Month: May 2022

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

The grieving town of Uvalde, Texas, began to hold funerals Tuesday for the first of the 19 children and two teachers who were shot to death May 24 by a teenage gunman who barged into their elementary school armed with an assault rifle.

The first funerals were set for two 10-year-old girls. One of them, Amerie Jo Garza, was described in her obituary as sweet, sassy and funny, a girl who loved swimming and drawing. The other victim, Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, was, according to her obituary, an honor student who loved learning about whales and dolphins and dreamed of becoming a marine biologist.

More funerals for the remaining victims are set in coming days, through mid-June.

In Washington, a handful of U.S. senators — Democrats Chris Murphy and Kyrsten Sinema, and Republicans John Cornyn and Thom Tillis — began virtual talks to determine whether agreement is possible on measures to curb a level of gun violence and mass killings that are unlike those anywhere else in the world.

President Joe Biden, a gun control proponent whose efforts to enact new controls on gun sales has been stymied by opposition Republicans, told reporters at the White House: “I will meet with the Congress on guns, I promise you.”

Biden, who spent seven hours Sunday in Uvalde visiting with the relatives of the victims and survivors of the attack, said, “I’ve gotten to more mass shooting aftermaths than I think any president in American history, unfortunately.”

“And it’s just, so much of it is — much of it is preventable,” he said. “And the devastation is amazing.”

Going into a meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Biden said he would ask her about her country’s response after a gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019, streaming the carnage on Facebook as it happened.

Within weeks, Ardern led a dramatic push to restrict firearms in New Zealand, including a permanent ban on military-style semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles and a program to buy back and destroy such guns already in circulation.

Such a plan would meet with widespread opposition in the U.S., where many people see the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of gun ownership rights as sacrosanct.

While lawmakers debate new controls on gun sales, the Justice Department has opened a review of the police response to the attack on Robb Elementary School, “to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events.”

In the Texas shooting, law enforcement officials are being sharply criticized for taking more than an hour to directly confront the gunman, Salvador Ramos, a high school dropout.

In the past few days, Texas law enforcement authorities have changed their accounts of exactly how the Robb Elementary massacre unfolded and their response to it.

Even as children trapped in the classroom with the shooter made urgent emergency calls, pleading with police to rescue them, the incident commander on the scene, the police chief for Uvalde schools, assessed — wrongly — that it was no longer an active shooter incident but rather that the assailant had barricaded himself in a classroom.

As a result, the incident commander, Pete Arredondo, did not immediately order police officers into the classroom to end the mayhem before more were killed.

Eventually, U.S. Border Patrol agents arrived at the school, burst into the classroom and killed Ramos.

The head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steven McCraw, said last week that with the benefit of hindsight, “it was the wrong decision” to wait to confront the shooter.

Some information from Reuters was used in this report.

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Authorities said a 26-year-old man was in custody after one person was killed and seven people were injured in a shooting early Sunday at an outdoor festival in eastern Oklahoma, where witnesses described frantic people running for cover amid gunfire. 

An arrest warrant was issued for Skyler Buckner and he turned himself in to the Muskogee County sheriff’s office Sunday afternoon, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said in a statement. OSBI said that those shot at the Memorial Day event in Taft, located about 45 miles (72 kilometers) southeast of Tulsa, ranged in age from 9 to 56 years old. 

A 39-year-old woman was killed, OSBI said. The injuries of those wounded were considered non-life-threatening. 

OSBI had earlier said two juveniles were injured in the shooting but said Sunday afternoon that only one juvenile was injured. 

Witnesses said an argument preceded the gunfire just after midnight, the agency said. 

“We heard a lot of shots and we thought it was firecrackers at first,” said Sylvia Wilson, an owner of Taft’s Boots Cafe, which was open at the time to serve a surge of visitors to the small town for the gathering. “Then people start running and ducking. And we were yelling at everyone… ‘Get down! Get down!'” Wilson said to The Associated Press by telephone from the café on Sunday morning. 

About 1,500 people attended the event in Taft, which usually has a population of just a few hundred people. Members of the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office were in attendance and immediately began rendering aid, OSBI said. 

“Bullets were literally flying everywhere,” Jasmayne Hill, who was working at a food truck during the event, told the Tulsa World. 

Hill said she and Tiffany Walton, the owner of the food truck, dove to the truck’s floor to avoid the bullets.

“We’re thinking we’re safe and the bullets are like going through the bottom of the food truck,” Hill said. “They didn’t hit us, thank God.” 

Neicy Bates and her husband were operating another food truck when the shots rang out. She told the Tulsa World that most people “were just going to the ground trying to get out of the way.” 

“People were just screaming. Some were trying to run away. There were cars leaving, trying not to hit each other,” she said. 

Walton, who lives in Taft, said for decades the town has held a multi-day festival over Memorial Day weekend. 

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said on Twitter that he was grateful for the OSBI’s “swift response to assist local police.” 

Wilson estimated her café is about 100 feet (30 meters) from where the shooting broke out. She said law enforcement had been on the scene to help with security earlier and that officers reacted quickly to the shooting. 

“We are upset,” Wilson said, adding: “But everything is getting back to normal… The danger has passed.” 

Buckner was being held Sunday in Muskogee County jail. Jail records did not have an attorney listed for him.

One of two Kenyans wanted for alleged involvement in wildlife and drug trafficking has been arrested in a joint U.S.-Kenyan operation. The U.S. government had announced a reward for information leading to the arrest of Badru Abdul Aziz Saleh.

U.S. officials said Kenya’s security agencies received a tip from the public that led to the arrest of Saleh Monday in Liboi, Garissa county. An embassy statement said U.S. and Kenyan law enforcement officials cooperated to apprehend Saleh.  

Another suspect, Abdi Hussein Ahmed, remains at large.

On Thursday, the United States announced rewards of up to $1 million each for information leading to the arrest, prosecution and conviction of the two Kenyans.

Eric W. Kneedler, chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, said Monday’s arrest of Saleh “would not have been possible without the public’s support. He appealed for information leading to Ahmed’s arrest.

Saleh remains in police custody in Nairobi and is expected to be extradited to the U.S.

Saleh was arrested back in 2019 for drug trafficking but released on bail, according to the U.S. State Department. A statement said he was a fugitive with an outstanding warrant for his arrest. A federal grand jury in New York indicted him in 2021.

Saleh and Ahmed were accused in the transportation, distribution and smuggling of 190 kilograms of rhinoceros horns and 10 tons of elephant ivory from different African countries.

They were also alleged to have been involved in transporting and distributing 10 kilograms of heroin from Kenya to the United States.

If convicted, both could face up to 10 years in prison in the U.S.  

In March, Kenya launched a financial toolkit to help fight illegal wildlife trade. 

Tensions are rising between Turkey and Greece, with the Turkish foreign minister on Tuesday warning that Ankara could challenge the sovereignty of Greek islands. The threat comes as both sides increase their military presence in contested waters of the Aegean Sea. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.

European Union leaders agree to on a new round of sanctions against Russia that includes a ban on most Russian oil. Russian forces continue making gains in a strategic eastern Ukrainian city, and a look at a new film celebrating 75 years of UNICEF.

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Researchers say DNA can replace hard drives to help store the world’s ever-increasing digital output. Matt Dibble has the story   

Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who is in prison in Russia, could face 15 more years under a new charge, he said Tuesday.

Navalny took to social media to say now has been charged with starting an extremist organization.

“Not even eight days have passed since my nine-year, high-security sentence came into force, and today the investigator showed up again and formally charged me with a new case,” Navalny said on Twitter.

“It turns out that I created an extremist group in order to incite hatred toward officials and oligarchs. And when they put me in jail, I dared to be disgruntled about it and called for rallies. For that, they’re supposed to add up to 15 more years to my sentence,” he said.

There has been no official announcement about new charges against Navalny.

Navalny has been targeted by the Kremlin for years, including a possible poisoning in 2020 while campaigning in Siberia. After the incident, he went to Germany for treatment but was arrested on his return to Russia in 2021.

The Kremlin denies poisoning Navalny.

Navalny has been outspoken about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling it “stupid” and “built on lies.”

Navalny, 45, is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence in a prison camp east of Moscow on a 2014 embezzlement conviction.

Last year, Navalny’s foundation was outlawed after being labeled “extremist” by authorities, who blocked tens of websites run by his network, claiming they were distributing propaganda.