Climate Rallies Planned for White House and Across U.S. – The New York Times
Climate Rallies Planned for White House and Across U.S. – The New York Times

Mr. Biden will speak in Seattle on Friday to highlight the efforts his administration has made on climate aside from legislation. Those include a major push on solar and offshore wind development, new regulations to curb carbon dioxide from tailpipes and methane from oil and gas wells, and a ban on hydrofluorocarbons — Earth-warming chemicals used in air-conditioning and refrigeration. He will also on Friday sign an executive order creating an inventory of mature and old-growth forests on federal lands, and establish what the White House calls “climate-smart management and conservation strategies” for those forests.

“We really hope to hear they are ready to make good on the promises that President Biden ran on,” said Betamia Coronel, an organizer in New York with the Center for Popular Democracy advocacy group.

Ramon Cruz, president of the Sierra Club, said activists upset with the Biden administration are misdirecting their anger.

Fossil fuel companies and lawmakers who are blocking legislation “should be the target of our frustration and anger, not the people who are trying to do something,” Mr. Cruz said.

Organizers of the Washington rally have tightly choreographed the event in concert with the White House, lining up speakers from the administration including Ali Zaidi, the White House deputy national adviser, to try to deflect blame away from Mr. Biden.

John Paul Mejia, 19, a spokesman for the Sunrise Movement, a climate advocacy organization, got involved after living through Hurricane Irma in his hometown, Miami, and witnessing firsthand the challenges poorer communities faced.

He called passing climate legislation “the fight of my generation” and spoke of the “gut-wrenching uncertainty about the people and places I love being here tomorrow” as sea-level rise, violent storms and floods menace Miami.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/climate/climate-rally-biden.html

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Ukraine says Russia won’t allow evacuations from Mariupol steel plant, try to force surrender – Fox News
Ukraine says Russia won’t allow evacuations from Mariupol steel plant, try to force surrender – Fox News
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A Ukrainian official said Friday that Russia is refusing to allow evacuations from a Mariupol steel plant by “pretending” there is no difference between military surrender and civilian evacuations. 

“The Russians refuse to open a corridor for civilians, cynically pretending that they do not understand the difference between a corridor for the military to surrender and a humanitarian corridor to evacuate the civilians,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereschuk said. “But they do understand it all. 

“It’s just that they are trying to lay extra pressure on our military,” she added.

UKRAINE ACCUSES RUSSIA OF LEAVING UP TO 9,000 KILLED IN MARIUPOL IN MASS GRAVES

Smoke rises above Azovstal steelworks, in Mariupol, Ukraine, in this still image obtained from a recent drone video posted on social media. 
(MARIUPOL CITY COUNCIL/via REUTERS  THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES.)

Vereschuk has been attempting to facilitate the evacuation of civilians from the partially besieged port city for weeks, but her attempts have been repeatedly foiled by Russian troops. 

After several consecutive days of negotiating with Russian forces to open humanitarian corridors, the deputy prime minister said no evacuations would be happening Friday and urged Mariupol residents to “be patient” and “please hold on.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory over the war-torn city Thursday, despite the thousands of resistance forces that remain in the city.

Roughly 100,000 residents are believed to still be in Mariupol and over 1,000 civilians and soldiers have taken to the tunnels under the steel plant – a site that has become a stronghold for the resistance. 

In an attempt to root out those hunkered in the tunnels Putin advised his troops to block off the tunnels to bar access to resupplies, claiming those who voluntarily lay down their arms will be “guarantee[d] life and dignified treatment.”

Smoke rises above the Mariupol Azovstal Iron and Steel Works factory Wednesday April 20.
(REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko)

MARIUPOL BATTLE RAGES WITH THOUSANDS INJURED, UKRAINE OFFICIAL CALLS IT ‘KEY MOMENT’ IN WAR

“The Russians are afraid to storm Azovstal, but at the same time they are knowingly and cynically blocking the release of civilians from Azovstal, thus trying to put additional pressure on our military,” the deputy prime minister said.

Ukrainian soldiers have reportedly refused to surrender. 

“There is such thing as a corridor for the military to surrender. The Russians have provided one, but we don’t need it, as our military don’t want to surrender,” Vereschuk said. “There is also such thing as a humanitarian corridor to evacuate the civilians out of the combat zone. 

A boy rides a scooter near a destroyed building in Mariupol, Ukraine.
(REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko)

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“We need such [a] corridor from Azovstal to evacuate women, children and the elderly,” she added. 

Vereschuk pleaded with the international community to step in and help facilitate safe evacuations for civilians stuck in the fight. 

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/world/ukraine-says-russia-refusing-to-allow-evacuations-from-mariupol-steel-plant-putting-pressure-on-military-to-s

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Former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández extradited to U.S. – The Washington Post
Former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández extradited to U.S. – The Washington Post

The precipitous fall of Hernández, who was president from 2014 until January, has stunned citizens in this Central American country of 10 million. Less than three years ago, President Donald Trump praised the conservative leader for “working with the United States very closely” to curb migration. But at the same time, federal authorities were preparing to prosecute his brother as a drug kingpin. That trial, which ended in a conviction, included references to the president’s alleged criminal conduct.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/21/honduras-president-hernandez-extradited/

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Who was Patrick Lyoya? – NPR
Who was Patrick Lyoya? – NPR

Peter Lyoya holds up a picture of his son Patrick Lyoya, 26, in his home in Lansing, Mich., on April 14. Patrick was facedown on the ground when he was fatally shot in the head by a Grand Rapids police officer this month.

Anna Nichols/AP


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Peter Lyoya holds up a picture of his son Patrick Lyoya, 26, in his home in Lansing, Mich., on April 14. Patrick was facedown on the ground when he was fatally shot in the head by a Grand Rapids police officer this month.

Anna Nichols/AP

It was about five years ago that Patrick Lyoya first stepped into Restoration Community Church, a small United Methodist congregation just outside Grand Rapids, Mich. He was a new face, but he had a familiar story.

Like most of the congregation, Lyoya belonged to a sprawling African diaspora in Grand Rapids who came to the United States seeking safety and a better life. In Lyoya’s case, his family arrived as refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2014. They had escaped war and fear of persecution, and after more than a decade in a refugee camp, they seemed to have finally found a haven in Michigan.

America meant opportunity for the family, so when Banza Mukalay, the pastor at Restoration Community Church and himself a refugee from Congo, met Lyoya, he could sense a promising life ahead.

“He was a very young [man] who had the future, he had something in it,” Mukalay said. “You [could] see him just trying to look for himself how he [could] be better in the future.”

That future came to a sudden and tragic end earlier this month when Lyoya was shot and killed by a Grand Rapids police officer after he was pulled over for allegedly driving with an unregistered license plate. Video of the April 4 traffic stop released by the Grand Rapids police showed a brief foot chase followed by a struggle over the white officer’s Taser. The video ends with the officer shooting Lyoya in the back of the head while he was facedown on the ground. Lyoya was 26.

The harrowing video of Lyoya’s final moments has spawned days of protest in Grand Rapids over the death of yet another Black man at the hands of law enforcement. Nearly two years after George Floyd’s murder sparked a nationwide reckoning over racial injustice and police misconduct, Lyoya’s case, for many, represents a measure of the steep challenges that persist.

Yet for those who knew Lyoya, he is not a symbol. They knew him as a son, a brother and a father — a person of faith whose life was inextricably shaped by war. They remember him as someone who was quiet and kind, someone who loved music and soccer, but someone who loved his two children above everything else.

He worked hard and brought others joy

Lyoya was born in Congo — the first of Peter and Dorcas Lyoya’s six children. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press last week, his parents remembered him as a kid who always brought them joy.

“He is the type of person that you will love to be around,” Dorcas Lyoya said, adding that he excelled at putting her “in a good mood to make me laugh.”

Lyoya was born at a moment when war was just beginning to split their nation — a conflict with roots in the genocide in neighboring Rwanda and which ultimately resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The war would end in 1997, but only one year later a new conflict would erupt. Known as the Great War of Africa, it would last until 2003 and cost an estimated 3.8 million lives by one count.

War took the family from their home, and for 11 years they lived in a refugee camp, according to Robert Womack, a member of the Kent County Board of Commissioners in Grand Rapids who has been helping organize a funeral service for Lyoya scheduled for Friday. They were living in Malawi when they won asylum to live in the U.S., arriving in 2014 as part of a wave of refugees settling in Michigan from Congo.

In Grand Rapids, Lyoya’s parents landed odd jobs to make ends meet. Dorcas worked in a laundromat; Peter worked in a nursing home.

Lyoya, who was just entering adulthood around the time of the family’s U.S. arrival, soon went to work too. He worked in a small manufacturing plant helping to make auto parts, his father told the Detroit Free Press. He also worked at a turkey farm, according to Womack, as well as at a vacuum cleaner and appliance store.

Ramazani Malisawa, 33, says he worked with Lyoya at the appliance store for about six months starting around 2018. Malisawa, who is also from Congo, says they would often eat lunch together and talk about their lives in Africa and how it was they arrived in the United States. But he says these talks would only happen around lunch, because when it came to work, Lyoya was intensely focused.

Dorcas Lyoya (right), the mother of Patrick Lyoya, cries at a news conference held last week in Grand Rapids to respond to the videos of her son’s killing.

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images


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Dorcas Lyoya (right), the mother of Patrick Lyoya, cries at a news conference held last week in Grand Rapids to respond to the videos of her son’s killing.

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

“When he is working, he was not talking,” Malisawa said. “He was just focused on the work. He was a good worker and worked hard.”

It’s not that he was in love with the job, Malisawa said, but that it was important for him to be able to one day afford to send his two young daughters to school. He said he remembered Lyoya once telling him: “My kids, they will know we had a father, and our father — he worked hard.”

Outside of work, Lyoya enjoyed soccer, music and dancing. Womack said Lyoya would even teach Congolese dance traditions in clubs around Grand Rapids, and he shared the story of one local club owner who once watched Lyoya giving lessons.

“They said basically it was just peaceful and a joy,” according to Womack. “And even though some of the Americans that worked there didn’t understand the language, they said the vibe was just priceless … the vibe of joy in watching Patrick and his friends laugh and smile and dance.”

Lyoya also found community through his faith. Mukalay, the pastor at Restoration Community Church, said Lyoya wasn’t like many of the young adults he meets at the church.

“Some young people, they just come and then one day, two days, one month and then they quit or they just drop out,” Mukalay said. “He was ready to continue with us for a long time. So that’s why I say he was a young [man] who had the decision to do something better in life.”

His death has devastated the refugee community

Community leaders like Womack and Mukalay said Lyoya’s death has been particularly painful for the city’s Congolese population — a community that came to the U.S. to escape violence and felt they had found safety after years of war. It’s a grief, they say, that has forever changed their view of America.

“The difference between the Congolese families and some of the African American families who’ve been affected by state violence is the fact that the Congolese families are hurt and shocked that this could happen in the United States of America,” said Womack. “When I deal with African American families, they are hurt and mad, but they’re never shocked.”

A woman wears a sweater with an image of Patrick Lyoya as protesters march for Lyoya in downtown Grand Rapids on Saturday.

Mustafa Hussain /AFP via Getty Images


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A woman wears a sweater with an image of Patrick Lyoya as protesters march for Lyoya in downtown Grand Rapids on Saturday.

Mustafa Hussain /AFP via Getty Images

It’s a sentiment Lyoya’s mother shared with reporters during an April 14 news conference when the family called for criminal charges to be brought against the officer who killed her son. The shooting is under investigation by the Michigan State Police, but authorities have not released the name of the officer.

“I thought that we came to a safe land, a haven, a safe place,” she said, speaking through an interpreter. “And I start thinking now, I’m surprised and astonished to see that my friend — it is here that my son has been killed with bullets.”

“I was thinking it was my son who would bury me,” she said, “but I am the one burying my son.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/04/22/1094104164/patrick-lyoya-shooting-grand-rapids-michigan

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Ukraine-Russia War: Latest News and Live Updates – The New York Times
Ukraine-Russia War: Latest News and Live Updates – The New York Times

Reflecting the renewed sense of urgency, President Biden announced on Thursday that the United States would send Ukraine an additional $800 million in military aid, the second such package in just over a week.

Mr. Biden said the latest aid package sent “an unmistakable message” to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia: “He will never succeed in dominating and occupying all of Ukraine.”

In remarks at the White House, Mr. Biden said that while the United States would announce many details of the arms it is shipping to Ukraine, some of the weaponry would be kept secret. The president borrowed, and modified, a famous line by Theodore Roosevelt, saying that the United States would “speak softly and carry a large Javelin,” a reference to the antitank weapon that the Ukrainians have used effectively against Russian armor.

Determined to move swiftly, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with allies around the world this week and characterized the next month as pivotal.

If Russia can push through in the east, Mr. Putin will be better positioned at home to sell his so-called “special military operation” as a limited success and claim he has secured protection for Ukraine’s pro-Russia minority, American officials said. He might then seek a cease-fire but would be emboldened to use the Donbas as leverage in any negotiations, they said. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

But if the Ukrainian military can stop Russia’s advance in the Donbas, officials say Mr. Putin will be faced with a stark choice: commit more combat power to a fight that could drag on for years or negotiate in earnest at peace talks.

The first option might mean a full national mobilization, officials say, and is politically risky for the Russian leader.

The next phase of the war “will be critically important,” said Peter Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who visited Ukraine in March. “The escalation of hostilities in Donbas, and all areas affected by the armed conflict, is of utmost concern.”

At the Pentagon this week, both Mr. Austin and General Milley have had nonstop phone calls and meetings with allies centered on one topic: weapons. Mr. Austin spoke with his Romanian counterpart on Monday and with the Spanish defense minister on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he met with the Polish defense minister, and on Thursday, he huddled with his Czech counterpart.

President Biden with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, center, and Gen. Mark A. Milley, right, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the White House on Wednesday. On Thursday, Mr. Biden announced an additional $800 million in military aid for Ukraine.Credit…Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times

With all four, the discussions were the same, officials said: how to ship more powerful weapons to Ukraine in the coming weeks.

After weeks of focusing on antitank and antiaircraft weaponry like Javelins and Stingers, the new shipments over the last week have included long-range artillery, tactical vehicles and mobile radar systems to help the Ukrainians detect and destroy Russian artillery positions.

Other countries are sending tanks, more artillery and anti-ship missiles.

General Milley’s phone log this week looks like a roll call of countries with heavy artillery and weaponry: Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Turkey.

A senior Defense Department official described the next month as a crucial turning point for both Russia and Ukraine. This phase of the battle ostensibly favors Russia to some degree, as Russian troops move over more open terrain as opposed to getting bogged down in cities.

But the official said the Pentagon believed that with the right weapons and a continuation of high morale and motivation, the Ukrainian forces might not only stop the Russian advance, but also push it back.

“The Russians are in a weakened state from which they may well be able to recover given enough time and new conscripts,” said Evelyn N. Farkas, the top Pentagon policy official for Russia and Ukraine during the Obama administration, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula. “Therefore, it is paramount to strike at them now with everything we can give the Ukrainians.”

Current and former U.S. military commanders with experience in Ukraine and Europe agreed.

“It is make or break for Ukraine in that they must stop the Russian advance to seize all of the Donbas,” Maj. Gen. Michael S. Repass, a retired former commander of U.S. Special Operations forces in Europe who has been involved with Ukrainian defense matters since 2016, wrote in an email.

If Mr. Putin succeeds in seizing the east and establishes a land corridor to Crimea, General Repass said that Moscow would have a stronger position in any negotiated settlement.

“In another month, I anticipate exhaustion on both sides without a military decision/outcome either way,” General Repass wrote. “A stalemate means Putin wins, and if Putin ‘wins’ we are in for a rough ride.”

To try to prevent such an outcome, current and former American commanders say Ukraine’s army will seek to disrupt Russia’s military buildup around the eastern city of Izium and other important staging areas with long-range artillery and armed drone attacks.

“It is also about disrupting the Russians while they are still in reconstitution and preparation mode, before they can really get back up on their feet,” said Lt. Gen. Frederick B. Hodges, a former top U.S. Army commander in Europe who is now with the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Even as Moscow narrows its goals and consolidates its army in southern and eastern Ukraine, the outcome of the war remains unclear at best, military analysts said. Indeed, the underlying weaknesses in the Russian force, which were exposed in the early weeks of the conflict, have not necessarily gone away, they said.

For instance, the thousands of Russian reinforcements pouring into Ukraine — including mercenaries, conscripts and troops pulled from far eastern Russia and Georgia — have not trained together, analysts said.

Ukrainian soldiers towed a captured Russian tank in Nova Basan, Ukraine, this month. As Russian forces push into the Donbas, they will extend their supply lines and could confront the same logistics shortfalls that bedeviled them before, officials said.Credit…Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

The battered units that retreated from northern Ukraine will also need time to regroup. Some will be replenished and sent back to the fight. But others are so damaged that their remaining pieces will be patched together into one new unit, analysts said.

“They don’t have many options for generating new forces if the current units face too much attrition,” said Rob Lee, a Russian military specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and a former U.S. Marine officer.

“Once this offensive begins in earnest, Russia will face more losses,” Mr. Lee said. “At a certain point, attrition will be too great and will limit the Russian military’s ability to effectively conduct offensive operations.”

As Russian forces push into the Donbas, they will extend their supply lines and could confront the same logistics shortfalls that bedeviled them before, officials said.

“We’ll see in the next few weeks how much they’ve learned and how much they’ve fixed,” General Hodges said.

Even if Russian forces prevail in the next month or so, the specter of that army then advancing on western Ukraine or beyond Ukraine’s borders — a real fear at the start of the war — now seems far-fetched, several officials said.

“Win, lose or draw, the Russian military is likely to be a spent force after this next phase,” said Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Va. “Russia would be hard-pressed to sustain any campaign beyond the Donbas.” 

But the senior Defense Department official warned that for Mr. Putin, all of Ukraine — not just the Donbas — has always been the ultimate prize.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/22/world/ukraine-russia-war-news

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Philadelphia to end mask mandate, days after reinstating it – The Associated Press
Philadelphia to end mask mandate, days after reinstating it – The Associated Press

Philadelphia is ending its indoor mask mandate, city health officials said Thursday night, abruptly reversing course just days after people in the city had to start wearing masks again amid a sharp increase in infections.

The Board of Health voted Thursday to rescind the mandate, according to the Philadelphia health department, which released a statement that cited “decreasing hospitalizations and a leveling of case counts.”

The mandate went into effect Monday. Philadelphia had ended its earlier indoor mask mandate March 2.

The health department did not release data to back up its reversal on masking, saying more information would be provided Friday. But the acting health commissioner, Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, told the Board of Health at a public meeting Thursday night that hospitalizations had unexpectedly gone down 25% in a matter of days.

“We’re in a situation that we really had not anticipated being in this soon but it is good news,” she said, according to a transcript of the meeting. “So I’m really very happy … to say it appears that we no longer need to mandate masks in Philadelphia and that we can actually move to simply a strong recommendation.”

Philadelphia had become the first major U.S. city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate, but faced fierce blowback as well as a legal effort to get the mandate thrown out. Few masks were worn at the Philadelphia 76ers’ home playoff game on Monday, even though they were required under city rules.

City officials said the mandate would be lifted Friday morning.

When the city announced April 11 that mandatory masking was coming back, Bettigole said it was necessary to forestall a potential new wave driven by an omicron subvariant. She said Philadelphia had crossed the threshold of rising cases at which the city’s guidelines call for people to wear masks indoors.

“If we fail to act now, knowing that every previous wave of infections has been followed by a wave of hospitalizations, and then a wave of deaths, it will be too late for many of our residents,” Bettigole said at the time.

Cases and hospitalizations continued to rise at least through Monday, when the health department reported 82 patients in the hospital with COVID-19 — up nearly 80% from a week earlier — with confirmed cases up 58% over that same span to 224 per day. Those numbers were still a fraction of what the city endured during the wintertime omicron surge.

Bettigole told the Board of Health on Thursday night that hospitalizations had since drifted down to 65.

The restaurant industry had pushed back against the city’s reimposed mask mandate, saying workers would bear the brunt of customer anger over the new rules.

Several businesses and residents filed suit in state court in Pennsylvania seeking to overturn the renewed mandate. The Board of Health’s vote to rescind the mandate came after board members met in private to discuss the lawsuit.

“We were very pleased to see Philadelphia make the correct decision to rescind the mask mandate,” said the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Thomas W King III, who was among those involved in last year’s successful legal challenge to the statewide mask mandate in schools.

Shortly before news broke that the mandate was ending, the issue came up during Thursday night’s debate between the three leading Democratic candidates seeking the party’s nomination for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat. Notably, two of them, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta of Philadelphia, came out against the mandate.

“We have to move past COVID,” said Fetterman, adding that “we have to live with this virus, and I don’t believe going backwards with a mask mandate or with closures is appropriate.”

U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb of suburban Pittsburgh said he hated wearing masks, but thought Philadelphia officials were “trying to do what’s best for everybody.”

Most states and cities dropped their masking requirements in February and early March following new guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that put less focus on case counts and more on hospital capacity and said most Americans could safely take off their masks.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, said it is appealing a judge’s order that voided the federal mask mandate on planes and trains and in travel hubs. The CDC asked the Justice Department to appeal the decision handed down by a federal judge in Florida earlier this week.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/be64725ec3e823165326b22b5977974e

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Ukrainian fighters hold on as Putin claims victory in Mariupol – Reuters
Ukrainian fighters hold on as Putin claims victory in Mariupol – Reuters

KYIV, April 22 (Reuters) – Ukrainian fighters were clinging to their last redoubt in Mariupol on Friday after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the biggest battle of the war, declaring the port city “liberated” following weeks of relentless bombardment.

The United States, however, disputed Putin’s claim and said it believed Ukrainian forces still held ground in the city. Putin ordered his troops to blockade a giant steel works where the Ukrainians are holding out, having refused an ultimatum to surrender or die.

Ukraine said Putin wanted to avoid a final clash with its forces in Mariupol, as he lacked troops to defeat them. But Ukrainian officials also appealed for help to evacuate civilians and wounded soldiers.

In a televised meeting at the Kremlin, Putin congratulated his defence minister and Russian troops for the “combat effort to liberate Mariupol” and said it was unnecessary to storm the industrial zone containing the Azovstal steel plant.

“There’s no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground through these industrial facilities … Block off this industrial area so that not even a fly can get through,” Putin said.

Mariupol, a major port in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, sits between areas held by Russian separatists and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow seized in 2014. Capturing the city would allow Russia to link the two areas. read more

Even as Putin claims his first big prize since his forces were driven away from the capital Kyiv and northern Ukraine last month, it falls short of the unambiguous victory Moscow has sought after months of combat in a city reduced to rubble.

In a late-night address, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia was doing all it could “to talk about at least some victories”, including mobilising new battalion tactical groups.

“They can only postpone the inevitable – the time when the invaders will have to leave our territory, including from Mariupol, a city that continues to resist Russia regardless of what the occupiers say,” Zelenskiy said.

The steel complex is one of the biggest metallurgical facilities in Europe, covering 11 sq km with huge buildings, underground bunkers and tunnels.

British military intelligence said a full Russian assault on the plant would likely mean heavy Russian casualties and Putin’s decision to blockade it would free up forces for elsewhere in the east.

Russia stepped up its attacks in east Ukraine this week and made long-distance strikes at other targets including Kyiv and the western city of Lviv.

Ukraine’s general staff said Russian forces had increased attacks along the whole front line in the east and were trying to mount an offensive in the Kharkiv region in the northeast.

British military intelligence also reported heavy fighting in the east as Russian forces tried to advance on settlements but said they were suffering from losses sustained early in the war and were sending equipment back to Russia for repair.

Russia calls its invasion a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies reject that as a false pretext for a war that has killed thousands and uprooted a quarter of Ukraine’s population.

The United States authorized another $800 million in military aid for Ukraine on Thursday, including heavy artillery and newly disclosed “Ghost” drones that are destroyed after they attack their targets. read more

“We’re in a critical window now of time where they’re going to set the stage for the next phase of this war,” U.S. President Joe Biden said.

Asked about Putin’s victory declaration in Mariupol, State Department spokesman Ned Price said it was “yet more disinformation from their well-worn playbook”.

Mariupol, once home to 400,000 people, has seen not only the most intense battle of the war that started when Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24, but also its worst humanitarian catastrophe.

Ukraine estimates tens of thousands of civilians have died there. The United Nations and Red Cross say the civilian toll is at least in the thousands.

Journalists who reached Mariupol during the siege found streets littered with corpses, nearly all buildings destroyed, and residents huddled in cellars, venturing out to cook scraps or bury bodies in gardens.

Mariupol’s mayor, Vadym Boichenko, told Reuters that Putin alone could decide the fate of the 100,000 civilians trapped in the city.

“The lives that are still there, they are in the hands of just one person – Vladimir Putin. And all the deaths that will happen after now will be on his hands too,” Boichenko said in an interview. read more

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 1,000 civilians and 500 wounded soldiers needed to be brought out from the plant immediately, blaming Russian forces for the failure to establish a safe corridor that she said had been agreed.

Russia says it has taken in 140,000 civilians from Mariupol in humanitarian evacuations. Ukraine says some were deported by force, in what would constitute a war crime.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-fighters-hold-putin-claims-victory-mariupol-2022-04-22/

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Mass graves near besieged Ukrainian city Mariupol are evidence of war crimes, say Ukrainian officials – CNN
Mass graves near besieged Ukrainian city Mariupol are evidence of war crimes, say Ukrainian officials – CNN

Ukrainian officials say they have identified mass graves outside the city of Mariupol, which they say adds to mounting proof of Russian war crimes against Ukrainian civilians.

The claim is supported by photos collected and analyzed by US satellite imagery company Maxar Technologies that appears to show more than 200 new graves at a site on the northwestern edge of Manhush, a town around 12 miles (19 kilometers) to the west of Mariupol.

An estimated 100,000 people remain trapped in Mariupol which has been under constant bombardment since it was surrounded by Russian forces on March 1, according to Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian officials claim that more than 20,000 people in the city have died during the assault.

In a post Thursday on messaging app Telegram, Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said Russian trucks had collected bodies from the port city, before “dumping them” in Manhush. “This is direct evidence of war crimes and attempts to cover them up.”

A Maxar review of the satellite images from mid-March through to mid-April indicated the expansion of the grave site began between March 23 to 26, and continued into April. According to Maxar’s analysis, there are more than 200 newly dug graves at a site on the northwestern edge of Manhush.

“According to recent media reports, Russian soldiers have been taking the bodies of people killed in Mariupol to this location,” Maxar said in its analysis.

CNN cannot independently verify claims Russians have disposed of bodies in mass graves at that location. A firm death toll following weeks of heavy bombardment of Mariupol is not available.

However, journalists in Mariupol have documented the hasty burial of civilians in the besieged city, and images have surfaced on social media showing bodies apparently left for collection in the city.

Vadym Boichenko, the mayor of Mariupol, said Thursday that women, children and elderly had died on the streets of the city.

“Unfortunately, we have seen that the bodies of dead Mariupol residents have begun to disappear from the streets of our city,” he said.

According to Boichenko, the mass graves are off a bypass road, near a cemetery. He said there was a field near the cemetery with 30 meter-long (98-feet-long) ditches.

“And there they bury them, bring the bodies of the dead by trucks and throw them into these ditches,” he said.

Putin proclaims Mariupol liberated

Evidence of mass graves outside Mariupol surfaced as Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed the “liberation” of the southeastern port city by Russian forces – even as he called off an attempt to storm the Azovstal steel plant, the final bastion of Ukrainian defenders inside the city, where civilians have also sheltered.

Mariupol has been under near constant attack since the early day’s of Putin’s invasion, and much of the city has been destroyed by Russian shelling. Civilian structures targeted included a maternity hospital and a theater where up to 1,300 people were seeking refuge.

Though many have fled, an estimated 100,000 people still remain in Mariupol and its immediate surroundings, which are reported to be largely under Russian control.

Ukrainian officials, who maintain the city remains contested, have warned of a major humanitarian emergency in Mariupol as food and water run out, with electricity and gas cut – but several attempts to establish evacuation corridors to allow civilians to escape have failed.

“Unfortunately, it is not possible today to evacuate civilians from Azovstal,” Boichenko, the city’s mayor, said Thursday. “Because we are asking for a stable ceasefire. Somewhere we need one day to be able to accommodate those residents who have been hiding there for 57 days in a row, and they are being bombed, bombed and bombed.”

US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said Wednesday that there “was some hope that the Russians might allow” safe passage for civilians and wounded soldiers from Mariupol. However, she warned that such an arrangement “has fallen apart a number of times before” and ultimately it is up to the Russians to allow safe passage.

She also added that the siege of Mariupol speaks “to the brutality of this war” and the war crimes Vladimir Putin is committing.

Iryna Venediktova, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, said earlier this month that her office is investigating 5,800 cases of alleged Russian war crimes, with “more and more” proceedings opening every day.

US President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has called the atrocities being uncovered in Ukraine a “genocide.”

Russia has denied allegations of war crimes and claims its forces do not target civilians.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/22/europe/mariupol-ukraine-russia-intl-hnk/index.html

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Disney losing self-tax status could create more than $1 billion in bond debt – Business Insider
Disney losing self-tax status could create more than $1 billion in bond debt – Business Insider
  • Florida lawmakers voted on a bill to strip Disney’s special tax status.
  • But taxpayers might have to cover the debt if the special status is repealed, CNBC reported.
  • The bill is the latest development in Disney’s fight with lawmakers over the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Tax officials and legislators say that a law dissolving Disney’s self-governing status could saddle local taxpayers with more than $1 billion in bond debt, CNBC reported Thursday.

Florida Republicans passed a bill Thursday that could repeal the company’s special improvement district, effective June 2023. The bill comes after the company spoke out against the state’s recent Parental Rights in Education bill, dubbed by activists and critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

In 1967, Florida state legislators created a special taxing and governance district known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, in which the landowners — primarily Walt Disney World — would fund its own municipal services, such as power, water, roads, emergency services, and fire protection.

Scott Randolph, the tax collector for Orange County, told CNBC that the Reedy Creek district collects about $105 million a year in general revenue, on top of the more than $280 million Disney pays in property taxes — making it the largest taxpayer in central Florida.

The legislation approved Thursday by lawmakers seeks to sunset Reedy Creek by June 2023. If dissolved, the responsibility for municipal services then falls upon the neighboring counties of Orange and Osceola.

“If you dissolved Reedy Creek, that $105 million in revenue literally goes away, it doesn’t get transferred,” Randolph said, therefore saddling taxpayers to cover part, if not all, of the costs.

However, Florida state Rep. Randy Fine, who helped spearhead the bill to sunset Reedy Creek, told CNBC that local taxpayers would actually benefit from Disney being stripped of its special tax status, saying the tax revenue generated by Disney would instead go to local government and would cover the services.

“Those taxes will continue to be paid,” Fine said. “They will just be paid to Orange and Osceola county instead of this special improvement district. The taxpayers could end up saving money because you’ve got duplicative services that are being provided by this special district that are already being done by those municipalities.”

Throughout Walt Disney World, all American flags are missing a star or stripe.

Sopa Images/Getty Images


But aside from responsibility for municipal services, tax experts and legislators also warned that dissolving the district means transferring its bond liabilities — totaling between $1 billion and $1.7 billion — to other local governments, CNBC reported.

State Senate Minority Leader Gary Farmer told CNBC if the liabilities are shifted to Orange and Osceola counties, the debt could add another $1,000 per taxpayer.

“If the counties are left holding the bag, the state might have to come to their aid,” Farmer said. “So it’s not even just a tax issue for these two counties. It affects every taxpayer in the state of Florida.”

Farmer proposed an amendment to the Disney tax status bill to allow for time to study the bond debt, but it was shot down with a voice vote. Fine said the bond liabilities would be covered by tax revenue that Disney pays.

“We shouldn’t be moving at warp speed on something that can have such far-ranging economic impacts,” Farmer said.

Representatives for Walt Disney World, Farmer, and Fine did not immediately return Insider’s request for comment.

Stripping Disney of its self-governing status is the latest development in the company’s fight with GOP state lawmakers over the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill

Disney CEO Bob Chapek hints that Disney World may soon lift its mask mandate for guests

Jeff Gritchen: MediaNews Group: Orange County Register via Getty Images


Last month, Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek came under fire — both internally by employees and externally via protests at the company’s theme parks — following the company’s initially tepid denouncing of the state’s controversial LGBTQ+ legislation, despite the large part it plays in the state’s economy.

The LGBTQ+ legislation, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis on March 28, would, in general, ban discussions of sexuality and gender identity in classrooms from kindergarten to third grade and would allow parents to sue schools if staff members facilitate those conversations. It is set to go into effect on July 1.

On March 28, the same day DeSantis signed the bill into law, Disney released its most critical statement thus far against the legislation, saying it “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law.”

“Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that,” a spokesperson for the company said.

In response, DeSantis slammed the company, saying it “crossed the line” with their statement and effort to repeal it, which he called “fundamentally dishonest.”

On Thursday, Newsmax host Eric Bolling asked Lt. Gov Jeanette Nuñes if the governor would reconsider repealing Disney’s special tax status if the company gave up their “‘woke’ agenda.'”

“Is there an opportunity for Disney to change their mind and say we will disregard this whole ‘woke’ agenda…and would the governor then say, ‘fine, you can keep your status but we’re gonna keep an eye on you now’?” Bolling asked, to wich Nuñes said: “Sure.”

Source Article from https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-losing-self-government-status-could-create-billion-bond-debt-2022-4

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L.A. County will keep mask mandate at airports, public transit – Los Angeles Times
L.A. County will keep mask mandate at airports, public transit – Los Angeles Times

Despite recent changes at the federal level, Los Angeles County is continuing to require travelers to mask up when aboard public transit or in indoor transportation hubs such as airports.

The new health officer order, which went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday, means the nation’s most populous county again has face-covering rules that go beyond those set by the state.

On Wednesday, the California Department of Public Health unveiled its own updated guidance that strongly recommends residents mask up when using public transit, though it’s no longer required.

L.A. County’s mask order covers commuter trains, subways, buses, taxis, Ubers and Lyfts; as well as indoor transportation hubs, including bus terminals, subway stations, seaports and other indoor port terminals, according to Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. It applies to everyone ages 2 and older, regardless of their COVID-19 vaccination status.

The order affects Los Angeles International Airport and Hollywood Burbank Airport. Ferrer said she expects the Long Beach public health department, which operates independently of the county, to adopt a similar order. Pasadena, which also has its own public health agency, confirmed it will align with the county’s mask-wearing rules.

California

The new mask-optional phase of the pandemic fuels fears, and some cheers

Welcome to the mask-optional phase of the pandemic. It brings freedoms and risks

The local mask-wearing order applies to airline passengers once they disembark their plane and does not extend to people once they have boarded.

Local transit agencies began announcing the return of mask orders on public transportation. Mask use became optional on the Metrolink commuter rail system Monday night and L.A. County’s Metro system Tuesday, but mask wearing was again required starting Friday.

In opting to maintain the mandate, Ferrer cited both the continued elevated level of coronavirus transmission countywide and a recent assessment from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that, “at this time, an order requiring masking in the indoor transportation corridor remains necessary for the public health.”

“That resonates with us,” Ferrer told reporters during a briefing Thursday. “We think and agree that public transit settings … and public transportation hubs that are indoors are places where, A) There’s a lot of mingling; B) They’re often crowded; and C) In some of those settings, it’s really hard to have adequate ventilation.

“As soon as CDC determined that it was important to keep this masking requirement in place, we went ahead and aligned with the CDC,” she added.

The CDC had intended to keep the federal mask order on public transportation systems such as buses, trains and airplanes in place at least until May 3, pending further review of increasing coronavirus cases nationally. But that timeline was upended by a court ruling striking down the mandate earlier this week.

The Justice Department has since moved to appeal the decision.

Politics

Justice Department to appeal order voiding travel mask mandate

The Justice Department is filing an appeal seeking to overturn a judge’s order that voided the federal mask mandate on planes, trains and travel hubs.

Ferrer said this latest health order is not meant as a precursor to the reinstitution of broader mask mandates, such as in schools or other indoor public settings.

She did, however, acknowledge that some residents may feel a touch of whiplash as many airlines, transit systems and commuting companies, including Uber and Lyft, announced they would lift masking requirements for passengers following the court ruling.

“I think it’s important to note that the CDC did not change their requirements/recommendation, their guidance,” Ferrer said. “A judge, a federal judge with little experience in public health, actually determined that and questioned … whether CDC had the authority to issue that regulation.”

L.A. County is not the first local entity to require mask use on public transit in the aftermath of Monday’s federal court ruling. On Tuesday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the mask mandate would remain in effect at John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports in New York City, based on local public health guidance.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Tuesday that masks are still required on New York City’s subway and bus system, in accordance with recommendations from public health officials.

The transit agency that serves Milwaukee County in Wisconsin has also retained a mask-wearing order on its bus system.

Officials acknowledge it’s not ideal to have local orders at odds with other areas of the country but blamed the mismatch of masking policies on the judicial action.

“While it would be much [more] preferable to have — as the CDC had previously mandated — a requirement that covers the entire country until the legal challenges are addressed, it’s important that local jurisdictions take direction from the CDC on what measures are needed to protect the public health,” Ferrer said.

“This was not a decision by the federal government that masks were no longer needed in very congested settings like public transit, our buses, in New York City, the subway. But it was overturned by the court for procedural reasons,” Hochul said Wednesday.

California

Are masks still effective even when many aren’t wearing them? What experts say

Many experts stress that face coverings still protect against the coronavirus and that masking up makes sense — even if it’s no longer mandatory.

Ferrer also expressed concern about recent increases in the county’s coronavirus case and test positivity rates. Over the last week, L.A. County averaged 1,262 new cases a day, more than double the rate recorded a month ago.

The coronavirus positivity rate also has increased to about 2% in recent days; two weeks ago, the positivity rate was about 1%.

An additional point of concern is the rapidly spreading BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron variant in L.A. County, which now dominates sequenced coronavirus cases.

The latest case rate is equivalent to 87 cases a week for every 100,000 residents, meaning the county is seeing a substantial level of coronavirus transmission. L.A. County would need to drop to a rate of fewer than 50 cases a week for every 100,000 residents, or fewer than 730 cases a day, to return to a moderate level of transmission.

Ferrer said the county order will be reassessed when community transmission falls back to the moderate level, when the CDC determines transit masking is no longer necessary, or in 30 days, whichever happens first.

“While many of us would like to be at a place where masking is no longer necessary, with substantial transmission and a more infectious variant, one of the easiest things we can do to prevent infection is to wear a well-fitting mask or respirator,” she said.

Ferrer added that the county will continue to employ an education-emphasis approach to promote compliance, rather than heavy-handed enforcement.

“Our experience to date is that the vast majority of people follow these sensible rules. They take to heart the fact that these are put in place so that we can go on with the business of protecting each other and keeping each other safe, keeping the workforce safe,” she said. “But as always, we anticipate that there will be small numbers of people that aren’t going to be following the rules.”

Science

Q&A: How a Florida judge’s mask ruling could cause problems in the next pandemic

The ruling abruptly halted one of the pandemic’s most hotly contested public health measures. Its implications may be long-lasting.

State health officials, too, are continuing to tout the benefits afforded by masking — particularly in settings such as public transit. However, unlike L.A. County, the California Department of Public Health is opting for a recommendation when it comes to face coverings, rather than a requirement.

“Going forward, California will strongly recommend masks on all public transportation and in transit hubs, including bus and train stations, ferry terminals and airports,” Dr. Tomás Aragón, the state health officer and director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement to The Times. “These crowded settings should be considered high risk and may often not have adequate ventilation.”

He emphasized that “masks, along with vaccines, are an effective and important layer of protection against COVID-19,” and said the state continues “to monitor federal action on this issue and will announce any additional changes to state policies as needed.”

Public transit agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area formally dropped their mask requirements Wednesday but also continue to suggest wearing face coverings.

The board governing the BART commuter rail system, however, will consider reinstating a mask mandate at a meeting April 28.

“COVID cases are rising again, and we must keep riders safe, especially folks who are immunocompromised or who are under 5 and not yet eligible to get vaccinated,” tweeted BART board President Rebecca Saltzman.

Coronavirus cases are rising nationally, up from 27,000 to 41,000 cases a day over the last two weeks. New daily coronavirus-positive hospitalizations nationally are still among the lowest levels since recordkeeping began but are starting to increase, and are up 7% over the prior week.

Scientists are closely watching the latest highly contagious Omicron subvariant, BA.2.12.1, which is believed to be 25% more contagious than its parent subvariant, BA.2. The newest subvariant already accounts for more than half the new coronavirus cases in New York and New Jersey.

BA.2.12.1 has been detected in Los Angeles County, Ferrer said. Between March 27 and April 2, that subvariant accounted for 6% of analyzed cases in L.A. County.

California

Mask-optional public transit alarms immunocompromised people and their families

Many medically vulnerable people are worried about how to handle public transportation now that a federal judge has struck down the CDC mask mandate.

While cheered in certain circles, the sudden striking of the federal mask order sparked concern from some experts who didn’t support the timing or the fact that the decision was made by a judge rather than public health officials.

The absence of the mask order also presents additional challenges for many medically vulnerable people and their families — who are now left worrying about whether to go through with plane trips or how to navigate other public transportation options.

“We have fought so hard for the right to exist in our community, and now to have these mask mandates fall, which will make it even harder for us to do so, is just infuriating,” said Maria Town, president and chief executive of the American Assn. of People With Disabilities.

Times staff writers Rachel Uranga and Emily Alpert Reyes contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-04-21/california-strongly-recommends-transit-masking-despite-federal-changes

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Audio: McCarthy said he would urge Trump to resign – The Associated Press
Audio: McCarthy said he would urge Trump to resign – The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy told fellow GOP lawmakers shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection that he would urge then-President Donald Trump to resign, according to audio posted Thursday night by The New York Times and aired on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show.

In the recording of a Jan. 10 House Republican Leadership call, McCarthy is heard discussing the Democratic effort to remove Trump from office and saying he would tell Trump, “I think it will pass and it would be my recommendation he should resign.”

It’s unclear whether McCarthy, who is in line to become House speaker if Republicans gain control during the fall midterm elections, followed through on his thinking or was merely spit-balling ideas shared privately with his colleagues in the aftermath of the deadly Capitol assault.

In the same conversation, McCarthy told his colleagues he doubted Trump would take the advice to step aside.

“That would be my recommendation,” McCarthy is heard saying in response to question from Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who would emerge as a staunch Trump critic. “I don’t think he will take it, but I don’t know.””

Earlier Thursday, after the Times published its initial story describing the conversation, McCarthy released a statement calling it “totally false and wrong.” His spokesman, Mark Bednar, had told the paper, “McCarthy never said he’d call Trump to say he should resign.”

Bednar did not immediately respond to questions late Thursday night after the audio’s release. Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the tape.

The audio threatens to badly damage the relationship between McCarthy and Trump, who remains the most popular figure in the Republican Party, despite his role in inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection and his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. And it could threaten McCarthy’s standing with House Republicans aligned with Trump, whose support he will need for votes to become House speaker next year.

The audio depicts a very different McCarthy than the one who has been leading House Republicans over the last year and a half and who has remained allied with Trump even after delivering a speech on the House floor shortly after Jan. 6, during which he called the attack on the Capitol “un-American.” At the time, McCarthy called the assault among the saddest days of his career and told his fellow Republicans that Trump “bears responsibility” for the violence.

Even after the violence, though, McCarthy joined half of the House Republicans in voting to challenge Joe Biden’s election victory.

Since then, the California Republican has distanced himself from any criticism of Trump and has avoided directly linking him to what happened. Within weeks of the siege at the Capitol McCarthy said he did not think Trump provoked the attack, as other prominent Republicans said at the time.

Instead, McCarthy has cozied up to Trump, visiting him at the former president’s Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago as he relies on the former president’s brand for campaign support this fall.

McCarthy indicated during an interview with The Associated Press this week in California that Trump will motivate voters to turn out for the party in this fall’s midterm elections.

“He’ll motivate, get a lot of people out,” McCarthy said at a GOP event in Fresno.

The Times report Thursday was adapted from an upcoming book, “ This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future,” by Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.

In the audio, Cheney, who eventually lost her No. 3 leadership position after voting in favor of Trump’s impeachment, can be heard asking McCarthy about a 25th Amendment resolution calling for Trump’s ouster and whether Trump might resign.

“I’ve had a few discussions. My gut tells me no. I’m seriously thinking of having that conversation with him tonight,” McCarthy is heard saying. “What I think I’m gonna do is I’m gonna call him.”

“I think it will pass and it would be my recommendation he should resign,” he later adds. “I mean, that would be my take but I don’t think he would take it. But I don’t know.”

McCarthy, 57, has been strategically charting his own delicate course as he positions himself to try to take over as speaker if Republicans retake the House. He has begun to build out his leadership team and last summer tasked several groups of Republican lawmakers with drafting proposals on the party’s core legislative priorities in hopes of making a fast start in 2023.

But even as he inches closer to leading the chamber, McCarthy is well aware of the downside of power in recent months as hard-right members of the conference have created headaches with inflammatory actions and statements.

There was little immediate reaction Thursday night from fellow Republicans who could determine his future.

To be sure, no other Republican leader in the House has amassed the standing to challenge McCarthy for the leadership position.

McCarthy has recruited the class of newcomers bolstering GOP ranks and raised millions to bolster Republican campaigns. He has drawn his closest rivals into the fold even as he works to shore up the votes that would be needed to become speaker.

An outside group aligned with McCarthy has led fundraising ahead of the midterm elections, and rank-and-file Republicans working to regain the House majority are unlikely to be critical of the leader ahead of November.

Still, McCarthy has also been a person of interest for the House committee investigating the storming of the Capitol on Jan 6. The select committee, which Cheney vice-chairs, requested an interview with McCarthy in mid-January, hoping to learn more about his conversations with Trump “before, during and after” the riot.

They had also sought information about McCarthy’s communications with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the days before the attack. Hours after the request was made, McCarthy issued a statement saying he would refuse to cooperate because he saw the investigation as not legitimate and accused the panel of “abuse of power.”

The committee has been especially focused on McCarthy’s communications with Trump and White House staff in the week after the violence, including a conversation with Trump that was reportedly heated.

Without his cooperation, it remains unclear whether the panel will be able to gain testimony from McCarthy or any other congressional allies of Trump. While the committee has considered subpoenaing fellow lawmakers, they have so far avoided doing so as it would be an extraordinary move and could run up against legal and political challenges.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/21966d3d89abf913dcf20c17ac5b256b

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No survivors after small plane crashes near General Mills plant in Georgia: Police – ABC News
No survivors after small plane crashes near General Mills plant in Georgia: Police – ABC News

A small plane crashed in the lot of a General Mills plant in Georgia shortly after takeoff Thursday evening, killing all aboard, authorities said.

The plane took off from the Covington Municipal Airport around 6:45 p.m., Covington Police Department Captain Ken Malcom said during a press briefing.

Witnesses told police it appeared that the aircraft, believed to be a Cessna twin-engine propeller plane, was having trouble gaining altitude and that it sounded like there was engine trouble.

Malcom said the plane then suddenly veered and crashed into the lot of the General Mills plant, located about a mile from the airport. The plane went down in an isolated area that stored tractor-trailers, some of which caught fire, he said.

There were no survivors, Malcom said. It is unclear how many people were aboard the plane, and police are working to determine who the victims are, he said.

No one was injured on the ground, according to Malcom, who noted that many lives were potentially saved since the plane didn’t crash directly into the plant.

Fire personnel was still working to put out the fire at the scene several hours after the crash.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident.

ABC News’ Darren Reynolds contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/US/survivors-small-plane-crashes-general-mills-plant-georgia/story?id=84233001

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Colorado Dem gov slams DeSantis for ‘socialist attacks’ on Disney, GOP gov hits back at ‘baseless allegations’ – Fox News
Colorado Dem gov slams DeSantis for ‘socialist attacks’ on Disney, GOP gov hits back at ‘baseless allegations’ – Fox News
Video

Jimmy Joins ‘Fox and Friends First’ To Discuss DeSantis Pushing Back Against Woke Disney

During an appearance on “Fox and Friends First”, Fox Across America host Jimmy Failla shares his thoughts on Florida’s state Senate passing a bill to strip Disney World of its self-governing power and Bernie Sanders potentially making another run at the White House in 2024.

FIRST ON FOX: Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis traded words over the latter’s push for legislation targeting Disney.

Polis criticized Florida in a Tuesday tweet over his support of the state legislation stripping Disney of its special self-governance powers and for DeSantis saying he was looking into legislation regarding Twitter’s poison pill to Elon Musk’s offer.

“Florida’s authoritarian socialist attacks on the private sector are driving businesses away,” Polis tweeted. “In [Colorado], we don’t meddle in affairs of companies like [Disney] or [Twitter].”

FLORIDA SENATE PASSES BILL STRIPPING DISNEY OF SPECIAL SELF-GOVERNING POWER

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaks during a news conference about Colorado offering coronavirus vaccinations to children, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021, in Denver.
(AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

“Hey [Disney] we’re ready for Mountain Disneyland and [Twitter] we’re ready for Twitter HQ2, whoever your owners are,” the Democrat governor continued.

Polis spoke with Fox News Digital in a Thursday phone interview to discuss his tweet, during which he said DeSantis is “welcome to disagree” with any company and that he believes “when government starts threatening private companies with retribution based on their free speech, that takes us down the road towards authoritarianism.”

“I think it’s important that we can create a culture that goes against this kind of cancel culture that we’re seeing,” Polis said. “And just because a company has a viewpoint you don’t like doesn’t mean that that company should be penalized by politicians, right?” 

“Consumers, absolutely,” the Colorado governor continued. “You can choose not to go to Disneyland. You can choose to buy or not buy whatever product you want. But where it becomes inappropriate is where government leaders say we’re specifically running laws that penalize your company because we don’t like the way you’ve exercised your free speech.”

U.S. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, U.S. Feb. 24, 2022. (REUTERS/Octavio Jones)

Polis warned that if Florida “targets specific companies with legislation to hurt them because of their political viewpoints,” the Sunshine State could see “see a mass exodus of companies.”

The Democrat governor also said that he believes “the best balance for a free market economy is to respect that there’s a variety of voices of political opinions, and no person or company should be singled out because of their ideology or belief and specifically targeted by a bill that’s really anti-business.”

FLORIDA HOUSE PASSES BILL STRIPPING DISNEY OF SELF GOVERNING STATUS

DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw pushed back against Polis’ comments in a Thursday email to Fox News Digital, saying, “Floridians, many of whom have fled from socialist countries like Cuba and Venezuela, understand what socialism is and is not.”

“It would be prudent for all politicians to educate themselves on the definition of socialism before weaponizing such baseless allegations,” Pushaw wrote. “Socialism IS: an authoritarian system where the state controls the means of production and the entire economy.”

“Socialism is NOT: [p]assing legislation to create a more even playing field for all businesses [or] [s]elling shares of a corporation due to evidence that corporation is not acting in shareholders’ best interests and therefore creates unnecessary risks to investors,” she continued.

Pushaw said that DeSantis “has consistently supported a more level playing field for all businesses in Florida” and that it is “not ‘retaliatory’ to pass legislation that allows all corporations to do business in a fairer environment.”

Fireworks go off around Cinderella’s castle during the grand opening ceremony for Walt Disney World’s Fantasyland in Lake Buena Vista, Florida Dec. 6, 2012. 
(REUTERS/Scott Audette/File Photo)

The Florida governor’s spokeswoman also said DeSantis’ proclamation “at the start of this special session called on the legislature to examine the existence of all special districts” and that “Disney benefits from one of these special districts.”

“The special district associated with Disney has existed for decades, since before Governor DeSantis was born. Special districts could in some instances show favoritism,” Pushaw wrote. “Should a corporation be serving as a regulator and a business at the same time? Should a corporation get to avoid standard environmental permitting processes? Should a corporation engage in eminent domain? Other businesses don’t get these privileges.”

“Moreover, it was unfortunate that Disney decided to wade into a political debate and attempt to overturn a common-sense law, enacted by a duly elected legislature and signed by a duly elected governor, with the support of the vast majority of Floridians,” she continued. “In fact, it was Disney that ‘retaliated’ by publicly vowing to ‘repeal’ or have the law ‘struck down.’”

She also pointed to DeSantis’ Twitter comments from his Wednesday press conference, during which the governor criticized Twitter’s board of directors for accepting the “poison pill” offer to sink Musk’s bid and pointed out that Florida’s pension fund had Twitter shares.

“We have people that run the fund, but nevertheless, it [Twitter] hasn’t exactly been great and returns on investment. It’s been pretty stagnant for many, many years,” she said. “I mean, to me, I think that that’s probably an injury to the fund. So we’re gonna be looking at ways that the state of Florida potentially can be holding these Twitter board of directors accountable for breaching their fiduciary duties.”

This April 26, 2017, file photo shows the Twitter app icon on a mobile phone in Philadelphia.
((AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

The Florida Senate passed a bill 23-16 on Wednesday that revokes the special self-governing status that Disney has held for the past half-century. The Florida House passed the bill on Thursday, 

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The special status, known as The Reedy Creek Improvement Act, was signed into law in May 1967 by Gov. Claude Kirk in response to lobbying efforts by Disney. The entertainment giant proposed building a recreation-oriented development on 25,000 acres of property in a remote area of Central Florida’s Orange and Osceola counties, which consisted of 38.5 square miles of largely uninhabited pasture and swampland. 

The bill’s passage came after a feud between Disney and Florida Republicans over the state’s parental rights in an education bill.

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed reporting.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/polis-criticizes-desantis-for-socialist-attacks-on-disney-florida-gov-calls-comments-baseless-allegations

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Florida taxpayers could face a $1 billion Disney debt bomb if its special district status is revoked – CNBC
Florida taxpayers could face a $1 billion Disney debt bomb if its special district status is revoked – CNBC

A repeal of Disney’s self-government status in Florida could leave local taxpayers with more than $1 billion in bond debt, according to tax officials and legislators.

The Florida House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill that would dissolve Disney’s special improvement district, escalating Gov. Ron DeSantis’ attack on the company over its opposition to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, dubbed by critics the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

The state Senate passed the bill Wednesday, after it was first introduced Tuesday. It will now go to the governor for his signature.

Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District was created in 1967 and gives the Walt Disney Company full regulatory control over Disney World as well as government services such as fire protection, emergency services, water, utilities, sewage and infrastructure.

Tax experts and legislators say elimination of the district, which would take effect in June 2023, could have unintended consequences for county taxpayers.

Reedy Creek spans 25,000 acres in Orange and Osceola counties and includes Disney’s four theme parks, two water parks and sports complex. It also includes the two small cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, which had a combined population of 53 people in 2020, all either representatives or employees of Disney.

To fund the government services of Reedy Creek, Disney effectively taxes itself. While the precise tax flows of Reedy Creek are unclear, Scott Randolph, the tax collector for Orange County, said the Reedy Creek district collects roughly $105 million annually in general revenue.

On top of the $105 million, Disney also pays local property taxes. Public records show Disney is the largest taxpayer in central Florida, paying over $280 million in property taxes to the counties between 2015 and 2020.

If the special district is dissolved, Orange and Osceola counties would have to provide the local services currently provided by Reedy Creek. And, the $105 million in revenue would disappear, meaning county and local taxpayers would be on the hook for part or all of the added costs.

“If you dissolved Reedy Creek, that $105 million in revenue literally goes away, it doesn’t get transferred,” Randolph said.

The reason: Reedy Creek is what’s known as an “independent tax district” meaning the tax revenues it generates are in addition to its local tax obligations, rather than a replacement of them. If the district is eliminated, the tax payments to Orange and Osceola counties would not increase, Randolph said.

Florida state Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, who has helped champion the bill, told CNBC on Thursday that local taxpayers would not pay more — and could actually benefit from Reedy Creek’s elimination. Fine said the tax revenue that Disney pays would be transferred to local government and could more than pay for the added services.

“Those taxes will continue to be paid,” he said. “They will just be paid to Orange and Osceola county instead of this special improvement district. The taxpayers could end up saving money because you’ve got duplicative services that are being provided by this special district that are already being done by those municipalities.”

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/disney-special-district-florida-taxpayers-could-face-a-1-billion-debt-bomb-if-dissolved.html

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Putin claims victory in Mariupol; Ukrainian fighters hold on – Reuters.com
Putin claims victory in Mariupol; Ukrainian fighters hold on – Reuters.com

KYIV, April 21 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory on Thursday in the biggest battle of the Ukraine war, declaring the port city of Mariupol “liberated,” although hundreds of Ukrainian troops and civilians were still holding out inside a giant steel works.

The United States disputed Putin’s claim and said it believed Ukrainian forces still held ground in the city. Putin ordered his troops to blockade the steel complex, where Ukrainians were told earlier to either surrender or die.

Ukraine said Putin wanted to avoid a final clash with its forces in Mariupol, as he lacked troops to defeat them. But Ukrainian officials also appealed for help to evacuate civilians and wounded soldiers.

In a televised meeting at the Kremlin, Putin congratulated his defence minister and Russian troops for having “successfully completed the combat effort to liberate Mariupol”.

He said it was unnecessary to storm the industrial zone containing the Azovstal steel plant.

“There’s no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground through these industrial facilities… Block off this industrial area so that not even a fly can get through,” Putin said.

Mariupol, a major port in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, sits between areas held by Russian separatists and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow seized in 2014. Capturing the city would allow Russia to link the two areas as it intensifies its offensive in Ukraine’s east. read more

Even as Putin claims his first big prize since his forces were driven away from the capital Kyiv and northern Ukraine last month, it falls short of the unambiguous victory Moscow has sought after months of combat in a city reduced to rubble.

In a late-night address, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia was doing all it could “to talk about at least some victories”, including mobilising new battalion tactical groups.

“They can only postpone the inevitable – the time when the invaders will have to leave our territory, including from Mariupol, a city that continues to resist Russia regardless of what the occupiers say,” Zelenskiy said.

Russia calls its invasion a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies reject that as a false pretext for a war that has killed thousands and uprooted a quarter of Ukraine’s population.

Moscow stepped up its attacks in eastern Ukraine this week and made long-distance strikes at other targets including Kyiv and the western city of Lviv, where missiles killed seven people on Monday.

Heeding continued Ukrainian calls for new weapons, Washington authorized another $800 million in military aid for Ukraine on Thursday, including heavy artillery. read more

Asked about Putin’s victory declaration in Mariupol, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said it was “yet more disinformation from their well-worn playbook”.

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A service member of pro-Russian troops stands in front of the destroyed administration building of Azovstal Iron and Steel Works during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 21, 2022. REUTERS/Chingis Kondarov

Mariupol, once home to 400,000 people, has seen not only the most intense battle of the war that started when Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24, but also its worst humanitarian catastrophe.

Ukraine estimates tens of thousands of civilians have died in Mariupol. The United Nations and Red Cross say the civilian toll is at least in the thousands.

Journalists who reached Mariupol during the siege found streets littered with corpses, nearly all buildings destroyed, and residents huddled freezing in cellars, venturing out to cook scraps on makeshift stoves or to bury bodies in gardens.

Ukrainian fighters remain inside the Azovstal steel complex, one of the biggest metallurgical facilities in Europe, covering 11 sq km with huge buildings, underground bunkers and tunnels.

Mariupol’s mayor, Vadym Boichenko, told Reuters on Thursday that Putin alone can decide the fate of the 100,000 civilians still trapped in the city.

“It’s important to understand that the lives that are still there, they are in the hands of just one person – Vladimir Putin. And all the deaths that will happen after now will be on his hands too,” Boichenko said in an interview. read more

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 1,000 civilians and 500 wounded soldiers needed to be brought out from the plant immediately, blaming Russian forces for the failure to establish a safe corridor that she said had been agreed.

Moscow says Russia has taken in 140,000 civilians from Mariupol in humanitarian evacuations. Kyiv says some were deported by force, in what would constitute a war crime.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday proposed a four-day humanitarian pause to the fighting during the Orthodox Easter period. Both Ukrainians and Russians are predominantly Orthodox Christians, and mark Easter Sunday on April 24.

A Ukrainian association of churches and religious communities separately proposed an Easter truce, and the head of Ukraine’s Orthodox church urged Ukrainians to forgo night-time Easter services, fearing Russian bombardment. read more

Zelenskiy said on Thursday that Russia had “rejected the proposal to establish an Easter truce,” but said Ukraine still had hope during the holiday. It was not immediately clear which truce proposal Zelenskiy was referring to.

There was no immediate Russian comment.

An aide to Zelenskiy’s chief of staff told Ukrainian television Russian forces captured 42 villages in the eastern Donetsk region on Thursday, but Ukraine might soon take them back. read more

After announcing new military aid for Ukraine, including dozens of howitzer artillery systems, U.S. President Joe Biden said Washington and allies were “moving as fast as possible” to provide Kyiv with the weapons it needs. read more

“We’re in a critical window now of time where they’re going to set the stage for the next phase of this war,” Biden said.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/leading-putin-ally-predicts-mariupol-victory-thursday-2022-04-20/

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Does it matter if planes, trains and buses have mask mandates? 2 COVID experts weigh in. – SF Gate
Does it matter if planes, trains and buses have mask mandates? 2 COVID experts weigh in. – SF Gate

“Any mandate we’re looking at would be temporary, this is not a forever thing,” BART District 8 Director Janice Li told SFGATE. “Our policy needs to be data-driven. When the TSA extended the mandate for an additional two weeks, it gave us some runway see what cases look like with BA.2, and we’re seeing an early uptick in cases again in the region.”

But is it possible the BART mask mandate — and transit mask mandates generally — have minimal impact on the spread of the virus? Studies on mask-wearing show that the strongest protection comes from wearing well-fitted high quality masks such as N95s and KN95s. Cloth masks and surgical masks have been shown by two separate studies to provide minimal protection against even the early strains of the virus, to say nothing of the more contagious delta and omicron variants.

Individuals who would go maskless in the absence of a mandate might wear cloth or surgical masks if a mandate were reimplemented. Individuals who are wearing N95s and KN95s with a mandate may continue wearing those masks even without a mandate. So are transit masking policies actually doing anything?

Li said that because she’s not an infectious disease expert, she did not want to speculate. SFGATE reached out to two prominent UCSF COVID-19 experts — Dr. Bob Wachter and Dr. Jeanne Noble — to get their insights. Both agreed that high quality masking provides substantial protection to the wearer — even if they’re interacting with maskless individuals known to be COVID-19-positive.


“Wearing an N95 or equivalent provides excellent protection,” Wachter wrote in an email. “It’s what we wear in the hospital when we’re taking care of patients we know have covid! And infection from patient to clinician is very rare. Low quality cloth masks provide next-to-no protection and should not be counted on.”

“The use of low quality (cloth) masks is not likely to make any measurable difference in viral transmission so it doesn’t matter whether you or others are wearing one,” Noble wrote. “One way masking with an N95 is the form of protection used and accepted by health care workers on a daily basis – our sick respiratory patients breathing hard and fast because they are sick with COVID or influenza or TB are unmasked and we are up close taking care of them (<6ft for >15 minutes) on a regular basis. We are considered protected because of 1 way masking – my N95 protects me and I do not worry about my patient with a heavy viral load not being masked.”

Noble said studies on masking lead her to believe that mask mandates — whether on public transit or elsewhere — have scant impact on the spread of the virus.

“Our single positive randomized controlled trial for masks done in Bangladesh found no protection for cloth masks, and a ‘relative risk reduction’ of 10% for surgical masks only for persons over age 50 which translated to a <1% absolute reduction in getting symptomatic COVID for this age group,” she wrote. “Given this very modest benefit even for surgical masks (reducing transmission by 1% or less), mask mandates may create a false sense of reassurance to those who truly need the extra protection.

“The severely immunocompromised person (eg., organ transplant, on B cell depleting therapy, aggressive chemo) should be using an N95 in crowded spaces when viral prevalence is high. They should not opt for a cloth or surgical mask because other people around them are masked and therefore assume it is ‘safe enough’ to avoid the tight fitting and uncomfortable N95.”

Wachter disagreed with Noble on this point, stating that he believes the absence of mask mandates will be “part of a general decrease in caution,” causing an uptick in transmission.

“It’ll be hard to separate the impact of travel-related spread from spread in other places where people are no longer masking, from the new subvariants, which are more infectious than the original Omicron,” he wrote. “And yes, if it’s no masks vs. people wearing cloth masks, the difference would be real but not huge, but you had a mix of people wearing different quality masks, so the effect is a blend of the loss of all that protection.”

The two experts also agreed that planes are lower-risk environments than buses and trains because of better ventilation, and Li, Wachter and Noble noted that BART typically has very good ventilation.

Noble also argued that “there is nothing special about buses or trains versus restaurants/bars/large indoor entertainment venues,” and that “blanket mandates for ‘masks while on buses or trains’ just isn’t scientific.”

“I think the average citizen senses the inconsistency here (not dissimilar to our previous decision to drop mask mandates in schools later than all other public spaces),” she wrote. “This inconsistency undermines public trust in public health officials. Mandates should be consistent, effective, and necessary. Isolated public transportation mask mandates fail on all 3 counts.”

Source Article from https://www.sfgate.com/coronavirus/article/Do-transportation-mask-mandates-work-17117113.php

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Duluth police confirm murder-suicide in East Hillside – Duluth News Tribune
Duluth police confirm murder-suicide in East Hillside – Duluth News Tribune

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DULUTH — Police confirmed Thursday afternoon that 29-year-old Brandon Taylor Cole-Skogstad shot dead four relatives, a dog and then himself on Wednesday in the East Hillside neighborhood.

According to a press release from the Duluth Police Department on Thursday, the victims are Sadie Lucille Barry, 9; Shiway Elizabeth Barry, 12; Riana Lou Barry, 44; and Sean Christopher Barry, 47, all of Duluth. The two children attended Duluth Public Schools.

Cole-Skogstad was the nephew of Sean and Riana Barry. Police believe he was previously living with the family.

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“In 32 years, we haven’t seen anything like this, where we’ve had four victims of a homicide,” Duluth Police Chief Mike Tusken said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Shortly after noon Wednesday, Duluth police responded to the report of an individual, Cole-Skogstad, experiencing a mental health crisis. The call originated just after 11:18 a.m. in Hermantown as a welfare check.

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Cole-Skogstad had posted on Facebook that “I have made the absolutely horrid choice,” before outlining the unspeakable scene confronted by authorities Wednesday.

Hermantown police were dispatched to the 4100 block of Timber Lane Drive to check on Cole-Skogstad, but they were unable to locate or contact him.

Duluth police, who received information that Cole-Skogstad had access to a weapon, approached the house at 715 E. 12th St. in East Hillside at 12:29 p.m. As they knocked on the door, officers heard what they believed to be a gunshot. Police retreated and requested mutual aid from the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office and Superior Police Department.

Shortly after 3 p.m., the Duluth Police Department Tactical Team searched the house after using robots and drones to assess the home, and located five bodies and the family dog, all dead, the release said.

After a preliminary investigation, police determined that Cole-Skogstad shot the victims while they were sleeping. A 9-millimeter handgun was found close to Cole-Skogstad. Duluth and Hermantown police searched 911 history and did not find any previous calls showing a pattern of behavior regarding Cole-Skogstad.

“I’ve got to tell you, it’s tough on all of us,” Tusken said as he choked up at Thursday’s press conference. “It’s tough on our cops. Our police officers, a lot of them may have families. Any time you go into a situation like this and you see that tragedy, it is terribly heart-wrenching. And you can’t unsee it.”

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Duluth City Council President Arik Forsman also spoke Thursday, stating the event has been heart-shattering for the entire community and praised the Duluth Police Department’s available trauma response resources for responding officers.

“Things like this happen far too often in our country, and as leaders at the local, state and federal levels, we just have to pause and reflect when things like this happen to see what else could be done, either in prevention, or as far as gun violence goes, to make our community safer,” Forsman said.

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Tusken said there were no calls to report gunshots throughout the night, and all four Barry family members appeared to have been asleep at their time of death.

“These are really difficult investigations, and sometimes it is very hard to peel back those layers to find out (a motive),” Tusken said. “Right now, it would be entirely speculative for me to say what that motive is.”

A GoFundMe

page was started by family and friends of the Barry family to raise funds for funeral services, burial, memorials and family lodging and travel to Duluth. GoFundMe organizer Sonja Winder-Marifke said she grew up with Riana and that she’s always been a close family friend. She said a lot of the family live out of the area and they need support through this difficult time.

“They were a truly special family who impacted the lives of so many of those around them,” the organizers wrote on the fundraising website, which has a goal to raise $50,000. “They leave behind their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews and many many friends. Family are not prepared for this horrible tragedy.”

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Duluth Public Schools Superintendent John Magas said the two children were former elementary students in the district, and grief resources will be available beginning Monday.

Duluth Mayor Emily Larson, who is out of town for a conference, released the following statement about the incident:

“On every level, this incident is deeply painful for our community. Especially impacted are the neighbors of East Hillside and first responders. Thank you to neighbors for taking good care of one another and for knowing the beautiful parts of the Barry family. Thank you to DPD for answering the call of public safety. I’m sorry for what you experienced, which is deeply traumatic.

“As a parent and member of a family, it is wrenching to consider what the Barry family might be feeling. There is only loss to every part of this story. To the Barry family: Our community mourns with you and we share in your pain. Because your loss is our community’s loss.”

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The investigation is ongoing.

This story was last updated at 6 p.m. April 21 to add video from the Thursday press conference. It was originally posted at 9:18 a.m. April 21.

Source Article from https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/local/social-media-confession-appears-in-deaths-of-5-in-duluth

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Russia sanctions Zuckerberg, VP Harris, others with travel ban – Business Insider
Russia sanctions Zuckerberg, VP Harris, others with travel ban – Business Insider
  • Russia announced a travel ban on several top US business leaders, journalists, and officials.
  • The country’s foreign ministry said the sanctioned people would be denied entry indefinitely.
  • The travel ban is unlikely to have a significant effect on Mark Zuckerberg or others on the list.

Russia slapped a travel ban on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and 28 other prominent Americans on Thursday.

The sanctions were imposed in retaliation for Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The travel ban includes top Pentagon officials, US business leaders, and journalists, including Vice President Kamala Harris, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky, and the ABC reporter George Stephanopoulos.

Russia’s foreign ministry said the people would be denied entry into Russia on an “indefinite basis,” according to an Insider translation of the ministry’s press release. The ministry said it identified the people as responsible for shaping “the Russophobic agenda” in the US, according to a translation.

The sanctions are unlikely to have any significant effect on Zuckerberg or any of the people on this list other than stopping them from visiting Russia.

Notably, the list did not include the names of top US business leaders like Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal or Google CEO Sundar Pichai, even though Twitter and YouTube, which is owned by Google, have been proactive in handling Russian misinformation.

Several of the sanctioned reporters on the list commented on the Russian travel ban on social media.

“A funny thing happened to me on the way to work today,” Kevin Rothrock, a managing editor in Connecticut for the Meduza news website covering Russia, tweeted shortly after he was included on the list Thursday.

“I’m getting a lot of ‘congratulations’ replies to this,” Mark MacKinnon, a senior international correspondent for The Globe and Mail, tweeted of the sanction against him. “But for me, it’s a genuinely sad day. I loved my time living in Russia, and made a lot of friends there (though many of them have left). I always tried to report honestly about the country. I guess that was the problem.”

Spokespeople for Meta and LinkedIn did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Russia sanctioned President Joe Biden last month and later announced a round of sanctions against 398 members of Congress.

Russia previously banned Zuckerberg’s platforms Facebook and Instagram and dubbed them “extremist” organizations. LinkedIn has been blocked in Russian since 2017.

Translations by Oleksandr Vynogradov.

Source Article from https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-sanctions-mark-zuckerberg-kamala-harris-other-americans-travel-ban-2022-4

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More than 20 states ask judge to immediately block Biden from ending Title 42 – CNN
More than 20 states ask judge to immediately block Biden from ending Title 42 – CNN

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

Updated 3:09 PM ET, Thu April 21, 2022

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/21/politics/biden-title-42-lawsuit/index.html

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Member of campus community made threats prompting lockdown, UC says – Berkeleyside
Member of campus community made threats prompting lockdown, UC says – Berkeleyside
A police officer stands outside UC Berkeley’s student union Thursday morning as authorities respond to a report of a threat on campus. Credit: Ally Markovich

Update, 3:20 p.m. UC Berkeley Police located a person affiliated with Cal who made “serious and credible threats” against people at the university, a campus spokesperson said Thursday afternoon.

Police heard about the threat at about 7:30 a.m., UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said, and the campus went into lockdown at 9:30 a.m. The lockdown was lifted around 1:30 p.m., and Mogulof said police located the individual connected with the threats off-campus at about 2 p.m.

“According to UCPD, the security situation has been addressed and the individual poses no immediate threat,” Mogulof said. “The investigation is ongoing and we will release further details as warranted and appropriate.”

The university did not provide any information about whether the individual was arrested or detained in connection with the investigation.

They also did not specify whether threats were made toward staff or students at Cal, but Mogulof emphasized that the individual does not pose a continued risk.

Update, 1:45 p.m. The shelter in place order at UC Berkeley has been lifted, and people are asked to leave the campus in a “safe and orderly” way, the university said in a statement on Thursday afternoon.

UC police said they began searching for a person who made a “credible campus-wide threat” Thursday morning. The university went into lockdown and police decided to lift the shelter in place order that afternoon after conducting their investigation, according to the university.

The university and UC police have not provided any further information about the threat, or a possible suspect.

Buildings are locked and in-person classes remain canceled Thursday, but there’s no update from the university on whether classes will resume on campus Friday.

Original story: UC Berkeley went into lockdown Thursday morning as police searched for a person who made a “credible campus-wide threat.”

UC Berkeley Police issued the alert at 9:30 a.m., telling students, staff and anyone else on campus to go inside and stay away from doors and windows. Anyone not currently on campus is being asked to stay away.

The department later posted to Twitter, “There is NOT an active shooter on campus. Police are actively looking for a person who may want to harm specific individuals.”

UC Berkeley has canceled in-person classes for the rest of the day, and wrote in a news release that campus services such as dining halls and libraries would remain closed “until further notice.”

Berkeley Unified School District said it had put seven schools — Berkeley High School, Berkeley Technology Academy, Willard Middle School, Emerson Elementary School, Sylvia Mendez Elementary School, Washington Elementary School and King Child Development Center — on a “soft lockdown” because of the situation at UC Berkeley. No one will be allowed to leave or enter the schools.

UC Berkeley was mostly quiet late Thursday morning as the search continued, though several helicopters were hovering overhead.

Authorities appeared to focus their attention on the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union building on Sproul Plaza. Several police officers could be seen stationed outside building, where they turned away some students who tried to enter; a sign taped to one door warned that the union was closed.

The alert was prompted by an “active shooter threat situation,” according to an email sent by Andrea Lambert, the chief of staff to UC Berkeley’s executive vice chancellor and provost, to campus administrators Thursday morning. The subject of the alert is “a student who has been placed on interim suspension for threatening behavior,” Lambert wrote.

Reached by phone Thursday morning, UC Berkeley Police Lt. Sabrina Reich said she was not able to provide additional information because police were still investigating.

As police responded to a report of a threat on the UC Berkeley campus, sign on the door of the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union warned that the facility is closed. Credit: Ally Markovich

Source Article from https://www.berkeleyside.org/2022/04/21/uc-berkeley-shelter-in-place-police

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Florida Republicans vote to dissolve Disney’s special district, eliminating privileges and setting up a legal battle – CNBC
Florida Republicans vote to dissolve Disney’s special district, eliminating privileges and setting up a legal battle – CNBC

Dissolving the district would mean Reedy Creek employees and infrastructure would be absorbed by the local counties, which would then become responsible for all municipal services. The counties would collect the tax revenue Disney currently pays the Reedy Creek district, but would also be saddled with the districts liabilities. Namely, its debt.

Reedy Creek historically operates at a loss of around $5 million to $10 million each year, according to its financial reports. But since Disney can subsidize its own operations with theme park revenue, that debt doesn’t have much impact on its bottom line.

According to lawmakers, there’s around $1 billion in debt on the balance sheet that taxpayers would become responsible for should the special district get absorbed, leading to higher taxes.

“No one wants to take that amount of debt up,” Linda Stewart, a democrat who represents Florida’s 13th senate district, told CNBC Wednesday. “None of this makes any sense. They just bit off way more than they can chew by trying to get the Reedy Creek district dissolved … This is a major, major issue that I don’t think it will be, in the end, very successful.”

Taxpayers would also be on the hook for any municipal improvements that Disney currently pays for, including road work.

In 2019, for example, Disney’s Orlando neighbor Universal partnered with Orange County and the state to build a 1.7-mile extension to Kirkman Road between Carrier Drive and Universal Boulevard to accommodate the company’s new park Epic Universe.

That project cost an estimated $300 million, more than half of which Universal footed. The company paid $160 million, leaving Orange County to pay $125 million and the state to pay around $16 million.

The tab for similar projects at Disney could easily pile up.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/florida-set-to-dissolve-disneys-reedy-creek-special-district.html

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