Texas Weekly Online

Texas-trans-white
Menu
Menu

Author:

What do we know about the school shooting in Iowa?

What do we know about the school shooting in Iowa?

A sixth grade student has been killed and four others, including three students and a school administrator, have been injured in a school shooting in Iowa. Only one victim has been identified by name. Here are the details: When did the shooting happen? The shooting took place at Perry Middle and High School, in Perry, Iowa at 7:30am (13:30 GMT) on Thursday before the first day of classes had even begun. The shooting triggered an immediate police response as emergency vehicles and armed units rushed to the school. Responding authorities also found a “pretty rudimentary” improvised explosive device in the school, which they disabled. Among those injured was a school administrator, who was later identified by his alma mater as Principal Dan Marburger. He is the only victim of the shooting who has been identified by name. Who was the shooter in Iowa? Authorities identified the shooter, who was found dead at the scene, as Dylan Butler, 17, but have so far provided no information about a possible motive. Authorities said Butler had a pump-action shotgun and a small-calibre handgun. Butler is believed to have shot himself. “Officers immediately attempted to locate the source of the threat and quickly found what appeared to be the shooter with a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation told reporters Butler’s mother, alongside two of his friends, told The Associated Press that he was a quiet person who had been bullied for years. Where in Iowa did the shooting take place? Perry is about 65km (40 miles) northwest of Des Moines, on the edge of the state capital’s metropolitan area. It is home to a relatively diverse population of about 8,000 people living in low-slung, single-storey homes spread among trees now shorn of their leaves by winter. Census figures show 31 percent of Perry’s residents are Hispanic. This compares with fewer than 7 percent across the state. The high school and middle school are connected, sitting on the east edge of the town. How have US Republicans reacted to the Iowa shooting? This shooting comes a week before the Iowa caucuses, a series of local meetings held throughout the state during which Republicans usually indicate their preference for a presidential nominee to represent the party in the November presidential election. The incident sparked responses and prayers from Republican candidates but no policy proposals have emerged. Guns are likely to once again be a hot topic of debate during this election cycle, with little legislative action expected. Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy posted a video on X of him meeting two parents whose daughter was at Perry’s nearby elementary school that day. We pray for the victims of the tragic high school shooting in Perry, Iowa. I happened to be there today right after it happened, we canceled our event and converted it to a prayer & open conversation. Strikingly, the first two people who spoke to us each said they “weren’t… pic.twitter.com/bw3VoXPvoF — Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) January 4, 2024 “Our purpose here was to pray and reflect, to make sure something like this never happens again,” Ramaswamy said. Republican candidate Nikki Haley also extended her sympathies on X. “My heart aches for the victims of Perry, Iowa and the entire community,” she wrote. No parent, student, or teacher should have to wake up and face news about a school shooting. My heart aches for the victims of Perry, Iowa and the entire community. — Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) January 4, 2024 Gun violence in the US This is the fifth recorded incident of gun violence in the United States in 2024, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-governmental organisation that defines a mass shooting as one which results in four or more people wounded or killed. Gun violence is ubiquitous in the US – with more guns than people in the country. Attempts to curb the spread are often met with stiff political resistance. Last year there were a total of 656 shootings. News outlet Education Week said that 37 school shootings in 2023 resulted in injuries or deaths. The day before the Iowa shooting, a 15-year-old allegedly shot a man outside a high school in Virginia. No one was identified in the case and it was not clear if either were students. According to a database maintained by news outlet Education Week, this makes the Perry incident the second school shooting so far this year, bringing the number of recorded shootings to 183 since 2018. Since July 2021, Iowa has not required gun owners to hold a permit before they can buy a handgun or carry a firearm in public, although it does require a background check on anyone buying a handgun without a permit. Adblock test (Why?)

Influential conservative group launches massive ad and grassroots blitz on behalf of Haley

Influential conservative group launches massive ad and grassroots blitz on behalf of Haley

FIRST ON FOX – Americans for Prosperity Action, the political wing of the influential and deep-pocketed fiscally conservative network founded by the billionaire Koch Brothers, is launching a new phase in its large ad and grassroots effort on behalf of Nikki Haley’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. The ad blitz, which was shared first with Fox News on Friday, includes mailers, digital ads and connected TV spots that will run starting this week in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The campaign will also hit Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, four of the 15 states that hold presidential nominating contests on March 5, which is known as Super Tuesday. AFP Action, which pledged to spend tens of millions of dollars to help push the Republican Party past former President Donald Trump as it endorsed Haley in late November, says it’s putting an initial $27 million behind this new wave in their ongoing campaign. “Poll after poll shows that Trump is the weakest candidate against Joe Biden,” the narrator in the group’s ad emphasizes.  WAR OF WORDS BETWEEN HALEY AND DESANTIS REACHES FEVER PITCH A slew of recent polls of the 2024 presidential election indicate Haley topping President Biden by larger margins than Trump does in hypothetical general election matchups. “Nikki Haley crushes Biden by double digits. She even beats him in the swing states that Trump lost in 2020. It’s clear. Nikki Haley would be the strongest candidate to stop Biden and help elect Republicans across the country,” the narrator adds. “She’s a proven conservative fighter. With the criminal trials for President Trump and the liberal media out to get him, our country can’t risk four more years of Biden and Harris.” ONLY ON FOX: HALEY PUSHES BACK BUT DOESN’T CATEGORICALLY RULE OUT BEING TRUMP’S RUNNING MATE Trump remains the commanding frontrunner for the Republican nomination as he makes his third straight White House run. Trump’s lead expanded last spring and summer as he made history as the first former or current president in American history to be indicted for a crime. Trump’s four indictments – including in federal court in Washington, D.C., and in Fulton County court in Georgia on charges he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss – have only fueled his support among Republican voters. He holds a massive lead over Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in national polling, and in the latest surveys in Iowa, whose Jan. 15 caucuses kick off the GOP presidential nominating calendar. FIRST ON FOX: HALEY FUNDRAISING SOARS THE PAST THREE MONTHS But Haley, the former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, has enjoyed plenty of momentum in recent months. She has caught up to DeSantis in national surveys and in the latest Iowa polls, and surpassed him in New Hampshire and has narrowed the gap with Trump in the Granite State, which holds its primary eight days after the caucuses. The AFP Action endorsement instantly gave Haley, who until recent weeks had been running a lean campaign, the grassroots outreach and organizational strength that DeSantis has enjoyed, due to the major assist from the DeSantis-aligned super PAC Never Back Down. In the 2022 midterm election cycle, AFP Action knocked on roughly 5.5 million doors, made 2 million calls, and sent out nearly 70 million pieces of mail on behalf of candidates it was backing. The electability argument made by AFP Action in their new blitz mirrors what Haley has repeated showcased on the campaign trail and what the super PAC supporting her has spotlighted in ads. As part of her stump speech, Haley highlights how polls suggest she beats Biden more convincingly that Trump would. “Nikki Haley is by far the strongest candidate Republicans could run against Joe Biden, and no one else is even close. Nikki Haley would boost Republicans up and down the ballot,” AFP Action director Nathan Nascimento told Fox News in a statement. But Trump’s political orbit discounts the effort. “Americans for Prosperity has already lit millions of dollars on fire this primary only to watch President Donald Trump’s lead grow. No amount of money can break the bond President Trump has with voters. He kept his promises,” Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for the Trump-aligned super PAC Make America Great Again Inc MAGA Inc., said following AFP Action’s endorsement of Haley. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

India navy says responding to Liberian-flagged vessel hijack in Arabian Sea

India navy says responding to Liberian-flagged vessel hijack in Arabian Sea

Navy says it has sent a warship to render assistance after the vessel issues a hijacking distress call. India’s navy says its warship is moving towards a hijacked Liberian-flagged vessel in the Arabian Sea, and aircraft are closely monitoring the situation. A statement by the navy on Friday said it “responded swiftly to a maritime incident in Arabian Sea involving a hijacking attempt” of a bulk carrier ship. The ship sent a message on the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations portal, saying five to six unknown armed personnel had boarded on Thursday evening, the statement said. At least 15 Indian crew members were on board the MV Lila Norfolk, which was hijacked near Somalia’s coast and the navy received information about it on Thursday evening, Indian media reports said, citing military officials. An Indian warship, the INS Chennai, was diverted and deployed to assist the vessel, the navy statement said, adding that a naval aircraft overflew the hijacked vessel on Friday and had established contact with it. The navy said it “remains committed to ensuring [the] safety of merchant shipping in the region along with international partners and friendly foreign countries”. The Indian navy has increased its surveillance of the Arabian Sea after a recent spate of attacks in the region. Earlier this week, the navy said it had investigated a large number of fishing vessels and boarded vessels of interest in the north and central Arabian Sea. “India plays the role of a net security provider in the entire Indian Ocean region. We will ensure that maritime trade in this region rises from the sea to the heights of the sky,” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said last month of the increased surveillance in the region. Adblock test (Why?)

North Korea fires artillery towards South’s islands, prompting evacuations

North Korea fires artillery towards South’s islands, prompting evacuations

South Korea condemns move as ‘act of provocation that escalates tension and threatens peace on the Korean peninsula’. North Korea has fired more than 200 rounds of artillery shells into the sea near a tense maritime border and towards two South Korean islands, which Seoul called “an act of provocation”. On Friday, residents on the islands of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong were ordered to seek shelter due to an unspecified “situation”. South Korea’s military said the firing caused no civilian or military damage, adding that all the shells landed on the northern side of the sea border. “This is an act of provocation that escalates tension and threatens peace on the Korean peninsula,” said Lee Sung-joon, a spokesperson for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. The defence ministry in Seoul said: “We sternly warn that North Korea bears full responsibility for this escalating crisis and strongly urge them to immediately cease these actions. “Our military closely tracks and monitors the situation in close coordination with the United States, and will take appropriate measures in response to North Korea’s provocations,” the ministry statement added. However, the defence ministry was yet to confirm whether the evacuation order was a response to Pyongyang’s artillery fire or Seoul’s military drills. An official on Yeonpyeong island, which sits just south of the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL) sea border, residents were told to move into bomb shelters on the island at the request of the South Korean military. A text message sent to residents and confirmed by an island official cited “naval fire” to be conducted by South Korean troops from 3pm (06:00 GMT) on Friday. The South Korean military informed the affected village that there was sea firing by their own military following “a situation” near the border. Residents of Baengnyeong island, located to the west of Yeonpyeong and in proximity to the sea border, were also directed to evacuate, as confirmed by a village official. Since the 1990s, Pyongyang has disputed the NLL – drawn up at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War – arguing it should lie far to the south. In 2010, the North Korean artillery targeted Yeonpyeong island, resulting in casualties, including civilians. Pyongyang asserted it was provoked by Seoul’s live-fire drills that dropped shells into its territorial waters. China calls for ‘restraint’ “Under the current situation, we hope that all relevant parties maintain calm and restraint, refrain from taking actions that aggravate tensions, avoid further escalation of the situation, and create conditions for the resumption of meaningful dialogue,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters on Friday. “Confrontations between relevant parties have intensified recently, and the situation on the peninsula continues to be tense,” Wang said. This week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his military to “thoroughly annihilate” South Korea and the United States if they initiate a military confrontation in another round of bellicose rhetoric targeting Seoul and Washington. The relationship between the two Koreas has been at its lowest point in decades of strained relations between the neighbouring countries. North Korea has recently ramped up its nuclear and military threats, successfully launching a reconnaissance satellite on its third attempt in November and earlier this month testing the solid-fuel Hwasong-18, its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), for the third time in 2023. Adblock test (Why?)