World
Leaders of Italy and Poland say European Union should focus on stopping migration
The European Union should put a priority on stopping illegal migration instead of trying to persuade the 27 member nations to share responsibility for people who arrive without authorization, the prime ministers of Italy and Poland said Wednesday.
Italy's right-wing leader, Premier Georgia Meloni, traveled to Warsaw for a meeting with her conservative Polish counterpart, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. As a country that is one of the first stops for asylum-seekers who cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, Italy is eager to reduce their number.
Poland and Hungary last week vetoed a statement by EU leaders on priorities for limiting arrivals, and the two countries voted against a June 8 agreement that balanced the obligations of front-line countries against the requirement for other member nations to provide support.
The governments in Warsaw and Budapest insist that preventing people from entering the EU is a better approach. After her talks with Morawiecki, Meloni said she thinks the bloc will never be able to "find a real solution" to the situation once migrants are already in Europe.
"I believe our position is substantially the same. We want to stop illegal immigration," Meloni said. Referring to the Polish government's position, she added, "I cannot not defend someone who defends national interests."
Morawiecki said it was "fundamental" to his government to have the EU's external borders "insulated" and that it also opposed a provision in the June agreement that calls for fining countries that refuse to host a share of asylum-seekers 20,000 euros ($21,400) per person.
Poland has taken in millions of war refugees from Ukraine, some 1.2 million of whom have registered and received the right to live, work, attend school and receive social benefits.
Morawiecki said his government would organize a referendum this year asking Poles for their opinion on accepting migrants who entered the EU illegally. The main ruling party, the conservative Law and Justice, has moved to change Poland's election law to allow the referendum at the same time as the next parliamentary election, expected in the fall.
The agenda for Morawiecki and Meloni's talks included regional security in the face of Russia's war in Ukraine, which is seeking NATO security guarantees. NATO's 31 members have a summit scheduled in Lithuania next week.
The two leaders also addressed a meeting of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, an alliance of the EU Parliament.
Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of preparing imminent attack on Europe's biggest nuclear plant
Ukraine and Russia accused each other Wednesday of planning to attack one of the world's largest nuclear power plants, which is located in southeastern Ukraine and occupied by Russian troops, but neither side provided evidence to support their claims of an imminent threat.
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been a focus of concern since Moscow's forces took control of it and its staff in the early stages of the war. Over the last year, the U.N.'s atomic watchdog repeatedly expressed alarm over the possibility of a radiation catastrophe like the one at Chernobyl after a reactor exploded in 1986.
While Russia and Ukraine regularly traded blame over shelling near the plant that caused power outages, Ukraine has alleged more recently that Moscow might try to cause a deliberate leak in an attempt to derail Kyiv's ongoing counteroffensive in the surrounding Zaporizhzhia region.
Citing the latest intelligence reports, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged Tuesday night that Russian troops had placed "objects resembling explosives" on top of several power units to "simulate" an attack as part of a false flag operation.
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The "foreign objects" were placed on the roof of the plant's third and fourth power units, according to a statement from the General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces. "Their detonation should not damage power units but may create a picture of shelling from Ukraine," the statement said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has officials stationed at the Russian-held plant, which is still run by its Ukrainian staff. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said his agency's most recent inspection of the plant found no mining activities, "but we remain extremely alert."
"As you know, there is a lot of combat, I have been there a few weeks ago, and there is contact there very close to the plant, so we cannot relax," Grossi said during a visit to Japan.
In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov raised the specter of a potentially "catastrophic" provocation by the Ukrainian army at the nuclear plant, which is Europe's largest but has its six reactors shut down. It still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.
"The situation is quite tense. There is a great threat of sabotage by the Kyiv regime, which can be catastrophic in its consequences," Peskov said in response to a reporter's question about the plant. He also claimed that the Kremlin was pursuing "all measures" to counter the alleged Ukrainian threat.
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Grossi said he was aware of both Kyiv's and Moscow's claims and reiterated that "nuclear power plants should never, under any circumstances, be attacked."
"A nuclear power plant should not be used as a military base," he said.
Peskov's comments came after Renat Karchaa, an advisor to Russian state nuclear company Rosenergoatom, said there was "no basis" for Zelenskyy's claims of a plot to simulate an explosion.
"Why would we need explosives there? This is nonsense, (aimed at) maintaining tension around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant," Karchaa said.
Russian media on Tuesday cited Karchaa as saying that Ukraine's military planned to strike the plant early Wednesday with ammunition laced with nuclear waste. As of Wednesday afternoon, there was no indication of such an attack.
Last week, Ukrainian emergency workers held a drill to prepare for a potential release of radiation from the plant. According to the country's emergency services, in case of a nuclear disaster at the plant, approximately 300,000 people would be evacuated from the areas closest to the facility.
Ukrainian officials have said the shut-down reactors are protected by thick concrete containment domes.
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The International Institute for Strategic Studies said last week that "a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia would probably not lead to the widespread dispersal of significant amounts of radiation" due to precautionary steps taken by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
However, the think tank noted in an assessment that wind might blow some amount of radiation toward Russia.
A troubled new power plant leaves Jordan in debt to China, raising concerns over Beijing's influence
Jordan's Attarat power plant was envisioned as a landmark project promising to provide the desert kingdom with a major source of energy while solidifying its relations with China.
But weeks after its official opening, the site, a sea of black, crumbly rock in the barren desert south of Jordan's capital, is instead a source of heated controversy. Deals surrounding the plant put Jordan on the hook for billions of dollars in debt to China — all for a plant that is no longer needed for its energy, because of other agreements made since the project's conception.
The result is fueling tensions between China and Jordan and causing grief for the Jordanian government as it tries to contest the deal in an international legal battle. As Chinese influence grows in the Middle East and America withdraws, the $2.1 billion shale oil station has come to characterize China's wider model that has burdened many Asian and African states with crippling debt and served as a cautionary tale for the region.
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"Attarat is a representation of what the Belt and Road Initiative was and has become," said Jesse Marks, a nonresident fellow at the Washington-based Stimson Center, referring to China's scheme to build global infrastructure and boost Beijing's political sway.
"Jordan evolves as an interesting case study not for China's success in the region but for how China engages in middle-income countries," he said.
First conceived some 15 years ago as a way to fulfill national ambitions of energy independence, the Attarat shale oil plant is now causing anger in Jordan because of its enormous price tag. If the original agreement holds, Jordan would have to pay China a staggering $8.4 billion over 30 years to buy the electricity generated by the plant.
Laborers flown from rural China toil in the shadow of the giant station, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Amman.
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When Shi Changqing arrived in the Jordanian desert earlier this year from the Jilin province in China's northeast, fears were mounting in the workers' dormitories that the project could grind to a halt, leaving everyone in the lurch, the 36-year-old welder said.
"It's very strange to feel that, being from China, you are not wanted here," he said.
With its meager natural resources in a region awash with oil and gas, Jordan seemed to have drawn a losing ticket. Then in the 2000s, it struck shale oil trapped in the black rock that underlies the country. With the fourth-largest concentration of shale oil in the world, Jordan had high hopes for a big pay-off.
In 2012, the Jordanian Attarat Power Company proposed to the government to extract shale oil from the desert and build a plant using it to provide 15% of the country's electricity supply. The proposal fit the government's intensifying desire for energy self-sufficiency amid the turmoil of the 2011 Arab uprisings, company officials say.
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But extraction proved expensive, risky and technologically challenging. As the project lagged, Jordan struck a $15 billion agreement to import vast amounts of natural gas at competitive prices from Israel in 2014. Interest in Attarat waned.
Attarat Power Co. board member Mohammed Maaitah said he pitched the project the world over — from the United States and Europe to Japan and South Korea. No one bit, he said.
To Jordan's surprise, Chinese banks offered Jordan over $1.6 billion in loans to finance the plant in 2017. A Chinese state-owned firm, Guangdong Energy Group, bought a 45% stake in the Attarat Power Co., turning the white elephant into the largest private enterprise to come out of President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative outside China, according to the company.
Guangdong Energy Group did not respond to requests for comment.
The investment was part of China's wider push into an Arab world hungry for foreign investment, experts say. The money for large infrastructure projects came with few political strings attached.
"China doesn't bring with it the baggage of the United States in that we actually have some concern about democratic processes, transparency, corruption," said David Schenker, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Middle East policy. "For authoritarian states, there's some appeal in China."
As talk grew of American unreliability, China turned to acquiring strategic assets in the Middle East, even in economically troubled states. It bought lots of Iraqi oil, tendered a port in northern Lebanon and poured money into President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's new capital in Egypt.
With Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2017 gaining the upper hand in his country's civil war, China had an interest in investing in the Attarat project in neighboring Jordan as a springboard, anticipating a Syrian reconstruction boom that could unlock billions of dollars in investments, experts say.
Under their 30-year power purchase deal, Jordan's state-run electricity company will have to buy electricity from the now effectively Chinese-led Attarat at an exorbitant rate that means the Jordanian government would lose $280 million annually, the treasury estimated. To cover the payments, Jordan would have to raise electricity prices for consumers by 17%, energy experts said — a severe blow to an economy already saddled with debt and inflation.
The extent of losses to China appalled the Jordanian government. Jordan's Ministry of Energy launched international arbitration against Attarat Power Co. in 2020 "on the grounds of gross unfairness."
When asked why Jordan had agreed to such a lopsided contract to begin with, Jordan's Ministry of Energy declined to comment, as did the National Electricity Co. As of June, hearings were being held at an arbitration tribunal of the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce.
Musa Hantash, a geologist on the parliamentary energy committee, described the deal as the natural outcome of corruption and a lack of technical expertise.
"It's very difficult to convince these big companies to invest in Jordan. There are things to help certain people make a profit," he said, without elaborating.
American officials portrayed the Attarat contract as a case of Beijing's " debt trap diplomacy."
The Chinese Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the Attarat project. But it defended Beijing's investment in developing countries, denying allegations it ensnares partners in debt and arguing that China never compels "others to borrow from us forcibly."
"We never attach any political strings to loan agreements," the ministry said, urging international financial institutions to help provide debt relief.
Attarat Power said it expects a decision in the case later this year. Rulings by the world business organization are legally binding and enforceable.
Maaitah and other company officials dismissed Jordan's claims of unjustly inflated prices, accusing Jordan of backtracking on its agreement due to anti-China sentiment.
Since the first of two power units went live last fall, the Jordanian government has paid only half its monthly dues, Maaitah said.
In Jordan and other poorer Arab states allied with the U.S., the pace of Chinese investment in recent years has slowed.
Faced with pushback abroad and rising concerns at home, China is shifting its approach in the region, said Amman-based China expert Samer Khraino, focusing on the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Wealthy states like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have no issue paying back China's big loans.
For now, Jordan appears unwilling to take any more chances with China.
In May, Jordan's telecommunications company Orange signed a new agreement for 5G equipment. It had long been a customer of Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant under American sanctions.
This time, it chose Nokia.
Armed mobs rampage through villages and push remote Indian region to the brink of civil war
Zuan Vaiphei is armed and prepared to kill. He is also ready to die.
Vaiphei spends most of his days behind the sandbag walls of a makeshift bunker, his fingers resting on the trigger of a 12-gauge shotgun. Some 1,000 yards ahead of him, between a field of tall green grass and wildflowers, is the enemy, peering from parapets of similar sandbag fortifications, armed and ready.
"The only thing that crosses our mind is will they approach us; will they come and kill us? So, if they happen to come with weapons, we have to forget everything and protect ourselves," the 32-year-old says, his voice barely audible amid an earsplitting drone of cicadas in Kangvai village that rests along the foothills of India's remote northeastern Manipur state.
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Dozens of such sandbag fortifications mark one of the many front lines that don't exist on any map and yet dissect Manipur in two ethnic zones – between people from hill tribes and those from the plains below.
Two months ago, Vaiphei was teaching economics to students when the simmering tensions between the two communities exploded in a a bloodletting so horrific that thousands of Indian troops who were sent to quell the unrest remain near paralyzed by it.
Ethnic clashes between different groups have occasionally erupted in the past, mostly pitting the minority Christian Kukis against mostly Hindu Meiteis, who form a narrow majority in the state. But no one was prepared for the killings, arson and a rampage of hate that followed in May, after Meiteis had demanded a special status that would allow them to buy land in the hills populated by Kukis and other tribal groups, as well as a share of government jobs.
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Witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press described how angry mobs and armed gangs swept into villages and towns, burning down houses, massacring civilians, and driving tens of thousands from their homes. More than 50,000 people have fled to packed relief camps. Those who fought back were killed, sometimes bludgeoned to death or beheaded, and the injured tossed into raging fires, according to witnesses and others with first-hand knowledge of the events.
The deadly clashes, which have left at least 120 dead by the authorities' conservative estimates, persist despite the army's presence. Wide swathes have turned into ghost towns, scorched by fire so fierce that it left tin roofs melted and twisted.
"It is as close to civil war as any state in independent India has ever been," said Sushant Singh, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in India and an Indian army veteran.
The unrest has been met with nearly two months of silence from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata Party rules Manipur. Modi's powerful home minister, Amit Shah, visited the state in May and tried to make peace between the two sides. Since then, state lawmakers — many of whom escaped after their homes were torched by mobs — have huddled in New Delhi to try to find a solution.
The state government, nonetheless, has assured Manipur is returning to normalcy. On June 25, Chief Minister N. Biren Singh said that the government and armed forces had been "able to control the violence to a great extent in the past week." However, Singh's visit on Sunday to a front line coincided with fresh clashes that left three people dead, officials said.
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Meiteis have long blamed minority Kukis for the state's rampant drug problems and accused them of harboring migrants from Myanmar. The administration, mostly made up of Meiteis, also appears to be coming down heavily on Kukis after Singh alleged that some of those involved in the latest clashes were "terrorists."
Trouble reached A. Ramesh Singh's home on May 4 in Phayeng, a predominantly Meitei village some 17 kilometers (10 miles) from the state capital Imphal.
The previous day, Singh had kept a vigil outside his village whose residents, more than 200 of them, were expecting mobs of Kukis to descend from an adjacent hill. A former soldier, Singh carried a licensed gun with him, his son, Robert Singh, said.
The night of the raid, Singh fired shots, some in the air and some at the mobs, but was hit in his leg. Wounded and unable to walk, he watched his village being ransacked, before he was abducted with four other people and dragged up the hills, his son said.
The next day, Robert was told his father's body was found in a grove. He was shot in the head.
The anguish of victims also resonates quietly through hundreds of relief camps where displaced Kukis – who have suffered most deaths and destruction of homes and churches – are taking shelter.
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Kim Neineng, 43, and her husband had enjoyed years of peace in Lailampat village. He farmed the fields. She sold the produce in the market.
On the afternoon of May 5, Neineng went outside her house to check on noise. Out of breath, she rushed inside and told her husband what she had seen: a Meitei mob, many of them armed, had descended on their village, screaming and hurling abuses.
Neineng's husband knew what it meant. He asked her to escape with their four children and not look back, promising he would take care of the cattle and their home. She quickly packed her belongings and ran to a nearby relief camp.
A day later, more of her neighbors reached the shelter and told Neineng what had happened to her husband.
When the mob reached their house, the husband tried to reason with them, but they wouldn't listen. Soon, they started beating him with iron bars. More armed men arrived and chopped off his legs. Then they picked him up and tossed him in the raging fire that had already engulfed his home.
Neighbors found his charred body on the scorched floor.
"They tortured and treated him like an animal, without any humanity. When I think of his last moments, I can't comprehend what he must have felt," Neineng said, barely choking out words.
World swelters to unofficial hottest day on record
The entire planet sweltered to the unofficial hottest day in human recordkeeping July 3, according to University of Maine scientists at the Climate Reanalyzer project.
High temperature records were surpassed July 3 and 4 in Quebec and northwestern Canada and Peru. Cities across the U.S. from Medford, Oregon to Tampa, Florida have been hovering at all-time highs, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Beijing reported 9 straight days last week when the temperature exceeded 35 C (95 F).
This global record is preliminary, pending approval from gold-standard climate measurement entities like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. But it is an indication that climate change is reaching into uncharted territory. It legitimately captures global-scale heating and NOAA will take these figures into consideration when it does its official record calculations, said Deke Arndt, director of the National Center for Environmental Information, a division of NOAA.
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“In the climate assessment community, I don’t think we’d assign the kind of gravitas to a single day observation as we would a month or a year,’’ Arndt said. Scientists generally use much longer measurements -- months, years, decades -- to track the Earth’s warming. In addition, this preliminary record for the hottest day is based on data that only goes back to 1979, the start of satellite record-keeping, whereas NOAA’s data goes back to 1880.
But Arndt added that we wouldn’t be seeing anywhere near record-warm days unless we were in “a warm piece of what will likely be a very warm era” driven by greenhouse gas emissions and the onset of a “robust” El Nino. An El Nino is a temporary natural warming of parts of the central Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide and generally makes the planet hotter.
Human-caused climate change is like an upward escalator for global temperatures, and El Nino is like jumping up while standing on that escalator, Arndt said.
The global daily average temperature for July 3 came in at 17.01 degrees Celsius or 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a common tool often used by climate scientists for a good glimpse of the world’s condition. The reanalyzer is based on a NOAA computer simulation intended for forecasts that uses satellite data. It is not based on reported observations from the ground. So this unofficial record is effectively using a weather tool that is designed for forecasts, not record-keeping.
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This average temperature may not seem that hot, but it’s the first time in the 44 years of this dataset that the temperature surpassed the 17-degree Celsius mark.
Hotter global average temperatures translate into brutal conditions for people all over the world. In the U.S., heat advisories are in effect this week for more than 30 million people in places including portions of western Oregon, inland far northern California, central New Mexico, Texas, Florida and the coastal Carolinas, according to the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center. Excessive heat warnings are continuing across southern Arizona and California, they said.
When the heat spikes, humans suffer health effects.
“Those hotter temperatures that happen when we get hotter than normal conditions? People aren’t used to that. Their bodies aren’t used to that,” said Erinanne Saffell, the Arizona state climatologist and an expert in extreme weather and climate events.
Saffell added that the risk is already high for the young and old, who are vulnerable to heat even under normal conditions.
“That’s important to understand who might be at risk, making sure people are hydrated, they’re staying cool, and they’re not exerting themselves outside and taking care of those folks around you who might be at risk as well,” she said.
15 killed by floods in southwestern China as seasonal torrents hit mountain areas
At least 15 people have been killed by floods in southwestern China as seasonal torrents hit mountain areas, authorities said Wednesday.
Another four people were reported missing by mid-morning in Chongqing, a vast mountainous region of 31 million, almost all of which has now been designated as having flood risk, according to the local government website.
The Chongqing floods appear to be China's deadliest amid deluges in other parts of the country. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated. In just one southwestern province, Sichuan, more than 85,000 people have been evacuated due to flooding, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Chongqing’s flood warning has been upgraded from level four to level three, reflecting the growing seriousness of the crisis.
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Rescue teams in inflatable boats were ferrying villagers to safety and workers were clearing roads blocked by landslides, according to photos posted on the government website.
Seasonal flooding hits large parts of China every year, particularly in the semi-tropical south. However, some northern regions this year have reported the worst floods in 50 years.
In 2021, more than 300 people died in the central province of Henan. Record rainfall inundated the provincial capital of Zhengzhou on July 20 that year, turning streets into rushing rivers and flooding at least part of a subway line.
China’s deadliest and most destructive floods in recent history were in 1998, when 4,150 people died, most of them along the Yangtze River.
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Meanwhile, much of China, including Beijing, is sweltering under heatwaves that arrived earlier and have lasted for more consecutive days than in decades. Temperatures in the capital were forecast to hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on Thursday.
5 dead in Philadelphia shooting in worst violence around US Independence Day
A 40-year-old killed one man in a house before fatally shooting four others on the streets of a Philadelphia neighborhood, then surrendering to police officers after being cornered in an alley with an assault rifle, a pistol, extra magazines, a police scanner and a bulletproof vest, police said.
A 2-year-old boy and a 13-year-old were also wounded in the Monday night violence that made the working-class area of Kingsessing the site of the nation's worst violence around the July Fourth holiday.
Police called to the scene found gunshot victims and started to help them before hearing more shots. Some officers rushed victims to hospitals while others ran toward the gunfire and chased the firing suspect. Officers ultimately arrested the assailant in an alley, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a news conference. The shooter had no connection to the victims before the shooting, she said.
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“On what was supposed to be a beautiful summer evening, this armed and armored individual wreaked havoc, firing with a rifle at their victims seemingly at random,” she said Tuesday afternoon.
Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, the homicide unit commander, said witness interviews and video indicated that the suspect went to several locations in a ski mask and body armor, carrying an AR-15-style rifle.
“The suspect then began shooting aimlessly at occupied vehicles and individuals on the street as they walked,” he said. The vehicles included a mother driving her 2-year-old twins home, and one was wounded in the legs and the other hit in the eyes by shattered glass.
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Philadelphia police on Tuesday afternoon identified the victims as 20-year-old Lashyd Merritt, 29—year-old Dymir Stanton, 59-year-old Ralph Moralis and 15-year-old Daujan Brown, all pronounced dead shortly after the Monday night gunfire; and 31-year-old Joseph Wamah Jr., who was found in a home early Tuesday, also with multiple bullet wounds.
Investigators believe Wamah was the first victim killed, but he wasn't found by family members until hours later, Ransom said.
A 2-year-old boy shot four times in the legs and a 13-year-old shot twice in the legs were in stable condition, as were a 2-year-old boy and a 33-year-old woman injured by shattered glass.
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Police said the suspect is believed to have acted alone and there was no reason to believe anyone else was involved. Police and prosecutors said no charges were planned at this point against a second person taken into custody who is believed to have obtained a gun somewhere and fired back at the shooter.
“When you are under fire in a mass shooting, there are rights to protect others and rights to protect yourself,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said.
Authorities asked for patience as they investigate every aspect of the shooting. That investigation, Outlaw said, "includes the ‘why.’”
Krasner said the suspect would face multiple counts of murder, as well as aggravated assault and weapons charges, and was expected to be denied bail.
Outlaw praised the bravery of officers who tended to victims and rushed them to hospitals as others “fearlessly ran toward the sounds of gunfire,” and captured the suspect.
"Their swift actions undoubtedly saved additional lives,” she said.
At a holiday weekend block party in Baltimore, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) to the southwest of Philadelphia, two people were killed and 28 others were wounded in a shooting. More than half of the victims were 18 or younger, officials said.
About four hours after the Philadelphia shooting, gunfire at a neighborhood festival in Fort Worth, Texas, killed three people and wounded eight.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney renewed his oft-repeated call to “do something about America’s gun problem.”
“A person walking down the city street with an AR-style rifle and shooting randomly at people while wearing a bulletproof vest with multiple magazines is a disgraceful but all-too-common situation in America,” Kenney said. “I was today at Independence Hall where they wrote that Constitution, and the 2nd Amendment was never intended to protect this.”
Krasner said that the morning after the shooting, he saw “completely empty streets” in the traumatized neighborhood on an otherwise beautiful morning.
“I saw every porch empty. I saw every door closed. I saw every curtain where there was a curtain pulled. I saw no kids playing,” he said, describing a bicycle left on a corner, apparently untouched for 12 or more hours, “as if everybody understood what happened here was so horrible that for right now this is a desert, and for right now everything that we associate with celebrating Fourth of July is off.”
Tim Eads said that on Monday night he heard fireworks, then gunshots, and saw police cars “flying by.” His wife was on the second floor “looking out the bay window and saw the shooter actually coming down this street here behind me.”
Eads saw the other man with a pistol who, he said, may have been firing at the shooter.
“He was using my car as a shield shooting out into the street,” Eads said.
A resident named Roger who declined to give his last name said he and his family were eating in the living room at about 8:30 p.m. when they heard eight to 10 gunshots.
“Everybody thought it was fireworks but ... been around here about three years so I heard it enough,” he said. “I looked out the window and seen a bunch of people running.”
He said he heard about four more shots and “thought it was the end of it.” Ten minutes later, he said, police came “flying down here,” and about five minutes later he heard rapid gunfire open up right outside the house.
The Philadelphia violence was the country’s 29th mass killing in 2023, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University, the highest on record by this time in the year.
The number of people killed in such events is also the highest by this time in the year.
There have been more than 550 mass killings since 2006, according to the database, in which at least 2,900 people have died and at least 2,000 people have been hurt.
Scientists board India’s research vessel ‘Sagar Nidhi’ for 35-day expedition
Scientists from Bangladesh and Mauritius have embarked onboard India’s research vessel ‘Sagar Nidhi’ to participate in a joint ocean expedition spanning nearly 35 days.
The journey began on June 29 in a "landmark event" concerning maritime collaboration under the framework of Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) between the nations of Indian Ocean Region, said the Indian High Commission on Tuesday.
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The cruise is conducted by Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
It is an outcome of the maiden CSC Oceanographers and Hydrographers conference held at Goa and Hyderabad in November 2022.
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During the expedition, the scientists will collaboratively undertake research on the ocean data to predict and manage changes in the marine environment and variation in ocean parameters.
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Gunman opens fire on Philadelphia streets, killing 5
A heavily armed gunman in a bulletproof vest opened fire on the streets of Philadelphia on Monday night, seemingly at a random, killing five people and wounding two boys before surrendering, police said.
The shootings took place over several city blocks in the southwestern neighborhood of Kingsessing. Responding officers chased the suspect as he continued to fire, and he was arrested in an alley after giving himself up, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a news conference.
"Thank God our officers were on the scene and responded as quickly as they did. I can't even describe the level of bravery and courage that was shown, in addition to the restraint that was shown here," Outlaw said.
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No connection was immediately known between the victims and the shooter, she said. He had a bulletproof vest, an "AR-type rifle," multiple magazines, a handgun and a police scanner.
Officers were flagged down at about 8:30 p.m., and multiple calls of shots fired came in from Kingsessing. Police found some gunshot victims, and as they were attending to them, they heard more gunfire, Outlaw said. Police later told Fox 29 that a fifth victim was found. He was chased into his home and shot to death. Bullet casings were found outside the home.
The suspected shooter was identified as a 40-year-old man. A second person was also taken into custody who may have returned fire at the suspect, but police did not know whether there was a connection between the two people, Outlaw said.
The chief said dozens of shell casings were found across an eight block area.
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"You can see there are several scenes out here," Outlaw said. "We're canvassing the area to get as much as we can, to identify witnesses, to identify where cameras are located and to do everything to figure out the why," Outlaw said.
Three of the dead were 20 to 59 years old, while the fourth, who had not yet been identified, was estimated to be between 16 and 21. The victim found in his home was 31 years old. All were male.
The two hospitalized victims are boys, ages 2 and 13. They were in stable condition, Outlaw said.
The shooting occurred a day after gunfire erupted at a holiday weekend block party in Baltimore, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the southwest, killing two people and wounding 28 others. The wounded in that shooting ranged in age from 13 to 32, with more than half minors, according to officials.
The Philadelphia violence is the country's 29th mass killing in 2023, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University, the highest on record by this time in the year.
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The numbers people killed in such events is also the highest by this time in the year.
There have been more than 550 mass killings since 2006, according to the database, in which at least 2,900 people have died and at least 2,000 people have been injured.
Putin says Russia is 'united as never before' during Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting
President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that the Russian people were "united as never before," as he sought to project confidence in the wake of a short-lived revolt, at a meeting of a rare international organization where he can find a sympathetic audience.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting, hosted via videoconference by India, was Putin's first multilateral summit since an armed rebellion rattled Russia and comes as he is eager to show that the West has failed to isolate Moscow over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The Asian security grouping, founded by Russia and China to counter Western alliances, also welcomed Iran as a new member, bringing its membership to nine nations.
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Speaking by video link from the Kremlin, Putin praised the organization for "playing an increasingly significant role in international affairs, making a real contribution to maintaining peace and stability, ensuring sustainable economic growth of the participating states, and strengthening ties between peoples."
He thanked the member states for supporting Russian authorities during the short-lived armed mutiny mounted by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, and said the West had turned Ukraine into "a virtually hostile state — anti-Russia." Putin has frequently lashed out at the West for its support of Ukraine in the war.
The summit presents an opportunity for Putin to show that he's in control after an insurrection that left some wondering about divisions among Russian elites.
"The Russian people are united as never before," he said. "The solidarity and responsibility for the fate of the fatherland was clearly demonstrated by the Russian political circles and the entire society by standing as a united front against the attempted armed rebellion."
Also read: Putin says the aborted rebellion played into the hands of Russia’s enemies
Earlier speakers avoided directed references to the war, while bemoaning its global consequences.
In his opening speech, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned of global challenges to food, fuel and fertilizer supplies but didn't mention the war in Ukraine. Trade in all three has been disrupted by the war.
He also took a veiled swipe at Pakistan, saying the group shouldn't hesitate to criticize countries that are "using terrorism as an instrument of its state policy."
"Terrorism poses a threat to regional peace and we need to take up a joint fight," Modi said without naming Pakistan. India regularly accuses Pakistan of training and arming insurgent groups, a charge that Islamabad denies.
In his speech, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif denounced terrorism and defended his country's role in the fight against it.
"While the sacrifices made by Pakistan in fighting terrorism are without parallel, this scourge continues to plague our region and remains a serious obstacle to the maintenance of peace and stability," Sharif said. "Any temptation to use it as a cudgel for diplomatic point scoring must be eschewed."
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Sharif also hailed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, saying it could be a "game changer for connectivity, stability, peace and prosperity in the region."
The SCO also includes the four Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, all former Soviet republics in which Russian influence runs deep. India and Pakistan became members in 2017. Belarus is also in line for membership.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said that "the benefits of the official membership of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the SCO will be historic."
Raisi's speech, cited by the Iranian news agency IRNA, didn't mention the war in Ukraine, but said that Iran believed that the SCO is in a prime position to promote political and economic cooperation.
Raisi expressed the hope that Iran's membership would prepare the ground for improving collective security, respect for the sovereignty of member nations, sustainable development, and confronting environmental threats, IRNA said.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a message that the summit was taking place amid growing global challenges and risks.
"But at a time when the world needs to work together, divisions are growing, and geopolitical tensions are rising," he said.
"These differences have been aggravated by several factors: diverging approaches to global crises; contrasting views on nontraditional security threats; and, of course, the consequences of COVID-19 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine," he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping called on members to work toward "long-term peace and stability in the region," according to a readout of his speech posted by state broadcaster CCTV.
He said that China wants to "better synergize" the country's Belt and Road Initiative — a trillion-dollar infrastructure investment project criticized in the West for burdening smaller countries with large amounts of debt — with other nations' own development strategies and regional cooperation initiatives.
Days after his return from a high-profile visit to the United States, Modi on Friday had a telephone conversation with Putin about recent developments in Russia, India's External Affairs Ministry said.
Modi reiterated calls for dialogue and diplomacy between Russia and Ukraine, ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said.
India has avoided condemning Russia for its war on Ukraine and abstained from voting on U.N. resolutions against Russia.
When SCO foreign ministers met in India last month, Russia's war in Ukraine barely featured in their public remarks, but analysts say the fallout for developing countries on food and fuel security remains a concern for members of the group.
Even as the SCO continues to expand, the grouping remains at risk of competing interests or conflicts between member states.
India and Pakistan share a history of bitter relations, mainly over Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region that is split between them but claimed by both in its entirety, and they have fought two wars over it.
Meanwhile, New Delhi and Beijing are locked in a three-year standoff of thousands of soldiers stationed along their disputed border in the eastern Ladakh region.
And the SCO summit took place as Moscow relies more deeply on Beijing as its war in Ukraine drags on. This could irk New Delhi in the long run and complicate its relationship with Cold War ally Russia.