Month: May 2022

Even as the nation reeled over the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, multiple mass shootings happened elsewhere over the Memorial Day weekend in areas both rural and urban. Still, single-death incidents accounted for most gun fatalities.

Gunfire erupted in the predawn hours of Sunday at a festival in the town of Taft, Oklahoma, sending hundreds of revelers scattering and customers inside the nearby Boots Café diving for cover. Eight people ages 9 to 56 were shot, and one of them died.

Six children ages 13 to 15 were wounded Saturday night in a touristy quarter of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Two groups got into an altercation, and two people in one of them pulled guns and started shooting.

And at a club and liquor store in Benton Harbor in southwestern Michigan, a 19-year-old man was killed and six other people were wounded after gunfire rang out among a crowd around 2:30 a.m. Monday. Police found multiple shell casings of various calibers.

Those and others met a common definition of a mass shooting, in which four or more people are shot. Such occurrences have become so regular, news of them is likely to fade fast.

There were at least two incidents in Chicago between late Friday and Monday that qualified as mass shootings, including one near a closed elementary school on the West Side in which the wounded included a 16-year-old girl.

Single-fatality shootings also rocked families and communities: On the South Side, the body of a young man slain at an outdoor birthday party lay on the sidewalk early Sunday, covered by a white sheet. His mother stood nearby, crying.

Overall, Chicago recorded 32 gunfire incidents over the weekend in which 47 people were shot and nine died.

In the wake of the Uvalde shooting, by an 18-year-old who legally purchased an AR-style rifle, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican opponents of tougher gun laws quickly pointed at Chicago as an example of how such measures don’t work, saying, “more people are shot every weekend [there] than there are in schools in Texas.”

High rates of gun violence in Chicago have made a series of Democratic governments there, including that of current Mayor Lori Lightfoot, vulnerable to criticism, sometimes from within their own party.

But the assertions by Abbott and others are misleading and oversimplify the situation in the country’s third-largest city. Many guns used in the killing of Chicagoans were initially bought in other states with less stringent gun laws, like Indiana and Mississippi. Chicago officials also note that the city records fewer murders per capita than many other smaller U.S. cities.

Police chiefs there and in other cities cancelled days off to boost the numbers of officers over the holiday, hoping it would act as a deterrent. Independent conflict mediators also hit the streets, using social media to identify simmering conflicts with the potential to explode into real-world violence.

In Detroit, Police Chief James White promised to strictly enforce a curfew aimed at youths and teens after three people were wounded during a shooting earlier this month in Greektown, a popular downtown restaurant and entertainment district.

Such strategies may have worked in individual cases, but statistics from several cities didn’t indicate violence was kept at or below levels from previous years. Chicago’s Memorial Day weekend death toll was three times last year’s.

It’s long been a rule of thumb in northern cities that hot weather means more violence. Temperatures in Detroit and Chicago were in the 80s — unseasonably warm — during the three-day weekend, bringing more people outside and increasing the chances of clashes, often between rival gangs. Alcohol at holiday parties can fuel personal beefs, some of which first fester online.

“The seasons may not have much of an impact on shootings in Los Angeles, where the weather is always good,” said Rodney Phillips, a violence prevention worker and former gang member in Chicago. But in his city, Memorial Day weekend typically marks “the start of the killing season,” he said.

Residents like Yvonne Fields, of Detroit, say they are especially cautious when Memorial Day rolls around. She, her children and grandchildren spent time closer to home this weekend.

“The holidays are not like they used to be,” Fields said. “The gangs have taken over. They do drive-by shootings. Everyone is living in fear.”

Police in big cities often say most homicides have some tie-in to gangs, though others point to poverty and the desperation that comes with it as underlying causes.

An organizational shift over the past three decades, from top-down gangs led by identifiable leaders who could assert control to more fragmented, loosely structured groups, has also contributed to the violence.

“These gang factions are getting younger and younger, bolder and more impulsive,” Phillips said. “It’s alarming. It’s often children shooting children these days.

Malik Shabazz, who helps lead neighborhood safety and anti-crime patrols in Detroit, said the Detroit New Black Panther Nation/New Marcus Garvey Movement he founded looks for spikes in crime during the holidays when people gather in groups and have more free time away from work.

“What I see is both the perps and the victims of [shootings and violent crime] are becoming younger and younger, and the crime is becoming more heinous,” said Shabazz, 59. “And people bring their guns and people have beef, ‘now I can shoot you and I can stab you over an issue of respect, not talk it out or ignore it and walk it off.'”

One speller ran off the stage in the middle of her time at the microphone, saying she needed to pee. Another tried to walk back to her seat after spelling her first word correctly, only to be reminded she had a vocabulary word next. During one particularly brutal stretch, 10 consecutive spellers heard the bell that signals elimination.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee used to begin with a handshake. Now, it starts with a slap to the face.

Leaner and meaner in its post-pandemic iteration, the bee returned to its usual venue on Tuesday for the first time in three years, and spellers were greeted with a new preliminary-round format that gave them no time to get comfortable.

“The prelims is no joke. Every stage of the bee is so important,” said Dhroov Bharatia, a 13-year-old from Plano, Texas, who finished fourth last year.

In years past, the early onstage spelling rounds did little beyond weeding out the weakest or most nervous spellers. The real action was a written test that determined who would make the cut for the semifinals.

But during last year’s mostly virtual bee, the bee’s new executive director eliminated the test, and that structure continued as 229 spellers took the stage for this year’s fully-in-person competition. Well over half the spellers who competed by mid-afternoon Tuesday were eliminated.

Spellers had to get through three words in one turn at the microphone to advance to Wednesday’s quarterfinals. First, they were given a word from a provided list of 4,000 — more than twice as many as in years past. Then, they had to answer a multiple-choice vocabulary question about a word on the same list. Finally, they had to spell a word that could be found anywhere in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.

Annie-Lois Acheamong, one of three spellers from Ghana, didn’t get that far. She labored successfully through her first word, “coulrophobia” — fear of clowns — and then was asked to define “edamame.” She smiled initially, but when she crossed her legs and couldn’t stand still, it was clear something else was going on.

“I think I’m going to pee myself,” the 13-year-old eighth-grader said. “Can I go pee? I’m very sorry.”

She scurried off the stage before she got an answer from the stunned judges, who paused the competition and conferred about how to handle the situation.

“That was a first,” head judge Mary Brooks, who’s been involved with the bee for 50 years, said later.

The judges ultimately decided to let Annie-Lois return to the microphone after the day’s last scheduled speller. Although she could have been eliminated for exceeding the 30-second time limit for the vocabulary question, Brooks said the speller’s clock was paused because she was experiencing a legitimate emergency.

There is precedent for pausing the clock during what Brooks called “extenuating circumstances,” notably in 2004 when Akshay Buddiga fainted on stage but recovered to finish in second place.

Braydon Syx of West Blocton, Alabama, might not get that far, but his time in front of the microphone on Tuesday encapsulated the newly riveting drama of the early rounds.

The 13-year-old seventh-grader took his first plane ride to compete in this year’s bee.

Syx’s first word was “ormolu” — a gold-colored alloy of copper, zinc and sometimes tin. He spelled out “O-R-M” and then took a long, excruciating pause before spitting out the final three letters. He stretched his arms out to his sides after identifying the definition of the word “tremulous” — not a bad description of his demeanor at the microphone.

“It was really scary,” Syx said, “but I also felt really happy at the same time. It was a weird feeling.”

Then came “bromegrass” — any grass of a large genus of grasses native to temperate regions. Something about the word was bothering him.

“Can you say it again?” he asked.

“Can you say it again another time?”

He took a deep breath. “Can you say it one more time?”

Afterward, Syx explained his dilemma: “On ‘bromegrass,’ I didn’t know whether he was pronouncing it with an ‘m’ or an ‘n.'”

Still, through some combination of hard work, luck and perseverance, Syx will spell again on Wednesday.

Akira Harris won’t be so fortunate. The eighth-grader from a Department of Defense middle school in Stuttgart, Germany, began by spelling “rednigote” correctly, then turned around and headed for her seat.

“Akira, we need you for your word meaning round,” a judge told her.

She stood silently, looking miserable, after she was given three potential definitions for the word “bandicoot.” She made a guess — “A?” — before she was told she had to read the multiple-choice answer under that letter, which was wrong.

Harris returned to the audience and buried her head in her mother’s shoulder. Once her group of spellers was finished, she made another beeline — this time for the exits.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a Texas law that bars large social media companies from banning or censoring users based on “viewpoint,” siding with two technology industry groups that have argued that the Republican-backed measure would turn platforms into “havens of the vilest expression imaginable.”   

The justices, in a 5-4 decision, granted a request by NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which count Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as members, to block the law while litigation continues after a lower court on May 11 let it go into effect.   

The industry groups sued to try to block the law, challenging it as a violation of the free speech rights of companies, including to editorial discretion on their platforms, under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. 

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch issued a written dissent, saying that it is “not at all obvious how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the internet, should apply to large social media companies.” Liberal Justice Elena Kagan separately dissented but did not offer any reasons. 

The Texas law was passed by the state’s Republican-led legislature and signed by its Republican governor. Its passage comes as U.S. conservatives and right-wing commentators complain that “Big Tech” is suppressing their views. These people cite as a prominent example Twitter’s permanent suspension of former President Donald Trump, a Republican, from the platform shortly after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters, with the company citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.”   

The law, formally known as HB20, forbids social media companies with at least 50 million monthly active users from acting to “censor” users based on “viewpoint,” and allows either users or the Texas attorney general to sue to enforce it. 

In signing the bill last September, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said, “There is a dangerous movement by some social media companies to silence conservative ideas and values. This is wrong and we will not allow it in Texas.” 

The industry groups said the state’s law would unconstitutionally allow for government control of private speech. Restricting the platforms’ editorial control, the groups said, “would compel platforms to disseminate all sorts of objectionable viewpoints — such as Russia’s propaganda claiming that its invasion of Ukraine is justified.”  

“Instead of platforms engaging in editorial discretion, platforms will become havens of the vilest expression imaginable: pro-Nazi speech, hostile foreign government propaganda, pro-terrorist-organization speech, and countless more examples,” they added.   

The groups also denounced what they called “viewpoint discrimination against ‘Big Tech,'” in the Texas law through its exclusion of smaller social media platforms popular among conservatives such as Parler, Gab, Gettr and Trump’s own Truth Social.  

U.S. Judge Robert Pitman in the state capital Austin blocked the law last December. Pitman ruled that the constraints on how the platforms disseminate content violate the First Amendment.   

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently put Pitman’s decision on hold two days after hearing oral arguments in the case. The 5th Circuit has yet to issue a ruling on the merits of the case. 

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U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited Uvalde, Texas, on May 29, 2022, to sympathize with relatives and survivors of the latest mass shooting in the United States, following the killing last week of 19 school children and their two teachers.

U.S. President Joe Biden observed Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery Monday, calling it a “sacred ritual” to reflect on and remember the sacrifices of those men and women who had died while serving in the country’s military. 

“Today we renew our scared vow. It’s a simple vow. To remember,” he told a gathering of family members of fallen military personnel.

In the United States, the last Monday in May is observed as Memorial Day, a day to honor service members who died while in the military. Many Americans mark the federal holiday by visiting war memorials or cemeteries and placing flowers on graves.

Biden said the day was also the seventh anniversary of the death of his son Beau Biden, a military veteran. Biden said that though Beau Biden had died from cancer, not in the line of duty, “always on Memorial Day, I see him.”

U.S. soldiers have fought for democracy — a cause that has always “required champions,” Biden said, noting that it is an ongoing struggle and currently under attack in Ukraine.

“Today, in the perennial struggle for democracy and freedom, Ukraine and its people are on the front lines fighting to save their nation. But their fight is part of a larger fight that unites all people … the battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression,” he said.

While at the cemetery, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris also laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider to honor service members who died in war but whose remains have not been identified.

In Washington, the Memorial Day Parade returned Monday to Constitution Avenue, after a two-year absence due to the pandemic. 

Motorcyclists have been a regular feature of the Memorial Day observance in the capital. 

This year, the motorcyclists’ event, Rolling to Remember, expanded its mission, saying that its “demonstration ride” Saturday in and around Washington was staged “to raise awareness of the critical issues facing our nation’s veterans and demand action for the 82,000 service members missing, as well as raise awareness of the 22 veterans who die by suicide each day.” 

Many American families also gather and hold picnics on Memorial Day, as it is widely recognized as the beginning of the summer season in the United States. 

 Russia has taken control of half or more of the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk that plays a pivotal role in Moscow’s attempt to capture the industrial Donbas region, the city’s mayor and a Ukrainian regional governor acknowledged Tuesday. 

 

Luhansk’s regional governor, Serhiy Gaidai, said that after days of fierce fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops, Moscow’s forces control most of the city but have not surrounded it. 

 

He said in an online post that intense Russian shelling had made it impossible to deliver humanitarian supplies or evacuate the 13,000 people still sheltering in the devastated city that once had a population of 100,000. 

 

Mayor Oleksandr Striuk told The Associated Press that Russian forces, in a “frenzied push,” had seized half the city. 

 

“The city is essentially being destroyed ruthlessly block by block,” Striuk said. He said heavy street fighting is continuing along with artillery bombardments. 

 

Meanwhile, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday that an EU embargo on most Russian oil imports will mean Russia gets “less resources, less financial resources to feed the war machine.” 

 

Borrell said that while the EU cannot stop Russia from selling to other customers, European countries were its “most important client,” and it will have to accept lower prices.   

 

EU leaders agreed late Monday to ban two-thirds of Russian oil imports as part of a compromise deal to increase pressure on Moscow while accounting for the economic effects on some EU nations that are more reliant on Russian oil supplies.    

 

The embargo cuts off Russian oil delivered by sea, while exempting oil imported through pipelines.    

 

Landlocked Hungary had threatened to oppose restrictions on oil imports, a move that would have scuttled the effort that requires consensus of all EU members. European Council President Charles Michel said he expects EU ambassadors to formally endorse the embargo, which is part of a larger sanctions package, on Wednesday.    

 

Russia responded to the embargo by widening its natural gas cuts to Europe on Tuesday, with state-owned Gazprom saying it would cut supplies to several “unfriendly” countries that have refused to meet Moscow’s demand to be paid in the Russian ruble currency. 

 

Ukrainian leaders have long called for banning Russian oil imports to deny Russia income it can use to fuel its war effort. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his appeal as he spoke to the EU earlier Monday.    

 

Combined with pledges from such countries as Germany to phase out their Russian oil imports, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the agreement will “effectively cut around 90% of oil imports from Russia to the EU by the end of the year.”    

 

Other parts of the sanction package include assets freezes and travel bans on individuals, and excluding Russia’s biggest banks, Sberbank, from the SWIFT global financial transfer system. The EU is also barring three Russian state-owned broadcasters from distributing content in EU countries.    

 

EU leaders also agreed to provide Ukraine with $9.7 billion in assistance for the country’s economy and reconstruction efforts.    

 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.   

 

So far, Russia’s oil exports have not slowed down a bit from the war in Ukraine and international sanctions. In fact, Russia exported more oil in April than it did before the war. And high oil prices mean Moscow is raking in money. That’s one reason Europe is considering a Russian oil ban: Current sanctions are not hurting Moscow enough. Europe gets more of its oil from Russia than anywhere else. It would have to make up for those banned barrels somewhere else, and that won’t be easy. And it’s likely to push oil prices everywhere up even further.

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Rescuers have recovered all 22 bodies from the site where a plane crashed on a mountainside in Nepal, the airline said Tuesday.

All the bodies were flown to Kathmandu and taken to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital where doctors are performing autopsies, Tara Air said in a statement.

The bodies will be handed over to relatives once the autopsies are completed, it said.

While 10 bodies were flown to Kathmandu on Monday, the rest were brought by army helicopter on Tuesday. Relatives of the crash victims waited outside the hospital building for authorities to release the bodies.

The Tara Air Turboprop Twin Otter aircraft lost contact with the airport tower Sunday while flying on a scheduled 20-minute flight in an area of deep river gorges and mountaintops.

Four Indians and two Germans were on the plane, Tara Air said. The three crew members and other passengers were Nepali nationals, it said.

Local news reports said the passengers included two Nepali families, one with four members and the other with seven.

The plane crashed Sunday in Sanosware in Mustang district close to the mountain town of Jomsom, where it was heading after taking off from the resort town of Pokhara, 200 kilometers west of the capital Kathmandu.

The plane’s destination is popular with foreign hikers who trek on its mountain trails, and with Indian and Nepalese pilgrims who visit the revered Muktinath temple.

The Twin Otter, a rugged plane originally built by Canadian aircraft manufacturer De Havilland, has been in service in Nepal for about 50 years, during which it has been involved in about 21 accidents, according to aviationnepal.com.

The plane, with its top-mounted wing and fixed landing gear, is prized for its durability and its ability to take off and land on short runways.