COLORADO SPRINGS, US: A gunman opened fire inside a LGBTQ nightspot in Colorado Springs late on Saturday, killing at least five people and injuring 25 others before being stopped by “heroic” clubgoers, police said.
Authorities on Sunday said they were investigating whether the attack was motivated by hate.
Police identified the suspect as Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, and said he used a “long rifle.” He was taken into police custody shortly after the shooting began and was being treated for injuries, according to officials.
The shooting was reminiscent of the 2016 Pulse club massacre when a gunman killed 49 people at the gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, before he was fatally shot by police.
It unfolded as LGBTQ communities and allies around the world prepared to mark the Transgender Day of Remembrance on Sunday, an annual observance to honor victims of transphobic violence.
Club Q, a long-standing venue in a modest strip mall, was described by many as a safe haven for the LGBTQ community in Colorado’s second-largest city.
Police said the initial phone call about the shooting came in just before midnight, and that the suspect was apprehended within minutes thanks to the quick action of law enforcement and the bravery of at least two patrons who intervened.
The shooter burst in with a rifle, a military-style flak jacket and what appeared to be six magazines of ammunition, the New York Times reported, citing the club owners, who said they did not know the man.
Multiple firearms were found at the venue, including the rifle, Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez told a news conference on Sunday.
One patron, Joshua Thurman, choked up as he told reporters that he was dancing in the club when he first heard gunshots. He sought refuge in a dressing room and locked himself inside with others, praying for his life and thinking about loved ones.
“We heard everything,” Thurman said. “We heard more shots fired. We heard the assailant being beat up by someone that I assumed that tackled him. We heard the police come in. We heard them yelling at him. We heard them saying, ‘Take certain people because they’re critical.’“
Several of the injured were in critical condition and being treated at local hospitals, authorities said.
Club Q called the incident a “hate attack” in a statement on Facebook and thanked the “heroic customers” for subduing the gunman.
Violence condemned
Anxiety within many LGBTQ communities in the United States has risen amid a divisive political climate and after a string of threats and violent incidents targeting LGBTQ people and events in recent months.
In a statement condemning the violence, President Joe Biden said Americans must not tolerate hate.
“Places that are supposed to be safe spaces of acceptance and celebration should never be turned into places of terror and violence,” Biden said.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis, who in 2018 became the first openly gay man in the country to be elected as a governor, called the shooting a “senseless act of evil.”
“I feel that same pit in my stomach that so many of you today do, a feeling sadly all too familiar,” Polis said in a video appearance during a vigil held at a local church.
A spokesperson for the city of Colorado Springs said authorities were aware of a 2021 bomb threat involving an individual with the same name and birth date as the suspect, but have not officially confirmed he is one and the same.
Colorado has a grim history of mass violence, including the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, a 2012 rampage inside a movie theater in a Denver suburb and a supermarket attack that killed 10 people last year.
Mourners laid flowers outside the club on Sunday as Colorado Springs resident Mark Travis, a former police chaplain, played “Taps” on his bugle.
“We could go in and forget about work and everything else and feel like it was a home,” Travis said of the club.
The shooting, he said, had ripped away that sense of comfort. “It’s akin to, I guess being burglarized or something that much worse. You’re not even safe in your own home.”
Gunman kills 5 in Colorado nightclub before he is stopped by patrons
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Gunman kills 5 in Colorado nightclub before he is stopped by patrons
- Colorado has a grim history of mass violence, including the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, a 2012 rampage inside a movie theater in a Denver suburb and a supermarket attack that killed 10 people last year
Trump posts video with an image of a hog-tied Biden, drawing a rebuke from Democrat’s campaign
WASHINGTON: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump drew criticism Friday for posting a video on social media that contains the image of a hog-tied President Joe Biden painted on the tailgate of a passing truck.
The Biden campaign was quick to condemn the video for suggesting physical harm to the sitting Democratic president. Biden has portrayed his likely 2024 opponent as someone who freely evokes Nazi imagery with regard to immigrants, while also stressing in speeches that Trump's efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 elections ultimately led to an assault on the US Capitol.
"Trump is regularly inciting political violence and it’s time people take him seriously — just ask the Capitol police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6," said Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign's communications director.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded Friday night: “That picture was on the back of a pickup truck that was traveling down the highway. Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”
The US Secret Service released a statement saying it "does not confirm or comment on matters of protective intelligence.”
The former president posted the video on his social media site, Truth Social. His caption said the video was taken in Long Island, New York on Thursday, when the former president attended the wake of a New York City police officer who was killed during a traffic stop.
The posted video shows a passing truck decked out with “Trump 2024” and flags claiming support for police, with the picture of a seemingly helpless Biden with his hands and feet tied painted on the rear of the vehicle.
Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. began trading on the stock market Tuesday, with the valuation adding billions of dollars to his fortune.
Seeking a return to the White House, Trump has painted an apocalyptic picture of the country if Biden secures a second term.
“If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” he warned at an Ohio rally earlier this month while talking about the impact of offshoring on the country’s auto industry.
Trump has talked about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country,” echoing the rhetoric of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. And he once described his enemies as “vermin,” language that his opponents say reflect his authoritarian beliefs.
At one recent rally, Trump went so far as to cast Biden’s handling of the border as “a conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America.”
Last year, before his indictment in New York over hush money paid on his behalf during his 2016 campaign, Trump posted a photo on social media of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
In a 2018 speech, Biden discussed lewd comments that Trump had made about women and registered his disgust by suggesting a willingness to physically fight the then-president.
“If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him,” Biden said at the time, adding that any man who disrespected women was “usually the fattest, ugliest SOB in the room.”
Armed man arrested in Malaysia on suspicion of being an Israeli spy
- Suspect used a French passport but turned over an Israeli passport upon questioning, says police official
- Police are on alert, noting that in 2018 a Palestinian scientist was shot dead in KL by suspected Israeli agents
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has arrested an armed man at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, its top police official said, describing the 36-year-old as a suspected Israeli spy.
The man, who was found carrying six handguns and 200 bullets, had arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport from the United Arab Emirates on March 12 using what authorities believed to be a fake French passport, Inspector-General of Police Razarudin Husain told a press conference late on Friday.
The suspect turned over an Israeli passport upon questioning by police, Razarudin said.
Razarudin said police was investigating the possibility that the man could be a member of Israeli intelligence, though the suspect told authorities he had entered Malaysia to hunt down another Israeli citizen due to a family dispute.
“However, we do not fully trust this narrative as we suspect there may be another agenda,” Razarudin said, adding that the detained man had moved between several hotels during his time in Malaysia.
Police were also investigating how the suspect obtained the weapons, which were purchased in Malaysia and paid for with cryptocurrency, Razarudin said.
Authorities were on high alert following the arrest, with security beefed up for Malaysia’s king, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and other high-level figures, he added.
Malaysia, a majority-Muslim country, is a staunch supporter of the Palestinians and has criticized Israel’s actions in the Gaza war. Malaysia, which does not have diplomatic ties with Israel, is home to around 600 Palestinian refugees, according to the UN refugee agency.
In 2018, a Palestinian scientist was shot dead in the Malaysian capital by two unidentified men in a killing that the Hamas militant group suggested was carried out by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service. Israel denied the allegations.
Study says since 1979 climate change has made heat waves last longer, spike hotter, hurt more people
Study says since 1979 climate change has made heat waves last longer, spike hotter, hurt more people
- From 1979 to 1983, global heat waves would last eight days on average, but by 2016 to 2020 that was up to 12 days, the study said
- Eurasia, North America and Australia were hit harder with longer lasting heat waves, while Africa experienced a slow down, the study adds
Climate change is making giant heat waves crawl slower across the globe and they are baking more people for a longer time with higher temperatures over larger areas, a new study finds.
Since 1979, global heat waves are moving 20 percent more slowly — meaning more people stay hot longer — and they are happening 67 percent more often, according to a study in Friday’s Science Advances. The study found the highest temperatures in the heat waves are warmer than 40 years ago and the area under a heat dome is larger.
Studies have shown heat waves worsening before, but this one is more comprehensive and concentrates heavily on not just temperature and area, but how long the high heat lasts and how it travels across continents, said study co-authors and climate scientists Wei Zhang of Utah State University and Gabriel Lau of Princeton University.
From 1979 to 1983, global heat waves would last eight days on average, but by 2016 to 2020 that was up to 12 days, the study said.
Eurasia was especially hit harder with longer lasting heat waves, the study said. Heat waves slowed down most in Africa, while North America and Australia saw the biggest increases in overall magnitude, which measures temperature and area, according to the study.
“This paper sends a clear warning that climate change makes heat waves yet more dangerous in more ways than one,” said Lawrence Berkeley National Lab climate scientist Michael Wehner, who wasn’t part of the research.
Just like in an oven, the longer the heat lasts, the more something cooks. In this case it’s people, the co-authors said.
“Those heat waves are traveling slower and so slower so that basically means that ... there’s a heat wave sitting there and those heat waves could stay longer in the region,” Zhang said. “And the adverse impacts on our human society would be huge and increasing over the years.”
The team conducted computer simulations showing this change was due to heat-trapping emissions that come from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. The study found climate change’s fingerprint by simulating a world without greenhouse gas emissions and concluding it could not produce the worsening heat waves observed in the last 45 years.
The study also looks at the changes in weather patterns that propagate heat waves. Atmospheric waves that move weather systems along, such as the jet stream, are weakening, so they are not moving heat waves along as quickly — west to east in most but not all continents, Zhang said.
Several outside scientists praised the big picture way Zhang and colleagues examined heat waves, showing the interaction with weather patterns and their global movement and especially how they are slowing down.
This shows “how heat waves evolve in three dimensions and move regionally and across continents rather than looking at temperatures at individual locations,” said Kathy Jacobs, a University of Arizona climate scientist who wasn’t part of the study.
“One of the most direct consequences of global warming is increasing heat waves,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis, who wasn’t part of the study. “These results put a large exclamation point on that fact.”
South Korea hopes new speed train links will help boost birthrate
- Officials are now pinning their hopes on the Great Train eXpress or GTX, a 134 trillion won ($99.5 billion) underground speed train project that will provide six lines linking Seoul to several outlying areas by 2035
SEOUL: South Korea is launching a high-speed train service that will reduce the travel time between central Seoul and its outskirts, a project officials hope will encourage more youth to consider homes outside the city, and start having babies.
South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate, and its youth have often cited long commutes and cramped, expensive housing in greater Seoul, home to about half the population, as the main reasons for not getting married and starting a family.
The birth rate in Seoul is even lower than the national average, and the government has tried to boost the number of newborns through subsidies, with little success.
Officials are now pinning their hopes on the Great Train eXpress or GTX, a 134 trillion won ($99.5 billion) underground speed train project that will provide six lines linking Seoul to several outlying areas by 2035.
On Friday, President Yoon Suk Yeol inaugurated a section of the first line, which will cut the commute time from Suseo in the capital to the satellite city of Dongtan to 19 minutes from 80 minutes now on a bus.
He added that the shorter commute “will enable people to spend more time with their family in the mornings and evenings.”
The line is due to go into service on Saturday, and once fully operational, the GTX will be one of the fastest underground systems in the world, with trains traveling at speeds of up to 180 km per hour, officials said.
Owning a home in South Korea is costly, with median prices hitting a peak in June 2021 after rising 45 percent over five years.
Analysts say Seoul is particularly expensive, offering some of the worst value for money per square foot of any advanced economy.
Land Minister Park Sang-woo said the GTX would allow young people to consider homes far away from the capital without spending hours commuting.
He added that when they get back, they can go toward their families.
“With a two-hour commute on the way home, for example, how can anyone make time for babies? The idea is to give people more leisure time after work,” he said.
Some analysts, however, said the GTX could contribute to the decline of rural South Korea by sucking more people into the already overcrowded capital.
“To revive regional towns facing extinction, the most important thing is to equip other areas with a similar kind of public infrastructure too,” said Kim Jin-yoo, professor of Urban Planning & Transportation Engineering at Kyonggi University.
Former South African leader Zuma survives car crash, party accuses ANC
- Zuma’s party said two incidents in which supposedly ‘drunk drivers’ drove into his motorcade looks like an assassination attempt
- Thursday's “car accident” happened just hours after electoral officials barred Zuma from standing in the May 29 general election
JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma survived a car accident overnight when his vehicle was struck by a drunk driver, but his newly created opposition group accused the ruling ANC party of being involved in the incident.
“Two car accidents in a space of a year and a half, both accidents committed by purported ‘drunk drivers’ who manage to drive directly into President Zuma’s motorcade,” a spokesman for Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party said in a statement.
“This looks like a deliberate attempt to assassinate President Zuma,” said the spokesman, Nhlamulo Ndhlela.
Ndhlela said the party had “been monitoring and observing a sequence of inter-related events” that have happened to Zuma under the “Cyril Ramaphosa government,” after Zuma announced in December that he would be campaigning for the MK party in bid to relaunch his political career.
Zuma, a former veteran of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), was forced out of office in 2018 under a cloud of corruption allegations but still wields political clout.
The car accident happened on Thursday just hours after electoral officials barred Zuma from standing in the May 29 general election, further stoking tensions ahead of the vote.
The driver’s car “collided with former president Mr.Jacob Zuma’s official armored state vehicle,” the South African Police Service (SAPS) said.
A 51-year-old man was arrested in KwaZulu Natal province “for drunken driving, as well as on a charge of reckless and negligent driving,” SAPS said.
Zuma, 81, and his bodyguards escaped uninjured and he was taken to his place of residence.
On Wednesday, the ANC filed a new court application against MK after losing an initial bid to have the party disqualified.
The ANC says that MK’s name and logo are similar to those of the now disbanded apartheid-era military wing of the ANC once led by Nelson Mandela, and that this could deceive or confuse voters.
Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma took to X to allege that the car collision was not a coincidence.
“Please don’t insult our intelligence, we are not supporters of Ramaphosa,” she wrote.
“The police minister who is responsible for the former president’s protection unit has not upgraded his vehicle for eight years and he is the same person that has previously uttered messages around burying Zuma,” the party spokesman Ndhlela told AFP.
He also noted what he called “dangerous and reckless statements” made by ANC politicians toward Zuma, including a provincial official saying that “Zuma will be in hospital before elections.”
As the May election approaches, the ANC is at risk of dropping below 50 percent of the vote for the first time since it came to power at the end of apartheid in 1994.
The party is bleeding support amid a weak economy and allegations of corruption and mismanagement.
The driver of the other vehicle in Zuma’s crash is expected to appear in court on Tuesday.
Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in jail in June 2021 after refusing to testify to a panel probing financial corruption and cronyism under his presidency.
He was freed on medical parole just two months into his term.
But his jailing sparked protests, riots and looting that left more than 350 dead in South Africa’s worst violence since the advent of democracy.
When asked about Zuma’s condition since the crash, Ndhlela told AFP: “He is in high spirits as always and was in laughter this morning about the accident.”
“But it does not mean he took it lightly (or that) he is not aware of what’s happening.”
“Mr Zuma is in church today praying that the devil does not come into MK,” he said, referring to the ANC.