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US airstrikes target Iran-backed militias in Syria, Iraq
The U.S. military, under the direction of President Joe Biden, conducted airstrikes Sunday against what it said were “facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups” near the border between Iraq and Syria.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said the militias were using the facilities to launch unmanned aerial vehicle attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq.
Read:US airstrikes in Somalia on the rise
Kirby said the U.S. military targeted three operational and weapons storage facilities — two in Syria and one in Iraq.
He described the airstrikes as “defensive,” saying they were launched in response to the attacks by Iran-backed groups.
“The United States took necessary, appropriate, and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation — but also to send a clear and unambiguous deterrent message,” Kirby said.
Sunday’s strikes mark the second time the Biden administration has taken military action in the region. In February, the U.S. launched airstrikes against facilities in Syria, near the Iraqi border, that it said were used by Iranian-backed militia groups.
The Pentagon said those strikes were retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq in February that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a U.S. service member and other coalition troops.
Read: Syria condemns U.S. airstrikes in Iraq
At that time, Biden said Iran should view his decision to authorize U.S. airstrikes in Syria as a warning that it can expect consequences for its support of militia groups that threaten U.S. interests or personnel.
“You can’t act with impunity. Be careful,” Biden said when a reporter asked what message he had intended to send.
On Sunday, Kirby said Biden “has been clear that he will act to protect U.S. personnel. Given the ongoing series of attacks by Iran-backed groups targeting U.S. interests in Iraq, the President directed further military action to disrupt and deter such attacks.”
The Pentagon spokesman added: “As a matter of international law, the United States acted pursuant to its right of self-defense. The strikes were both necessary to address the threat and appropriately limited in scope.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Sunday that the U.S. airstrikes “appear to be a targeted and proportional response to a serious and specific threat,” adding, “Protecting the military heroes who defend our freedoms is a sacred priority.”
Biden: Infrastructure vow was not intended to be veto threat
Aiming to preserve a fragile bipartisan deal on infrastructure, President Joe Biden endorsed it “without hesitation” Saturday, walking back from a threat to veto it if Congress also didn’t pass an even larger package to expand the social safety net.
Biden said he didn’t mean to suggest in earlier remarks that he would veto the nearly $1 trillion infrastructure bill unless Congress also passed a broader package of investments that he and fellow Democrats aim to approve along party lines, the two together totaling some $4 trillion.
Speaking on Thursday moments after fulfilling his hopes of reaching a bipartisan accord, Biden appeared to put the deal in jeopardy with his comment that the infrastructure bill would have to move in “tandem” with the larger bill.
Though Biden had been clear he would pursue the massive new spending for child care, Medicare and other investments, Republicans balked at the president’s notion that he would not sign one without the other. “If this is the only thing that comes to me, I’m not signing it,” Biden said then of the infrastructure bill. “It’s in tandem.”
Read:Biden vows 'sustained' help as Afghanistan drawdown nears
By Saturday, Biden was seeking to clarify those comments, after his top negotiators Steve Ricchetti and Louisa Terrell worked to assure senators that Biden remained enthusiastic about the deal.
“My comments also created the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to, which was certainly not my intent,” Biden said in a statement.
“I intend to pursue the passage of that plan, which Democrats and Republicans agreed to on Thursday, with vigor,” Biden added. “It would be good for the economy, good for our country, good for our people. I fully stand behind it without reservation or hesitation.”
Biden’s earlier remarks had drawn sharp criticism from some Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who tweeted on Friday, “No deal by extortion!” Others felt “blindsided” by what they said was a shift in their understanding of his position.
Tensions appeared to calm afterward, when senators from the group of negotiators convened a conference call, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
Read: Biden faces growing pressure from the left over voting bill
“My hope is that we’ll still get this done,” said Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, the lead Republican negotiator, in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. “Our infrastructure is in bad shape.”
Biden was set to travel on Tuesday to Wisconsin for the first stop on a nationwide tour to promote the infrastructure package, the White House said.
The sudden swings point to the difficult path ahead for what promises to be a long process of turning Biden’s nearly $4 trillion infrastructure proposals into law.
The two measures were always expected to move together through Congress: the bipartisan plan and a second bill that would advance under special rules allowing for passage solely with majority Democrats votes and is now swelling to $6 trillion. Biden reiterated that was his plan on Saturday, but said he was not conditioning one on the other.
“So to be clear,” his statement said, “our bipartisan agreement does not preclude Republicans from attempting to defeat my Families Plan; likewise, they should have no objections to my devoted efforts to pass that Families Plan and other proposals in tandem.”
Read:Biden and Congress face a summer grind to create legislation
Before his clarification Saturday, not all senators were swayed by the White House outreach, which came after a tumultuous month of on-again, off-again negotiations over Biden’s top legislative priority.
The Democrats’ two-track strategy has been to consider both the bipartisan deal and their own more sweeping priorities side by side, as a way to assure liberals the smaller deal won’t be the only one.
A bipartisan accord has been important for the White House as it tries to show centrist Democrats and others that it is working with Republicans before Biden tries to push the broader package through Congress.
Ten Republican senators would be needed to pass the bipartisan accord in the 50-50 Senate, where 60 votes are required to advance most bills.
While the senators in the bipartisan group are among some of the more independent-minded lawmakers, known for bucking their party’s leadership, it appears criticism by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Biden’s approach could peel away GOP support.
Disappearances rise on Mexico’s ‘highway of death’ to border
As many as 50 people are missing after setting out on three-hour car trips this year between Mexico’s industrial hub of Monterrey and the border city of Nuevo Laredo on a well-traveled stretch of road local media have dubbed “the highway of death.”
Relatives say family members simply vanished. The disappearances, and last week’s shooting of 15 apparently innocent bystanders in Reynosa, suggest Mexico is returning to the dark days of the 2006-2012 drug war when cartel gunmen often targeted the general public as well as one another.
“It’s no longer between the cartels; they are attacking the public,” said activist Angelica Orozco.
As many as half a dozen of those who disappeared on the highway are believed to be U.S. citizens or residents, though the U.S. Embassy could not confirm their status. One, José de Jesús Gómez from Irving, Texas, reportedly disappeared on the highway on June 3.
Read:Fear shakes Mexico border city after violence leaves 18 dead
On Saturday, the FBI office in San Antonio, Texas, issued a bulletin seeking information on the disappearance of a Laredo, Texas, woman, Gladys Perez Sánchez, and her 16-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter, who were last seen setting out on the highway June 13. They had visited relatives in Sabinas Hidalgo, a town on the highway, and were returning to Texas when they vanished.
Most of the victims are believed to have disappeared approaching or leaving the cartel-dominated city of Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas. About a half-dozen men have reappeared alive, badly beaten, and all they will say is that armed men forced them to stop on the highway and took their vehicles.
What happened to the rest remains a mystery. Most were residents of Nuevo Leon state, where Monterrey is located. Desperate for answers, relatives of the missing took to the streets in Monterrey on Thursday to protest, demanding answers.
Orozco, a member of the civic group United Forces for Our Disappeared, said the abductions seem to mark a return to the worst days of Mexico’s drug war, like in 2011 when cartel gunmen in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas dragged innocent passengers off buses and forced them to fight each other to the death with sledgehammers.
Then, as now, politicians and prosecutors have given the families of the disappeared few answers.
“Now, more than 10 years after the disappearances in 2010 and 2011, they cannot continue to use the same pretexts,” said Orozco. But “they’re using the same lines. … In the last decade they were supposed to have created institutions and procedures, but it’s the same old story of authorities doing nothing.”
United Forces for Our Disappeared sent out a press statement on May 19 warning people about the dangers on the Monterrey-Nuevo Laredo highway, even though by mid-May the group had received only about 10 reports of people disappearing there. More reports poured in in June, and now amount to about 50.
The government of Nuevo Leon state acknowledged 10 days later that it had received reports of 14 people who had disappeared on the highway so far in 2021, along with five more in neighboring Tamaulipas, where Nuevo Laredo is located.
But Nuevo Leon didn’t warn people against traveling on the highway until almost a month later on June 23.
Read: Mexico City metro overpass collapses onto road; 20 dead
That was too late for Gómez, and for Javier Toto Cagal, a 36-year-old truck driver and father of five who disappeared along with three employees of the same trucking company on the 135-mile (220 km) stretch of highway on June 3. They were driving to Nuevo Laredo in a car.
“Up to now, we don’t know anything about (what happened to) them,” said Erma Fiscal Jara, Toto Cagal’s wife. “It wasn’t until June 5 that the company called me to say ‘your husband has disappeared.’ As far as the authorities, I ask and they say ‘we don’t know anything.’”
Even after acknowledging the abductions, the Nuevo Leon state government suggested it was Tamaulipas’ problem. The Nuevo Leon government also gave confusing information, first claiming to have rescued 17 people after abductions on the highway, then later acknowledging those victims had made it home on their own.
It wasn’t until Friday that both state governments announced a joint program to increase policing and security on the highway, a step that, if it had been carried out a month earlier, might have saved dozens of lives.
“Only now is the National Guard going out to patrol the highway. Why did they wait so long?” asked Karla Moreno, whose husband, truck driver Artemio Moreno, disappeared on the road April 13.
She, too, is horrified that northern Mexico is reliving the experiences of a decade ago. “How can this be happening? We were supposed to have more (law enforcement) resources by now,” she said.
Nuevo Laredo has long been dominated by the Northeast Cartel, a remnant of the old Zetas cartel, whose members were infamous for their violence.
Mexico security analyst Alejandro Hope said the highway disappearances and the June 19 events in Reynosa — when gunmen from rival cartels drove through the streets, randomly killing 15 passersby — were reminiscent of the attacks on civilians during the 2006-2012 drug war.
Read: Mexico approves AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use
In 2008, a drug cartel in the western city of Morelia tossed hand grenades into a crowd during an Independence Day celebration. In 2011, cartel gunmen in Tamaulipas abducted dozens of men from passenger buses and made them fight each other to the death, either as a recruitment tool or for entertainment.
“It is something that happens episodically; it never completely stopped,” Hope said of the attacks on civilians. The only thing that has changed, Hope said, was the rhetoric.
Officials in the early 2000s were often quick to repeat an old belief that drug cartels only killed each other, not innocent civilians. This time around, both in the Reynosa killings and highway abductions, officials quickly acknowledged the victims appeared to be innocent civilians.
“That argument, that ‘they only kill each other’ isn’t heard so much anymore,” Hope said.
States hesitant to adopt digital COVID vaccine verification
Customers wanting to wine, dine and unwind to live music at the City Winery’s flagship restaurant in New York must show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination to get in. But that’s not required at most other dining establishments in the city. And it’s not necessary at other City Winery sites around the U.S.
If City Winery tried doing such a thing at its places in Atlanta and Nashville, “we would have no business, because so many people are basically against it,” said CEO Michael Dorf.
Across the U.S., many hard-hit businesses eager to return to normal have been reluctant to demand proof of vaccination from customers. And the public and the politicians in many places have made it clear they don’t care for the idea.
Read:5 dead after hot air balloon crashes in Albuquerque street
In fact, far more states have banned proof-of-vaccination policies than have created smartphone-based programs for people to digitally display their vaccination status.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends masks when dining or gathering indoors for those who aren’t fully vaccinated. But few states require it, and most businesses rely on voluntary compliance — even in places with low vaccination rates where COVID-19 cases are climbing.
Digital vaccine verification programs could make it easier to enforce safeguards and tamp down new outbreaks.
“But that only works when you have mass adoption, and mass adoption requires trust and actual buy-in with what the state health department is doing, which is not necessarily present in all states,” said Alan Butler, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit organization.
Hawaii is the only state enforcing some version of a vaccine passport. It requires travelers to upload a photo or PDF of their Hawaii vaccination document or pass a pre-arrival COVID-19 test to avoid having to quarantine for 10 days.
Earlier this month, California became just the third state — behind New York and Louisiana — to offer residents a way to voluntarily display digital proof of their COVID-19 shots. None of those states requires the use of their digital verification systems to access either public or private-sector places.
By contrast, at least 18 states led by Republican governors or legislatures prohibit the creation of so-called vaccine passports or ban public entities from requiring proof of vaccination. Several of those — including Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota and Texas — also bar most businesses from denying service to those who aren’t vaccinated.
“Texas is open 100%, and we want to make sure that you have the freedom to go where you want without limits,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in signing a law against vaccine passports.
The prohibition doesn’t apply to the demands employers make on their employees. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Texas threw out a lawsuit from 117 Houston hospital employees who challenged a workplace requirement that they get vaccinated. More than 150 were later fired or resigned for not getting their shots.
In Louisiana, under a Republican-passed bill facing a potential veto from Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, public facilities would not be allowed to bar unvaccinated people until the COVID-19 vaccines have received full approval from the Food and Drug Administration. The vaccines for now are being dispensed under emergency FDA authorization.
Read:Crews at collapse site find body, raising death toll to five
In May, Louisiana launched a program allowing residents using the state’s digital driver’s license, LA Wallet, to add a record of their COVID-19 vaccination.
But its reach is still limited. About 105,000 people have activated the COVID-19 verification function. That’s about 14% of those with a digital license and less than 4% of Louisiana’s 3.1 million people with valid driver’s licenses.
Democratic state Rep. Ted James, who wrote the bill creating the digital driver’s license, said he has used the feature just once — to show an Uber driver in Nevada that he didn’t need to wear a mask. But James said he has never been asked to show it in Louisiana and doubts he ever will.
“Earlier in the year, I felt that at some point we would be limited in travel, going to certain places, unless we had the vaccine,” James said. Now, “I don’t foresee us ever having some type of requirement.”
As a step in reopening, New York in March launched its Excelsior Pass, the first state system to provide digital proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a recent negative test. As of early June, more than 2 million people had gotten the digital pass — about one-fifth of those who have been vaccinated.
At the City Winery, most customers bypass the Excelsior Pass and instead show their paper CDC vaccination cards to gain entry, according to Dorf, who said patrons at the 1,000-person capacity venue “appreciate going into a bubble of safety, knowing that everyone around them is vaccinated.”
Though larger ticketed events, like concerts at Madison Square Garden, require proof of vaccination, most businesses don’t ask.
“Think of a bar,” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance. “You have four friends that go in — maybe two of them have it, the other two don’t. You’re going to turn the other two away when small businesses are struggling so much?”
Though most states have shied away from creating digital vaccination verification systems, the technology may soon become widespread nonetheless.
Vaccine providers such as Walmart and major health care systems already have agreed to make digital COVID-19 vaccination records available to customers. Apple also plans to incorporate the vaccination verification function into a software update coming this fall.
Read:Biden vows 'sustained' help as Afghanistan drawdown nears
Within months, hundreds of millions of people across the U.S. will be able to access digital copies of their COVID-19 vaccination records, said Brian Anderson, chief digital health physician at the nonprofit MITRE Corp., part of a coalition of health and technology organizations that developed such technology.
People will receive QR codes that can be stored on smartphones or printed on paper to be scanned by anyone seeking vaccine verification. Those who scan the codes won’t retain any of the information — a protection intended to address privacy concerns.
The California Chamber of Commerce said it welcomes the state’s new vaccine verification system as a way for employers to check on their employees. California regulations require most employees who aren’t fully vaccinated to wear masks when dealing with others indoors.
Digital vaccine verification “allows an employer who really wants to make sure the workplace is vaccinated to require that without having the impossible problem of ‘John says he’s vaccinated but he lost his vaccine card. What do we do?’ This solves that issue,” said Rob Moutrie, a policy advocate at the California Chamber of Commerce.
5 dead after hot air balloon crashes in Albuquerque street
A hot air balloon hit a power line and crashed onto a busy street in Albuquerque on Saturday, killing all five people on board, including the parents of an Albuquerque police officer, police said.
The crash happened around 7 a.m. in the city’s west side, police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said. Police identified two of the passengers as Martin Martinez, 59, and Mary Martinez, 62 — the parents of a prison transport officer with the Albuquerque Police Department.
Read:Crews at collapse site find body, raising death toll to five
Police did not immediately release the others’ names but said the male pilot, and a female and male passenger were from central New Mexico.
Martin Martinez also had worked for Albuquerque police on bicycle patrol but most recently was a sergeant with the local school district’s police force, authorities said. Some Albuquerque officers who responded to the crash had worked with him and were sent home because it took a toll on them, said police Chief Harold Medina.
“It really emphasized the point that no matter how big we think we are, we’re still a tightknit community and incidents like this affect us all,” Medina said.
The Albuquerque Public Schools District said Martin Martinez “will forever be remembered for his lifelong dedication, courage and selflessness to the profession of law enforcement.”
The intersection where the balloon crashed was still cordoned off late Saturday afternoon. The multi-colored balloon had skirted the top of the power lines, sending at least one dangling and temporarily knocking out power to more than 13,000 homes, said police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos.
The gondola fell about 100 feet (30 meters) and crashed in the street’s median, catching on fire, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Bystanders frantically called out for a fire extinguisher to put out the flames and prayed aloud, video posted online showed.
Read:Toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 remain missing
The envelope of the balloon floated away, eventually landing on a residential rooftop, Gallegos said. The FAA did not immediately have registration details for the balloon but identified it as a Cameron 0-120.
Authorities haven’t determined what caused the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board sent two investigators to the scene Saturday who will look into the pilot, the balloon itself and the operating environment, said spokesman Peter Knudson. A preliminary report typically is available in a couple of weeks.
Gallegos said hot air balloons can be difficult to manage, particularly when the wind kicks up.
“Our balloonists tend to be very much experts at navigating, but sometimes we have these types of tragic accidents,” he said.
Albuquerque is a mecca for hot air ballooning. The city hosts a nine-day event in October that draws hundreds of thousands of spectators and pilots from around the world. It is one of the most photographed events globally.
Albuquerque-area residents are treated to colorful displays of balloons floating over homes and along the Rio Grande throughout the year. While accidents aren’t common, they happen.
“This is a tragedy that is uniquely felt and hits uniquely hard at home here in Albuquerque and in the ballooning community,” said Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller.
Read:Collapsed Florida building drew global visitors, residents
Since 2008, there have been 12 fatal hot air ballooning accidents in the United States, according to an NTSB database. Two of those happed in Rio Rancho just outside Albuquerque, including one in January where a passenger who was ejected from the gondola after a hard landing died from his injuries.
In 2016 in neighboring Texas, a hot air balloon hit high-tension power lines before crashing into a pasture in the central part of the state. All 16 people on board died. Federal authorities said at the time it was the worst such disaster in U.S. history.
Two back-to-back blasts rock Indian Air Force station
Two back-to-back blasts rocked a high-security Indian Air Force station in the central government-controlled territory of Jammu and Kashmir early on Sunday morning. Fortunately, no casualties were reported.
The explosions took place in the technical area of the Jammu Air Force Station five minutes apart. The first blast ripped off the roof of a building inside the airport, the Indian Air Force said.
Read: Bangladesh and India urged to cooperate on Meghna River basin
"Two low intensity explosions were reported early Sunday morning in the technical area of Jammu Air Force Station. One caused minor damage to the roof of a building while the other exploded in an open area," the Air Force tweeted.
"There was no damage to any equipment. Investigation is in progress along with civil agencies," it added.
Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh took stock of the situation and asked the Vice Chief of the Air Force to rush to the high security airport.
Read: India’s covid curve could raise the world’s
"Raksha Mantri Shri @rajnathsingh spoke to Vice Air Chief, Air Marshal HS Arora regarding today’s incident at Air Force Station in Jammu. Air Marshal Vikram Singh is reaching Jammu to take stock of the situation," the Defence Minister's Office tweeted.
Sources told UNB that the anti-terror National Investigation Agency has been roped in to assist in the probe as intelligence agencies have not ruled out a terror angle. "Preliminary probe suggests that drones were used to trigger the explosions," sources said.
Five years ago, another high-security Indian Air Force station in Pathankot town in the neighbouring state of Punjab was attacked by a heavily armed group. The Pathankot Air Force Station is under the Western Air Command of the Indian Air Force.
Read: India cuts Middle East oil imports as it seeks to diversify energy sources
Five militants and seven Indian soldiers were killed during three days of fighting at the Pathankot station in January 2016. A Kashmir-based militant outfit had claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, believed to been carried out to detail peace moves by arch-rivals India and Pakistan.
Crews at collapse site find body, raising death toll to five
Rescue crews found another body in the rubble of a collapsed 12-story condominium tower near Miami on Saturday, raising the death toll to five as they raced to recover any survivors after fighting back fire and smoke deep inside the concrete and metal remains.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced the heightened toll at an evening news briefing, saying the identification of three bodies had dropped the number of unaccounted for down to 156. She said crews also discovered other unspecified human remains.
The Miami-Dade Police Department later Saturday said four of the five deceased had been identified, along with the apartments where they were at the moment of the collapse. One of the was the mother of a boy who was rescued the night the building toppled, another couple in their late 70s and early 80s and a 54-year-old man.
Officials said remains they find are being sent to the medical examiner, and they are also gathering DNA samples from family members to help identify them.
Read:Toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 remain missing
Separately, a video posted online showed an official briefing families of missing loved ones. When he said they had found remains among the rubble, people began sobbing.
Throughout the day, rescue workers scoured the mountain of debris with trained dogs and sonar, searching for any survivors. “Our top priority continues to be search and rescue and saving any lives that we can,” the mayor said.
But crews had to fight flames in the debris during the day. At one point Saturday, a fire hose blasted one of the lower floors on the north side of the tower as white smoke or steam streamed out. A bitter, sulfur-like smell hung in the air.
“The stench is very thick,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
A crane removed pieces of debris from the more than 30-foot pile in the city of Surfside, and scores of rescuers used big machines, small buckets, drones, microphones and their own hands to pick through the rubble.
For many with missing loved ones, the wait was agonizing. The atmosphere was tense inside a hotel ballroom where around 200 family members were briefed, two people present told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations.
The two said families frustrated with the slow pace of recovery efforts had demanded permission to go to the scene and attempt a collective shout — an attempt as much to find survivors as a cathartic farewell to those who had died.
Read:Collapsed Florida building drew global visitors, residents
Among those awaiting word of loved ones was Rachel Spiegel, whose mother, 66-year-old Judy Spiegel, lived on the sixth floor. Speaking beside her siblings, she said Saturday that “we’re trying to hold it together.”
“I know my mom is a fighter. I know she loves us. I know she doesn’t want to give up. So, you know, it’s day three, so it’s hard,” Spiegel said.
President Joe Biden said via Twitter that he had spoken with DeSantis on Friday to offer assistance as needed.
“My heart is with the community of Surfside as they grieve their lost loved ones and wait anxiously as search and rescue efforts continue,” Biden tweeted.
Authorities announced they were beginning an audit of buildings nearing their 40-year review — like the fallen Champlain Towers South — to make sure they’re safe. The mayor asked other cities in the county to join the building review and said there will be state and federal funding to help.
Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have joined local and state authorities at the site, DeSantis said. He added a nearby “sister building” of the collapsed tower is also being looked at because it was built at the same time and with the same designer.
Late Saturday, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said that a city official had led a cursory review of the nearby Champlain Towers North and Champlain Towers East buildings.
“They didn’t find anything out of the ordinary,” he said.
Read:Miami-area condo collapse causes massive emergency response
He emphasized the priority now was on rescuing anyone still alive.
“What we’re doing now is we’re saving lives and we’re bringing people out of the rubble. What we’re going to do in the next phase, after we address support for the families, is we are going to do a very deep dive into why this building fell down,” Burkett said.
Burkett had said earlier he was working on a plan to temporarily relocate residents of the Champlain Towers North, which was constructed the same year and sits about 100 yards away from the collapsed building, and that FEMA has agreed to pay for lodging.
The mayor said he didn’t plan to order residents to evacuate, but if he lived there, “I’d be gone.”
Surfside city staffers had also been gathering details about Champlain Towers East, which was built in a different style and apparently was built at a different time.
The news came after word of a 2018 engineering report that showed the building had “major structural damage” to a concrete slab below its pool deck that needed extensive repairs, part of a series of documents released by the city of Surfside.
While officials said no cause for the collapse early Thursday has been determined, DeSantis said a “definitive answer” was needed in a timely manner. Video showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first, followed by a section nearer to the beach.
The 2018 report was part of preliminary work by the engineering company conducting the building’s required inspections for a recertification due this year of the building’s structural integrity at 40 years. The condominium tower was built in 1981.
Read:Tornado sweeps through suburban Chicago, causing damage
A federal agency specializing in disaster losses and structure failures is sending a half dozen scientists and engineers to collect direct information for determining whether to pursue a more thorough study.
The first team members arrived Friday, said Jason Averill, an official at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. That agency also investigated the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11, and more recently, Hurricane Maria devastation in Puerto Rico, among other disasters.
Separately, the government of Israel said it was sending a team of engineering and rescue specialists to aid the search. Israeli media have reported that some 20 citizens of that country were believed among the missing.
Another 22 people unaccounted for were from Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Paraguay, including relatives of Paraguayan first lady Silvana de Abdo Benítez.
UK health minister resigns after breaching coronavirus rules
U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has led the country’s response to the coronavirus, resigned Saturday, a day after apologizing for breaching social distancing rules with an aide with whom he was allegedly having an affair.
Hancock had been under growing pressure since the tabloid Sun newspaper published images showing him and senior aide Gina Coladangelo kissing in an office at the Department of Health. The Sun said the closed circuit television images were taken May 6 — 11 days before lockdown rules were eased to allow hugs and other physical contact with people outside one’s own household.
In a resignation letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Hancock said the government owed it “to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down.”
“And those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them and that’s why I’ve got to resign,” he wrote.
Johnson said he was sorry to receive Hancock’s resignation and that he “should leave office very proud of what you have achieved — not just in tackling the pandemic, but even before COVID-19 struck us.”
Johnson had earlier expressed confidence in Hancock despite widespread calls to fire him.
Also read: Raul Castro confirms he’s resigning, ending long era in Cuba
Jonathan Ashworth, health spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, said “it is right that Matt Hancock has resigned. But why didn’t Boris Johnson have the guts to sack him and why did he say the matter was closed?”
Some lawmakers from the governing Conservatives had also called on Hancock to quit because he wasn’t practicing what he has been preaching during the pandemic.
“The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis,” Hancock, who is married, said in his letter of resignation.
“I want to reiterate my apology for breaking the guidance, and apologize to my family and loved ones for putting them through this,” he said. “I also need (to) be with my children at this time.”
Hancock, 42, is the latest in a string of British officials to be accused of breaching restrictions they imposed on the rest of the population to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
The government is also facing questions about the circumstances in which Hancock hired Coladangelo, a university friend who was appointed to his department last year. She was initially employed as an unpaid adviser and this year became a non-executive director at the Department of Health, a role that pays about 15,000 pounds ($21,000) a year.
Also read: Italian premier resigns, setting off scramble for new allies
Johnson’s Conservative government has been branded a “chumocracy” by critics for hiring special advisers and contractors from outside the civil service without long-customary levels of scrutiny.
Hancock’s department has been accused of waiving procurement rules to award lucrative contracts for protective equipment and other medical essentials, often to personal contacts. Hancock has said he was driven by the need to secure essential supplies quickly at the height of the outbreak.
Hancock has faced weeks of pressure since the prime minister’s former top aide, Dominic Cummings, accused him of botching the government’s response to the pandemic. Cummings, now a bitter critic of the government he once served, told lawmakers last month that Hancock “should have been fired” for alleged lies and errors. He also published a WhatsApp message in which Johnson branded Hancock “totally (expletive) hopeless.”
Cummings himself was accused of breaking the rules and undermining the government’s “stay home” message when he drove 250 miles (400 kilometers) across England to his parents’ home during the spring 2020 lockdown. Johnson resisted pressure to fire him, but Cummings left his job in November amid a power struggle in the prime minister’s office.
Knife attack in German city leaves 3 dead, suspect arrested
A man armed with a long knife killed three people and injured five others, some seriously, in Germany’s southern city of Wuerzburg on Friday before being shot by police and arrested, authorities said.
Police identified the suspect as a 24-year-old Somali man living in Wuerzburg. His life was not in danger from his gunshot wound, they said.
Bavaria’s top security official Joachim Herrmann said the injured include a young boy, whose father was probably among the dead.
The suspect was in psychiatric treatment before the attack and had been known to police, Herrmann said. There was no immediate word on a possible motive.
Videos posted on social media showed pedestrians surrounding the attacker and trying to hold him at bay with chairs and sticks.
A woman who said she had witnessed the incident told German RTL television that the police then stepped in.
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“He had a really big knife with him and was attacking people,” Julia Runze said. “And then many people tried to throw chairs or umbrellas or cellphones at him and stop him.”
“The police then approached him and I think a shot was fired, you could hear that clearly.”
Police spokeswoman Kerstin Kunick said officers were alerted around 5 p.m. (1500 GMT) to a knife attack on Barbarossa Square in the center of the city. Würzburg is a city of about 130,000 people located between Munich and Frankfurt.
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Bavaria’s governor Markus Soeder expressed shock at the news of the attack. “We grieve with the victims and their families,” he wrote on Twitter.
“A big thank you and respect for the spirited intervention by many citizens, who confronted the suspected attacker in a determined way,” Soeder added. “And also to all first responders for their work at the scene.”
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Almost five years ago a 17-year-old refugee from Afghanistan wounded four people with an ax on a train near Wuerzburg. He then fled and attacked a woman passer-by before police shot him dead.
Biden vows 'sustained' help as Afghanistan drawdown nears
President Joe Biden on Friday promised Afghanistan’s top leaders a “sustained” partnership even as he moves to accelerate winding down the United States’ longest war amid escalating Taliban violence.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, chair of the High Council for National Reconciliation, met at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin before their sit-down with Biden at the White House later in the afternoon. While Biden vowed that the U.S. was committed to assisting Afghanistan, he also insisted that it was time for the American military to step back.
“Afghans are going to have to decide their future,” Biden said in brief remarks at the start of his meeting with the Afghan leaders. Biden did not elaborate on what a ’’sustained” partnership might entail.
The leaders’ visit to Washington comes as the Biden administration has stepped up plans for withdrawal ahead of the president’s Sept. 11 deadline to end a nearly 20-year-old war that has come with a breathtaking human cost.
Ghani also paid a visit on his own Friday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and with House Republican lawmakers. He met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday.
More than 2,400 U.S. troops have been killed and 20,000 wounded in the war since 2001, according to the Defense Department. It’s estimated that over 3,800 U.S. private security contractors have been killed. The suffering has been even greater for Afghanistan with estimates showing more than 66,000 Afghan troops killed and more than 2.7 million forced to flee their homes — mostly to Iran.
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Roughly 650 U.S. troops are expected to remain in Afghanistan to provide security for diplomats after the main American military force completes its withdrawal, which is set to be largely done in the next two weeks, U.S. officials told The Associated Press.
Several hundred additional American forces will remain at the Kabul airport, potentially until September. They’ll assist Turkish troops providing security, a temporary move until a more formal Turkey-led security operation is in place, the officials said Thursday.
Overall, officials said the U.S. expects to have American and coalition military command, its leadership, and most troops out by July Fourth, or shortly after that, meeting an aspirational deadline that commanders developed months ago.
The officials were not authorized to discuss details of the withdrawal and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
The departure of the bulk of the more than 4,000 troops that have been in the country in recent months is unfolding well before Biden’s Sept. 11 deadline. And it comes amid accelerating Taliban battlefield gains, fueling fears that the Afghan government and its military could collapse in a matter of months.
Ghani said at a news conference following the Oval Office meeting that the talks with Biden were productive. He pointed to an uptick in Afghans signing up for the military as a sign of hope. But he also acknowledged the difficulty that lies ahead, suggesting the moment was analogous to the difficulties the U.S. faced at the start of its civil war.
“There have been reverses, we acknowledge it — but the key now is stabilization,” he added.
Abdullah, who took part in the meeting with Biden, later emphasized the importance of continued U.S. support.
“We tend to forget that al-Qaida had reached a certain level of capacity in Afghanistan that was an actual danger and homeland security threat,” Abdullah told the AP in an interview. “If Afghanistan is abandoned completely, without support, without engagement, there’s a danger that Afghanistan can turn once again into a haven for terrorist groups.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking Friday in Paris, noted the increased violence and cited “a real danger” that if the Taliban tries to take the country by force, “we’ll see a renewal of a war or possibly worse.”
But, Blinken said, the Biden administration came to the conclusion that not removing U.S. troops, as the Trump administration had promised the Taliban in February 2020, would have been a bad choice. The administration believes the Taliban would have resumed attacks on U.S. forces, prompting an escalation of the war.
Blinken added that a continued U.S. presence “certainly would have helped significantly” the Kabul government. “But what is almost certain is that our military would have come to us and said, well, the situation has changed, we need more forces. And we would have repeated the cycle that we’ve been in for 20 years. And at some point, you have to say this has to stop.”
Still, Biden faces strong criticism from some Republicans for pulling out of Afghanistan, even though President Donald Trump made the 2020 deal with the Taliban to withdraw all U.S. forces by May 2021.
McConnell on Thursday charged Biden has “chosen to abandon the fight and invite even greater terrorist threats” and urged the president to delay the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki pushed back on Friday that Biden inherited an untenable situation from Trump, marked by a relatively small coalition troop presence and an agreement brokered by the Trump administration and the Taliban to draw down all U.S. forces.
“That’s the hand we were dealt,” Psaki said. “The president made a decision which is consistent with his view that this was not a winnable war.”
Biden acknowledged the difficult situation Ghani and Abdullah face as they try to build back their country while staving off Taliban aggression.
“They’re doing important work trying to bring back unity among Afghan leaders across the board and Afghans are going to have to decide their future, what they, what they want,” Biden said. “What they want. It won’t be for lack of us.”
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Ghani in his meeting with House Republican leadership faced questions about how his government would use the $3 billion in security assistance it is seeking from the United States and recent gains by the Taliban.
“We want to support them. We want them to be able to defend their country from the Taliban. But I’ll tell you it’s a fairly grim assessment,” said Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “The question is: Can they push back the Taliban?”