USA
US says Myanmar repression of Muslim Rohingya is genocide
Violent repression of the largely Muslim Rohingya population in Myanmar amounts to genocide, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday, a declaration intended to both generate international pressure and lay the groundwork for potential legal action.
Authorities made the determination based on confirmed accounts of mass atrocities on civilians by Myanmar's military in a widespread and systematic campaign against the ethnic minority, Blinken said in a speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
It is the eighth time since the Holocaust that the U.S. has concluded a genocide has occurred. The secretary of state noted the importance of calling attention to inhumanity even as horrific attacks occur elsewhere in the world, including Ukraine.
“Yes, we stand with the people of Ukraine," he said. "And we must also stand with people who are suffering atrocities in other places.”
The government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, is already under multiple layers of U.S. sanctions since a military coup ousted the democratically elected government in February 2021. Thousands of civilians throughout the country have been killed and imprisoned as part of ongoing repression of anyone opposed to the ruling junta.
The determination that a genocide has occurred could lead other nations to increase pressure on the government, which is already facing accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
“As we lay the foundation for future accountability, we’re also working to stop the military’s ongoing atrocities, and support the people of Burma as they strive to put the country back on the path to democracy,” Blinken said.
More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from Buddhist-majority Myanmar to refugee camps in Bangladesh since August 2017, when Myanmar's military launched an operation aimed at clearing them from the country following attacks by a rebel group.
The status of the plight of the Rohingya had been under extended review by U.S. government legal experts since the Trump administration, given potential legal ramifications of such a finding. The delay in the determination had drawn criticism from both inside and outside the government, which has been accused through successive administrations of being too slow in making such decisions on this and in other cases, most notable in Sudan’s Darfur region in the early 2000s.
Read: Rohingya case: Bangladesh assures continued support for The Gambia
Human rights groups and members of Congress welcomed the announcement despite the delay in a determination that has already been made by other countries, including Canada, France and Turkey.
“The U.S. determination of the crime of genocide against us is a momentous moment and must lead to concrete action to hold the Burmese military accountable for their crimes,” said Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK.
Human Rights Watch said the U.S. and other governments should seek justice for crimes carried out by the military and impose stronger sanctions against its leadership.
“The U.S. government should couple its condemnations of Myanmar’s military with action,” said John Sifton, the group’s Asia advocacy director. “For too long, the U.S. and other countries have allowed Myanmar’s generals to commit atrocities with few real consequences.”
A 2018 State Department report documented instances of Myanmar's military razing villages and carrying out rapes, tortures and mass killings of civilians since at least 2016. Blinken said evidence showed the violence wasn't isolated, but part of a systematic program that amounts to crimes against humanity.
Read:Roving with Rohingyas: How feminine hearts can make a difference, from scare to care
“The evidence also points to a clear intent behind these mass atrocities, the intent to destroy Rohingya, in whole or in part, through killings, rape, and torture,” he said.
Previous determinations of genocide by the U.S. include campaigns against Uyghurs and other largely Muslim minorities in China as well as in Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq and Darfur.
Gunfire at Arkansas car show leaves 1 dead, 27 wounded
One man was killed and 27 people were wounded when two people got into a gunfight during a car show that's part of an annual community event in a small southeast Arkansas town, authorities said Sunday.
A person who left the scene of the Saturday evening shooting has been arrested on unrelated charges and is being questioned about the shooting in Dumas, a city of about 4,000 located about 90 miles (144 kilometers) southeast of Little Rock, Arkansas State Police Col. Bill Bryant said.
“All we know at this time, there was two individuals that got in a gunfight,” Bryant said at a Sunday afternoon news conference.
Read:Car runs into Carnival revelers in Belgium, killing 6
He said several children were among the wounded, including two under the age of 2.
The car show is part of a community event held each spring called Hood-Nic, which is short for neighborhood picnic. The Hood-Nic Foundation says on its website that its mission is to “rebuild, reunite, and respond to the needs of the youth in our communities.”
The event, which helps raise funds for scholarships and school supplies, also included a bonfire, a basketball tournament, musical performances, a teen party and a balloon release.
“The purpose of Hood-Nic has always been to bring the community together,” the foundation said on its Facebook page. “This senseless violence needs to end.”
“It’s always been a family-friendly event with a message of non-violence,” said Kris Love-Keys, the foundation's chief development officer.
Cameron Shaffer, 23, of Jacksonville, Arkansas, was killed in the gunfire, Bryant said. He said authorities have no indication that he was involved in the gunfight.
Earlier in the day, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said on Twitter that one of the two suspects had been arrested and was being held on unrelated charges. But state police later would only say the person who was arrested was being questioned.
“As the investigation continues I will examine details to see if there are any steps that could have been taken to prevent this type of tragedy,” Hutchinson said.
Read:Car crash kills 7 in southern Myanmar
Six people under the age of 18 who were wounded by gunfire were taken to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, according to a spokeswoman. Most had been released as of Sunday afternoon.
Wallace McGehee, the car show's organizer, told KARK that that when the bullets started flying, he began “running, ducking, getting down, trying to get kids out of the way.”
Candace McKinzie, who helped organize the event, told The New York Times that the gunfire seemed to come out of nowhere.
“You went from laughing and talking and eating and everything to random firing,” she said.
McKinzie said people started running and tripping over one another and older people were falling.
Those who were shot include McKinzie’s cousin and sister. She said both were expected to recover.
Chris Jones, a Democrat running for Arkansas governor, tweeted that he was at the event earlier Saturday, registering voters and enjoying “a positive family atmosphere.”
“I am deeply saddened (and honestly angered) by this tragedy,” Jones said in a statement.
American lost in Ukraine flew into war to help sick partner
Katya Hill tried to talk her brother out of it. She urged Jimmy Hill to postpone his trip to Ukraine as she saw reports of Russian tanks lining up at the border. But he needed to help his longtime partner, who has been suffering from progressive multiple sclerosis.
“He said, ‘I don’t know what I would do if I lost her, I have to try to do everything I can to try to stop the progression of MS,’” Katya said. “My brother sacrificed his life for her.”
James “Jimmy” Hill, 68, was killed in a Russian attack on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv that was reported Thursday, as his partner Irina Teslenko received treatment at a local hospital. His family says she and her mother are trying to leave the city, but because of her condition they would need an ambulance to help and it was unclear when or if that could happen.
In an interview from Pittsburgh Saturday, Hill’s sister called her brother’s relationship with Irina a “beautiful love story, but unfortunately it has a tragic ending.”
Katya Hill said Irina’s illness had progressed to the point that she had lost the ability to walk and much of the use of her hands. She said her brother — a native of Eveleth, Minnesota, who was living in Driggs, Idaho — had spent months trying to secure treatments to stop the progression of the disease and had finally arranged for treatment in February.
Katya said the two met while her brother, who taught social work and forensic psychology at universities in various countries, was teaching a class in Ukraine. He knew instantly that he was in love and they spent years together, talking for hours every day on the phone when Jimmy was back in the Unites States.
READ: Russians push deeper into Mariupol as locals plead for help
Katya said in the last few weeks as the bombings grew more frequent and resources more scarce, her brother had been daydreaming of ways to get Ukrainian families to the U.S. to set up a “little Ukraine” at his Airbnb properties he owned in Idaho and Montana. She said her brother loved Ukraine and even on the day he was killed, friends had helped her piece together that he had decided to stay to be with Teslenko and her mother at the hospital.
It was initially reported that Jimmy was gunned down while waiting in a breadline, but Katya said the family had received new details through their senators and from Jimmy’s friends in Ukraine Saturday.
Katya said Jimmy and a friend who lives near the hospital had gone to an area where they had heard buses were waiting to evacuate people who wanted to leave the city via a safe corridor. There were more than a thousand people already waiting in line, and Jimmy told the friend he was going to return to the hospital. The friend told Katya that Russian shelling began as he was leaving, and the blast that killed her brother had caused the friend to lose hearing in one of her ears.
Katya said her family is still waiting to hear directly from the U.S. State Department to get details of where his body is.
Chernihiv police and the State Department confirmed the death of an American but did not identify him. The Associated Press reached out to the State Department to confirm details of Hill’s death, but had not received information as of early Saturday.
In poignant posts on Facebook in the weeks before his death, Hill described “indiscriminate bombing” in a city under siege. Katya said he had described increasing hardships in a Facebook Messenger group, starting each day by saying he was still alive.
But electricity and heat had been cut off, and food and supplies were becoming more scarce. Katya said he would go out to wait in line for food and supplies and bring back whatever he could for the hospital staff.
READ: Denied swift victory, Russian military maintains strong hand
Most patients at the hospital had moved to the basement bomb shelter, but Irina and her mother remained in the upper levels because of the cold and so she could continue the treatment.
Katya said Irina’s mother had been told about Jimmy’s death, but had not wanted to tell her daughter. She said they had hoped for help to evacuate back to their home village southeast of Kyiv, where Irina’s father was waiting, but it was unclear whether they could find an ambulance to take them or a safe route for the trip.
Video shows cop kneeling on Wisconsin student’s neck
School officials in Kenosha, Wisconsin, released surveillance footage that shows an off-duty police officer putting his knee on a 12-year-old girl’s neck to restrain her amid a lunchtime fight.
The Kenosha Unified School District released redacted footage of the March 4 fight on Friday. It shows Kenosha officer Shawn Guetschow intervening in the fight and then scuffling with the girl, before falling to the ground and hitting his head on a table.
Guetschow, who was working as a security guard at the school, then pushes the girl’s head into the ground and uses his knee on her neck for about half a minute before handcuffing her and walking her out of the cafeteria.
READ: Ukraine, Russia continue talks over video
Jerrel Perez, the girl’s father, has called for criminal charges against Guetschow for using a type of restraint that was banned for Wisconsin law enforcement officers last year. He said his daughter is in therapy and seeing a neurologist for her injuries.
The school district initially placed Guetschow on paid leave. He resigned from his part-time security job with the school on Tuesday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
In his resignation letter, Guetschow complained that the school district has not supported him and that the incident has placed a heavy burden on his family.
The district told the newspaper that it would not provide any additional details and did not respond to messages left by The Associated Press on Saturday. Kenosah police, in a statement, said Guetschow is still employed by the department.
READ: Remove Riaz's father-in-law's 'suicide' video from social media: HC
“We continue our investigation, paying careful attention to the entire scope of the incident,” the statement said. “We have no further update at this time.”
Don’t help Russia’s invasion, Biden tells China’s Xi
Face to face by video, President Joe Biden laid out to Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday the stiff consequences the Chinese would face from the U.S. if they provide military or economic assistance for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
There was no indication he got any assurance in return.
In fact, Xi blamed the U.S. for the crisis and insisted with a Chinese proverb that the next move was up to Biden:
“He who tied the bell to the tiger must take it off,” Xi said, according to a Chinese government readout.
More formally after the nearly two-hour conversation, China’s Foreign Ministry deplored “conflict and confrontation” as “not in anyone’s interest,” but assigned no blame to Russia and said nothing of next steps.
At the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki said, “China has to make a decision for themselves, about where they want to stand and how they want the history books to look at them and view their actions.”
She declined to detail possible consequences Biden specified to the Chinese president if his country provides support for the Russian invasion.
But a senior administration official who briefed reporters following the leaders’ call said that Biden pointed to the economic isolation that Russia has faced — including economy-battering sanctions and major Western corporations suspending operations — as he sought to underscore the costs that China might suffer.
Xi urged the U.S. and Russia, which have had limited engagement since the Feb. 24 invasion, to negotiate. He noted China’s donations of humanitarian aid for Ukraine, while accusing the U.S. of provoking Russia and fueling the conflict by shipping arms to the embattled country. He also renewed China’s criticism of sanctions imposed on Russia over the invasion, according to State media. As in the past, Xi did not use the terms war or invasion to describe Russia’s actions.
Ahead of the call, Psaki noted Beijing’s “rhetorical support” of Putin and an “absence of denunciation” of Russia’s invasion.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying pushed back, calling the U..S. administration “overbearing” for suggesting China risks falling on the wrong side of history.
The two leaders also discussed the longer-simmering U.S.-China dispute over Taiwan. In a reminder of China’s threat to assert its claim by force, the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Friday, just hours before the Biden-Xi call. The U.S. is legally obligated to ensure the self-governing island democracy can defend itself and treats threats to it with “grave concern.”
Planning for the leaders’ discussion had been in the works since Biden and Xi held a virtual summit in November, but differences between Washington and Beijing over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s prosecution of his three-week-old war against Ukraine were at the center of Friday’s conversation.
The U.S.-China relationship, long fraught, has only become more strained since the start of Biden’s presidency. Biden has repeatedly criticized China for military provocations against Taiwan, human rights abuses against ethnic minorities and efforts to squelch pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong.
But the relationship may have reached a new low with the Russian invasion.
In the days after Putin deployed Russian forces in Ukraine, Xi’s government tried to distance itself from Russia’s offensive but avoided the criticism many other nations have leveled at Moscow. At other moments, Beijing’s actions have been provocative including amplifying unverified Russian claims that Ukraine ran chemical and biological weapons labs with U.S. support.
Earlier this week, the U.S. informed Asian and European allies that American intelligence had determined that China had signaled to Russia that it would be willing to provide both military support for the campaign in Ukraine and financial backing to help stave off the impact of severe sanctions imposed by the West.
Read: Hundreds feared trapped in Ukraine theater hit by airstrike
The White House says China has been sending mixed messages. There were initial signs that Chinese state-owned banks were pulling back from financing Russian activities, according to a senior Biden administration official who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal analyses. But there have also been public comments by Chinese officials who expressed support for Russia being a strategic partner.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi met in Rome this week for an intense, seven-hour talk about the Russian invasion and other issues.
Read: Rescuers search theater rubble as Russian attacks continue
Ahead of the Rome talks, Sullivan said the U.S. wouldn’t abide China or any other country helping Russia work around economy-jarring sanctions inflicted by the U.S. and other allies in response to the invasion.
Sullivan also said the administration determined China knew that Putin “was planning something” before the invasion of Ukraine, but the Chinese government “may not have understood the full extent” of what Putin had in mind.
Xi and Putin met in early February, weeks before the invasion, with the Russian leader traveling to Beijing for the start of the Winter Olympics. The two leaders issued a 5,000-word statement declaring limitless “friendship.”
Beijing’s leaders would like to be supportive of Russia, but they also recognize how badly the Russian military action is going as an overmatched Ukrainian military has put up stiff resistance, according to a Western official familiar with current intelligence assessments.
The official, who was not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Beijing is weighing the potential “reputational blowback” of being associated with the Russian camp. The Chinese response to Russia’s request for help is still being formulated, the official said.
Though seen as siding with Russia, China has also reached out to Ukraine, with its ambassador to the country on Monday quoted as saying: “China is a friendly country for the Ukrainian people. As an ambassador, I can responsibly say that China will forever be a good force for Ukraine, both economically and politically.”
“We have seen how great the unity of the Ukrainian people is, and that means its strength,” Fan Xianrong was quoted by Ukraine’s state news service Ukrinform as telling regional authorities in the western city of Lviv, where the Chinese Embassy has relocated to.
State media quoted Xi as saying China-U.S. relations had yet to “emerge from the dilemma created by the previous U.S. administration, but instead encountered more and more challenges,” singling out Taiwan as one area in particular.
“If the Taiwan issue is not handled properly, it will have an undermining impact on the relationship between the two countries,” Xi reportedly told Biden.
Moderna seeks FDA authorization for 4th dose of COVID shot
Drugmaker Moderna asked the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday to authorize a fourth shot of its COVID-19 vaccine as a booster dose for all adults.
The request is broader than rival pharmaceutical company Pfizer's request earlier this week for the regulator to approve a booster shot for all seniors.
In a press release, the company said its request for approval for all adults was made “to provide flexibility” to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and medical providers to determine the “appropriate use” of a second booster dose of the mRNA vaccine, “including for those at higher risk of COVID-19 due to age or comorbidities."
Also read: Moderna jab will be given as booster doses: DGHS
U.S. officials have been laying the groundwork to deliver additional booster doses to shore up the vaccines' protection against serious disease and death from COVID-19. The White House has been sounding the alarm that it needs Congress to “urgently” approve more funding for the federal government to secure more doses of the COVID-19 vaccines, either for additional booster shots or variant-specific immunizations.
U.S. health officials currently recommend a primary series of two doses of the Moderna vaccine and a booster dose months later.
Moderna said its request for an additional dose was based on “recently published data generated in the United States and Israel following the emergence of Omicron.”
Also read: Moderna: Initial booster data shows good results on omicron
On Tuesday, Pfizer and its partner BioNTech asked U.S. regulators to authorize an additional booster dose of their COVID-19 vaccine for seniors, saying data from Israel suggests older adults would benefit.
Attacks hits Ukraine maternity hospital, officials say
A Russian attack severely damaged a maternity hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol, Ukraine said Wednesday, and citizens trying to escape shelling on the outskirts of Kyiv streamed toward the capital amid warnings from the West that Moscow’s invasion is about to take a more brutal and indiscriminate turn.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter that there were “people, children under the wreckage” of the hospital and called the strike an “atrocity.” Authorities said they were trying to establish how many people had been killed or wounded.
Video shared by Zelenskyy showed cheerfully painted hallways strewn with twisted metal and room after room with blown-out windows. Floors were covered in wreckage.
Outside, mangled cars burned, in a video provided by the Mariupol city council, with heavy damage to at least three two-story buildings. Much of the front of one building had been ripped away. The council said the damage was “colossal.”
“There are few things more depraved than targeting the vulnerable and defenseless," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be held “to account for his terrible crimes.”
READ: Russia-Ukraine war: Chernobyl site knocked off power grid
Authorities, meanwhile, announced new cease-fires Wednesday morning to allow thousands of civilians to escape from towns around Kyiv as well as the southern cities of Mariupol, Enerhodar and Volnovakha, Izyum in the east and Sumy in the northeast.
Previous attempts to establish safe evacuation corridors largely failed because of what the Ukrainians said were Russian attacks. But Putin, in a telephone call with Germany's chancellor, accused militant Ukrainian nationalists of hampering the evacuations.
It was not immediately clear whether anyone was able to leave other cities on Wednesday, but people streamed out of Kyiv’s suburbs, many headed for the city center, even as explosions were heard in the capital and air raid sirens sounded repeatedly. From there, the evacuees planned to board trains bound for western Ukrainian regions not under attack.
Civilians leaving the Kyiv suburb of Irpin were forced to make their way across the slippery wooden planks of a makeshift bridge, because the Ukrainians blew up the concrete span to Kyiv days ago to slow the Russian advance.
With sporadic gunfire echoing behind them, firefighters dragged an elderly man to safety in a wheelbarrow, a child gripped the hand of a helping soldier, and a woman inched her way along cradling a fluffy cat inside her winter coat. They trudged past a crashed van with the words “Our Ukraine” written in the dust coating its windows.
“We have a short window of time at the moment,’’ said Yevhen Nyshchuk, a member of Ukraine’s territorial defense forces. “Even if there is a cease-fire right now, there is a high risk of shells falling at any moment.”
In Mariupol, local authorities hurried to bury the dead in a mass grave. City workers dug a trench some 25 meters (yards) long at one of the city’s old cemeteries and made the sign of the cross as they pushed bodies wrapped in carpets or bags over the edge.
Nationwide, thousands are thought to have been killed, both civilians and soldiers, in the two weeks of fighting since Putin’s forces invaded. The U.N. estimates more than 2 million people have fled the country, the biggest exodus of refugees in Europe since the end of World War II.
READ: Russia-Ukraine war: Shelling and evacuation efforts ongoing
The fighting knocked out power to the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant, raising fears about the spent fuel that is stored at the site and must be kept cool. But the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said it saw “no critical impact on safety” from the loss of power.
The crisis is likely to get worse as Moscow's forces step up their bombardment of cities in response to what appear to be stronger Ukrainian resistance and heavier Russian losses than anticipated.
Echoing the director of the CIA, British Defense Secretary said Russia’s assault will get “more brutal and more indiscriminate” as Putin tries to regain momentum.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said fighting continued northwest of Kyiv. The cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol were being heavily shelled and remained encircled by Russian forces.
Russian forces are placing military equipment on farms and amid residential buildings in the northern city of Chernihiv, Ukraine’s military said. In the south, Russians in civilian clothes are advancing on the city of Mykolaiv, a Black Sea shipbuilding center of a half-million people, it said.
The Ukrainian military, meanwhile, is building up defenses in cities in the north, south and east, and forces around Kyiv are “holding the line” against the Russian offensive, authorities said.
In Irpin, a town of 60,000, police officers and soldiers helped elderly residents from their homes. One man was hoisted out of a damaged structure on a makeshift stretcher, while another was pushed toward Kyiv in a shopping cart. Fleeing residents said they had been without power and water for the past four days.
Regional administration head Oleksiy Kuleba said the crisis for civilians is deepening in and around Kyiv, with the situation particularly dire in the suburbs.
“Russia is artificially creating a humanitarian crisis in the Kyiv region, frustrating the evacuation of people and continuing shelling and bombing small communities,” he said.
The situation is even worse in Mariupol, a strategic city of 430,000 people on the Sea of Azov that has been encircled by Russian forces for the past week.
Efforts to evacuate residents and deliver badly needed food, water and medicine failed Tuesday because of what the Ukrainians said were continued Russian attacks.
The city took advantage of a lull in the shelling Wednesday to hurriedly bury 70 people. Some were soldiers, but most were civilians.
The work was conducted efficiently and without ceremony. No mourners were present, no families to say their goodbyes.
One woman stood at the gates of the cemetery to ask whether her mother was among those being buried. She was.
END/AP/UNB
1 teen dead, 2 wounded in shooting outside Iowa high school
One teenager was killed and two others were critically wounded Monday after gunfire that appeared to come from a passing vehicle struck them outside an Iowa school, authorities said.
Des Moines police said in a news release that potential suspects have been detained in the shooting on the grounds of East High School, near Des Moines’ downtown, about a half mile, from the Capitol. No charges were immediately filed.
Sgt. Paul Parizek told KCCI-TV that calls started pouring in around 2:50 p.m., shortly before classes were scheduled to dismiss for the day.
Police didn't identify those shot but said a 15-year-old male had died. He was not a student at East.
Also read: ‘Lizard Lick Towing’ star says son killed in N.C. shooting
The other two shot were females aged 16 and 18, who both attend East. They were hospitalized in critical condition.
The district said in a news release that the school was immediately put into lockdown and students were kept inside while police investigated. They were dismissed around 3:30 p.m. after law enforcement gave an all clear.
Principal Jill Versteeg described what happened as “everyone’s worst nightmare" and urged parents to “hug your students and love them.”
The district said there would be no classes Tuesday and that it was postponing the ACT and parent-teacher conferences. The district also was making grief counselors available.
Also read: Man arrested in fatal shooting of student at SUNY-Potsdam
Superintendent Thomas Ahart said school shootings have “become too common” and said that “real change to gun laws and access would go a long way to help us.”
“Our staff and students," he said, “are forced to train for these incidents and the trauma associated with the repeated drills and incidents will remain with them for years to come. It’s unfortunate that our state and our country have become a place where firearms are far too easily accessible.”
Police said they do not believe there is a continued threat to the public.
A motive was not immediately known, and Parizek provided no details on the potential suspects. He said witnesses were being interviewed and investigators were executing search warrants.
Authorities have recovered shell casings from the scene as they investigate what happened.
“Obviously, we threw every resource we had at this. We know that the kids in that school are our community’s most precious cargo.”
Des Moines Police Chief Dana Wingert went to the school after the shooting and expressed frustration at the violence.
“Unfortunately what happened here today was just another pointless tragedy in our community,” Wingert told TV station WOI-TV. “People using firearms to settle their differences.”
Police said it was the fourth homicide in Des Moines this year.
7 dead after tornadoes tore through central Iowa: Officials
Seven people were killed, including two children, when several tornadoes swept through central Iowa, destroying homes and knocking down trees and power lines in the state's deadliest storm in more than a decade, authorities said.
Emergency management officials in Madison County said four were injured and six people were killed Saturday when one tornado touched down in the area southwest of Des Moines near the town of Winterset around 4:30 p.m. Among those killed were two children under the age of five and four adults.
In Lucas County, about 54 miles (87 kilometers) southeast of Des Moines, officials confirmed one death and multiple reported injuries when a separate tornado struck less than an hour later.
The state Department of Natural Resources said that person who died was in an RV at a campground at Red Haw State Park in Chariton, Iowa.
Read: 6 dead as large tornado roars through central Iowa
Thunderstorms that spawned tornadoes moved through much of Iowa from the afternoon until Saturday night with storms also causing damage in the Des Moines suburb of Norwalk, areas just east of Des Moines and other areas of eastern Iowa. The storms were fueled by warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico.
Officials reported a number of homes were damaged or destroyed, roads were blocked by downed lines and tree branches were shredded by the strong winds. At one point, power outages affected more than 10,000 in the Des Moines area. About 800 customers remained without power Sunday evening.
The storms are the deadliest to occur in Iowa since May 2008 when one tornado destroyed nearly 300 homes and killed nine people in the northern Iowa city of Parkersburg. Another tornado a month later killed four boys at the Little Sioux Boy Scout ranch in western Iowa.
Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini said there have been plenty of examples of deadly storms in March even though they are more common in April and May. Saturday's storms were not nearly as unusual as the mid-December tornado outbreak that Iowa saw last year, he said.
“The storms that produce these tornadoes — these supercell storms — they don’t care what the calendar says,” Gensini said. “It doesn’t have to say June. It doesn’t have to say May. They form whenever the ingredients are present. And they were certainly present yesterday.”
Scientists have said that extreme weather events and warmer temperatures are more likely to occur with human-caused climate change. However, scientifically attributing a storm system to global warming requires specific analysis and computer simulations that take time, haven’t been done and sometimes show no clear connection.
Gensini said Saturday’s storms likely caused more than $1 billion in damages over their entire track when the severe damage in Iowa is combined with wind damage as far away as Illinois.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a disaster proclamation for Madison County, which allows state resources to be used to assist with response and recovery efforts. Madison County Emergency Management Director Diogenes Ayala said 52 homes were damaged or destroyed across nearly 14 miles.
The White House said President Joe Biden was briefed Sunday on the storm devastation in Iowa. Biden reached out Reynolds and directed the leaders of the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency to remain in close contact with state and local officials as they assessed damage and determined what federal assistance was needed, the White House said in a statement.
After touring the storm damage near Winterset, Reynolds described “unimaginable destruction.”
Reynolds teared up as she described the hundreds of people who streamed into the area to volunteer their help to clear debris that blocked roads and littered the hardest hit areas. Homeowners and volunteers were picking up wood debris and beginning to clear it away Sunday in the rolling hills south of Winterset as chainsaws whirred away in the background.
“It’s just unbelievable. I tried to walk through and thank them and over and over (and) the response was, we’re Iowans and that’s what we do,” she said.
The foundation was all that was left of several homes. The tornado carved a path of destruction along a ridge while several hundred feet away other homes were undamaged.
Read: Kentucky's death toll from tornadoes rises to 77
Ayala said emergency responders navigated narrow roads blocked by downed trees and debris Saturday night to help after the storm.
“With trees and debris and everything around, just to go out there and start the search and rescue and get the people affected out of there, I cannot express the heroism of the first responders who were out there last night," Ayala said.
Officials identified the six people who were killed in Madison County as Melissa Bazley, 63; Rodney Clark, 64; Cecilia Lloyd, 72; Michael Bolger, 37; Kenley Bolger, 5; and Owen Bolger, 2. The victims came from three different households.
Lucas County officials didn't immediately identify the person who died there Sunday afternoon.
Six people hurt in Madison County, which is known for the “Bridges of Madison County” book and movie, were being treated for injuries Sunday, but their conditions weren't immediately available.
The National Weather Service in Des Moines said Sunday that the tornado that killed one person in Lucas County remained on the ground for more than 16 miles (25.75 kilometers) and rated an EF-3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale with peak winds of 138 mph. The damage assessment for the Winterset tornado isn't likely to be completed until Monday, but the Weather Service tweeted Saturday that initial photos of the damage there suggested that tornado was also at least an EF-3 tornado.
Elsewhere, the National Weather Service said the storms generated an EF-1 tornado in southeastern Wisconsin near Stoughton that included winds up to 80 mph. The storm flattened trees, snapped power poles and blew out windows in homes. No injuries were reported.
Russian invasion reorders West’s calculations on cost of war
Not long after winding down 20 years of war, President Joe Biden now finds the United States entrenched in a conflict in Ukraine, even without sending in U.S. troops, that could have a more far-reaching effect on a larger cross section of Americans than Afghanistan or Iraq ever did.
Fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq cost the lives of more than 6,900 U.S. troops and more than 7,500 U.S. contractors, and American spending topped $2.3 trillion. But those wars had little impact on how the vast majority of Americans lived their daily lives. It was a 20-year period where people experienced both the Great Recession and the longest U.S. economic expansion, touchstones that were little influenced by the two grinding conflicts.
Now, five months after the end of the war in Afghanistan, the longest in U.S. history, Americans are entering complicated terrain with the Russian invasion in Ukraine. While Biden promises there will be no American forces on the ground there, he acknowledged the war waged by Russian President Vladimir Putin could have real impact on Americans’ pocketbooks.
“A Russian dictator, invading a foreign country, has costs around the world,” Biden told Americans in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
The financial tumult of the most significant military campaign in Europe since World War II is already being felt.
This past week saw U.S. crude oil prices surge about 13% to roughly $113 per barrel and the cost of natural gas reached a record in Europe as the war stoked market fears about a supply shock.
Key stock market indices, volatile for weeks, saw further losses as French President Emmanuel Macron warned “the worst is yet to come” after a lengthy phone call on Thursday with Putin.
Yet, in Washington -- as well as in European capitals -- there are signs of growing resolve to confront Putin and of a willingness to take on some economic pain in the process.
It’s a markedly different tone than in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks that spurred the Afghanistan War. Then-President George W. Bush implored Americans then to “stand against terror by going back to work” and suggested Americans “get down to Disney World” as his administration tried to restore faith in the U.S. airline industry. Over the next 20 years, U.S. servicemembers, including more than 52,000 wounded in action, and their families would largely carry the burden.
In Washington, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, got ahead of the White House in recent days in pushing for sanctions directly targeting Russia’s energy sector, the lifeblood of Putin’s economy. The administration has been hesitant to target Russian oil out of concern such a move would also imperil the economies of the U.S. and Western allies.
“Ban it,” Pelosi said of Russian oil imports.
Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced a bipartisan bill to do just that. The legislation would halt Russian oil imports to the U.S. by declaring a national emergency, something Biden could also do on his own.
“If there was a poll being taken and they say, ‘Joe, would you support 10 cents more a gallon for the people of Ukraine?’ ... I would gladly,” Manchin said.
Whether that view is widely held in the United States could go a long way to determine if Biden’s popularity will rebound after sinking to dismal levels.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said the sanctions on Russia could raise interest rates, slow the economy and drive up inflation and gas prices. He suggested Americans were prepared to sacrifice.
“This comes at cost,” Romney said. “Nowhere near the cost of blood that would be involved if we let (Putin) run amok but it is not without sacrifice.”
Public polling suggests Americans increasingly believe that the U.S. may have to do more to help Ukraine. Forty-five percent of Americans said in the days after Russia invaded that the U.S. was doing too little to help Ukraine. Another 37% said the U.S. was doing the right amount; just 7% said efforts were too much, according to a Quinnipiac poll this past week.
American politicians have shown greater resolve about what lies ahead as Ukrainians have demonstrated, in Biden’s words, “pure courage” in intense fighting against Russian forces. There’s also been a substantial change in European attitudes as the Russian military has pummeled Ukraine’s biggest cities.
READ: Putin warns against Ukraine no-fly zone
In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz was quick to put Nord Stream 2, a recently completed $11 billion Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline, on indefinite hold once Russia invaded, a reversal of Germany’s previous position.
The German government also reversed its long-held policy of not sending weaponry to a conflict zone and announced it would send anti-tank and stinger weapons to Ukraine. The German government — one of several European nations that have been laggard in meeting NATO countries’ pledge to spend 2% of GDP on defense by 2024 — said it would about triple its defense budget in 2022.
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck even called on his country to take on Putin in another way.
“If you want to hurt Putin a bit, then save energy,” he said
Even Hungary, whose pro-Russian strongman President Viktor Orban resisted speaking out against Russia in the leadup to the war, has condemned Russian military action, expressed support for sanctions, and agreed to give temporary protection to Ukrainian refugees entering Hungary.
At the White House, officials say the stiffening of European allies’ resolve came after many had showed some wariness about confronting the Russians. U.S. national security officials released a steady drip of intelligence for more than two months before the war that suggested Putin was intent on a full-scale invasion.
But even so, in talks with Biden’s national security team, some European allies seemed convinced — until right before Putin acted — that he would do something less than a full invasion.
Talk of reacting with half measures quickly melted away — even among some of the most reluctant European allies — once it became clear Putin had put his sights went far beyond disputed territories in eastern Ukraine.
Now, as the costs to Western economies mount, Biden and allied leaders’ pain threshold will be tested further. Asked about the administration’s confidence in unity as the costs of the war rise, White House press secretary sought to turn the focus back on Putin.
“We are taking steps to stand up for democracy, stand up for democracy versus autocracy stand up to the actions of a brutal dictator,” Psaki said. “It is because of his actions that we are in this circumstance.”
Edward Frantz, a historian at the University of Indianapolis, said Biden appeared to be headed toward a foreign policy “sweet spot” after the chaotic ending of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. In the final days of that war, 13 U.S. service members were killed in a suicide bomb attack as they assisted evacuation efforts at the Kabul airport.
READ: Ukraine wants special tribunal to judge Putin
As tangled and heart-wrenching as the withdrawal was, Biden had completed a campaign promise of ending the war, something his three predecessors failed to do. It also allowed him to more fully turn Washington’s attention to what Biden sees as America’s central foreign policy challenge: confronting the rise of economic and military adversary China.
“Now, instead, we’re back to the Cold War,” Frantz said. “If this is a long project — and it certainly seems it will be — the president now faces the challenge of selling to Americans why enduring some impact to our economy for Ukraine matters. That is not going to be easy.”