nfchgsnds2tgh2mju-story.html

People gather at the scene of a mass shooting at Tops Friendly Market at Jefferson Avenue and Riley Street on Monday, May 16, 2022 in Buffalo, NY.

Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images


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Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

People gather at the scene of a mass shooting at Tops Friendly Market at Jefferson Avenue and Riley Street on Monday, May 16, 2022 in Buffalo, NY.

Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Extremism researchers are combing through the digital footprint believed to be left behind by the man accused of shooting 13 people, killing 10 of them, in a racially motivated attack at a Buffalo supermarket.

Among the materials is a nearly 600 page chat log written by an individual who identifies himself as Payton Gendron, the same name as the killing suspect, documenting roughly six months of personal reflections and activities leading up to the attack. The record, created on the social chat platform Discord, paints a picture of a committed racist obsessed with the mechanics of planning and executing a deadly mass shooting.

Among the questions that experts are bringing to the document are: what red flags might have been missed by those around this individual? Where might there have been an intervention? And, what insight might it offer on what differentiates someone who carries out a violent attack from others who may share similar extremist views?

But they also caution that the record should be read with a degree of skepticism.

“Although he is seemingly candidly laying out his thoughts and observations on the world [and] his planning for the attack, he’s also writing for an audience,” said Emerson Brooking, resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council. “So that means any content in the document we should treat with some suspicion.”

Missing pieces

The log, which appears to have functioned as a sort of digital diary for its author, was kept on the chat platform Discord. Shortly before the attack, its author shared a link pointing to a PDF printout of the log on another social media platform. The record at times suggests that the author was speaking to an audience during the six months he posted to the log. But a Discord spokesperson said nobody else appears to have had access to the server until just prior to the rampage.

“Approximately 30 minutes prior to the attack … a small group of people were invited to and joined the server,” a Discord spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Before that, our records indicate no other people saw the diary chat log in this private server.”

Although Discord took down the server where the document and chat log were located, copies continue to circulate online. Throughout, the author of the log writes extensively about his efforts to acquire and test equipment for the attack, and his process of determining where he would carry it out. He periodically keeps track of mundane daily details, such as his exercise routine and food intake. But researchers note that content relating to the author’s racist and anti-Semitic beliefs largely draws from other sources.

“He often lets the manifestos of previous white supremacist terrorists speak for him,” said Brooking.

The document’s author repeatedly indicates that he has edited the chat log before releasing it to the public. That, and the timeline of entries that show blocks of missing dates, has raised just as much interest around what is missing from the record as what is contained in it.

“It’s kind of like why did he delete this whole section?” said Kesa White, a program research associate at American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab. “Somebody might have been privy to information [about his planning the attack] but he deleted it because it incriminated someone.”

The writings suggest that a livestreamed video of another white terrorist attack that took place in 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed, was inspiration behind the massacre in Buffalo. And from the very beginning of the record, it is clear that the writer had committed to a path of violence.

“What really stands out is the inevitability with which he speaks about the attack. He has resolved months in advance that he is going to murder people for this racist cause,” said Brooking. “And although he often expresses doubt and suicidal ideation, he still treats it as is inevitable that he’s going to do this thing.”

Red flags and missed signs

According to the log, the author’s suicidal ideations did come to the attention of others on at least one occasion. In an incident that he revisits several times, he recounts being sent to an emergency room for nearly a full day in May 2021 after writing “murder/suicide” in response to the question “What do you want to do when you retire?” on a school assignment. Calling it a “bad experience,” he described it as a significant moment for him.

“This experience only helped to prove my belief that people, even certified doctors, are not concerned about helping you,” he wrote.

He noted that at that point he was already contemplating an attack, and so he lied and said he was making a joke. “That is the reason I believe I am still able to purchase guns,” he wrote.

The document also raises questions about his parents’ awareness of his activities and mental state. In one instance, he wrote about chasing and decapitating a cat. Then, he wrote that his mother helped him bury it.

“That’s a very big deal,” said White, whose research also includes work on serial killers. “You see that’s one of the big things that serial killers have in common … [is] the killing of animals. So all of the red flags were there.”

The writings also raise questions about whether school administrators at SUNY Broome, where the suspect was enrolled in an Engineering Science program, missed warning signs. The author’s log shows that over time he devoted ever greater amounts of time to preparing for the mass shooting. Eventually, he writes that he dropped out of college because he had missed so many classes.

In an e-mail to NPR sent Saturday evening, a SUNY Broome spokesperson confirmed that the suspect is not currently enrolled. But the statement said the university would “rely on the investigating agencies to release any additional information, as appropriate.”

When asked specifically about whether the school missed any red flags, a SUNY Broome spokesperson declined to comment Friday and referred to the previously made statement.

“I am left wondering why an intervention did not occur?” said Brooking. “How he fell so completely through the cracks and, for the better part of a year, saw as his full-time job writing a manifesto and preparing to commit an act of terrorism.”

Unique concern about this online diary

The digital diary asserts that the author was first exposed to the racist conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement, and then was inspired to commit a mass shooting, by materials he accessed online of the Christchurch, shooter. He also cites screeds posted by a number of other violent extremists, including a domestic terrorist who killed 77 people in attacks in Norway in 2011. Extremism researchers are worried that writings and video believed to be linked to the Buffalo gunman will add to the radicalizing materials that copycats look at online, and that they may even prove more harmful than what was available before the attack.

“I’m very concerned about this because for other young men in his position, they are going to find these documents and they are going to be inspired because they might read the words of of a young man who reminds them of themselves,” said Brooking.

Brooking notes that, at several points in the log, the writer expresses self-doubt about carrying out the attack and even acknowledges the humanity of some of his would-be victims. On a trip to Buffalo in March, where he writes of visiting the city to map out the attack in more detail, he writes of experiencing a panic attack.

“I find that concerning because it it opens the door for other would-be shooters to empathize with him in a way that they might not with other terrorists,” said Brooking. “They might read the words of a young man who reminds them of themselves. And it is that personal element of these documents which I think may be one of their darkest legacy in the years to come.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/05/20/1100200267/the-buffalo-shooting-suspects-online-footprint-prompts-questions-about-red-flags

Thomas was then serving on the board of CNP Action, the political advocacy arm of the Council for National Policy. CNP Action was using its influence in Republican circles at the time to try to keep Trump in office. On Nov. 13, 2020, CNP Action held a workshop entitled “Election Results and Legal Battles: What Now?” featuring, among other speakers, Cleta Mitchell, according to an agenda obtained and published by the left-leaning watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy. Mitchell, a lawyer, assisted Trump in his efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-emails/

People gather at the scene of a mass shooting at Tops Friendly Market at Jefferson Avenue and Riley Street on Monday, May 16, 2022 in Buffalo, NY.

Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images


hide caption

toggle caption

Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

People gather at the scene of a mass shooting at Tops Friendly Market at Jefferson Avenue and Riley Street on Monday, May 16, 2022 in Buffalo, NY.

Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Extremism researchers are combing through the digital footprint believed to be left behind by the man accused of shooting 13 people, killing 10 of them, in a racially motivated attack at a Buffalo supermarket.

Among the materials is a nearly 600 page chat log written by an individual who identifies himself as Payton Gendron, the same name as the killing suspect, documenting roughly six months of personal reflections and activities leading up to the attack. The record, created on the social chat platform Discord, paints a picture of a committed racist obsessed with the mechanics of planning and executing a deadly mass shooting.

Among the questions that experts are bringing to the document are: what red flags might have been missed by those around this individual? Where might there have been an intervention? And, what insight might it offer on what differentiates someone who carries out a violent attack from others who may share similar extremist views?

But they also caution that the record should be read with a degree of skepticism.

“Although he is seemingly candidly laying out his thoughts and observations on the world [and] his planning for the attack, he’s also writing for an audience,” said Emerson Brooking, resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council. “So that means any content in the document we should treat with some suspicion.”

Missing pieces

The log, which appears to have functioned as a sort of digital diary for its author, was kept on the chat platform Discord. Shortly before the attack, its author shared a link pointing to a PDF printout of the log on another social media platform. The record at times suggests that the author was speaking to an audience during the six months he posted to the log. But a Discord spokesperson said nobody else appears to have had access to the server until just prior to the rampage.

“Approximately 30 minutes prior to the attack … a small group of people were invited to and joined the server,” a Discord spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Before that, our records indicate no other people saw the diary chat log in this private server.”

Although Discord took down the server where the document and chat log were located, copies continue to circulate online. Throughout, the author of the log writes extensively about his efforts to acquire and test equipment for the attack, and his process of determining where he would carry it out. He periodically keeps track of mundane daily details, such as his exercise routine and food intake. But researchers note that content relating to the author’s racist and anti-Semitic beliefs largely draws from other sources.

“He often lets the manifestos of previous white supremacist terrorists speak for him,” said Brooking.

The document’s author repeatedly indicates that he has edited the chat log before releasing it to the public. That, and the timeline of entries that show blocks of missing dates, has raised just as much interest around what is missing from the record as what is contained in it.

“It’s kind of like why did he delete this whole section?” said Kesa White, a program research associate at American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab. “Somebody might have been privy to information [about his planning the attack] but he deleted it because it incriminated someone.”

The writings suggest that a livestreamed video of another white terrorist attack that took place in 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed, was inspiration behind the massacre in Buffalo. And from the very beginning of the record, it is clear that the writer had committed to a path of violence.

“What really stands out is the inevitability with which he speaks about the attack. He has resolved months in advance that he is going to murder people for this racist cause,” said Brooking. “And although he often expresses doubt and suicidal ideation, he still treats it as is inevitable that he’s going to do this thing.”

Red flags and missed signs

According to the log, the author’s suicidal ideations did come to the attention of others on at least one occasion. In an incident that he revisits several times, he recounts being sent to an emergency room for nearly a full day in May 2021 after writing “murder/suicide” in response to the question “What do you want to do when you retire?” on a school assignment. Calling it a “bad experience,” he described it as a significant moment for him.

“This experience only helped to prove my belief that people, even certified doctors, are not concerned about helping you,” he wrote.

He noted that at that point he was already contemplating an attack, and so he lied and said he was making a joke. “That is the reason I believe I am still able to purchase guns,” he wrote.

The document also raises questions about his parents’ awareness of his activities and mental state. In one instance, he wrote about chasing and decapitating a cat. Then, he wrote that his mother helped him bury it.

“That’s a very big deal,” said White, whose research also includes work on serial killers. “You see that’s one of the big things that serial killers have in common … [is] the killing of animals. So all of the red flags were there.”

The writings also raise questions about whether school administrators at SUNY Broome, where the suspect was enrolled in an Engineering Science program, missed warning signs. The author’s log shows that over time he devoted ever greater amounts of time to preparing for the mass shooting. Eventually, he writes that he dropped out of college because he had missed so many classes.

In an e-mail to NPR sent Saturday evening, a SUNY Broome spokesperson confirmed that the suspect is not currently enrolled. But the statement said the university would “rely on the investigating agencies to release any additional information, as appropriate.”

When asked specifically about whether the school missed any red flags, a SUNY Broome spokesperson declined to comment Friday and referred to the previously made statement.

“I am left wondering why an intervention did not occur?” said Brooking. “How he fell so completely through the cracks and, for the better part of a year, saw as his full-time job writing a manifesto and preparing to commit an act of terrorism.”

Unique concern about this online diary

The digital diary asserts that the author was first exposed to the racist conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement, and then was inspired to commit a mass shooting, by materials he accessed online of the Christchurch, shooter. He also cites screeds posted by a number of other violent extremists, including a domestic terrorist who killed 77 people in attacks in Norway in 2011. Extremism researchers are worried that writings and video believed to be linked to the Buffalo gunman will add to the radicalizing materials that copycats look at online, and that they may even prove more harmful than what was available before the attack.

“I’m very concerned about this because for other young men in his position, they are going to find these documents and they are going to be inspired because they might read the words of of a young man who reminds them of themselves,” said Brooking.

Brooking notes that, at several points in the log, the writer expresses self-doubt about carrying out the attack and even acknowledges the humanity of some of his would-be victims. On a trip to Buffalo in March, where he writes of visiting the city to map out the attack in more detail, he writes of experiencing a panic attack.

“I find that concerning because it it opens the door for other would-be shooters to empathize with him in a way that they might not with other terrorists,” said Brooking. “They might read the words of a young man who reminds them of themselves. And it is that personal element of these documents which I think may be one of their darkest legacy in the years to come.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/05/20/1100200267/the-buffalo-shooting-suspects-online-footprint-prompts-questions-about-red-flags

Intense fighting has been reported around the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk as Russian forces appear to be stepping up an offensive to encircle its Ukrainian defenders.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk – known collectively as the Donbas – were being turned into “hell” and warned that what he called the “final stage of the war” would be the bloodiest.

“In Donbas, the occupiers are trying to increase pressure. There’s hell, and that’s not an exaggeration,” Zelenskiy said. “The brutal and absolutely pointless bombing of Severodonetsk … 12 dead and dozens wounded in just one day. The bombing and shelling of other cities, the air and missile strikes of the Russian army – all this is not just hostilities during the war.”

According to multiple sources, Russian troops were pushing west of the Russian-occupied town of Popasna and also attempting to gain ground to the north of Severodonetsk, advancing more than 10km in at least one region with residents fleeing under shellfire.

The focus of the main Russian advance appeared to be the town of Soledar amid speculation that their initial aim was to cut one of the main supply routes to thousands of Ukrainian defenders, who are outnumbered by Russian forces.

Severodonetsk, and the Ukrainian forces there, are particularly vulnerable, with Russian forces threatening from three sides and the operation would put one of the remaining areas of the Luhansk region under Ukrainian control under threat.

Russia has turned Donbas region into hell, says Zelenskiy – video

According to the governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the city of Bakhmut, to the west of Popasna, has been under constant airstrikes with Russian troops approaching the town. Severodonetsk also came under heavy attack. Its mayor, Oleksandr Striuk, said 12 civilians had been killed in the past day and up to 15,000 civilians were sheltering in the city’s bomb shelters.

“The Russian army has started very intensive destruction of the town of Severodonetsk, the intensity of shelling doubled, they are shelling residential quarters, destroying house by house,” Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai said via his Telegram channel.

“We do not know how many people died, because it is simply impossible to go through and look at every apartment,” he said. Hadai said at least three people had been killed when shelling hit a school in which they were sheltering.

The Institute of War thinktank reported “intensifying” Russian operations north and west of Popasna in “preparation for an offensive towards Severodonetsk”.

The Ukrainian general staff said 260 service personnel withdrawn from the Kharkiv city area had arrived to replace the significant combat losses, and phone intercepts of newly arrived Russian soldiers suggested they were “shocked by the intensity of the fighting there” in comparison with what they had seen around Kharkiv.

Map

British military intelligence said on Friday Russia was likely to further reinforce its operations in Donbas once it finally secured the southern port city of Mariupol, the scene of a weeks-long siege and Russia’s most significant success in an otherwise faltering campaign.

It said as many as 1,700 soldiers were likely to have surrendered at the Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol, matching a similar number released on Thursday by Moscow.

Ukrainian officials have declined to comment on the number, saying it could endanger rescue efforts.

The commander of the Azov regiment that has been defending the steelworks said in a video published on Friday that civilians and heavily wounded fighters had been evacuated from the site, giving no further clue about the fate of the rest of its defenders.

“We have constantly emphasised the three most important conditions for us: civilians, wounded and dead,” Lt Col Denys Prokopenko said in the video shared on the Telegram messaging app. “The civilians have been evacuated. The heavily wounded received the necessary assistance and they were evacuated, to be later exchanged and delivered to territory controlled by Ukraine.”

The US Senate has pushed through a $40bn package of military, economic and food aid for Ukraine, putting a bipartisan stamp on America’s biggest commitment yet to turning the invasion into a painful quagmire for Moscow.

The legislation was approved 86-11 on Thursday, backed by every voting Democrat and most Republicans. The package now goes to Joe Biden to be signed.

“I applaud the Congress for sending a clear bipartisan message to the world that the people of the United States stand together with the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their democracy and freedom,” Biden said in a written statement.

Zelenskiy thanked the US. “This is a demonstration of strong leadership and a necessary contribution to our common defence of freedom,” he said in his nightly video address to Ukrainians.

Separately, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Friday said that the number of cyber-attacks on Russia by foreign “state structures” had increased during the conflict and that Moscow would need to bolster its cyber-defences by cutting the risk of using foreign software and hardware.

“Purposeful attempts are being made to disable the internet resources of Russia’s critical information infrastructure”, Putin said.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/20/russia-ukraine-war-severodonetsk-zelenskiy-says-donbas-hell

For the third time this week, Chicago’s top cop found himself on the defensive over gun violence Friday, this time over a mass shooting downtown that left two dead and seven injured.

The people were shot near a notorious trouble-spot at Chicago Avenue and State Street as two groups began fighting near a McDonald’s restaurant and someone opened fire into the crowd.

The attack occurred just a day after Chicago police shot and seriously wounded an unarmed 13-year-old boy during a chase in Austin, and less than a week after a 16-year-old boy was fatally shot during a fight in Millennium Park.

Shootings have been spiking downtown for much of the year. The 18th police district, where the McDonald’s is located, has logged the most homicides in 17 years and the most shootings since at least 2010.

“This is a gun crime crisis,” Brown told reporters who pressed him on his strategy going into the summer, typically the most violent time in the city. ”We are awash in guns.”

Brown was asked about a tweet from Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) complaining about the “daily excuses coming out of the superintendent’s office [that] insult intelligence & are infuriating.”

Reilly in particular questioned Brown’s plan to assign fixed police posts at State and Chicago and on the Red Line subway platform nearby in the wake of Thursday night’s attack.

“We were already supposed to have fixed posts in place at Chicago & State. So, huh?” the alderperson tweeted. “City Council needs to step in & demand accountability. Their strategy is failing us miserably.”

Brown declined to respond to the tweet, but he insisted during the news conference that his strategies helped make an arrest within minutes of the mass shooting.

Chicago police work the scene where two people were killed and at least eight others wounded in a mass shooting at Chicago Avenue and State Street on the Near North Side,

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times

A witness at the scene said the shooting stemmed from a fight outside a nearby McDonald’s.

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Brown said “roving posts” of police officers have been patrolling downtown and one of the teams was responding to the fight at McDonald’s when shots rang out around 10:40 p.m.

“Our officers waded into the crowd,” Brown said.

They chased the gunman onto the Red Line subway platform and arrested him along with someone who tried to help him escape, the superintendent said. A gun was recovered, police said.

A third suspect being chased suffered burns when she came into contact with the third rail. She was stabilized at Stroger Hospital.

Charges against the three were still pending as Brown spoke.

The superintendent said the attack was recorded by a police surveillance camera. Two groups are arguing when someone can be seen handing the shooter a gun, Brown said.

Five people were taken by ambulances to hospitals: A male with a gunshot wound to the chest, pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and identified as Antonio Wade, 30, by the Cook County medical examiner’s office; a 31-year-old man pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital; a 17-year-old boy taken to Stroger with multiple gunshot wounds; another man, 19, taken to Northwestern in critical condition with a gunshot wound to his chest; a 46-year-old woman shot in the leg and taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where she was stabilized.

Later, four men also hurt in the shooting showed up at Northwestern Memorial Hospital: a 31-year-old shot in the hand, a 21-year-old shot in the arm, a 30-year-old with two graze wounds and a 29-year-old with one graze wound, police said. They were all in good condition.

Police had initially said a total of 10 people were shot, but later changed that to 9.

The chaotic scene quickly spilled into the nearby CTA Red Line station as police chased the suspects, stopping at least one train and evacuating passengers.

Witnesses said the shooting stemmed from a fight outside the McDonald’s.

“When the fight first started, we were right next to them,” said Deonna Jackson, 18. “We had to run because I didn’t want anyone to swing on me.”

“We were literally right there,” she said. “The person that they jumped on, we were talking to the people he was with, which turned out to be some girls.”

“We get to 7-Eleven, we turn around and they just get to shooting, to shooting like crazy,” Jackson said.

Tensions erupted among the crowd of onlookers, some of them yelling as officers blocked off the streets around the McDonald’s. Some in the crowd began fighting with each other and officers quickly moved in to break them up.

One person asked an officer why it had to be this way. “It doesn’t have to be,” the officer responded.

As the sun rose Friday, two people who said they knew one of the victims at Northwestern talked near a car where a woman, appearing distraught, spoke to someone on the phone.

“There’s nothing you can do or say to help us right now,” one of them said.

He said it was difficult getting information from police and hospitals. “These victims have mothers.”

About an hour later, the woman was seen leaving the hospital in tears. Three others sobbed and hugged each other near the hospital’s entrance.

Around the same time, Mayor Lori Lightfoot was issuing a statement calling the shooting “an outrageous act of violence” and saying she has asked the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection to determine what measures need to be taken “to address long-standing concerns along that block.”

Lea este artículo en español en La Voz Chicago, un servicio presentado por AARP Chicago.

“Area residents, commuters and others must simply have the peace of mind that this highly trafficked area is safe, and it is time for more specific, concrete steps to be taken to address this area once and for all,” Lightfoot said.

Later in the morning, the Buildings Department sent inspectors to the McDoanld’s and posted an “off limits” notice because of “dangerous and hazardous electrical conditions.” The statement did not elaborate.

The closure came despite comments made Friday by Kenneth J. Meyer, head of the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, who said he didn’t want to over react in yanking the business license for the McDonald’s because the restaurant provides a food option for many nearby hospital workers who work overnight shifts.

Morning commuters had complained that blood, broken glass and other debris from the shooting remained on the sidewalks around the restaurant and subway stop as they headed to work.

When asked about the complaints, Brown said: “This is an ongoing crime scene that needs to be processed for evidence.”

A reporter then noted that commuters were navigating puddles of blood in an area that was not cordoned off by crime scene tape. “I stand by my response,” Brown said.

Brown’s curt manner came a day after he declined to fully answer questions about the shooting of an unarmed 13-year-old boy by a Chicago police officer on the West Side.

On Monday, Brown fended off questions about a 16-year-old boy shot dead near the Bean sculpture, telling reporters to attend a court hearing for the person accused of shooting him.

Source Article from https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2022/5/19/23131980/chicago-mass-shooting-2022-near-north-side-mcdonalds

Heat advisories are in effect for much of the Acela Corridor in the Northeast, including Philadelphia, Newark, parts of the New York City metro, Hartford, Conn., Providence, R.I., and Boston, where heat indexes — reflecting how hot it feels factoring in the air temperature and humidity — could range between 100 and 105 degrees. It’s the first heat advisory issued during the month of May by the National Weather Service in New York dating back to at least 2006; the same is true for the Boston office.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/05/20/heat-wave-east-coast/

You can watch Jake Tapper’s exclusive interview with Trevor Reed in a CNN Special Report: “Finally Home: The Trevor Reed Interview,” on CNN and CNN International on Sunday, May 22, at 8 p.m. ET.

Trevor Reed, an American citizen and former Marine recently freed after two years in a Russian prison, detailed his harrowing experience surviving a psychiatric treatment facility in the country in an exclusive interview with CNN.

“The psychiatric treatment facility, I was in there with seven other prisoners in a cell. They all had severe, psychological health issues – most of ‘em. So over 50% of them in that cell were in there for murder. Or, like, multiple murders, sexual assault and murder – just really disturbed individuals,” Reed told CNN’s Jake Tapper in a newly released clip from the upcoming CNN Special Report, “Finally Home: The Trevor Reed Interview,” which airs Sunday night.

“And inside of that cell, you know, that was not a good place,” he added.

“There was blood all over the walls there – where prisoners had killed themselves, or killed other prisoners, or attempted to do that,” Reed continued. “The toilet’s just a hole in the floor. And there’s, you know, crap everywhere, all over the floor, on the walls. There’s people in there also that walk around that look like zombies.”

In the clip, which aired on CNN’s “New Day” Friday morning, Reed said he did not sleep for a couple of days out of fear of what the people in his cell might do to him.

“You felt they might kill you?” Tapper asked, to which Reed replied: “Yes. I thought that was a possibility.”

Reed said he believed he was sent to the facility as a punishment for his continued push to appeal his conviction. His return to the United States late last month ended a nearly three-year ordeal.

The former US Marine was sentenced to nine years in prison in July 2020 after being accused of endangering the “life and health” of Russian police officers in an altercation the previous year. Reed and his family have denied the charges against him.

Ultimately, Reed was returned to the US as part of a prisoner swap in exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian smuggler convicted of conspiring to import cocaine. The US commuted his sentence.

Behind the scenes, officials both inside and outside the US government had for years been working to get Reed released. Last month’s swap, one administration official told CNN, was the culmination of “months and months of hard careful work across the US government” that took place against the backdrop of growing tensions between Washington and Moscow – exacerbated dramatically by Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine.

It was the combination of factors around Reed’s case – including the urgent need to address his deteriorating health in prison, his family’s consistent activism which led to a meeting with Biden, and the situation in Ukraine – that led Biden to authorize the swap for Yaroshenko, a source told CNN last month.

‘I wouldn’t let myself hope’

Reed told Tapper that he felt like he would never return to the US, saying he didn’t have confidence that he would ever get out of the Russian prison.

“And a lot of people are not going to like what I’m gonna say about this, but I kind of viewed their – having hope as being a weakness,” he said. “So I did not wanna have that hope of, like, me, you know, being released somehow and then have that taken from me.”

“You denied yourself hope?” Tapper asked.

“Yeah,” Reed said. “I wouldn’t let myself hope.”

But Reed’s loved ones in the US held onto their hope throughout his imprisonment.

Reed’s family are the only relatives of a detainee held in Russia to have met with President Joe Biden to make their case. And they say that meeting was crucial to bringing Reed home.

“We believe that that meeting with the President is what made it happen,” Joey Reed, Trevor’s father, said last month. Trevor’s mother, Paula, also called the meeting “a tipping point.”

Reed and his family have vowed to continue their activism and fight for Americans unlawfully detained abroad.

Two other Americans, Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner, remain detained in Russia.

A senior administration official told CNN last month that they do not necessarily see Reed’s successful repatriation as translating to momentum for Whelan’s and Griner’s cases, but said the US government will continue to press for their release, and the channel for potential swaps will remain open.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, on Saturday.

According to a senior State Department official, the top US diplomat relayed that Griner’s release is a top priority for the department and has his full attention.

Griner’s family, in a statement obtained by CNN, said they are “grateful for the time Secretary Blinken took on his recent call with Cherelle and look forward to her face-to-face meeting with the President.”

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect that Trevor Reed’s parents are the only relatives of a detainee held by Russia to have met with President Joe Biden.

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/20/politics/trevor-reed-detainment-russia-cnntv/index.html

People gather at the scene of a mass shooting at Tops Friendly Market at Jefferson Avenue and Riley Street on Monday, May 16, 2022 in Buffalo, NY.

Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images


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Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

People gather at the scene of a mass shooting at Tops Friendly Market at Jefferson Avenue and Riley Street on Monday, May 16, 2022 in Buffalo, NY.

Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Extremism researchers are combing through the digital footprint believed to be left behind by the man accused of shooting 13 people, killing 10 of them, in a racially motivated attack at a Buffalo supermarket.

Among the materials is a nearly 600 page chat log written by an individual who identifies himself as Payton Gendron, the same name as the killing suspect, documenting roughly six months of personal reflections and activities leading up to the attack. The record, created on the social chat platform Discord, paints a picture of a committed racist obsessed with the mechanics of planning and executing a deadly mass shooting.

Among the questions that experts are bringing to the document are: what red flags might have been missed by those around this individual? Where might there have been an intervention? And, what insight might it offer on what differentiates someone who carries out a violent attack from others who may share similar extremist views?

But they also caution that the record should be read with a degree of skepticism.

“Although he is seemingly candidly laying out his thoughts and observations on the world [and] his planning for the attack, he’s also writing for an audience,” said Emerson Brooking, resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council. “So that means any content in the document we should treat with some suspicion.”

Missing pieces

The log, which appears to have functioned as a sort of digital diary for its author, was kept on the chat platform Discord. Shortly before the attack, its author shared a link pointing to a PDF printout of the log on another social media platform. The record at times suggests that the author was speaking to an audience during the six months he posted to the log. But a Discord spokesperson said nobody else appears to have had access to the server until just prior to the rampage.

“Approximately 30 minutes prior to the attack … a small group of people were invited to and joined the server,” a Discord spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Before that, our records indicate no other people saw the diary chat log in this private server.”

Although Discord took down the server where the document and chat log were located, copies continue to circulate online. Throughout, the author of the log writes extensively about his efforts to acquire and test equipment for the attack, and his process of determining where he would carry it out. He periodically keeps track of mundane daily details, such as his exercise routine and food intake. But researchers note that content relating to the author’s racist and anti-Semitic beliefs largely draws from other sources.

“He often lets the manifestos of previous white supremacist terrorists speak for him,” said Brooking.

The document’s author repeatedly indicates that he has edited the chat log before releasing it to the public. That, and the timeline of entries that show blocks of missing dates, has raised just as much interest around what is missing from the record as what is contained in it.

“It’s kind of like why did he delete this whole section?” said Kesa White, a program research associate at American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab. “Somebody might have been privy to information [about his planning the attack] but he deleted it because it incriminated someone.”

The writings suggest that a livestreamed video of another white terrorist attack that took place in 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed, was inspiration behind the massacre in Buffalo. And from the very beginning of the record, it is clear that the writer had committed to a path of violence.

“What really stands out is the inevitability with which he speaks about the attack. He has resolved months in advance that he is going to murder people for this racist cause,” said Brooking. “And although he often expresses doubt and suicidal ideation, he still treats it as is inevitable that he’s going to do this thing.”

Red flags and missed signs

According to the log, the author’s suicidal ideations did come to the attention of others on at least one occasion. In an incident that he revisits several times, he recounts being sent to an emergency room for nearly a full day in May 2021 after writing “murder/suicide” in response to the question “What do you want to do when you retire?” on a school assignment. Calling it a “bad experience,” he described it as a significant moment for him.

“This experience only helped to prove my belief that people, even certified doctors, are not concerned about helping you,” he wrote.

He noted that at that point he was already contemplating an attack, and so he lied and said he was making a joke. “That is the reason I believe I am still able to purchase guns,” he wrote.

The document also raises questions about his parents’ awareness of his activities and mental state. In one instance, he wrote about chasing and decapitating a cat. Then, he wrote that his mother helped him bury it.

“That’s a very big deal,” said White, whose research also includes work on serial killers. “You see that’s one of the big things that serial killers have in common … [is] the killing of animals. So all of the red flags were there.”

The writings also raise questions about whether school administrators at SUNY Broome, where the suspect was enrolled in an Engineering Science program, missed warning signs. The author’s log shows that over time he devoted ever greater amounts of time to preparing for the mass shooting. Eventually, he writes that he dropped out of college because he had missed so many classes.

In an e-mail to NPR sent Saturday evening, a SUNY Broome spokesperson confirmed that the suspect is not currently enrolled. But the statement said the university would “rely on the investigating agencies to release any additional information, as appropriate.”

When asked specifically about whether the school missed any red flags, a SUNY Broome spokesperson declined to comment Friday and referred to the previously made statement.

“I am left wondering why an intervention did not occur?” said Brooking. “How he fell so completely through the cracks and, for the better part of a year, saw as his full-time job writing a manifesto and preparing to commit an act of terrorism.”

Unique concern about this online diary

The digital diary asserts that the author was first exposed to the racist conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement, and then was inspired to commit a mass shooting, by materials he accessed online of the Christchurch, shooter. He also cites screeds posted by a number of other violent extremists, including a domestic terrorist who killed 77 people in attacks in Norway in 2011. Extremism researchers are worried that writings and video believed to be linked to the Buffalo gunman will add to the radicalizing materials that copycats look at online, and that they may even prove more harmful than what was available before the attack.

“I’m very concerned about this because for other young men in his position, they are going to find these documents and they are going to be inspired because they might read the words of of a young man who reminds them of themselves,” said Brooking.

Brooking notes that, at several points in the log, the writer expresses self-doubt about carrying out the attack and even acknowledges the humanity of some of his would-be victims. On a trip to Buffalo in March, where he writes of visiting the city to map out the attack in more detail, he writes of experiencing a panic attack.

“I find that concerning because it it opens the door for other would-be shooters to empathize with him in a way that they might not with other terrorists,” said Brooking. “They might read the words of a young man who reminds them of themselves. And it is that personal element of these documents which I think may be one of their darkest legacy in the years to come.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/05/20/1100200267/the-buffalo-shooting-suspects-online-footprint-prompts-questions-about-red-flags

Standing together today, we reject the bloody creed that might makes right, and we declare a more powerful creed, all for one and one for all,” Biden said. “Because what makes NATO strong isn’t just our enormous military capacity, but our commitment to each other, to its values. NATO is an alliance of choice, not coercion.”

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/19/biden-finland-sweden/

LIVE UPDATES

This is CNBC’s live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine. See below for the latest updates. 

Russia says it has sent 900 Ukrainian soldiers to a former prison colony in a Russia-controlled part of Donetsk.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine is likely to continue throughout the summer and possibly beyond, despite signs that parts of the country are returning to some normalcy, Ukraine’s presidential advisor Oleksii Arestovych said, according to NBC News.

“It is quite clear to me that this war is unlikely to end by the fall,” Arestovich said on Ukrainian TV, NBC News reported. It comes as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seeks to extend martial law for another 90 days.

In some positive news, the U.S. Congress cleared $40 billion in aid for the war-torn country. It now goes to President Joe Biden for his final signature.

Failure to reopen Ukrainian ports would be a declaration of war on global food security: World Food Programme

A failure to open Ukrainian ports would be a declaration of war on global food security in this “unprecedented crisis,” warned the World Food Programme’s executive director, David Beasley.

“Food pricing is our number one problem right now, as a result of all this perfect storm for 2022,” Beasley said. “But by 2023 it very well will be a food availability problem.”

Ukraine is a major exporter of agriculture, feeding about 400 million people globally, according to WFP.

WFP’s analysis found that 276 million people globally were suffering from acute hunger at the start of 2022. If the war continues, that number could rise by 47 million.

Because ports in Ukraine have been blocked as a result of the war, millions of metric tons of grain cannot be shipped out, the WFP said.

Ukrainian farmers won’t have anywhere to store the next harvest in July or August if ports are not reopened, which means the grains will go to waste while the world struggles with a global food crisis, WFP said.

Food prices have soared since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. Food prices are at the highest levels ever recorded by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, up 34% from this time last year.

— Chelsea Ong

Blinken slams Russian claims that sanctions have caused mounting food crisis

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken slammed Russian claims that U.S. sanctions, rather than Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, triggered the worsening global food crisis.

“Sanctions aren’t blocking Black Sea ports, trapping ships filled with food, and destroying Ukrainian roads and railways; Russia is. Sanctions are not emptying Ukrainian grain silos and stealing Ukrainian farm equipment; Russia is,” Blinken said before the United Nations Security Council.

“Sanctions aren’t preventing Russia from exporting food and fertilizer,” he said. He added that Moscow has chosen to weaponize these commodities.

Blinken added that the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies have deliberately included “exceptions for food, fertilizer and seeds from Russia.” America’s top diplomat reiterated calls for Russia to stop “blockading the ports in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov and to allow for the free flow of ships and trains and trucks carrying food out of Ukraine.”

“Stop preventing food and other lifesaving supplies from reaching civilians in besieged Ukrainian towns and cities,” he added.

 — Amanda Macias

U.S. approves 10th security assistance package for Ukraine worth $100 million

The Pentagon announced the authorization of a tenth U.S. security assistance package of up to $100 million for Ukraine.

“Capabilities in this package are tailored to meet critical Ukrainian needs for today’s fight as Russian forces continue their offensive in eastern Ukraine,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said during a daily press briefing.

The package includes: 

  • 18 155mm Howitzers
  • 18 tactical vehicles to tow the 155mm Howitzers
  • Three AN/TPQ-36 counter-artillery radars
  • Field equipment and spare parts

 — Amanda Macias

Zelenskyy praises passage of $40 billion U.S. aid package

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the passage of the $40 billion security assistance package, the largest U.S. aid package for Ukraine thus far.

Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter that “$40 billion is a significant contribution to the restoration of peace and security in Ukraine, Europe and the world.”

President Joe Biden is slated to sign the bill after the Senate passed the measure with an 86 to 11 vote. The bill will finance defense equipment, refugee assistance as well as emergency food aid for Ukraine.

 — Amanda Macias

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff speaks with Russian counterpart

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley spoke with his Russian counterpart via phone, the Pentagon confirmed.

“The military leaders discussed several security-related issues of concern and agreed to keep the lines of communication open,” Milley’s spokesman U.S. Army Col. Dave Butler wrote in a summary of the call with Chief of Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov.

“In accordance with past practice, the specific details of their conversation will be kept private,” Butler added.

The call comes a week after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held a phone call with his Russian counterpart, the first known discussion since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

 — Amanda Macias

Senate passes $40 billion assistance package for Ukraine

The Senate passed a $40 billion military and humanitarian assistance package for Ukraine, the largest aid package for the war-weary country to date.

The Senate voted 86 to 11 on Thursday, effectively passing the bill to President Joe Biden for his final signature.

The bill, which passed in the House on May 10, provides funding for defense equipment, migration and refugee assistance and emergency food assistance.

 — Amanda Macias

Davos returns from pandemic, but without Russian guests

After a nearly 2-1/2-year hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Swiss town of Davos is set to again host global elites from business, government and activist groups for the World Economic Forum.

Russia’s war in Ukraine and climate change worries are expected to be on many minds at the event starting Monday as concern over the pandemic ebbs.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to pipe in virtually. The biggest delegation of top Ukrainian government officials to leave the country since the war started are set to attend Davos in person, organizers said. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, forum hosts invited no Russian officials or business leaders this year.

“I’m positive that that was the right decision,” forum president Borge Brende said during a news conference Wednesday. “We do hope, though, that Russia will follow a different path … in the years to come, to start to stick to the U.N. Charter and to their international obligations.”

— Associated Press

Biden says Sweden and Finland have complete support from U.S. to join NATO

President Joe Biden, flanked by the leaders of Sweden and Finland, said both nations have the “full backing” of the United States in their bid to join NATO.

Biden’s remarks come on the heels of filed applications by both Sweden and Finland to join the world’s most powerful alliance.

Both Finland and Sweden already meet many of the requirements to be a NATO member, like having a functioning democratic political system, willingness to provide economic transparency and the ability to make military contributions to NATO missions.

However, all 30 NATO members must give unanimous approval for a country to be accepted into the alliance.

 — Amanda Macias

NATO increases air policing flights over eastern flank

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg praised Denmark’s security contributions to the military alliance during a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. Stoltenberg namely applauded Danish support in air policing missions over NATO member countries in the east.

From fighter jets to surveillance aircraft, the NATO alliance has placed up to 30 aircraft on patrol over the skies of its eastern flank. The additional flights come as Russian officials warn of “grave consequences” for any NATO expansion, including the recent applications from Finland and Sweden to join the military alliance.

So far, the U.S. has committed the most types of aircraft to complement the alliance’s security mission.

Here’s an overview of the NATO member aircraft flying the skies:

 — Amanda Macias

UN says at least 3,811 killed in Ukraine since start of war

The United Nations has confirmed 3,811 civilian deaths and 4,278 injuries in Ukraine since Russia invaded its ex-Soviet neighbor on Feb. 24.

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the death toll in Ukraine is likely higher, because the armed conflict can delay reports.

The international body said most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, as well as missiles and airstrikes.

 — Amanda Macias

Hundreds of Azovstal prisoners of war registered, Red Cross says

The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it continues to register prisoners of war from the Azovstal steelworks plant in Mariupol, and has registered hundreds already this week.

The ICRC started to register combatants leaving the Azovstal plant on Tuesday, including the wounded, with the operation continuing through to today. It did not give an exact number of how many soldiers had been registered.

The Red Cross noted that it is not transporting POWs to the places where they are held, with Russia reporting yesterday that it had transferred 900 Ukrainian fighters from the plant to a former prison colony. It’s unknown what will happen to the fighters.

The Red Cross says it has been collecting vital personal information from the fighters who have been captured in a bid to help them keep in touch with their families.

In accordance with the mandate given to the Red Cross by the 1949 Geneva Conventions, it said it must have immediate access to all POWs in all places where they are held. The ICRC must be allowed to interview prisoners of war without witnesses, and the duration and frequency of these visits should not be unduly restricted.

Whenever circumstances permit, each party to the conflict must take all possible measures to search for and collect the dead.

—Holly Ellyatt

Russia forces focus fighting on Donetsk, Ukraine says

Ukraine’s armed forces have said the main focus of Russian fighters is on Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

In the latest operational update posted on Facebook, Ukraine said 16 Russian attacks were repulsed in the Donetsk and Luhansk directions last night with eight Russian tanks, 17 units of armored combat vehicles, four special armored vehicles and six conventional enemy vehicles destroyed.

They also said Russian forces were trying to regain lost positions around the major city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine. Earlier in the week, Russian forces were driven back as far as the border.

Ukraine claimed that Russia was looking to involve university students in occupied Donetsk “in hostilities” in the absence of other resources that could be mobilized. The information was not able to be verified.

— Holly Ellyatt

Correction: This post was updated to correct the location of Kharkiv. It’s in northeastern Ukraine.

Vyshyvanka Day in Ukraine

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has wished his compatriots all the best for Vyshyvanka Day, a national day celebrating Ukraine’s folk traditions and culture with the national costume, the embroidered traditional dress called the “vyshyvanka.”

“I wish you health. Strong, unbreakable, brave and free. Happy Vyshyvanka Day, Ukraine!,” Zelenskyy said on his Telegram channel today, while sporting his own embroidered shirt.

The day, traditionally celebrated on the third Thursday of May every year, has more resonance this year as it takes place as Ukraine remains under attack from Russia.

Holly Ellyatt

Cease-fire in Ukraine impossible unless Russia withdraws all troops, official says

One of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s advisors has said that a cease-fire in Ukraine is impossible unless all Russian troops withdraw.

On Twitter Thursday, Mykhailo Podolyak said: “do not offer us a ceasefire – this is impossible without total Russian troops withdrawal.”

Ukraine is not interested in new “Minsk” accords and a renewal of the war in a few years, he said, referring to several failed agreements which aimed to end the conflict in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine —between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces — that had been going on since 2014 before Russia’s wider invasion.

Until Russia “is ready to fully liberate occupied territories, our negotiating team is weapons, sanctions and money,” he said.

Holly Ellyatt

Moscow is firing senior commanders for battlefield failures, says British government

Moscow over recent weeks has fired senior military commanders for failures in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The U.K. Ministry of Defence pointed to Lt. Gen. Serhiy Kisel, whose forces failed to capture Ukraine’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv. Also suspended was Vice Admiral Igor Osipov, who commanded the Black Sea Fleet until its flagship, the Moskva, was sunk in April.

Valeriy Gerasimov, Russian Chief of the General Staff, “likely remains in his post,” but it’s unclear whether President Vladimir Putin retains confidence in him.

The press office of the Russian defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In an intelligence update, the British ministry predicted that Russia will face difficulty regaining the initiative in its war against Ukraine, because generals and other officials will want to seek cover by deferring to their superiors on key decisions.

“Many officials involved in the invasion of Ukraine will likely be increasingly distracted by efforts to avoid personal culpability for Russia’s operational setbacks,” the Ministry of Defence said.

— Ted Kemp

Russia says it has sent 900 Ukrainian soldiers to former prison colony

Russia said 900 Ukrainian soldiers have been taken to a former prison colony, in a Russian-controlled part of Donetsk.

Speaking on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, citing Russia’s defense ministry, that 959 Ukrainian fighters, including 51 with severe wounds, “have laid down their arms over two days.”

While the injured were receiving medical care at a hospital in the pro-Russian “Donetsk People’s Republic” in the Donbas region of east Ukraine, “the rest were sent to a pre-trial detention center,” she said, in Olenivka, where a former prison colony is located.

On Monday, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman said on Telegram that the Russian military was holding more than 3,000 civilians from Mariupol at the former penal colony with some subjected to interrogation and torture, she said. The information is unverified, however.

The soldiers had been holed up in the Azovstal steelworks plant in Mariupol and had been evacuated earlier this week and taken to Russian-controlled territory. There were expectations that they could be exchanged for Russian soldiers in Ukrainian control but that’s uncertain.

Ukraine has said there are more of its fighters left in the Azovstal steelworks but has not said how many.

The complex was seen as the last stronghold of Ukraine’s forces in the southern port city — one that Russia has aimed to control from the start of its invasion on Feb. 24 and which is seen as a strategic objective for Moscow as it aims to create a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

Ukraine said its soldiers had been “evacuated” while Russia claimed they had “surrendered.”

Holly Ellyatt

Ukraine’s presidential advisor says the war is unlikely to end by fall

The war in Ukraine is likely to continue through the summer and possibly beyond, despite signs that some parts of the country are returning to some normalcy, Ukraine’s presidential advisor Oleksii Arestovych said, NBC News cited.

“It is quite clear to me that this war is unlikely to end by the fall,” Arestovich said on Ukrainian TV, according to NBC News.

This comes as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seeks to extend martial law for another 90 days, NBC News reported.

Since the war started on Feb. 24, martial law has been extended twice, with the current order set to end on May 25.

— Chelsea Ong

Biden optimistic about Finland and Sweden joining NATO, despite Turkey’s concerns

U.S. President Joe Biden sounded optimistic that Turkey can be persuaded to support Finland and Sweden in their bids to join NATO.

“I think we’re gonna be okay,” Biden told reporters when asked if he could convince Turkey to change its mind.

Biden’s remark came two days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan doubled down on his country’s opposition to the two new candidates for the international security alliance.

The White House nevertheless echoed Biden’s optimism at a press briefing.

“We’re confident that at the end of the day, Finland and Sweden will have an effective and efficient accession process, [and] that Turkey’s concerns can be addressed,” said Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan.

He noted that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in talks with his Turkish counterpart. “We feel very good about where this will track to,” Sullivan said.

Kevin Breuninger

U.S. reopens embassy in Kyiv after closing it for three months

The U.S. reopened its embassy in Kyiv after closing it for three months before and during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“When we suspended operations at the embassy, we made the point clear: while we would relocate U.S. embassy personnel for their safety and security, this would in no way prevent our engagement with and support for, the Ukrainian people, government and civil society as well as our allies and partners,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in a statement.

As it raised the American flag over the compound, the U.S. became the latest Western country to resume diplomatic operations in Kyiv.

Blinken said the U.S. enhanced security measures and protocols at the embassy ahead of the reopening and return of American diplomats.

 — Amanda Macias

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/19/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took a break between visiting Amazon union workers and endorsing progressive candidates to get engaged to her longtime partner Riley Roberts.

Ocasio-Cortez, 32, confirmed to Insider on Thursday that she and Roberts, who met while both were at Boston University, got engaged last month while visiting her parents’ home town in Puerto Rico.

She then wrote on Twitter: “It’s true! Thank you all for the well wishes.”

According to Insider, the pair were quiet about their relationship even before Ocasio-Cortez became a popular political voice, and their friends at university did not always know they were together.

Roberts has also been one of her greatest support systems throughout her career, according to a biography published earlier this year, People magazine reported.

“What we do know about Roberts doesn’t fit the stereotype of a politician’s partner,” writes Josh Gondelman in an essay in Take Up Space: The Unprecedented AOC by the editors of New York magazine.

“He doesn’t seem focus-grouped or media-trained for state dinners and press conferences. We know he’s supportive and encouraging in private,” Gondelman writes. “And his expertise, as far as his public image goes, is his elusiveness and restraint.”

The few times Roberts, a marketing professional, has popped up in media it has been with the couple’s dog, Deco, or in the 2018 documentary Knock Down the House.

Ocasio-Cortez said she and Roberts would not start planning a wedding for at least a month.

Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/19/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-engaged-partner-riley-roberts