A third high-profile primary, for an open Senate seat in Pennsylvania, was a three-way battle, with two of the candidates echoing Mr. Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 election result, to varying degrees, and the third largely ducking the question.
The races aligned on the most consequential primary night of the year so far — with voters also picking nominees in Kentucky, Idaho and Oregon. The lineup was certain to test the power of Mr. Trump’s endorsements with his fiercely loyal base. On the Democratic side, voters in Pennsylvania were choosing between John Fetterman, the left-leaning lieutenant governor who trades on his laid-back image, and Conor Lamb, a moderate congressman.
Mr. Fetterman spent Election Day in the hospital after suffering a stroke that forced him to cancel his final weekend of events. His campaign said Tuesday he had undergone “a standard procedure to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator.”
Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general and presumptive nominee for governor, also had to leave the campaign trail on its final day after he tested positive for Covid, saying he was experiencing mild symptoms.
In their eagerness to win the support of Mr. Trump and his strongest devotees, Republican candidates across the country continue to actively advance the myth of a stolen election, or at least try to avoid stating that Mr. Biden won fair and square. As the season of midterm primaries moves into full swing, there is no pullback in this tide. Before Ohio’s Senate primary two weeks ago, all five candidates were asked if Mr. Trump should move on from his baseless claims. Only one did so; he finished third.
In Pennsylvania, State Senator Doug Mastriano, the front-runner to take on Mr. Shapiro for the open governor’s seat, was instrumental in the failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state. On Jan. 6, 2021, he “passed through breached barricades” as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the final certification of the vote, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee report. Mr. Mastriano has been subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the attack.
Establishment Republicans’ attempts to block Mr. Mastriano’s rise seemed to fall short, and Mr. Trump handed him his endorsement this weekend.
In the state’s Senate race, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who also secured Mr. Trump’s backing for Senate, has not made the 2020 election the center of his bid, but he argued at a debate last month that “we can’t move on.” Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator making a late surge in the race, has fanned baseless claims of voter fraud since badly losing a House race in 2020, which she never conceded. Ms. Barnette was among the protesters marching in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
In North Carolina, Representative Ted Budd, who earned Mr. Trump’s backing in the Senate race, voted in Congress against certifying the electoral votes of Pennsylvania and Arizona.
After the 2020 election, Mr. Budd signed a letter urging the Justice Department to investigate voter fraud and irregularities. Text messages published by CNN showed Mr. Budd pushing a baseless conspiracy theory to Mark Meadows, who was then the White House chief of staff, suggesting that Dominion Voting Systems might have ties to George Soros, the liberal billionaire.
After the Jan. 6 riot, Mr. Budd condemned what he called the “mob violence” he had witnessed at the Capitol.
Representative Madison Cawthorn, seeking re-election in his redrawn North Carolina district, spoke at the Jan. 6 rally behind the White House that preceded the assault on the Capitol.
Even candidates with no major record of questioning the election results can’t afford to speak plainly about the election without the risk of alienating Trump voters. At a rally Dr. Oz held on Monday, a voter received applause for mentioning the movie “2000 Mules,” which makes the conspiratorial claim that Democratic operatives stuffed ballot drop boxes with phony votes. “What are you going to do to fix that problem?” the voter demanded.
Dr. Oz said he hadn’t seen the movie but urged support for the Republican candidates for governor, who, he said, would green-light lawmakers in Harrisburg “to investigate what happened in 2020.”
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/17/us/pa-primary-elections-nc
And Mayor Brown, you’ve been — you’ve been wonderful. Thank you. And I know this is a lot of — when a vice-presidential or a presidential trip shows up, it’s — there’s all kinds of paraphernalia and people, and I know it’s not easy.
I want to thank your law enforcement officers for not just what they did in this crisis, but for accommodating us, and all the elected officials and law enforcement officers, first responders, and faith leaders that are here today.
Jill and I have come to stand with you and, to the families, we’ve come to grieve with you. It’s not the same, but we know a little bit what it’s like to lose a piece of your soul, whether it was a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, a mother, a father. The feeling of having that — as I said to some of you when we talked privately, you feel like there’s a black hole in your chest you’re being sucked into, and — and you’re suffocating unable — unable to breathe.
That’s what it felt like, at least to us, and I’m sure some version of that feels that way to you, the anger, the pain, the depth of the loss that’s so profound. You know, we know it’s hard to believe, and you’re probably not going to believe it, but I can tell you now from our personal experience and many others who we’ve met, the day is going to come it will come, when your loved one brings a smile as you remember him or her. As you remember her, it’s is going to bring a smile to your lip before it brings a tear to your eye. It takes a while for that to happen. It takes a while. It might take more than a season, but our prayer for you is that that time comes sooner or later. But I promise you, it will come.
As a nation, I say to the families, we remember them. We’ve been reading about them. We visited a memorial where it shows the love for them and you’ve all shown by the supermarket.
Celestine Chaney, 65 years old, brain cancer survivor, churchgoer, bingo player, went to buy strawberries to make her favorite shortcake. A loving mother and grandmother.
Roberta Drury, 32, beloved daughter and sister. Moved back home to help take care of her brother after his bone marrow transplant. She went to buy groceries for dinner. The center of attention who made everyone in the room laugh and smile when she walked in.
Andre Mackneil, 53. Worked at a restaurant. Went to buy his 3-year-old son a birthday cake. His son is celebrating a birthday, asking, “Where is daddy?”
Katherine Massey, 72, a writer and an advocate who dressed up in costumes at schools and cut the grass in the park and helped in local elections. The glue of the family and the community.
Margus Morrison, 52, school bus aide. Went to buy snacks for weekly movie night with the family. Survived by his wife and three children and a stepdaughter. The center of their world.
Heyward Patterson, 67, father, church deacon. Fed the homeless at the soup kitchen. Gave rides at a grocery store to neighbors who needed help. Putting food in the trunk of others when he took his final breath.
Aaron Salter, 55, retired Buffalo police officer for three decades. Three decades. Loved electric cars. Gave his life to save others on a Saturday afternoon, and had that man not been wearing that vest that he purchased — bulletproof vest — a lot of lives would have been saved. A beloved father and husband.
Geraldine Talley, 62. Expert banker known for her warm, gentle personality. A friend to everybody. Devoted mother and grandmother.
Ruth Whitfield. Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. Sang in the church choir. A caretaker of her husband, bringing him clean clothes, cutting his hair, holding his hand every day she visited him in the nursing home. Heart as big as her head.
Pearl Young, 77, grandmother, mother, missionary of god, public-school teacher, who also ran the local food panty. Loved singing, dancing and her family.
And all three who were injured, Zaire Goodman, 20, shot in the neck but fighting through it; Jennifer Warrington, 50; Christopher Braden, 55, both treated with injuries on a long road to recovery.
Individual lives of love, service and community that speaks to the bigger story of who we are as Americans, a great nation because we’re a good people. Jill and I bring you this message from deep in our nation’s soul. In America, evil will not win. I promise you. Hate will not prevail and white supremacy will not have the last word.
For the evil did come to Buffalo, and it’s come to all too many places, manifest in gunmen who massacred innocent people in the name of hateful and perverse ideology rooted in fear and racism. It’s taken so much; 10 lives cut short in a grocery store, three other wounded — three — three other wounded by a hate-filled individual who had driven 200 miles from Binghamton, in that range, to carry out a murderous, racist rampage that he would livestream, livestream to the world.
What happened here is simple and straightforward: terrorism. Terrorism. Domestic terrorism. Violence inflicted in the service of hate and the vicious thirst for power that defines one group of people being inherently inferior to any other group. A hate that, through the media and politics, the internet, has radicalized angry, alienated and lost individuals into falsely believing that they will be replaced. That’s the word. Replaced by the other. By people who don’t look like them.
I and all of you reject the lie. I call on all Americans to reject the lie, and I condemn those who spread the lie for power, political gain and for profit.
That’s what it is. We’ve now seen too many times the deadly and destructive violence this ideology unleashes. We heard the chants — “you will not replace us” — in Charlottesville, Virginia. I wasn’t going to run, as the senator knows, again for president. When I saw those people coming out of the woods of the fields in Virginia, in Charlottesville, carrying torches, shouting, you will not replace us, accompanied by white supremacists and carrying Nazi banners, that’s when I said, “No, no.” And I, honest to God, those who know me — Chuck, you know, I wasn’t going to run for certain. But I was going to be darned if I was going to let —, Anyway. I’ll get going.
Look, we’ve seen the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; in Pittsburgh. Last year in Atlanta. This weak in Dallas, Texas, and now in Buffalo. In Buffalo, New York.
White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison. It really is. Running through our body politic. And it’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes. No more. I mean, no more. We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America. None.
Look, failure to saying, that is going to be complicity. Silence is complicity. It’s complicity. We cannot remain silent.
Our nation’s strength has always come from the idea — it’s going to sound corny, but think about it — what’s the idea of our nation? That we’re all children of God. All children — life, liberty. Our universal goods, gifts of God. We didn’t get it from the government. We got it because we exist. We were called upon to defend them. The venom of the haters and their weapons of war, of violence in the words and deeds of the — that stalk our streets, our stores, our schools. This venom, this violence cannot be the story of our time. We cannot allow that to happen.
Look, I’m not naïve. I know tragedy will come again. It cannot be forever overcome. It cannot be fully understood either. But there are certain things we can do. We can keep assault weapons off our streets. We’ve done it before. I did it when I passed the crime bill last time, and violence went down, shootings went down. We can’t prevent people from being radicalized to violence, but we can address the relentless exploitation of the internet to recruit and mobilize terrorism. We just need to have the courage to do that, to stand up.
Look, the American experiment in democracy is in a danger like it hasn’t been in my lifetime. It’s in danger this hour. Hate and fear are being given too much oxygen by those who pretend to love America, but who don’t understand America. To confront the ideology of hate requires caring about all people. Not making distinctions. Reverend, the scripture, the — seeing that we’re all part of the divine.
That’s the America I know, that Jill knows. And most deserve the most — look, we are the most multiracial, most dynamic nation in the history of the world. Now is the time for the people of all races, from every background to speak up as a majority in America and reject white supremacy. These actions we’ve seen in these hate-filled attacks represent the views of a hate-filled minority.
We can’t allow them to distort America. The real America. We can’t allow them to destroy the soul of the nation.
As president of the United States, I travel the world all the time. And other nations ask me, heads of state in other countries ask me, what’s going on? What in God’s name happened on January 6th? What happened in Buffalo? They’ll ask.
We have to refuse to live in a country where Black people going about a weekly grocery shopping can be gunned down by weapons of war deployed in a racist cause.
We have to refuse to live in a country where fear and lies are packaged for power and for profit.
We must all enlist in this great cause of America.
This is work that requires all of us. Presidents, politicians, commentators, citizens. None of us can stay on the sidelines. We have to resolve that here in Buffalo, that from the tragedy, this tragedy, will come hope and light and life. It has to.
And that on our watch, the sacred cause of America will never bow, never break, never bend. And the America we love, the one we love will endure. So to the families, from your pain, may we find purpose to live life worthy of the loved ones you lost.
From a hymn based on the 91st Psalm that’s sung at my church, may he raise you up on eagle’s wings and bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hand.
That’s my wish for us. We can do this if we resolve to do it. If we take on the haters. And those who don’t even care, it’s just about profit and politics. May the soul of the fallen rest in peace and rise in glory. And may God guide the United States of America now and always.
To the families, as my grand pop used to say when I walked out of his home in Scranton, he’d say “Joey, spread the faith,” and my grandma would — no he would say “keep the faith,” and my grandma would say “no, Joey, spread the faith.” We’re thinking of you. Hold on to each other tightly. Stick together. You’ll get through this, and we’ll make Buffalo and the United States a better place to live than it is today.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/17/nyregion/buffalo-shooting
Authorities said David Chou, the gunman in Sunday’s deadly attack at a Southern California church, was a Chinese immigrant motivated by hate for Taiwanese people.
Orange County Sheriff’s Department via AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Orange County Sheriff’s Department via AP
Authorities said David Chou, the gunman in Sunday’s deadly attack at a Southern California church, was a Chinese immigrant motivated by hate for Taiwanese people.
Orange County Sheriff’s Department via AP
SANTA ANA, Calif. — The man accused of opening fire on a Taiwanese church congregation in California was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder for what a prosecutor called an effort to “execute” as many people as possible.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer also announced that David Chou, 68, of Las Vegas faces enhancements for “lying in wait” and use of a firearm, as well as four counts of possessing destructive devices with intent to kill or harm.
“We typically think of the person who hides in the bushes,” Spitzer said. “This case is about the person concealing themselves in plain view.”
Arraignment was expected Tuesday afternoon. Spitzer said he expected that public defenders will be appointed to represent Chou.
Authorities have said Chou — a U.S. citizen who authorities say grew up in Taiwan — was motivated by hatred of Taiwanese people. A federal hate crimes investigation is also ongoing.
If convicted as charged and the jury finds the enhancements to be true, Chou would face a sentence of either life in prison without possibility of parole or the death penalty, Spitzer said.
“While there’s very strong evidence right now that this was motivated by hate, we want to make sure we have put together all the evidence that confirms that theory in the case,” Spitzer said, when asked whether he would be filing charge of a hate crime.
Chou is accused of opening fire during a Sunday luncheon for members of Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, which worships at Geneva Presbyterian Church in the community of Laguna Woods.
Chou drove to Orange County on Saturday and the next day attended the luncheon. Though he knew no one there, he spent about an hour mingling with about 40 attendees and then executed his plot, authorities said at a news conference.
He chained the doors and put super glue in the keyholes, authorities said. He had two 9 mm handguns — legally purchased years ago in Las Vegas — and three bags, containing four Molotov-cocktail-type incendiary devices and extra ammunition. He opened fire and in the ensuing chaos Dr. John Cheng, 52, tackled him, allowing other parishioners to subdue him and tie him up with extension cords, authorities said.
Cheng died and five people were wounded, including an 86-year-old woman as well as four men, ages 66, 75, 82 and 92, the sheriff’s department said. Authorities on Monday said two of the wounded were in good condition, two were in stable condition and the status of the fifth patient was undetermined.
At a news conference on Monday, Sheriff Don Barnes called Cheng’s heroism “a meeting of good versus evil” that probably saved the lives “of upwards of dozens of people.”
Investigators are trying to determine if the church in Laguna Woods, a scenic coastal area whose population mainly consists of retirees and is near a large gated community, was a random target, Spitzer said.
“That population in general created a vulnerable environment for him to carry out what I think was his ultimate goal, which was to execute in cold blood as many people in that room as possible,” he said.
Although Barnes initially referred to Chou as an immigrant from China, Taiwan’s Central News Agency said he was born in Taiwan in 1953, citing Louis M. Huang, director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles.
Barnes said Chou’s hatred toward Taiwan was documented in handwritten notes that authorities found. Chou’s family apparently was among many forcibly removed from mainland China to Taiwan sometime after 1948, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said.
Chou had ties to an organization opposed to Taiwan’s independence from China, according to Taiwanese media.
Tensions between China and Taiwan are at the highest in decades, with Beijing stepping up its military harassment by flying fighter jets toward the self-governing island. China has not ruled out force to reunify with Taiwan, which split from the mainland during a civil war in 1949.
Relations between mainlanders forced to flee a Communist takeover and native Taiwanese were frequently tense as the new arrivals crowded into slums and military communities. Separated by language and lifestyle, bullying and confrontation were frequent as President Chiang Kai-shek tightly restricted civil liberties under nearly four decades of martial law.
The Presbyterian Church is the most prominent of the Christian denominations in Taiwan and was closely identified with the pro-democracy movement during the martial law era and later with the Taiwan independence cause.
Barnes said Chou acted alone and was “not believed to be associated with any specific church or any religion.”
Billy Chang, a Taiwanese pastor who survived Sunday’s shooting at Geneva Presbyterian Church, gets emotional while speaking at a prayer vigil in Irvine, Calif., on Monday.
Jae C. Hong/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Jae C. Hong/AP
Billy Chang, a Taiwanese pastor who survived Sunday’s shooting at Geneva Presbyterian Church, gets emotional while speaking at a prayer vigil in Irvine, Calif., on Monday.
Jae C. Hong/AP
Jerry Chen, a longtime parishioner, said congregants had gathered for a luncheon after a morning service to welcome their former pastor, Billy Chang, who had served the church for 20 years. Chang moved back to Taiwan two years ago. This was his first time back stateside, Chen said.
Everyone had just finished lunch and were taking photos with Chang when Chen went into the kitchen. That’s when he heard the gunshots.
Barnes said Cheng, a sports medicine doctor who is survived by a wife and two children, charged at the shooter and attempted to disarm him, allowing others to intervene. Chang hit the gunman on the head with a chair before other parishioners subdued him.
Balmore Orellana, a former neighbor, said Chou’s life unraveled after his wife left him last year. Spitzer said the suspect’s wife is terminally ill and in Taiwan. He could not say whether she was alive or had passed.
Before, Chou had been a pleasant man who used to own the Las Vegas apartment building where he lived until being evicted in February, Orellana told The Associated Press.
Records showed the four-unit property was sold last October for a little more than $500,000. Orellana said Chou’s wife used the money from the sale to move to Taiwan.
Before Orellana moved in about five years ago, Chou suffered a head injury and other serious injuries in an attack by a tenant, the neighbor said. More recently his mental health declined and last summer a gun was fired inside Chou’s apartment and the bullet entered Orellana’s apartment, although nobody was hurt, Orellana said.
The shooting came a day after an 18-year-old man shot and killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York, in a racist rampage where the white gunman allegedly targeted a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/05/17/1099586853/california-church-shooting-charged-taiwan
(CNN)President Joe Biden on Tuesday did not hesitate to call the deadly mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, an act of domestic terrorism, condemning the racist ideology of the suspected shooter.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/17/politics/biden-buffalo-visit-shooting/index.html
LONDON, May 17 (Reuters) – At least seven buses carrying surrendered Ukrainian fighters left the Azovstal steel works escorted by pro-Russian armed forces on Tuesday, a Reuters witness said.
Some of the Ukrainian fighters being transported did not appear to be wounded, the witness said.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/surrendered-ukrainian-fighters-leave-azovstal-steel-works-reuters-witness-2022-05-17/
Indeed, despite the nation’s horror over Charlottesville, that toxic “great replacement” ideology subsequently motivated numerous mass shootings, including in Pittsburgh, El Paso and elsewhere. Even amid the Buffalo shooting, some Republicans and right-wing media personalities are currently mainstreaming those ideas.
Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/17/buffalo-shooting-great-replacement-theory-amy-spitalnick/
Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray, left, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie speak Tuesday during a House Intelligence, Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee hearing on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Alex Brandon/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Alex Brandon/AP
Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray, left, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie speak Tuesday during a House Intelligence, Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee hearing on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Alex Brandon/AP
A database of reports of UFOs now includes about 400 incidents, up from 143 assessed in a report released about a year ago, a Navy intelligence official told lawmakers at a congressional hearing on Tuesday.
The military’s 2021 report said no evidence of aliens had been found. Scott W. Bray, the deputy director of Naval intelligence, told lawmakers that they still haven’t uncovered anything “nonterrestrial in origin,” even though there are incidents they can’t explain.
None of the documented objects had attempted to communicate with U.S. aviators, and no attempt had been made to communicate with them, he said, as they all appeared to be unmanned.
Reports of unidentified flying objects – now called unexplained aerial phenomena or UAPs by the military – have been increasing, said Bray. He cited improved sensors, an increase in drones and other non-military unmanned aerial systems, and “aerial clutter” such as Mylar balloons as causes for the uptick.
Incidents in the 2021 report date as far back as 2004 and were based on both sensor data and observations by military aviators, said Bray.
Many of the latest entries do not have sensor data — they’re from people coming forward with older stories that they chose not to report at the time, Bray said. That’s evidence that the military’s drive to destigmatize such reports is working, he added.
“Navy and air force crews now have step-by-step procedures for reporting UAPs on their kneeboard, in the cockpit,” Bray said.
It’s an important effort, said Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., who noted that skepticism around UFOs likely has led pilots to avoid making the reports, or getting laughed at when they did.
Tuesday’s session, the first public hearing on UFOs in more than 50 years, also included testimony from Ronald S. Moultrie, the Pentagon’s top intelligence official. He noted the competing needs for transparency and secrecy in the hearing.
Moultrie noted that he’s a science fiction fan, and that simple human curiosity means that “we want to know what’s out there just like you want to know what’s out there.” But he added that his top goal was to keep U.S. military personnel and bases safe.
In this image from 2015 video provided by the Department of Defense, an unexplained object is seen as it is tracked soaring high along the clouds, traveling against the wind.
Department of Defense via AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Department of Defense via AP
In this image from 2015 video provided by the Department of Defense, an unexplained object is seen as it is tracked soaring high along the clouds, traveling against the wind.
Department of Defense via AP
“We are also mindful of our obligation to protect sensitive sources and methods,” Moultrie said in his opening remarks. “Our goal is to strike that delicate balance – one that will enable us to maintain the public’s trust while preserving those capabilities that are vital to the support of our service personnel.”
“We do not want potential adversaries to know exactly what we see or understand,” Moultrie said later in the hearing, which was followed by a closed-door, classified session.
As the effort moves forward, Moultrie told lawmakers, a major focus will be on improving cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration and other government agencies.
In a back-and-forth with Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, Bray agreed that standardizing the civilian reporting process would also be useful. While the military’s database does include some civilian reports, the vast majority have come from within the military.
It’s the first congressional hearing held on the subject since a push by then-Rep. Gerald Ford led to an Air Force report and hearing in 1969.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/05/17/1099410910/ufo-hearing-congress-military-intelligence
Months before police say he opened fire inside a Laguna Woods church, killing a parishioner and wounding five others in what authorities have called a politically motivated attack, David Wenwei Chou’s life in Las Vegas was unraveling.
His wife had returned to Taiwan in December, to seek treatment for cancer but also to leave Chou in the midst of a divorce, according to their next-door neighbor, Balmore Orellana.
Chou and his wife owned the building they lived in, one of about a dozen shabby stucco four-plexes that line a cul-de-sac about a mile west of the Las Vegas Strip. They lived in a unit on the ground floor, Orellana said.
Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, whose members were the target of an attack authorities allege was a politically motivated hate incident, released a letter that offered new insights into the events of the hours before the shooting and its direct aftermath.
He described Chou as a considerate landlord: He never raised the rent in the five years that Orellana and his family lived there, and when the COVID-19 pandemic swept into Las Vegas, Chou often asked if they needed a break with the rent. He tended a small garden on the side of the building, and he’d regularly bring fruit, vegetables and cookies for Orellana’s family.
But he was “verbally aggressive” toward his wife, Orellana said, and he’d hear Chou yelling through the walls. By the time she left for Taiwan, diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, “you could tell she was just tired of him.” With her gone, “he took it pretty hard,” Orellana said.
Orange County Sheriff’s officials said Chou’s wife is living in Taiwan. Records of their divorce weren’t immediately available.
Chou told Orellana he was born in Taiwan but considered himself Chinese. He believed China and Taiwan were one country, Orellana said.
‘It is believed the suspect involved was upset about political tensions between China and Taiwan,’ Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said.
“To him, there’s no border,” he added.
At 10 a.m. on Sunday, Chou showed up to an Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church service in Laguna Woods, police say. After reading a Chinese-language newspaper in the back of the church for several hours, he chained its doors shut and tried to jam the locks with glue, then opened fire with a handgun, according to authorities and an account by churchgoers.
Chou killed Dr. John Cheng, 52, who had tried to stop him, and wounded five others before the pastor and several congregants managed to subdue him and hogtie him with an extension cord, authorities say. Inside the church investigators found two handguns, purchased legally in Nevada, and several improvised incendiary devices.
Chou is being held in an Orange County jail, scheduled to appear in court Tuesday.
Authorities said they have found notes in Chou’s car stating his belief that Taiwan should not be independent from China. The FBI is investigating the attack as a hate crime.
Authorities have offered differing accounts of Chou’s background: Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said he was born in mainland China and at some point relocated to Taiwan, but an official from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles said Chou was born in Taiwan, holds a Taiwanese passport and completed compulsory military service there.
When a man began shooting at the congregants — most of them elderly and Taiwanese — Dr. John Cheng put himself in the line of fire.
Chou worked as a journalist in Taiwan before coming to the United States, Orellana said. In his adopted country, he said, he served in the Marines and was “very proud” of it, Orellana said, recalling how Chou draped some 20 American flags throughout his property.
Chou and his wife sold the building around the time she left for Taiwan, Orellana said. After the sale, Chou complained to him that the new owners — a group of investors from California — set the monthly rent on the two-bedroom apartment where Chou had lived for the last decade at $1,400. Unable to afford it, he applied for government assistance, Orellana said, but was unsuccessful.
This, he said, seemed to anger Chou, who believed he was too old to find the type of work upon which he could support himself. He was also frustrated that, at 68, the government wouldn’t provide him housing or an income, Orellana said.
A gunman attacked a lunch banquet at Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods on Sunday, killing one person and wounding five. Here’s what we know.
By then Chou was living solely on Social Security and intermittent work as a security guard, Orellana said. He worked for a company that provided security at the Sands and Venetian casinos, according to Orellana; public records show he was employed by various security firms and licensed to carry a firearm. Chou was lucky to get a job once a week, Orellana said.
About 150 law enforcement officials, politicians and others gathered Monday night at a church in Irvine for a prayer vigil.
“Sometimes they wouldn’t call him for three months,” he added.
Orellana recalled Chou saying he’d asked several churches in the Las Vegas area if they had some place for him to stay, but he was rejected by all of them. He seemed embittered by this, Orellana said.
In February, Chou was evicted from the apartment building he had once owned, Orellana said. He helped Chou carry trash out of his unit to the dumpster. It was the last time he’d see him.
“He was just a homeless old man,” Orellana recalled. While Chou didn’t voice thoughts of suicide explicitly, Orellana said: “He told me, ‘I just don’t care about my life anymore.’”
Orellana said the tenants who moved into Chou’s old unit found “horrible pictures” that he’d left behind: photographs of Chou posing with a gun, including one that appeared to have been taken at a memorial to a mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas. The image, as described by the tenants, showed Chou with a gun and an expression as if he were “laughing hysterically,” Orellana said. The tenants threw the photographs away, he said.
A gunman attacked a lunch banquet at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods, killing one person and wounding five others Sunday before congregants tackled him, hogtied him with an extension cord and grabbed his two weapons, authorities said.
In hindsight, Orellana believed that Chou showed signs of mental instability. Chou described to him an incident that he said deeply affected his physical and mental well-being: About six years ago, Chou was managing a different apartment complex when he told a tenant who was three months behind on rent to move out. Instead, the tenant beat Chou, fracturing his skull and breaking his arm.
Chou still has the scars, according to Orellana.
“He said, ‘My body is getting worse, my back is getting worse.’”
The beating also left Chou with serious anxiety, he said.
About a month after Chou was evicted, Orellana said he heard from neighbors that he was spotted “lingering around” his former property and had been caught breaking into his old mailbox.
Orellana did not know what, if any, connection Chou had to California.
He arrived at the church around 10 a.m. and lurked around for two hours before the shooting, according to an account released by the church. After the luncheon for the former pastor, attended by about 140 people, some parishioners witnessed Chou locking the doors with chains and assumed he was a security guard, according to the account.
One church member saw Chou seal two exit doors shut using a hammer and nails.
Then, the account says, he opened fire.
Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-17/months-before-laguna-woods-shooting-suspects-life-was-in-free-fall
WASHINGTON — The government website for people to request free COVID-19 at-home tests from the U.S. government is now accepting a third round of orders.
The White House announced Tuesday that U.S. households can request an additional eight free at-home tests to be shipped by the U.S. Postal Service.
President Joe Biden committed in January to making 1 billion tests available to the public free of charge, including 500 million available through covidtests.gov. But just 350 million of the amount available for ordering online have been shipped to date to addresses across the continental U.S., its territories and overseas military bases, the White House said.
People who have difficulty getting online or need help placing an order can call 1-800-232-0233 for assistance,
The third round brings to 16 the total number of free tests available to each U.S. household since the program started earlier this year. Households were eligible to receive four tests during each of two earlier rounds of ordering through the website.
Biden has requested an additional $22 billion from Congress to buy vaccines and therapeutics to prepare for a fall spike in COVID-19 cases, but lawmakers have balked at the price tag.
Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/biden-offering-additional-free-covid-19-tests-public-84774480
The turbulence also has major implications for Trump’s hold on the party, which is growing more alarmed that the former president’s involvement in primaries could scupper Republicans’ chances of reclaiming the Senate despite President Biden’s unpopularity.
Trump endorsed Oz, a celebrity physician, over the advice of many Republicans inside and outside Pennsylvania. The bill is coming due, those Republicans now say.
Many of Trump’s own voters have expressed skepticism of Oz, who has fended off millions of dollars in negative advertising highlighting his past Republican heterodoxies on issues as varied as abortion and gun rights. As of Monday, Oz is leading by nearly three percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls in the primary, which roughly matches the Oz campaign’s latest daily tracking poll, I’m told.
It’s not clear how late-deciding Republicans will ultimately vote, although a new poll by Susquehanna University found that 45 percent of respondents who had made up their minds “in the last few days” were backing Barnette.
On Saturday, Trump finally endorsed Doug Mastriano, a conspiracy-theory-minded retired military officer who leads polls in the governor’s race, in an apparent attempt to hedge his bets.
“He’s clearly upset that it’s not going his way,” said David Urban, a political operative and early Trump backer who led the former president’s efforts to win Pennsylvania in the 2016 election.
Urban is supporting Dave McCormick, a fellow West Point graduate, in the Senate race, and said he had not spoken to Trump recently about the primary.
The McCormick camp is hoping the fireworks between Barnette and Oz will earn him a second look from voters, who seem to be wavering between the three leading contenders.
Not everyone’s buying it.
One veteran Republican operative in Pennsylvania who is not aligned with any Senate campaign likened McCormick to Hans Gruber, the villain in the movie “Die Hard,” who tries to fire upward at Bruce Willis’s character even as he is falling from the top of Nakatomi Plaza.
Barnette has endorsed Mastriano and vice versa, and the two have held events together — almost as if they are running together as a kind of super-MAGA ticket. She has fended off questions about her background in recent days, including about her military service and her past Islamophobic comments.
Oz, who if elected would become America’s first Muslim senator, called those comments “disqualifying” and “reprehensible” in an interview on Saturday with The Associated Press.
In the governor’s race, Republicans aligned with the party establishment are desperate to stop Mastriano from winning the nomination, and have urged other candidates to unite around former Representative Lou Barletta, who is running for governor with the help of several former top Trump campaign aides.
One of the first members of Congress to embrace Trump, former Representative Tom Marino of Pennsylvania, blasted the former president at a news conference this weekend for what he said was a lack of “loyalty” to Barletta.
In a follow-up interview, Marino said he hadn’t been planning to endorse anyone in the race, but decided to back Barletta because he felt that Barletta had earned Trump’s support by risking his career to throw his lot in with Trump early in the 2016 campaign.
“I did what I did because I was just so outraged” over Trump’s endorsement of Mastriano, Marino said. “Loyalty is important to me.”
Watching the events in Pennsylvania, which included the leading candidate in the Democratic race for Senate, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, suffering a stroke on Friday, plugged-in observers in both parties used words like “gobsmacked” and “stunned.”
“It’s just bang-bang crazy here,” said Christopher Nicholas, a Republican consultant based in Harrisburg.
Recriminations are flying over why the Pennsylvania Republican Party failed to appreciate the rise of Barnette and Mastriano until it was too late to arrest their momentum. Ballots have already been printed, fueling despair among party insiders that the efforts to unify the party against one or both outsider candidates might ultimately prove futile.
“The press paid very little attention to Barnette until the last two weeks,” said G. Terry Madonna, an expert on Pennsylvania politics who ran polling at Franklin and Marshall College for many years.
National Democrats are watching the events in Pennsylvania closely, and many predicted that the results of Tuesday’s contests would affect other Republican primaries for Senate in the weeks to come.
And while the public’s anger over inflation and supply-chain disruptions is weighing in the G.O.P.’s favor, Democrats hope to compete in the fall against candidates they perceive as easier to defeat, like Barnette.
The greatest impact of Trump’s meddling might be felt in Arizona, where he has yet to issue an endorsement. Trump has slammed the establishment candidate, Attorney General Mark Brnovich, for failing to overturn Biden’s victory there in 2020, but has not yet chosen an alternative.
David Bergstein, the communications director at the Democratic Senate campaign committee, said that Trump’s meddling in G.O.P. primaries was having an even greater effect on the Republican Party than many Democrats had anticipated. “Chaos begets chaos,” he said.
Nicholas Confessore and Karen Yourish explain the origins of “replacement theory,” a once-fringe ideology that was espoused by the suspect in the Buffalo massacre on Saturday.
Democrats are making a mockery of campaign finance laws through the use of “little red boxes,” Shane Goldmacher reports. And it’s all happening in plain sight.
In North Carolina, Representative Ted Budd is proving the political potency of pairing endorsements from Donald Trump and the Club for Growth, Jazmine Ulloa and Michael Bender report.
Jazmine just returned from North Carolina’s mountainous west, where she found strong opinions about Madison Cawthorn, the troubled first-term congressman facing a primary challenge.
In Idaho, a feud between the state’s governor and its lieutenant governor is coloring the Republican Party as the far right seeks to take over the state. Mike Baker was there.
how they run
When Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina signed legislation that critics called the “bathroom bill” in 2016, it set off a firestorm.
The law, which required transgender people to use public restrooms that matched their birth gender, drew protests from major businesses and athletic powerhouses including the N.B.A. and the N.C.A.A., which withdrew their All-Star Game and March Madness basketball tournament games from the state.
A few months later, McCrory lost re-election.
Fast-forward six years, and Republicans are pushing anti-transgender legislation across the country and punishing companies that dare to object. But McCrory, running for Senate in North Carolina, is floundering in his attempted return to electoral politics, trailing heavily in polls to a rival backed by Donald Trump.
McCrory also isn’t talking on the campaign trail about the hot-button issue of L.G.B.T.Q. rights that brought him to national prominence back in 2016.
“It’s not an issue that drives me, never was,” McCrory said in a telephone interview on Monday. “But it’s an issue, if asked, I’ll state where I am.”
McCrory’s bid to replace Senator Richard Burr, who is retiring, has been complicated by the strength of Representative Ted Budd, who has support from both Trump and the conservative Club for Growth and seems to be leading the race.
McCrory supports the recently enacted Florida law that restricts discussion of sexual orientation in schools. He said that he had been told before that he was the Ron DeSantis before Ron DeSantis.
But as he seeks the Senate nomination in Tuesday’s primary, he’s more interested in talking about inflation. He describes himself as a Ronald Reagan Republican who’s interested in national defense, fighting crime, cutting taxes and balancing budgets.
He also described himself as the Jason Bourne of the Republican Party. “I’ve got these outside special interest groups trying to give me a false identity,” he said, taking particular issue with the Club for Growth’s attacks. “Who in the hell are they to determine what type of conservative I am?”
Carter Wrenn, a longtime Republican strategist in North Carolina, said the Club for Growth’s spending might be the biggest factor in the Senate race, and he agreed with McCrory that the top issue for voters was inflation.
Wrenn said he didn’t think transgender rights were a major issue in the primary because the top candidates most likely agree with McCrory’s actions in 2016.
“Obviously none of his opponents are attacking him for it in the primary,” Wrenn said, “because if you attack Pat for what he did in the past, it would probably help him.”
— Blake & Leah
Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/05/17/us/pa-primary-elections-nc
(CNN)Social media posts by the 18-year-old White man suspected of shooting and killing 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket Saturday reveal he had been planning his attack for months.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/17/us/buffalo-supermarket-shooting-tuesday/index.html
Efforts were underway Tuesday to rescue the last of the defenders inside the Azovstal steel plant in the ruined port city of Mariupol after Ukrainian officials said the fighters had “completed their mission” and there was no way to free the plant by military means.
The Ukrainian military avoided using the term “surrender” to describe the effort to pull out of the steel plant to save as many lives as possible. Officials planned to keep trying to save an unknown number of fighters who stayed behind. It was unclear if soldiers evacuated to Russian-controlled areas would be considered prisoners of war.
The regiment that doggedly defended a steel mill as Ukraine’s last stronghold in the port city of Mariupol declared its mission complete Monday after more than 260 fighters, including some badly wounded, were evacuated.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the evacuation to separatist-controlled territory was done to save the lives of the fighters who endured weeks of Russian assaults in the maze of underground passages below the hulking Azovstal steelworks. He said the “heavily wounded” were getting medical help.
“Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes to be alive. It’s our principle,” he said. An unknown number of fighters stayed behind to await other rescue efforts.
The steel mill’s defenders got out as Moscow suffered another diplomatic setback in its war with Ukraine, with Sweden joining Finland in deciding to seek NATO membership. And Ukraine made a symbolic gain when its forces reportedly pushed Russian troops back to the Russian border in the Kharkiv region.
Still, Russian forces pounded targets in the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine known as the Donbas, and the death toll, already many thousands, kept climbing with the war set to enter its 12th week on Wednesday.
Alexei Alexandrov / AP
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said 53 seriously wounded fighters were taken from the Azovstal plant to a hospital in Novoazovsk, east of Mariupol. An additional 211 fighters were evacuated to Olenivka through a humanitarian corridor.
She said an exchange would be worked out for their return home. Officials also planned to keep trying to save the fighters who remained inside.
“The work to bring the guys home continues, and it requires delicacy and time,” Zelenskyy said.
Before Monday’s evacuations from the steelworks began, the Russian Defense Ministry announced an agreement for the wounded to leave the mill for treatment in a town held by pro-Moscow separatists.
After nightfall Monday, several buses pulled away from the steel mill accompanied by Russian military vehicles. Maliar later confirmed that the evacuation had taken place.
“Thanks to the defenders of Mariupol, Ukraine gained critically important time to form reserves and regroup forces and receive help from partners,” she said. “And they fulfilled all their tasks. But it is impossible to unblock Azovstal by military means.”
Satellite image (c) 2022 Maxar Technologies via Getty Images
The commander of the Azov Regiment, which led the defense of the plant, said in a prerecorded video message released Monday that the evacuation marked the end of the regiment’s mission.
“Absolutely safe plans and operations don’t exist during war,” Lt. Col. Denis Prokopenko said, adding that all risks were considered and part of the plan included saving “as many lives of personnel as possible.”
Elsewhere in the Donbas, the eastern city of Sievierdonetsk came under heavy shelling that killed at least 10 people, said Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region. In the Donetsk region, Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Facebook that nine civilians were killed in shelling.
The western Ukrainian city of Lviv was rocked by loud explosions early Tuesday. Witnesses counted at least eight blasts accompanied by distant booms, and the smell of burning was apparent some time later. An Associated Press team in Lviv, which was under an overnight curfew, said the sky west of the city was lit up by an orange glow.
But Ukrainian troops also advanced as Russian forces pulled back from around the northeastern city of Kharkiv in recent days. Zelenskyy thanked the soldiers who reportedly pushed them all the way to the Russian border in the Kharkiv region.
Video showed Ukrainian soldiers carrying a post that resembled a Ukrainian blue-and-yellow-striped border marker. Then they placed it on the ground while a dozen of the soldiers posed next to it, including one with belts of bullets draped over a shoulder.
“I’m very grateful to you, on behalf of all Ukrainians, on my behalf and on behalf of my family,” Zelenskyy said in a video message. “I’m very grateful to all the fighters like you.”
The Ukrainian border service said the video showing the soldiers was from the border “in the Kharkiv region,” but would not elaborate, citing security reasons. It was not immediately possible to verify the exact location.
Bernat Armangue / AP
Ukrainian border guards said they also stopped a Russian attempt to send sabotage and reconnaissance troops into the Sumy region, some 90 miles northwest of Kharkiv.
Russia has been plagued by setbacks in the war, most glaringly in its failure early on to take the capital of Kyiv. Much of the fighting has shifted to the Donbas but also has turned into a slog, with both sides fighting village-by-village.
Howitzers from the U.S. and other countries have helped Kyiv hold off or gain ground against Russia, a senior U.S. defense official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. military assessment, said Ukraine has pushed Russian forces to within a half-mile to 2.5 miles of Russia’s border but could not confirm if it was all the way to the frontier.
The official said Russian long-range strikes also appeared to target a Ukrainian military training center in Yavoriv, near the Polish border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Away from the battlefield, Sweden’s decision to seek NATO membership followed a similar decision by neighboring Finland in a historic shift for the counties, which were non-aligned for generations.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said her country would be in a “vulnerable position” during the application period and urged her fellow citizens to brace themselves.
“Russia has said that it will take countermeasures if we join NATO,” she said. “We cannot rule out that Sweden will be exposed to, for instance, disinformation and attempts to intimidate and divide us.”
But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, a NATO member, ratcheted up his objection to their joining. He accused the countries of failing to take a “clear” stance against Kurdish militants and other groups that Ankara considers terrorists, and of imposing military sanctions on Turkey.
Burhan Ozbilici / AP
He said Swedish and Finnish officials who are expected in Turkey next week should not bother to come if they intend to try to convince Turkey of dropping its objection.
“How can we trust them?” Erdogan asked at a joint news conference with the visiting Algerian president.
All 30 current NATO members must agree to let the Nordic neighbors join.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow “does not have a problem” with Sweden or Finland as they apply for NATO membership, but that “the expansion of military infrastructure onto this territory will of course give rise to our reaction in response.”
Putin launched the invasion on Feb. 24 in what he said was an effort to check NATO’s expansion but has seen that strategy backfire. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said the membership process for both could be quick.
Europe is also working to choke off funding for the Kremlin’s war by reducing the billions of dollars it spends on imports of Russian energy. A proposed EU embargo faces opposition from some countries dependent on Russian imports, including Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Bulgaria also has reservations.
Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-war-azovstal-steel-mill-defenders-mission-complete/
May 16 (Reuters) – The man accused of killing a doctor and wounding five other people in a shooting at a Taiwanese-American church banquet in California methodically planned the attack because he was upset over Chinese-Taiwanese tensions, authorities said on Monday.
The suspect, David Chou, 68, chained the doors and placed glue in the locks at Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, California, about 45 miles (72 km) southeast of Los Angeles, before opening fire inside the church on Sunday, Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said Monday.
Up to 40 people, members of a Taiwanese Presbyterian congregation from nearby Irvine, California, that has space in the church, were attending a luncheon honoring a former local pastor when the shooting began, sheriff’s officials said.
Chou, described by the sheriff as a U.S. citizen and Las Vegas resident born in China, drove to Southern California on Saturday and came to the church on Sunday morning, authorities said. After the shooting, investigators found three bags placed around the church building with various items, including additional ammunition and four Molotov cocktail-like devices.
The FBI said it was opening a hate crimes investigation in the case.
The sheriff’s department issued a statement late on Monday saying investigators had “determined that the suspect was upset about political tensions involving China and Taiwan” but did not elaborate.
In Chou’s car, Barnes said, investigators found notes written in Mandarin that indicated an obsession with Taiwan and a dislike of Taiwanese people.
China views Taiwan, a democratically governed island, as its “sacred” territory and has never renounced the possible use of force to bring it under Beijing’s control.
Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying that it is already independent and that only its 23 million people can decide their future.
The Geneva Presbyterian Church is seen after a deadly shooting, in Laguna Woods, California, U.S. May 15, 2022. REUTERS/David Swanson
All of the victims – whose names have not been released – were of Asian heritage.
The gun violence in California came on the same day as a separate mass shooting at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, that left 10 people dead and three others wounded. Most of the victims of that attack, which the FBI has labeled an act of racially motivated violent extremism, were Black. read more
Among those killed in the Laguna Woods church shooting was a physician Dr. John Cheng, 52, who was shot when he tackled the gunman, Barnes said, crediting Cheng’s act of bravery with preventing more fatalities.
Subduing Chou gave other congregants, including a pastor, the opportunity to overpower him and tie his legs with an electrical cord, detaining him until sheriff’s deputies arrived and broke through the chains on the doors.
Chou, who remains in custody, was believed to be acting alone, Barnes said. He purchased two guns used in the attack legally in Las Vegas, where he rented a room in a shared home. He likely will be charged with one count of murder, five counts of attempted murder and four counts of unlawful possession of explosives at an arraignment set for Tuesday, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer told reporters.
The wounded, four men ranging in age from 66 to 92 and an 86-year-old woman, were taken to area hospitals for treatment, the sheriff’s department said.
The shooting unfolded during a lunch reception the Taiwanese Presbyterian Church congregation had arranged for a former pastor who had left United States and relocated in Taiwan but returned for a visit, Tom Cramer, leader of the Presbytery of Los Ranchos and a former pastor at the Geneva Presbyterian Church, said in an interview.
Spitzer said he was considering seeking the death penalty in the case, though California has not executed a prisoner in more than a decade. Spitzer said he visited the church social hall on Sunday to see the carnage for himself.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen was deeply concerned about the incident and has instructed the island’s foreign ministry to help the victims and their families, the ministry said on Tuesday.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/us/suspect-california-church-shooting-identified-booked-one-count-murder-2022-05-16/
BUFFALO, N.Y., May 16 (Reuters) – The 18-year-old man accused of the deadly mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, visited the city in March and the day before the rampage, police said on Monday, as public figures decried the suspect’s racist ideology and the spread of white supremacy.
The FBI said Payton Gendron, 18, who is white, committed an act of “racially motivated violent extremism” when he opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle on Saturday at the Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly African-American neighborhood of Buffalo. Eleven of the 13 people struck by gunfire were Black.
Ten of the victims – nine shoppers and a retired police officer working as a store security guard who exchanged gunfire with the assailant – were killed in the rampage, part of which the gunman live-streamed on a social media platform.
Gendron, who police said surrendered to officers confronting him inside the store after he held the gun barrel to his own chin, has been jailed without bail on a charge of first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty.
Investigators have said they are searching through phone records, computers and online postings, as well as physical evidence, as new details about Gendron’s past and meticulous planning emerged.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that Gendron, a resident of Conklin, New York, near the Pennsylvania border, roughly 200 miles from Buffalo, made an “apparent reconnaissance” trip to the Tops store in March to map out its layout and location in preparation for the attack.
He was confronted there by a store security guard, who thought he looked suspicious, according to the Post, citing an account of the visit that the newspaper said was posted online by an individual identifying himself as Gendron.
Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said at a news briefing on Monday the suspect had visited Buffalo in early March, but he declined to confirm other details of the probe reported by the Washington Post or other news media.
Authorities said the suspect returned to Buffalo on Friday to undertake a final “reconnaissance” of the area.
Gendron came to the attention of local law enforcement last June, when police detained him after he made a threat at his high school, Gramaglia told reporters said. He was given a mental health evaluation and released after 1-1/2 days.
The Post said the trip to Buffalo in March was detailed in messages compiled in a 589-page document posted on an internet messaging platform but since removed.
The document referred to the Tops store as “attack area 1” and described two other nearby locations as targets to “shoot all blacks,” the Post reported. The writer said he counted 53 Black people in the Tops at the time of his visit, according to the account.
A Buffalo Police officer stands at the scene of a shooting at a TOPS supermarket in Buffalo, New York, U.S. May 15, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Police confirmed that they are investigating Gendron’s online postings, including a 180-page manifesto he is believed to have written outlining the “Great Replacement Theory,” a racist conspiracy notion that white people are being replaced by minorities in the United States and elsewhere. read more
Experts say the trend of mostly young white men being inspired by previous racist gun massacres is on the rise, citing such incidents as the 2015 attack at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, a 2018 shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and a 2019 rampage at a Walmart in a Hispanic neighborhood of El Paso. read more
U.S. Representative Liz Cheney took to Twitter on Monday to call on fellow Republicans to reject white supremacy, saying the political rhetoric of her party’s leaders in the House of Representatives has “enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-Semitism.” read more
Federal, state and local authorities said on Monday they were redoubling efforts to watch for threats of additional racially motivated violence propagating on social media.
Erie County District Attorney John Flynn announced that a 52-year-old Buffalo man had been charged on Monday with making a terroristic threat after placing menacing telephone calls on Sunday to a both a local pizzeria and a brewery in which he made reference to the Tops grocery shooting.
President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, plan to visit Buffalo on Tuesday.
At a separate news conference on Monday, civil rights attorney Ben Crump called on officials to define Saturday’s attack as an “act of domestic terrorism.”
“We can’t sugarcoat it, we can’t try to explain it away talking about mental illness,” Crump said, surrounded by the weeping family of Ruth Whitfield, an 86-year-old woman who was among those slain at the Tops supermarket.
Other victims included a pharmacist, a church deacon, and a young man who pushed grocery carts and did other jobs.
If the suspect had not been stopped, authorities said he planned to continue the killings, possibly targeting another large store nearby.
Authorities said that Gendron on Saturday, wearing body armor, arrived at the Tops store and began his assault with the semi-automatic rifle, which he had bought legally but then modified. Law enforcement found an additional rifle and a shotgun in his car.
The gunman broadcast the attack in real time on the social media platform Twitch, a live video service owned by Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O). The video service said it removed the broadcast within minutes.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-supermarket-shooting-probe-weigh-if-warning-signs-were-missed-2022-05-16/
LIVE UPDATES
This is CNBC’s live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine. See below for the latest updates.
Russia will likely continue relying heavily on massed artillery strikes as it tries to regain momentum in its advance on the eastern Donbas region, said the U.K.’s Defence Ministry in its daily intelligence update.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces say they have pushed back the Russian military in the region around Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, and near the border with Russia, continuing a counteroffensive that has prompted Russian troops to withdraw from around Ukraine’s second-largest city.
NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday that “Ukraine can win this war” following an informal meeting of the group. His comments came after Finland announced it would apply to join the military alliance in what marks a historic move for the traditionally neutral Nordic country.
Joining the military alliance will “maximize” Finland’s security after Russia’s unprecedented invasion of Ukraine in February, President Sauli Niinisto said.
Sweden is expected to follow suit, with both applications likely to enflame tensions between NATO and Russia further. Moscow warned last week of “retaliatory steps” if Finland joined the alliance.
Russia will likely continue relying heavily on massed artillery strikes as it tries to regain momentum in its advance on the eastern Donbas region, said the U.K.’s Defence Ministry in its daily intelligence update.
The update added that Russia had proven it was willing to use strikes against inhabited areas.
Around 3,500 buildings were estimated to have been destroyed or damaged in the Chernihiv region north of Kyiv, during Russia’s abandoned advance towards the Ukrainian capital, the ministry said in its update, posted on Twitter. As much as 80% of the damage was caused to residential buildings.
“The scale of this damage indicates Russia’s preparedness to use artillery against inhabited areas, with minimal regard to discrimination or proportionality,” the ministry said in its update, posted on Twitter.
Russia has possibly relied more heavily on such “indiscriminate” shelling because of its “unwillingness to risk flying combat aircraft routinely beyond its own frontlines,” the ministry said.
— Weizhen Tan
More than 260 Ukrainian fighters, including some who are badly wounded, were evacuated Monday from a steel plant in the ruined city of Mariupol and taken to areas under Russia’s control, the Ukrainian military said.
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said 53 seriously wounded fighters were taken to a hospital in Novoazovsk, east of Mariupol. An additional 211 fighters were evacuated to Olenivka through a humanitarian corridor. An exchange would be worked out for their return home, she said.
Malyar said missions are underway to rescue the remaining fighters inside the plant, the last stronghold of resistance in the devastated southern port city.
“Thanks to the defenders of Mariupol, Ukraine gained critically important time to form reserves and regroup forces and receive help from partners,” she said. “And they fulfilled all their tasks. But it is impossible to unblock Azovstal by military means.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the evacuation of the fighters from Azovstal to separatist-controlled territory was to save their lives. He said the “heavily wounded” were getting medical help.
“Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes to be alive. It’s our principle,” he said. “The work continues to bring the guys home, and it requires delicacy and time.”
—Associated Press
Ukrainian police officers document the destruction at one of Europe’s largest clothing markets, Barabashovo in Kharkiv.
Black smoke rises into the sky from the Barabashovo market which was reportedly hit by shelling, in Kharkiv on March 17, 2022, amid the ongoing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Poland’s agriculture minister that Ukraine’s grain exports could be routed through Poland as long as Russia’s war prevents them from departing Black Sea ports.
Henryk Kowalczyk, the agriculture minister and a deputy prime minister, spoke in Warsaw alongside U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Ukraine’s agriculture secretary and the European Union’s commission for agriculture, who is Polish.
Ukraine is a bread basket whose exports to world markets have been disrupted, threatening to exacerbate food shortages, hunger and inflation across the world.
Vilsack denounced Russia’s theft of Ukraine’s grain and its use of hunger as a tool of war. He said the U.S. would do what it could to prevent Russia from profiting from the theft.
Kowalczyk said that Poland’s ports on the Baltic Sea are prepared to be put to use to transport Ukraine’s grain abroad.
— Associated Press
Kalush Orchestra, the winners of the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest, are welcomed by members of Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service as they arrive at the Ukraine-Poland border crossing point near the village of Krakovets in the Lviv region of Ukraine.
— Pavlo Palamarchuk | Reuters
The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said there are ongoing talks with Russia to reopen critical food pathways in Ukraine.
“There are discussions ongoing at this moment to see how those corridors can be unblocked,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, adding that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres raised the issue with Russian officials.
“I can say that the situation is urgent and that we need to address it now. Because we’re already seeing the impact,” she added.
For weeks, Russian forces have blocked roughly a dozen Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, destroyed civilian infrastructure and targeted grain silos.
David Beasley, the head of the United Nations’ top food agency, said last week that “millions of people around the world will die” if Ukraine’s ports, namely Odesa, are not reopened.
— Amanda Macias
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that Swedish and Finnish delegations should not bother coming to Ankara to convince it to approve their NATO bid.
Sweden’s government has formally decided to apply for NATO membership, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said, a day after Finnish President Sauli Niinisto confirmed that Helsinki will also apply for membership.
Turkey surprised its NATO allies last week by saying it would not view their applications positively, mainly citing their history of hosting members of groups Ankara deems terrorists.
In a news conference, Erdogan repeated that Turkey would not approve their bids to join NATO, calling Sweden a “hatchery” for terrorist organizations, and adding it had terrorists in its parliament.
“Neither of these countries have a clear, open attitude towards terrorist organization,” Erdogan said. “How can we trust them?”
— Reuters
Ukraine has said its troops have regained control of territory on the Russian border near the country’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, which has been under constant fire since Moscow’s invasion began in late February.
Soldiers of the Kraken Ukrainian special forces unit stand by a destroyed bridge outside the city:
— Dimitar Dilkoff | AFP | Getty Images
Howitzers that the U.S. provided to Ukraine have proven to be “very effective” in the country’s fight against a Russian invasion, a senior U.S. Defense official said.
Ukrainian forces have used about 74 of the 90 howitzers given from U.S. stockpiles, said the official, who declined to be named. The official also said that the U.S. has delivered about 60% of the approximately 209,000 artillery rounds set out for Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces trained alongside U.S. troops in a location outside of the country before operating the howitzers.
Read more about the weapons the U.S. has sent to Ukraine thus far.
— Amanda Macias
A woman inspects a trench left by Russian soldiers next to civilian houses in Kozarovychi village, north of Vyshhorod, a city near Kyiv which was captured by the Russian army in the first days of the war.
— Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote that he spoke with International Monetary Fund Director Kristalina Georgieva about financial support for his country.
Zelenskyy said in a Twitter post that he and Georgieva discussed the need for financial support for the Ukrainian economy. He added that he looks forward to “further fruitful joint work in maintaining financial stability of Ukraine.”
The update from Zelenskyy comes a month after the two talked about Ukraine’s economic stability and “preparations for post-war reconstruction,” according to a social media post from Zelenskyy dated April 17.
In a reply to that April post on Twitter, Georgieva said that “continued economic support by Ukraine’s partners is essential to lay the foundations for rebuilding a modern competitive #Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s economy and finances have whipsawed in recent months amid the Russian invasion and subsequent support from Western allies. Moscow’s blockades of Ukrainian ports, for example, has disrupted trade routes and halted a major source of global food exports.
— Thomas Franck
Lockheed Martin has been awarded two contracts worth $309 million by the U.S. army for its Javelin missiles, the antitank weapon that has helped Ukraine fight Russia’s invasion, the company said.
The Javelin missiles are made jointly by Lockheed and Raytheon Technologies’ missile unit.
Demand for Javelin missiles remains high as the war in Ukraine worsens, where they were used to stop Russian tanks from advancing on the capital, to an artillery battle in Ukraine’s east.
So far, the United States has sent more then 5,500 Javelin systems to Ukraine.
— Reuters
The United States will send a delegation to Moldova, Georgia and the United Kingdom this week as Russia continues its assault on eastern Ukraine.
State Department Counselor Derek Chollet will lead the group representing the U.S. In Moldova, one of the countries considered most vulnerable to a potential expansion of Russia’s war, he plans to meet with government officials and “reinforce U.S. support for Moldova’s democracy, prosperity, and security,” the State Department said.
Chollet will then head to Georgia, where he “will meet with government, opposition, and civil society representatives for discussions on Russia’s continuing occupation of parts of Georgia, on the Kremlin’s brutal war against Ukraine, and on how to advance the people of Georgia’s aspirations for a democratic, peaceful, prosperous, and Euro-Atlantic future,” according to the department.
In the U.K., Chollet plans to discuss the countries’ response to the war in Ukraine along with other global security concerns.
— Jacob Pramuk
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen thanked Polish leaders for sheltering millions of Ukrainian refugees and pushed officials to support the European Union’s plans to introduce a 15% global corporate minimum tax.
Yellen, whose comments came during her trip to the Polish capital of Warsaw, spoke with Ukrainian refugee cooks during her visit to the Wilcza Hostel and the World Central Kitchen facility for Ukrainian refugees.
The U.S. Treasury Department said that Yellen would use the trip to Warsaw to discuss the war’s effect on Poland’s economy, particularly on inflation, fiscal policy, and supply chains.
“Secretary Yellen will also express her gratitude for the generosity Poland has shown in welcoming refugees, address the rising threat of food insecurity, and discuss the agreement on new international tax rules,” the department said.
Poland is the sole holdout in the EU’s plan to introduce a global corporate minimum tax. It vetoed a compromise in April to launch the 137-country deal that sought to end a downward competitive spiral in business tax rates.
— Thomas Franck
The United Nations has confirmed 3,668 civilian deaths and 3,896 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
Moscow has wasted no time in making its feelings known about the likely expansion of the Western military alliance NATO, with President Putin saying Monday that it “is a problem.”
Putin claimed that the move was in the interests of the U.S., in comments reported by Reuters, and said Russia would react to the expansion of military infrastructure to Sweden and Finland, although he insisted Moscow had “no problems” with the countries.
Putin’s comments come after other top Kremlin officials deplored the future expansion of NATO, with one describing it is a “grave mistake” with global consequences.
— Holly Ellyatt
McDonald’s said Monday that it will sell its business in Russia, a little more than two months after it paused operations in the country due to its invasion of Ukraine.
“The humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, and the precipitating unpredictable operating environment, have led McDonald’s to conclude that continued ownership of the business in Russia is no longer tenable, nor is it consistent with McDonald’s values,” the company said in a news release.
Russian forces, directed by President Vladimir Putin, have been accused of an array of war crimes during their assault on Ukraine.
McDonald’s exit from Russia is a bitter end to an era that once promised hope. The company, among the most recognizable symbols of American capitalism, opened its first restaurant in Russia more than 32 years ago as the communist Soviet regime was falling apart.
— Mike Calia
With Finland and Sweden both announcing their bids to join the Western military alliance NATO on Sunday, ending a long modern history of military non-alignment, all eyes are on Russia’s reaction.
Moscow has already expressed outrage at the idea of its old foe NATO’s potential imminent expansion, warning it would take “retaliatory steps” against the country.
Geopolitical experts are assessing the possible actions Russia could take, saying these could range from an increase in provocative acts against NATO members, such as incursions into the alliance’s airspace, or cyberattacks and more soldiers placed along the borders Russia shares with NATO members: Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Norway.
Read more here: NATO is about to get bigger and Putin is unhappy: Here are 3 ways Moscow could react
— Holly Ellyatt
Belarus’ announcement last week that it will deploy special operations forces along the Ukraine border — as well as air defence, artillery and missile units to training ranges in the west of Belarus — is likely designed to pin down Ukraine’s forces away from eastern Ukraine where fierce fighting is taking place with Russia, the U.K. military has said.
“The presence of Belarusian forces near the border will likely fix Ukrainian troops, so they cannot deploy in support of operations in the Donbas,” the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence update on Twitter Monday.
Despite early speculation, to date Belarusian forces have not been directly involved in the conflict but Belarusian territory has been used as a staging post for Russia’s initial advance on Kyiv and Chernihiv, the ministry noted, added that Russia has also launched air sorties and missile strikes from Belarus.
“Belarusian President Lukashenko is likely balancing support for Russia’s invasion with a desire to avoid direct military participation with the risk of Western sanctions, Ukrainian retaliation and possible dissatisfaction in the Belarusian military,” the ministry said.
— Holly Ellyatt
Finland and Sweden will both bring “real military capability” if they become members of NATO, according to Ben Hodges, a former commander in the U.S. Army in Europe.
The two nations have strong, liberal, democratic governments and resilient societies, he told CNBC’s “Capital Connection.”
“They will be security providers, not consumers,” he added, saying the move changes the security environment for the North Atlantic Alliance.
“This is so good for the alliance, but it’s also good for both countries and for all of Europe,” he said.
Hodges said Russia’s attack on Ukraine made Finland and Sweden feel the need to join the 30-nation strong military alliance. “This is going to go down on a list of huge blunders by President Putin and the Kremlin,” he said.
Ultimately, besides threats and complaints, there’s nothing the Russian president can do because his military is tied up at the moment, Hodges added.
— Abigail Ng
Ukrainian forces say they have pushed back the Russian military in the region around Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, and near the border with Russia.
“The 227th Battalion of the 127th Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine of Kharkiv city pushed back the Russians and reached a section of the state border,” the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine posted on Facebook on Monday morning.
Ukrainian forces have been carrying out a successful counter-offensive north of Kharkiv toward the border with Russia over the last week, while heavy fighting also continues in the eastern Donbas region.
Ukrainian air defense forces and anti-aircraft missile forces said on Facebook Sunday they had downed 11 enemy targets over the past 24 hours, including two helicopters, seven drones and two cruise missiles.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s military said it is preparing for more Russian attacks around Izyum, a city to the south of Kharkiv that’s become a focus of fighting in recent days.
Moscow’s forces have been trying to fight their way south from Izium as part of a pincer movement aimed at outflanking Ukrainian forces dug in to defend the eastern frontline, Reuters reported.
— Holly Ellyatt
Ukraine can win the war against Russia, NATO’s secretary general said on Sunday, adding that Russia’s invasion is “not going as Moscow had planned.”
Speaking virtually after an informal NATO meeting in Berlin, Jens Stoltenberg said “Ukraine can win this war.”
“Russia’s war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow had planned,” he said at a press conference. “They failed to take Kyiv. They are pulling back from around Kharkiv. Their major offensive in Donbas has stalled” and “Russia is not achieving its strategic objectives,” he added.
— Holly Ellyatt
U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said he expected the Senate to vote on $40 billion in proposed aid to Ukraine on Wednesday after holding a related procedural vote on Monday.
“We expect to invoke cloture – hopefully by a significant margin – on the motion to proceed on Monday, which would set us up to approve the supplemental on Wednesday,” McConnell told reporters on a conference call from Stockholm after visiting the Ukrainian capital on Saturday. He was referring to a procedural “cloture” vote that caps further debate on a matter to 30 hours.
— Reuters
STOCKHOLM — Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats said on Sunday they backed the country joining NATO, abandoning decades of opposition in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and creating a large parliament majority in favor of membership.
With neighboring Finland already set to hand in its application, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson is now all but certain to launch a formal application within days.
— Reuters
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, Olga Stefanishyna, said she sees a “cautious amount of great news” in the country’s defense against Russia. In particular, she pointed to Russian troops pulling back from around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in recent days.
“But we are not overoptimistic in that regard,” she said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “We see that Putin has readjusted his strategy, and the only possible winning scenario for him is a long-lasting war, which is not the case for us and the democratic world. … The unconditional victory still remains the way forward.”
Russia’s navy remains in “full preparedness to continue shelling,” Stefanishyna said, adding that “the bombarding of the eastern part of Ukraine, which are the major supply chains for the humanitarian and defense assistance, have been attacked over these nights.”
— Kevin Stankiewicz
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/16/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html
LOS ANGELES – Authorities said Monday that a deadly shooting at a Southern California church was a “politically motivated hate incident” against the Taiwanese community.
At least one person was killed and five people were injured when the shooter opened fire Sunday afternoon at the Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods, which was hosting a Taiwanese congregation.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department identified the suspect Monday as David Chou, 68, of Las Vegas. Chou was booked on one felony count of murder and five felony counts of attempted murder, the sheriff’s department said in a tweet.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation opened a hate crime investigation into the shooting.
Authorities said Chou drove to the church Sunday morning and entered during a luncheon, firing on a group of largely elderly congregants. Chou secured the doors of the church with chains and attempted to disable the locks with superglue, according to Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes.
Police discovered several bags around the church containing magazines of ammunition as well as Molotov cocktails, Barnes said Monday.
Chou, a Chinese immigrant, targeted the church in an “isolated incident” because of frustration over political disagreements between China and Taiwan, Barnes said. It is not clear why that specific church was targeted.
Police identified the victim who died as John Cheng, a congregant at the church who was shot after charging the suspect and attempting to disarm him. His “heroic actions” allowed other individuals to subdue the suspect and hogtie his legs with an extension cord and take away his weapons, Barnes said.
Cheng was pronounced dead on the scene.
“Dr. Cheng is a hero in this incident,” Barnes said. “Without the actions of Dr. Cheng, it is no doubt that there have been numerous additional victims in this crime.”
‘EXCEPTIONAL HEROISM’:California churchgoers stopped rampage, hogtied suspect after deadly shooting
Police said the shooter was armed with two handguns when he entered the church around 1:30 p.m. PDT Sunday.
About 50 people inside, most of whom were of Taiwanese descent, had just finished morning services and gathered for an afternoon luncheon, officials said. They ranged in age from 66 to 92 years old, according to Barnes.
Chou, who had driven into Orange County on Saturday, drove to the church parking lot that morning with two pistols he had legally purchased in Nevada, authorities said. After attempting to secure the doors with chains, nails and superglue, Chou fired into the building, according to police.
When deputies arrived, they found the suspect hogtied and took him into custody. He was not injured.
“The majority of the people in attendance were elderly, and they acted spontaneously, heroically,” Barnes said Monday. “If not for their quick action, the way that this individual set up that environment to kill many more people, there would have been many, many more lives lost if not for the concerted effort of the members of that church.”
Jerry Chen, 72, told The Associated Press he was inside the church’s kitchen when he heard gunshots. Congregants had been taking photos with a former pastor for whom the lunch was held before the shooting began, he said. Chen saw churchgoers running and screaming.
“I knew someone was shooting,” he told the news agency. “I was very, very scared. I ran out the kitchen door to call 911. ”
Chen said he called 911 in the church parking lot and had to ask someone for the address because he was in shock.
“This is just so sad. I never, ever thought something like this would happen in my church, in my community,” Chen said.
LATEST ON BUFFALO SHOOTING:Buffalo gunman had ‘plans to continue his attack,’ police say
Authorities said the shooter targeted the Taiwanese community at the church over political grievances on tensions between China and Taiwan.
“This was a politically motivated hate incident, a grievance that this individual had between himself and the Taiwanese community at-large,” Barnes said.
Chou was a security guard from Las Vegas who was not associated with any specific religion, Barnes said Monday. Police said there were “no known ties” between Chou and the Geneva Presbyterian Church or any individual congregants. They said Chou acted alone.
Chou, a Chinese immigrant who has lived in the USA “for many years,” has a wife and son who do not reside in the country, according to Barnes.
The FBI opened a hate crimes investigation into the shooting, said Kristi Johnson, assistant director in charge of the bureau’s Los Angeles field office.
“We have discovered evidence that the individual was motivated by some kind of hate, ” Johnson said.
Chou’s family was among many that were apparently forcibly removed from China to Taiwan sometime after 1948, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said.
Police collected hand-written notes from the suspect’s vehicle as supporting evidence that the suspect targeted the Taiwanese congregation based on their background, Barnes said.
“I believe his hatred of Taiwan manifested when he was residing there in previous years, possibly in his youth,” Barnes said.
Tensions between China and Taiwan are at the highest in decades, with Beijing stepping up its military presence by flying fighter jets toward the self-governing island. China has not ruled out force to reunify with Taiwan, which split from the mainland during a civil war in 1949.
A former neighbor said Chou’s life unraveled after he was nearly beaten to death several years ago.
Chou had been a pleasant man who used to own the Las Vegas apartment building where he lived, Balmore Orellana told The Associated Press. But Orellana said Chou suffered a head injury and serious bodily injuries in an attack by a tenant, and he sold the property.
The neighbor said that last summer Chou fired a gun inside his apartment. No one was hurt, but he was evicted.
Orellana says Chou’s mental ability seemed to diminish in recent months: he was angry that the government didn’t provide comfort in his retirement, and he may have been homeless.
Chou is expected to appear in state court Tuesday. It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
The afternoon lunch reception was to honor a former pastor of a Taiwanese congregation that has services at Geneva, according to a statement from the Presbytery of Los Ranchos, a church administrative body.
Chen said former Pastor Billy Chang had served the church for more than 20 years but moved back to Taiwan. This visit was his first time back, he said.
“Please keep the leadership of the Taiwanese congregation and Geneva in your prayers as they care for the those traumatized by this shooting,” the presbytery’s Tom Cramer said in a statement on Facebook.
Cheng, 52, who died, was a doctor from Laguna Niguel who specialized in sports medicine and was married with two children, according to Barnes.
Barnes said Cheng heroically charged at the shooter and attempted to disarm him, allowing others to intervene. Cheng probably saved the lives “of upwards of dozens of people,” the sheriff said.
A pastor hit the gunman on the head with a chair and parishioners hog-tied him with electrical cords. But Cheng was hit by gunfire.
Those wounded by gunshots included four Asian men, ages 66, 75, 82 and 92, and an 86-year-old Asian woman, the sheriff’s department said.
They were all taken to hospitals for treatment, the sheriff’s department said. Two victims were in “good condition” and two were “stable,” according to Mike Contreras with the Orange County Fire Authority.
A verified GoFundMe webpage had raised more than $20,000 for the victims as of Monday.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/05/16/california-church-shooting-gunman-hogtied-what-we-know/9790398002/
The federal government is sending out a third round of free rapid antigen COVID-19 tests through the U.S. Postal Service.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The federal government is sending out a third round of free rapid antigen COVID-19 tests through the U.S. Postal Service.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Americans can once again order free COVID-19 tests from the federal government by visiting COVIDtests.gov. In this round, the U.S. Postal Service will deliver eight free rapid antigen tests to any household in the U.S. that wants them, according to the website. That brings to sixteen the total tests offered per household so far.
The site suddenly appeared active Monday to offer the third round of free tests without a prior announcement. The White House is expected to make it official Tuesday, but the site was fully functional and taking orders ahead of time.
This comes as COVID cases in the U.S. have risen more than 60% in the past two weeks and hospitalizations have begun to climb again as well. “As the highly transmissible subvariants of Omicron drive a rise in cases in parts of the country, free and accessible tests will help slow the spread of the virus,” explains a White House fact sheet.
The administration has been criticized for not giving away as many tests as households might need if someone comes down with COVID. But officials previously said they were holding back to see how much demand there was.
Four months into the program, the White House says 350 million tests have been given away to 70 million households, more than half of the households in the U.S. In the midst of the first Omicron wave, with cases spiking and tests hard to find, the Biden administration announced it would order one billion tests to distribute free to Americans.
By the time the free government tests started showing up in mailboxes, the acute shortage had passed as cases fell and pharmacy shelves were restocked with at-home rapid antigen tests.
The first round of tests sent out in January and February provided four per household, and the second round in March provided four more tests per household, for a total of eight. This latest round doubles that, getting more tests out more quickly.
The purchase of a billion COVID tests was funded by the American Rescue Plan and served dual purposes, getting free tests into American homes and creating market stability for a domestic testing industry that struggled with the boom and bust cycle of COVID waves. In 2021, manufacturers slowed production when cases fell, only for the country to be caught flat footed when case numbers rose again.
White House officials have been pleading with Congress to pass another round of COVID prevention and treatment funds, with little progress. Part of that funding would go to buying additional tests to keep the nation’s supply up even if consumer demand wanes.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/05/16/1099335734/the-federal-government-is-offering-another-round-of-free-covid-tests
The administration has said it does not want “non-democratic” countries, including Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, to attend. In response, the presidents of Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras and several Caribbean states have said they would not attend, while a number of others have indicated they may not show up.
Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/05/16/biden-cuba-travel-remittances-visas/
Kulback’s county party backed both former Rep. Lou Barletta and businessman Dave White.
If Mastriano captures the nomination, “the PA GOP should be held accountable for this cataclysmic disaster, to put it mildly,” concurred Val Biancaniello, a Pennsylvania-based Republican organizer and former Trump delegate who supports White.
She added that Tabas should resign, and that calls for him to do so are “among insiders, very widespread.”
Tabas’ allies were quick to defend him. “He should not resign. I support him,” said Rob Gleason, himself a former state party chair.
Vonne Andring, a senior adviser for the Republican Party, responded to a request for comment sent to Tabas by saying that “the Republican State Committee voted overwhelmingly not to endorse — to give the candidates and their consultants every opportunity to make their best case to the voters.”
Some Republicans fear the already bubbling complaints could erupt into a full-blown intraparty battle should Mastriano lock down the nomination on Tuesday.
“You have the old Harry Truman quote: ‘The buck stops here,’’ said one top Republican official in the state, who was granted anonymity to discuss intraparty dynamics. “When you’re at the top and what folks may view as a mess, it stops with you.”
Some prominent Pennsylvania Republican individuals and donors are even considering publicly supporting Josh Shapiro, the presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee, if Mastriano wins the primary, several party sources told POLITICO.
Mastriano has been steadily rising in the polls in recent weeks, jumping to the front of a field that includes Barletta — who Trump endorsed for Senate in 2018 — and former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain and White.
A new independent survey from Susquehanna Polling and Research, a Pennsylvania-based Republican shop, found as much. The poll found Mastriano at 29 percent, with 18 percent for McSwain and 15 percent for Barletta. The survey was in the field from Thursday through Sunday.
Whoever wins Tuesday’s primary will face Shapiro, the state attorney general who faced no competition en route to his party’s nomination and has been stockpiling cash for the general election.
Mastriano, whose campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story, has already started to defend the state party’s handling of the primary.
“This is the first time in 44 years that the state party has not endorsed a candidate for governor,” he said in an interview with Newsmax on Monday morning. “And so truly, we have an opportunity in Pennsylvania where the people can make a vote without influence from the state party apparatus. So hats off to the party leadership for actually taking that bold stand.”
Last week, prominent Republicans in the state began to scramble to head off Mastriano by trying to push candidates out of the race in an effort to consolidate support around a single, anti-Mastriano choice. Shapiro’s campaign also sought to boost Mastriano’s prospects of winning by running TV ads that threw red meat to a MAGA base. Republicans who oppose Mastriano were alarmed, viewing it as further evidence underscoring that the state senator was the easiest candidate to beat in the general election.
While some lower-polling candidates agreed on the plan to consolidate the GOP field — state Senate President Jake Corman and former Rep. Melissa Hart both dropped out to endorse Barletta — none of the higher polling candidates trailing Mastriano budged, despite significant pressure to do so.
That was especially true for McSwain, whose campaign has repeatedly reaffirmed he would remain in the race. Commonwealth Partners, an outside group that has flooded the airwaves with pro-McSwain advertising, said on Sunday that McSwain should drop out and that the organization was switching its endorsement to Barletta. The New York Times also reported that Jeffrey Yass, a prominent Republican megadonor, asked McSwain directly to consider dropping out last week.
But many Republicans believed that the effort came far too late, even if some of the leading non-Mastriano candidates went along with it. Those would-be endorsements don’t “counter a Donald Trump endorsement,” groused a senior aide to one of the candidates, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Anyone that thinks otherwise is delusional.”
Several Republicans also pointed out that it was far too late to get candidates’ names removed from the ballot. “Frankly, I think that — strategically — the time for the party leaders to try to force consensus is certainly not May 11-16,” an aide to a second candidate said.
It’s unclear if the field will come back around to embrace Mastriano, in the event he wins on Tuesday. Aides to several of the remaining candidates said they weren’t aware of any conversations about a unity rally, which frequently happens after contentious primaries.
Mastriano’s looming victory also puts national Republicans’ investment in the state into serious question. In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts refused to commit to devoting Republican Governors Association resources to Pennsylvania should Mastriano emerge as the nominee.
“That candidate, whoever gets elected in Pennsylvania, will have to show that they’re going to make it a good race,” he said on the show. “And if it’s a good race, the Republican Governors Association will be there to support our Republican nominee.”
One Republican aide familiar with the committee’s plans, who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the decision-making process, said that while the RGA wouldn’t rule out spending in the state, “Mastriano gives us less reason to support the Republican in the state than other candidates would” because he would be a weak general election candidate.
That Republican was also skeptical that the late efforts to stop Mastriano have any chance of success. “The only way it could really happen is that [the rest of the field] all dropped out yesterday and then this morning there’s a $10 million ad buy,” the aide joked.
Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/16/gop-pennsylvania-primary-doug-mastriano-00032910