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Days after a stroke sent him to the hospital, John Fetterman easily won Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary, notching a major victory Tuesday for his party’s left flank. The big question is which Republican he will face in what will likely be one of the most competitive Senate races this year. Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate contest was too early to call, with celebrity heart surgeon Mehmet Oz, former hedge fund CEO David McCormick and commentator Kathy Barnette all vying for the party’s nomination. Oz is the preferred candidate of former President Donald Trump, who has sought to wield the power of his endorsement to lift his loyalists and reshape the GOP. The state’s closely-watched governor’s race, featuring the Trump-backed Doug Mastriano, was also too early to call. Democrat Josh Shapiro was unopposed in his primary. Trump scored an easy victory early in the night when U.S. Rep. Ted Budd clinched the GOP nomination for Senate in North Carolina. Trump’s surprise endorsement last year lifted Budd, a little known congressman, over better-known rivals, including a former governor. He quickly pivoted to a general election message focused on breaking Democratic control of Washington. “Under Joe Biden, America is woke and broke,” he said at a victory rally. “We need to put the brakes on this agenda for the sake of hardworking North Carolinians.” Budd will face Democratic former state supreme court justice Cheri Beasley, who is aiming to become North Carolina’s first Black senator. She told supporters “this is our moment.” “We have the power to restore our values to our government in Washington,” she said. “In this moment, we have the power to protect our rights.” Read: White ‘replacement theory’ fuels racist attacks facebook sharing button Tuesday marked the busiest night of the nascent primary season, with contests also being waged in Kentucky, Oregon and Idaho. Both parties are choosing candidates to enter the fall general election, when control of Congress, governor’s mansions and key elections posts are up for grabs. Much of the attention was on Pennsylvania, a perennial political battleground that could decide control of the Senate. The 52-year-old Fetterman is known for his hulking, 6-foot-8 stature frame, and tattoos that helped him build a political persona as an outsider. That, combined with his support of top progressive causes such as universal, government funded health care, helped him easily dispatch with Democratic rival U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, a moderate in the mold of President Joe Biden. “Fetterman’s victory shows that voters are fed up and want fighters. This should be a wake up call to the entire Democratic Party establishment to fight harder against the fascists and those who obstruct a popular agenda,” Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said in a statement. Robert Sweeney, a 59-year-old resident of Hamburg, Pennsylvania, said he voted for Fetterman because “he seemed like a decent guy and knows what he’s doing.” Fetterman, who is Pennsylvania’s lt. governor, could enter the general election campaign facing questions about his health. Following his stroke, he cast an emergency ballot from the hospital and tweeted on Tuesday that he’d successfully undergone surgery to install a pacemaker. He said he was “on track for a full recovery.” And Fetterman will likely face scrutiny over a 2013 incident when, shotgun in hand, he confronted a Black man because he suspected the man was involved in gunfire nearby. The man, Christopher Miyares, was unarmed and said in a TV interview that he had been jogging when Fetterman, who is white, pulled up in his pickup and pointed the shotgun at him. Fetterman has denied pointing the shotgun at Miyares and said it wasn’t loaded. Read: Buffalo shooting latest example of targeted racial violence The Republican Senate campaign has proven far more divisive. Despite Trump’s backing, some conservative voters have been suspicious of the ideological leanings of Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon who gained fame as a frequent guest on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show. Oz has spent much of the campaign in a heated fight with McCormick. That’s allowed commentator Barnette to emerge in the final days of the primary as a conservative alternative to both Oz and McCormick. Should she win the primary and general election, Barnette would be the first Black Republican woman elected to the U.S. Senate. Trump, who has held campaign-style rallies with Oz, insists he is the best candidate to keep the Senate seat in Republican hands in the fall. Given his level of involvement in the race, a loss would be a notable setback for the former president. Whom Shapiro will face was also unclear. Trump used the race’s final weekend to ack Doug Mastriano, but the state senator is seen as too extreme to woo moderates who are often decisive in general elections. “There’s definitely some concern in large factions of the party,” said Pennsylvania Republican strategist Vince Galko. More fundamentally, Tuesday’s primaries could test voters’ commitment to democratic principles. Barnette is running even further to the right than Oz and participated in the January 2021 rally that turned into an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Then there’s Mastriano, who was also outside the Capitol during the mob attack and would appoint Pennsylvania’s chief elections official if he becomes governor. He has pledged to take the extraordinary step of requiring voters to “re-register” to vote — even though that’s barred by the National Voter Registration Act and likely violates significant protections under federal, and possibly state, law. Mastriano made Trump’s lies about widespread electoral fraud costing him the presidency a centerpiece of his campaign — and has been subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot following his efforts to name a slate of alternate Electoral College electors in Trump’s favor. Stacy Steinly, a 51-year-old school bus assistant, cast her ballot in the town of Hamburg, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles west of Allentown. She said she chose Mastriano because “he was sticking by President Trump and saying that everything was fraudulent.” “Everything he was talking about was making sense,” said Steinly, who wore a black T-shirt that said “Biden is not my president (or anyone else’s) based on legal votes.”

A gunman motivated by hatred against Taiwan chained shut the doors of a California church and hid firebombs before shooting at a gathering of mostly elderly Taiwanese parishioners, killing a man who tackled him, authorities said. David Chou, 68, of Las Vegas — a U.S. citizen whom authorities say grew up in Taiwan — drove to Orange County on Saturday and the next day attended a lunch held by Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, which worships at Geneva Presbyterian Church in the community of Laguna Woods. Though he knew no one there, he spent about an hour mingling with about 40 attendees and then executed his plot, authorities said at a news conference. He chained the doors and put super glue in the keyholes. He had two 9 mm handguns — legally purchased years ago in Las Vegas — and three bags, containing among other things four Molotov-cocktail-type incendiary devices and extra ammunition. He opened fire and in the ensuing chaos Dr. John Cheng, 52, tackled him, allowing other parishioners to subdue him and tie him up with extension cords. Cheng died and five people were wounded, the oldest 92. Sheriff Don Barnes called Cheng’s heroism “a meeting of good versus evil” that probably saved the lives “of upwards of dozens of people.” Chou was booked on suspicion of murder and attempted murder and jailed on $1 million bail. He was expected to appear in state court Tuesday. It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf. A federal hate crimes investigation is also ongoing. Chou had worked as a security guard in Las Vegas, authorities said. Also Read: In Buffalo, Biden condemns racism, mourns new victims There was no immediate word on why Chou chose to target the church in Laguna Woods, a scenic coastal area whose population mainly consists of retirees and is near a large gated community. Barnes said the motive for the shooting was Chou’s hatred toward Taiwan that was documented in handwritten notes that authorities found. Chou’s family apparently was among many forcibly removed from mainland China to Taiwan sometime after 1948, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said. Relations between mainlanders forced to flee a Communist takeover and native Taiwanese were frequently tense as the new arrivals crowded into slums and military communities. Separated by language and lifestyle, bullying and confrontation were frequent as President Chiang Kai-shek tightly restricted civil liberties under nearly four decades of martial law. The Presbyterian Church is the most prominent of the Christian dominations in Taiwan and was closely identified with the pro-democracy movement during the martial law era and later with the Taiwan independence cause. Barnes referred to Chou as an immigrant from China but Taiwan’s Central News Agency says it interviewed Louis M. Huang, director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, and he confirmed that Chou was born in Taiwan in 1953. Barnes said Chou acted alone and was “not believed to be associated with any specific church or any religion, and there’s no direct connection to the church or any member of the church that we’re aware of.”    

A racist ideology seeping from the internet’s fringes into the mainstream is being investigated as a motivating factor in the supermarket shooting that killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York. Most of the victims were Black. Ideas from the “great replacement theory” filled a racist screed supposedly posted online by the white 18-year-old accused of targeting Black people in Saturday’s rampage. Authorities were still working to confirm its authenticity. Certainly, there was no mistaking the racist intent of the shooter. WHAT IS THE ‘GREAT REPLACEMENT THEORY’? Simply put, the conspiracy theory says there’s a plot to diminish the influence of white people. Believers say this goal is being achieved both through the immigration of nonwhite people into societies that have largely been dominated by white people, as well as through simple demographics, with white people having lower birth rates than other populations. The conspiracy theory’s more racist adherents believe Jews are behind the so-called replacement plan: White nationalists marching at a Charlottesville, Virginia, rally that turned deadly in 2017 chanted “You will not replace us!” and “Jews will not replace us!” A more mainstream view in the U.S. baselessly suggests Democrats are encouraging immigration from Latin America so more like-minded potential voters replace “traditional” Americans, says Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism. How long has racism existed? Broadly speaking, the roots of this “theory” are that deep. In the U.S., you can point to efforts to intimidate and discourage Black people from voting — or, in antagonists’ view, “replacing” white voters at the polls — that date to the Reconstruction era, after the 15th Amendment made clear suffrage couldn’t be restricted on account of race. In the modern era, most experts point to two influential books. “The Turner Diaries,” a 1978 novel written by William Luther Pierce under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald, is about a violent revolution in the United States with a race war that leads to the extermination of nonwhites. The FBI called it a “bible of the racist right,” says Kurt Braddock, an American University professor and researcher at the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab. Renaud Camus, a French writer, published a 2011 book claiming that Europe was being invaded by Black and brown immigrants from Africa. He called the book “Le Grand Remplacement,” and a conspiracy’s name was born. WHO ARE ITS ADHERENTS? To some of the more extreme believers, certain white supremacist mass killers — at a Norway summer camp in 2011, two Christchurch, New Zealand, mosques in 2019, a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2017 — are considered saints, Pitcavage says. Those “accelerationist white supremacists” believe small societal changes won’t achieve much, so the only option is tearing down society, he says. The Buffalo shooter’s purported written diatribe and some of the methods indicate he closely studied the Christchurch shooter — particularly the effort to livestream his rampage. According to apparent screenshots from the Buffalo broadcast, the shooter inscribed the number 14 on his gun, which Pitcavage says is shorthand for a 14-word white supremacist slogan. A written declaration by the Christchurch shooter was widely spread online. If the message attributed to the Buffalo shooter proves authentic, it’s designed to also spread his philosophy and methods to a large audience. IS THE THEORY MAKING WIDER INROADS? While more virulent forms of racism are widely abhorred, experts are concerned about extreme views nonetheless becoming mainstream. In a poll released last week, The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 1 in 3 Americans believe an effort is underway to replace U.S.-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gain. Also Read: Vigil planned after 2 killed, 4 wounded in campus shooting On a regular basis, many adherents to the more extreme versions of the “great replacement” theory converse through encrypted apps online. They tend to be careful. They know they’re being watched. “They are very clever,” Braddock says. “They don’t make overt calls to arms.” WHO’S TALKING UP THIS THEORY? In particular, Tucker Carlson, Fox News’ most popular personality, has pushed false views that are more easily embraced by some white people who are concerned about a loss of their political and social power. “I know that the left and all the gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World,” he said on his show last year. “But they become hysterical because that’s what’s happening, actually, let’s just say it. That’s true.” A study of five years’ worth of Carlson’s show by The New York Times found 400 instances where he talked about Democratic politicians and others seeking to force demographic change through immigration. Fox News defended the host, pointing to repeated statements that Carlson has made denouncing political violence of all kinds. The attention paid by many Republican politicians to what they see as a leaky southern border along the United States has been interpreted, at least by some, as a nod to the concern of white people who worry about being “replaced.” House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik’s campaign committee was criticized last year for an advertisement that said “radical Democrats” were planning a “permanent election insurrection” by granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants who would create a permanent liberal majority in Washington. Stefanik represents a New York district. Pitcavage says he’s concerned about the message Carlson and supporters are sending: “It actually introduces the ‘great replacement theory’ to a conservative audience in an easier-to-swallow pill.”    

A 17-year-old boy has been charged with second-degree murder after a 16-year-old boy was fatally shot near “The Bean” sculpture in downtown Chicago’s Millennium Park, which is among the city’s most popular tourist attractions. The shooting prompted a curfew at the park to combat violence. Officials announced Sunday that minors will not be allowed in the park after 6 p.m. Thursday through Sunday without an adult, but they did not comment on how the curfew will be enforced. The 17-year-old, who was taken into custody following Saturday evening's shooting, also faces charges of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and aggravated battery, police announced Sunday night. He was due in juvenile court Monday. The 16-year-old was shot in the chest near the giant, mirrored structure and was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said. Another teen, who was allegedly armed with a ghost gun — a weapon that does not have a serial number and can’t be traced — was arrested in connection to the shooting, police said. In total, 26 minors and five adults were arrested during the gathering in the park on Saturday evening. A total of eight guns were confiscated and five gun arrests were made, police said. “We must also have zero tolerance for young people carrying firearms or settling petty disputes with acts of violence,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a statement. “We all must condemn this behavior in the strongest terms possible.” READ: Man arrested in fatal shooting of student at SUNY-Potsdam Hundreds of people were at the park earlier Saturday as part of demonstrations around the U.S. against the recently leaked draft opinion that suggests the Supreme Court is prepared to overturn the nationwide right to abortion. It is unclear if the teen who was shot had taken part in the 1 p.m. demonstration, however participants had largely dispersed by late afternoon. The shooting comes amid a surge in deadly violence in the city in recent years. This year, Chicago has recorded 779 shooting incidents and 194 homicides, compared to 898 shootings and 207 homicides during the same period in 2021, according to figures last updated by the Chicago Police Department on May 8. Chicago and some other U.S. cities reported dramatic spikes in homicide totals last year. Chicago’s 797 homicides in 2021 — its highest toll for any year in a quarter century — eclipsed the totals in the two bigger U.S. cities, surpassing Los Angeles’ tally by 400 and New York's by nearly 300. “The Bean" sculpture is a popular tourist attraction in downtown Chicago. It is formally known as “Cloud Gate,” but it came to be known as “The Bean” for its bean-like shape.

Black people going about their daily lives — then dying in a hail of bullets fired by a white man who targeted them because of their skin color. Substitute a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, with a church in South Carolina, and Malcolm Graham knows the pain and grief the families of those killed Saturday are feeling. He knows their dismay that racial bigotry has torn apart the fabric of their families. “America’s Achilles’ heel continues to be ... racism,” said Graham, whose sister, Cynthia Graham-Hurd, was among nine parishioners fatally shot by avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof in 2015 during Bible study in Charleston. “As a country, we need to acknowledge that it exists,” Graham said. “There’s a lack of acknowledgment that these problems are persistent, are embedded into systems and cost lives.” For many Black Americans, the Buffalo shooting has stirred up the same feelings they faced after Charleston and other attacks: the fear, the vulnerability, the worry that nothing will be done politically or otherwise to prevent the next act of targeted racial violence. Law enforcement officials said suspected gunman Payton Gendron, 18, drove 200 miles from his hometown of Conklin, New York, to Buffalo after searching out and specifically targeting a predominantly Black neighborhood. Also read: 2 minors dead, 8 wounded in shooting at Pittsburgh party He shot 11 Black people and two white people at the grocery store, authorities said. Ten people died. A 180-page document, purportedly written by Gendron, gives plans for the attack and makes references to other racist shootings and to Roof. The document also outlines a racist ideology rooted in a belief that the U.S. should belong only to white people. All others, the document said, were “replacers” who should be eliminated by force or terror. The attack was intended to intimidate all non-white, non-Christian people and get them to leave the country, it said. The idea that those killed at the Tops Friendly Market lost their lives because of the shooter's racism is “sick,” said Steve Carlson, 29, who is Black and grew up knowing Katherine Massey, one of the victims. “It’s not right. You don’t pick what ethnicity you’re born to,” Carlson said. “These people were just shopping, they went to go get food for their families.” At State Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, Deacon Heyward Patterson was mourned during services Sunday. Pastor Russell Bell couldn't wrap his mind around the attack and Patterson's death. “I don’t understand what that is, to hate people just because of their color, to hate people because we’re different. God made us all different. That’s what makes the world go ’round,” he said. But as abhorrent as the shooting was, it was hardly an isolated incident. The history of the United States is filled with white supremacist violence, starting from even before its official origins. Black people have borne and continue to bear the brunt of much of it, but other groups have also been targeted in attacks because of their race, including Latinos in the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where 22 people were killed. Gunmen with biases against religion and sexual orientation have also carried out targeted violence: the shootings at a San Diego synagogue in 2019 and a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016. Democratic Florida state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, who is gay and of Peruvian descent, immediately had flashbacks to the Pulse nightclub shooting that left 49 victims dead. The shooter targeted gay patrons in what was a largely Latino crowd. “It’s déjà vu all over again in Orlando," said Smith, who represents an Orlando district. “2016 seems like a long time ago, but in 2022 there’s a lot more hatred and bigotry out there.” Experiencing violence of any kind is obviously traumatic, but the impact of targeted violence like this has ripples on a broader level. Also read: Police arrest suspect in South Carolina mall shooting “To be targeted for these things that you cannot control, it’s not only extremely painful emotionally, but it also impacts the way you perceive the world going forward after that," said Michael Edison Hayden, spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which advocates for civil rights. Hate crime laws are on the books in recognition of that reality. The effect of events like these is “you've increased the vulnerability of everyone who looks like the target," said Jeannine Bell, a professor at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law. “This is a different type of crime because it impacts not just the victims, but also the community." While there's always hand-wringing and dismay after incidents like these, that hasn't translated into a commitment to address the bigotry that underlies them, said Cornell Williams Brooks, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and former president and CEO of the NAACP. He's weary of political leaders’ promises to do more about white supremacist threats and gun violence. “Count the number of sympathy cards and flowers, prayers and thoughts that have been extended to the victims of mass shootings, to the victims of racialized violence,” he said. “Do we really need (politicians) showing up to our places of worship to help bury our folks and do nothing to stop the carnage?”

A man opened fire during a lunch reception at a Southern California church on Sunday before being stopped and hog-tied by parishioners in what a sheriff’s official called an act of “exceptional heroism and bravery.” One person was killed and four others were critically wounded at Geneva Presbyterian Church in the city of Laguna Woods, Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials said. The suspect in the shooting, an Asian man in his 60s, was in custody and deputies recovered two handguns at the scene, Undersheriff Jeff Hallock said. A motive for the shooting wasn't immediately known but investigators don't believe the gunman lives in the community, he said. Also read:3 shot and killed in Milwaukee following night of violence The majority of those inside the church at the time were believed to be of Taiwanese descent, said Carrie Braun, a sheriff’s spokesperson. Between 30 and 40 people were gathered for lunch after a morning church service when gunfire erupted shortly before 1:30 p.m., officials said. When deputies arrived, parishioners had the gunman hog-tied and in custody. “That group of churchgoers displayed what we believe is exceptional heroism and bravery in intervening to stop the suspect. They undoubtedly prevented additional injuries and fatalities,” Hallock said. “I think it’s safe to say that had people not intervened, it could have been much worse." A man died at the scene and a fifth injured person suffered minor injuries, officials said. All the victims were adults. The investigation was in its early stages, Hallock said. He said the many unanswered questions include whether the assailant attended the church service, if he was known to church members and how many shots were fired. The afternoon lunch reception was honoring a former pastor of a Taiwanese congregation that has services at Geneva, according to a statement from the Presbytery of Los Ranchos, a church administrative body. “Please keep the leadership of the Taiwanese congregation and Geneva in your prayers as they care for the those traumatized by this shooting,” the presbytery’s Tom Cramer said in a statement on Facebook. Federal agents from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded. The FBI also sent agents to the scene to assist the sheriff. Laguna Woods was built as a senior living community and later became a city. More than 80% of residents in the city of 18,000 people about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles are at least 65. Also read: Gunman opens fire on Brooklyn subway; at least 10 shot Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said on Twitter that he was closely monitoring the situation. “No one should have to fear going to their place of worship. Our thoughts are with the victims, community, and all those impacted by this tragic event," the tweet said. The incident occurred in an area with a cluster of houses of worship, including Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist churches and a Jewish synagogue. On its website, Geneva Presbyterian Church describes its mission as “to remember, tell, and live the way of Jesus by being just, kind, and humble.” “All are welcome here. Really, we mean that! … Geneva aspires to be an inclusive congregation worshipping, learning, connecting, giving and serving together.” The shooting came a day after an 18-year-old man shot and killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. “This is upsetting and disturbing news, especially less than a day after a mass shooting in Buffalo,” said U.S. Rep Katie Porter, whose district includes Laguna Woods. “This should not be our new normal. I will work hard to support the victims and their families.”

Milwaukee police on Sunday were investigating three separate overnight shootings in which a 17-year-old boy and two men in their 20s died. The shootings came a night after a night of violence in which 21 people were shot and wounded in three other attacks near the Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee as the Bucks were taking on the Boston Celtics in Game 6 of their NBA playoffs series. Those shootings led authorities to impose an 11 p.m. curfew on Saturday and Sunday. The Bucks canceled a fan watch party for Sunday afternoon's decisive Game 7. The Milwaukee County medical examiner said a 21-year-old man died after a shooting that happened near 11th and Rogers streets around 11:45 p.m. Saturday, Fox6 News reported. Also read: Gunman opens fire on Brooklyn subway; at least 10 shot About 40 minutes later, a 17-year-old Milwaukee boy was killed in a shooting that police say might have been related to a robbery. The victim had a gun on him. The third fatal shooting happened near 19th Street and Lincoln Avenue around 2:30 a.m. Sunday. Police said a 28-year-old local man died. Police hadn't released the victims' names or arrested anyone in the shootings as of early Sunday afternoon. The 11 p.m. curfew requiring everyone age 20 or younger to be off the streets was in effect when the shootings happened. Police said Sunday that Saturday night was “peaceful and uneventful” in the downtown area and that no citations for curfew violations were issued. Everyone wounded in Friday's shootings, which happened within blocks of the arena, is expected to survive. At least 11 people have been arrested in connection with those shootings. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the crowds were noticeably smaller at restaurants and bars downtown during Sunday's game compared to previous playoff games. Also read: 5 shot, unexploded devices found at NYC train station At the Oak Barrel Public House about a block away from the Fiserv Forum, assistant general manager Max Bradshaw said he expected fewer families would bring their children to the area Sunday, but he predicted the crowds will come back eventually. “People like to have a short memory like that,” he told the newspaper. But Demetre Davis, who works at McGillicuddy’s near the intersection where 17 people were shot Friday, said police need to do more to control the crowds and keep the area safe.

A white 18-year-old wearing military gear and livestreaming with a helmet camera opened fire with a rifle at a supermarket in Buffalo, killing 10 people and wounding three others Saturday in what authorities described as “racially motived violent extremism.” Police said he shot 11 Black and two white victims before surrendering to authorities in a rampage he broadcast live on the streaming platform Twitch. Later, he appeared before a judge in a paper medical gown and was arraigned on a murder charge. “It is my sincere hope that this individual, this white supremacist who just perpetrated a hate crime on an innocent community, will spend the rest of his days behind bars. And heaven help him in the next world as well,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul, speaking near the scene of the attack. The massacre sent shockwaves through an unsettled nation gripped with racial tensions, gun violence and a spate of hate crimes. In the day prior to the shooting, Dallas police said they were investigating a series of shootings in Koreatown as hate crimes. The Buffalo attack came just one month after another mass shooting on a Brooklyn subway train wounded 10 people. The suspected gunman in Saturday's attack on Tops Friendly Market was identified as Payton Gendron, of Conklin, New York, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Buffalo. It wasn't immediately clear why Payton had traveled to Buffalo and that particular grocery store. A clip apparently from his Twitch feed, posted on social media, showed Gendron arriving at the supermarket in his car. The gunman shot four people outside the store, three fatally, said Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia. Inside the store, a security guard who was a retired Buffalo police officer fired multiple shots, but a bullet that hit the gunman’s bulletproof vest had no effect, Gramaglia added. The gunman then killed the guard, the commissioner said, then stalked through the store shooting other victims. “This is the worst nightmare that any community can face, and we are hurting and we are seething right now,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said at the news conference. “The depth of pain that families are feeling and that all of us are feeling right now cannot even be explained.” Police entered the store and confronted the gunman in the vestibule. “At that point the suspect put the gun to his own neck," Gramaglia said. Two officers talked him into dropping the gun, the commissioner said. Twitch said in a statement that it ended Gendron's transmission “less than two minutes after the violence started.” At the earlier news briefing, Erie County Sheriff John Garcia pointedly called the shooting a hate crime. “This was pure evil. It was straight up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community, outside of the City of Good neighbors ... coming into our community and trying to inflict that evil upon us," Garcia said. Witnesses Braedyn Kephart and Shane Hill, both 20, pulled into the parking lot just as the shooter was exiting. They described a white male in his late teens or early twenties sporting full camo, a black helmet and what appeared to be a rifle. READ: 3 Israelis killed in stabbing attack near Tel Aviv “He was standing there with the gun to his chin. We were like what the heck is going on? Why does this kid have a gun to his face?” Kephart said. He dropped to his knees. “He ripped off his helmet, dropped his gun, and was tackled by the police.” Tops Friendly Markets released a statement saying, “We are shocked and deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.” Officials said the rifle Gendron used in the attack was purchased legally but that the magazines he used for ammunition were not allowed to be sold in New York. The shooting came little more than a year after a March 2021 attack at a King Soopers grocery in Boulder, Colorado, that killed 10 people. Investigators have not released any information about why they believe the man charged in that attack targeted the supermarket. NAACP President Derrick Johnson issued a statement in which he called the Buffalo shooting “absolutely devastating.” “Our hearts are with the community and all who have been impacted by this terrible tragedy. Hate and racism have no place in America. We are shattered, extremely angered and praying for the victims’ families and loved ones,” he added. The Rev. Al Sharpton called on the White House to convene a meeting with Black, Jewish and Asian leaders “to underscore the Federal government (is) escalating its efforts against hate crimes.” At the White House, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden was receiving regular updates on the shooting and the investigation and had offered prayers with the first lady for the victims and their loved ones. “The president has been briefed by his Homeland Security advisor on the horrific shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., this afternoon. He will continue to receive updates throughout the evening and tomorrow as further information develops," she said. Attorney General Merrick Garland was briefed on the shooting, Justice Department spokesperson Anthony Coley said. More than two hours after the shooting, Erica Pugh-Mathews was waiting outside the store, behind police tape. “We would like to know the status of my aunt, my mother's sister. She was in there with her fiancé, they separated and went to different aisles," she said. "A bullet barely missed him. He was able to hide in a freezer but he was not able to get to my aunt and does not know where she is. We just would like word either way if she’s OK.”

Smoke from several major wildfires on Thursday ringed Colorado Springs, Colorado's second-largest city, torching eight homes, closing the city's airport and causing thousands of evacuations, as dry conditions and heavy winds spread the blazes quickly throughout the area. As night fell on Colorado Springs, located 112.6 km south of the state capital Denver, dozens of fire crews from across the region responded to the grass fires and were "gaining the upper hand," according to Denver CBS4 News. According to Colorado Public Radio, one fire engulfed eight homes in the Skylark Mobile Home Park, where 500 homes were emptied and 1,000 residents were evacuated to a nearby fitness center. Fifty firefighters responded to the blaze that saw several propane tanks venting flames 15 meters in the air. Meanwhile, a fire east of town consumed another 0.4 square km, forcing 50 residents to evacuate and prompting Colorado Springs Airport to issue a shelter-in-place order for about an hour, according to Colorado Springs Fire Department Fire Marshall Brett Lacey. About 100 firefighters, 28 deputies and 63 police officers assisted with battling the fires and evacuations. Lacey told reporters that no structures were lost or damaged, and no injuries were reported. Also Read: Wildfires tear across several states driven by high winds According to First Alert 5 Weather Forecast, strong to dangerous winds and extremely low daytime relative humidity helped create extreme fire conditions in southern Colorado. According to local media reports, another fire broke out shortly before noon in southeast Colorado Springs, sparked by the catalytic converter of a sheriff deputy's car. The same day, a fourth wildfire was reported west of the city in Teller County, south of the popular tourist attraction Pikes Peak, resulting in forced evacuations.    

Eleven people died and 31 others were rescued after a vessel capsized off the coast of Puerto Rico on Thursday, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard tweeted that as of Thursday evening responding crews have rescued 31 survivors -- 11 female and 20 male, adding that "11 deceased have been recovered." The vessel, which capsized approximately 12 miles (19 km) north of Puerto Rico's Desecheo Island, was suspected of taking part in an "illegal migrant voyage," the agency said, adding that most of the people on the boat were reportedly from Haiti. Also Read: UN says boat capsizes off Libya, 35 dead or presumed dead  Coast Guard watchstanders received a communication roughly Thursday noon reporting the sight of "a capsized vessel with people in the water who did not appear to be wearing life jackets." The Coast Guard and its partner agencies continue to respond as it remains unclear how many people had been on the boat. Puerto Rico is a Caribbean island and unincorporated U.S. territory.