Schrödinger’s genocide
Bosnians have experience with genocide. Not just the signs of it coming. Not just the fact of it happening. But also this strange phenomenon we call “Schrödinger’s genocide”: the simultaneous glorification and denial of genocide. There is a cruel dance between the systematic relativisation of the legal qualification of genocide and the continuous pursuit of genocidal politics and its results. Despite the verdicts issued by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), we have not healed. The ethnically cleansed Republika Srpska still stands as the triumph of the Serb genocidal project. Bosnian history has demonstrated the futility of the “never again” mantra and Gaza is now confirming it. The genocide of my people was accompanied by the same rhetoric that Israeli officials now espouse: a genocidal army is the only thing standing between Europe and “Muslim barbarians”, they claim. I have often lamented how the Jews, who struggled for years after World War II to globalise the knowledge about the Holocaust, started facing serious Holocaust denial as the number of living survivors started to dwindle. Swedish survivors Hédi Fried (98) and Emerich Roth (97) died recently – a major loss for the Jewish community and those working to uphold the “never again” vow. By contrast, Bosnians are experiencing genocide denial while most of us, survivors, are still alive. Genocide scholar Gregory Stanton argued there are 10 stages of genocide, the last one being denial, but we are effectively experiencing the 11th phase: glorification and triumphalism. There are people who not only invest resources into historical revisionism of the genocide they committed in the 1990s, but are de facto threatening to repeat it. The Bosnian “final solution” was not properly finalised, they often say. In my home city, Banja Luka, the administrative capital of Republika Srpska, you can buy T-shirts with the faces of war criminals Radovan Karadžić, Ratko Mladić, Biljana Plavšić, and Slobodan Milošević. And Russian President Vladimir Putin, too. In the case of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has already characterised as a plausible genocide, we see denial among Israeli politicians and propagandists while it is still going on. There is even more denial in Western countries with histories of horrific genocides, especially Germany. Western governments and media are engaged in a systematic cover-up of Israeli war crimes and bullying of those who try to expose them. Laws are proposed on short notice that aim to criminalise free speech and criticism of Israel. At the same time, the glorification of this genocide is broadcast in real time on social media. Accounts with thousands of followers post footage of Israeli soldiers committing war crimes. People want credit even for discrediting content. The Palestinians have been dehumanised to such an extent that their executioners are deeply convinced that their violent acts are not just morally justified but also noble, and they must take pride in their “good work”. The Serb authorities did much to hide the concentration camps from foreign journalists. They tried to cover up massacres, moving mass graves multiple times. By contrast, the hubris of Israeli soldiers drives them to produce countless images and videos of their work: endearing messages to loved ones from sites of destruction, the mocking of everything Palestinian, proud repetitions of the genocidal discourse. French philosopher Jean Baudrillard was right: We postmodern humans want to broadcast ourselves to the world whatever we do. I am not surprised that the Israeli army is broadcasting its war crimes as I was not surprised that Hamas had cameras on on October 7. We have seen attempts to whitewash Hamas’s crimes, but we have also seen propaganda campaigns aimed at making them look even more horrible as a way of justifying the crimes of the Israeli army. Meanwhile, Palestinians have felt compelled to report in detail the atrocities they face. It is perverse that people suffering so much are forced to record and broadcast unimaginable slaughter to be believed, to be humanised, to be pitied enough so their cry for help is heard. We think we live in a different time, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has shown the world that the old rules still apply. Though Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari is correct that since World War II fewer people have died in wars, Israel keeps confirming the fact that nations are built through violence. In Gaza, the old world order came back with a vengeance. Western powers are doing the exact opposite of acting in the spirit of the civilisation they have bragged about building. They have armed the aggressor and aided his indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, their starvation, and culturicide. They encouraged the media to dehumanise the victims and cover up the crimes. And finally, despite the explicit ruling by the ICJ, they cut aid. Let us note here that even the Israeli judge in the ICJ hearing on Gaza voted in favour of the provision of humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians. As a Holocaust survivor, of course, he did at least that. Despite the staggering effort by Western media to suppress information, there has been a significant shift in public opinion in the West. This means that the timing is bad for Israel. Netanyahu and his predecessors should have finished their genocidal project decades ago. Back then, there were fewer avenues for the truth to surface. Places were ethnically cleansed and mass graves were buried under parking lots. As the Israeli interviewees in a 2022 documentary about a massacre in the Palestinian village of Tantura made clear, they got away with it because no one was watching. But people across the whole world are watching now and there is no excuse not to act to stop it. Once a genocide happens, history shows, there is no going back. Six million Jews and millions of their unborn descendants are missing in Germany and other nations. Many are missing from countries across Asia and Africa. They will never return. Germans may have apologised, built memorial
Netanyahu repeats Rafah assault threat, says civilians won’t be ‘locked in’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will not leave civilians trapped in Rafah when its forces begin a long-feared assault on the southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians have taken shelter. “Our goal in eliminating the remaining terrorist battalions in Rafah goes hand in hand with enabling the civilian population to leave Rafah. It’s not something we will do while keeping the population locked in place. In fact, we’ll do the very opposite, we will enable them to leave,” Netanyahu said during a press statement in Jerusalem with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The German leader said an Israeli assault on Rafah – where a majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge from relentless Israeli bombardment – would make regional peace “very difficult”. Netanyahu’s statement came hours after he told a cabinet meeting that Israeli troops would pursue the planned ground offensive in Rafah despite fears of mass civilian casualties. “No amount of international pressure will stop us from realising all the goals of the war: eliminating Hamas, releasing all our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will no longer pose a threat against Israel,” Netanyahu said in a video released by his office. “To do this, we will also operate in Rafah.” Netanyahu’s comments came as talks were expected to resume in Qatar towards a truce in Gaza, where Israel has pursued a military campaign against Hamas for more than five months. ‘Threat looming in the horizon’ Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Rafah, said the Palestinians are “closely following” Netanyahu repeatedly saying he plans to invade “this very densely populated area”. “From the Palestinian perspective, under such threat looming in the horizon, they are completely feeling unsafe, wondering about the next destination,” he said. US President Joe Biden, whose continued support for Israel’s war despite widespread allegations of genocide, has said an Israeli invasion of Rafah would be a “red line” without credible civilian protection plans in place. On Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington wanted a “clear and implementable plan” for Rafah to ensure civilians are “out of harm’s way”. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also on Friday appealed to Israel “in the name of humanity” not to launch an assault on Rafah – the last major population centre in Gaza yet to face a ground assault in the war triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack in southern Israel. The attack resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, as Hamas took about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages. Israel believes about 130 of those remain in Gaza, including 32 presumed dead. Since October 7, Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 31,645 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and displaced nearly 2 million of its residents. Elections would ‘paralyse’ Israel Netanyahu said any Gaza peace deal that weakens Israel and leaves it unable to defend itself against hostile neighbours would be unacceptable. A potential peace agreement “that makes Israel so weak and unable to defend itself” would “set peace backwards and not forward”, he said during his joint press appearance with Scholz. Netanyahu also criticised “those in the international community who are trying to stop the war now” by “making false accusations” against Israel and its military. Israel has faced consistent criticism for civilian casualties in Gaza as well as stark aid shortages that have fueled fears of famine. On Thursday, US Senate leader Chuck Schumer called for Israel to hold new elections, sparking angry pushback from Netanyahu’s Likud Party, which said Israel “is not a banana republic”. Netanyahu said new elections would “stop the war and paralyse the country for at least six months”. “If we stop the war now, before all of its goals are achieved, it means that Israel has lost the war, and we will not allow that.” Meanwhile, there has been no let-up in the fighting, and at least 92 people were killed over the previous 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday. The dead included 12 members of the same family whose house was hit in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza. Palestinian girl Leen Thabit, retrieving a white dress from under the rubble of her family’s flattened house, cried as she said her cousin was killed in the strike. “She’s dead. Only her dress is left,” Thabit said. “What do they want from us?” Adblock test (Why?)
EU announces $8bn package for Egypt as part of deal to check migrant flows
The agreement, which lifts the EU’s relationship with Egypt to a ‘strategic partnership’, has drawn criticism from rights groups. The European Union has announced a 7.4 billion-euro ($8.06bn) aid package and an upgraded relationship with Egypt, part of a new deal to stem migrant flows to Europe that has been criticised by rights groups. The deal is scheduled to be signed during a visit on Sunday by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and leaders of Belgium, Italy, Austria, Cyprus and Greece, according to officials. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met separately with von der Leyen and other European leaders before the signing ceremony. The aid package includes both grants and loans over the next three years, with the EU saying it is upgrading its relationship with the Arab world’s most populous country to a “strategic partnership”. The proposed funding includes 5 billion euros ($5.45bn) in concessional loans and 1.8 billion euros ($1.96bn) of investments, according to a summary of the plan published by the EU. An additional 600 million euros ($654m) would be provided in grants, including 200 million euros ($218m) for managing migration issues. El-Sisi’s office said in a statement that the deal with the EU aims to achieve “a significant leap in cooperation and coordination between the two sides and to achieve common interests”. Egypt’s economic uncertainty has pushed many to migrate from the Arab nation, with Europe interested in curbing migration from Egypt and elsewhere in North Africa. But European governments are worried about the fallout from growing instability in Egypt, which has been struggling to raise foreign currency and has inflation running close to record highs. Earlier this month, however, the country struck a record deal for Emirati investment, expanded its loan programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and sharply devalued its currency. ‘Flawed blueprint’ The deal comes amid growing concerns that Israel’s looming ground offensive on Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah could force hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to break into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The Israeli war on Gaza, now in its sixth month, has pushed more than a million people to Rafah. Egypt says there are nine million migrants, including about 480,000 who are registered refugees and asylum seekers with the United Nations’ refugee agency. Many of those migrants have established their own businesses, while others work in the huge informal economy as street vendors and house cleaners. But Egyptian officials say Cairo deserves recognition for largely shutting off irregular migration from its north coast since 2016 although there has been a surge in Egyptians trying to cross to Europe via Libya, and the EU is already providing support aimed at reducing those flows. In recent months, the Greek islands of Crete and Gavdos have seen a steep rise in migrant arrivals – mostly from Egypt, Bangladesh and Pakistan – raising concerns about a new Mediterranean smuggling route. Activists have criticised Western backing for el-Sisi, who came to power a decade ago after leading the overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected leader. A crackdown has swept up dissidents from across the political spectrum, while the state and the army have extended their grip on the economy, which businessmen and analysts say has impeded structural reforms demanded by the IMF. El-Sisi’s backers say security measures were needed to stabilise Egypt and pave the way for providing social rights such as housing and jobs. The EU says its expanded partnership with Egypt is meant to promote democracy and freedoms, but its moves to offer financing in return for migration curbs have run up against obstacles and criticism. “The blueprint is the same as the flawed EU deals with Tunisia and Mauritania: stop migrants, ignore abuses,” Human Rights Watch said of the plan to enhance ties with Egypt and provide new financing. Amnesty International also urged the European leaders not to be complicit with rights violations taking place in Egypt. “EU leaders must ensure that the Egyptian authorities adopt clear benchmarks for human rights,” said Eve Geddie, the head of Amnesty International’s European institutions office. Adblock test (Why?)
‘He’s lost my vote’: Many Irish Americans turn against Biden over Gaza war
One evening in 2004, when John Francis Mulligan, a US-born Irish citizen, was in the West Bank, a stranger asked him to walk her to a funeral. It was after curfew in Nablus, and Palestinians weren’t allowed out on the streets. A young man had been killed earlier that day, and because of religious beliefs, his family needed to bury him within 24 hours, Mulligan recalls. But if they went outside, the Israel armed forces “would open fire on them for violating curfew”. The dead man’s mother asked Mulligan: “Can you march with us? Can you stand at the front with our family? Because they’re not gonna shoot you, you’re white … I just need someone, literally, to stand with me.’” This moment – the struggle to bury the dead in peace – hit home for Mulligan, 54, who went to primary school in Northern Ireland during the Troubles in the late 1970s. “It felt, to me, very much like going into political funerals in the north of Ireland, where helicopters would be overhead – in that case, it was the British Army. And here it was the Israeli army,” he says. “It really resonated.” Mulligan points to these parallels as part of the reason he is rallying with other Irish Americans in the US to support Gaza. Leaders from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are meeting Biden this weekend. First Minister Michelle O’Neill met Biden on Friday, telling him “the world watches on in horror at the genocide of the Palestinian people,” and urging him to work towards an immediate ceasefire and sovereign Palestinian state. But only Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar will attend the St Patrick’s Day White House ceremony on March 17, where he will present President Biden with a bowl of shamrocks, in a token of friendship, as per the decades-long tradition. But the annual ceremony and meeting between the taoiseach and Biden promises to be unusually tense this year, as a growing chorus of voters – both within Ireland, and among the Irish American diaspora – voice outrage over Biden’s support for the war on Gaza. “I can recognise colonial oppression, colonial state violence,” because of a childhood in Ireland, says Mulligan. Now, in Palestine, “they’re dehumanising people. They’re criminalising resistance, criminalising the complete population,” and using “starvation as a tactic” as the British did in Ireland during the Great Famine. “It’s the same exact playbook happening in Palestine.” John Francis Mulligan says that after spending his formative years in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, ‘the starvation of Gaza, the blocking of aid – it’s something I really recognise’ [Courtesy of John Mulligan] A ‘jaw-dropping’ network forms Cuán McCann, an Irish stick fighting coach in Baltimore whose family emigrated through Ellis Island, New York, generations ago, says he’s been stunned by how rapidly a network of Irish Americans has connected around support for Palestine. “Some folks are in touch with organisers in Ireland, others are chatting through social media, many are talking to friends and siblings,” explains McCann, who has almost 20 years of experience organising for advocacy and protests. He calls the rapid and organic nature of the network-building “jaw-dropping”, adding that “every time I have a conversation, it leads to three more with three other people.” Ireland has long been one of Palestine’s foremost Western supporters: The country was the first EU member to endorse a Palestinian state, and after October 7, Irish lawmakers were among the first in the West to call for a ceasefire. The Irish public’s support is even more robust than their politicians: About 80 percent of Irish people believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and many have called for a boycott of the White House meeting. In light of this fierce support, an Israeli minister recently told Palestinians to “go to Ireland or the desert”. And so as Biden continues to support Israel’s military campaign, the Irish public has largely turned on him. In November, a mural of Biden in his ancestor’s hometown was spattered over with red paint along with the words “Genocide Joe”. Irish Member of European Parliament (MEP) Clare Daly addressed recent remarks directly to “Butcher Biden” in a fiery speech, thundering, “The ancestors of the Ireland that you claim to be from disown you. Keep our country out of your mouth.” Now, Alison O’Connell, a lead organiser with Irish Americans for Palestine, says her group has a chance to be effective “because Biden talks so much about his Irish heritage”. Last week, O’Connell delivered a letter in person to the Irish embassy, asking them not to meet Biden as usual. “The energy that comes up to St Patrick’s Day – people know this is our moment to at least make some kind of statement,” O’Connell adds. This week, protests against the White House meeting are planned in at least seven states and in multiple cities, including New York, St Louis, Washington-DC, Minneapolis and Albuquerque. Alison O’Connell, lead organiser with Irish Americans for Palestine, protests for Palestine during the St Patrick’s Day March in Washington, DC [Courtesy of Alison O’Connell] Trouble at the polls On March 3, Mike Doyle, a teacher in Brooklyn who is fourth-generation Irish, marched in the “St Pat’s for All Parade” in Queens, New York, a long-running alternative to the official New York City parade, the oldest and largest St Patrick’s Parade in the world. Some groups hoisted signs and banners for a ceasefire in Gaza, and Doyle recalls that as they walked through the historically Irish neighbourhood of Sunnyside neighbourhood, “pretty much the whole street was cheering for us and shouting, ‘Ceasefire’!” As the election approaches, Irish Americans who object to Biden’s support of Israel have said the plan is to make their voices heard not only at protests, but also at the polls. McCann voted for Biden in 2020, but says he will vote for “uncommitted” in Maryland’s primary, a vote held in May to choose the state’s Democratic presidential candidate. O’Connell notes that her
Aid reaches north Gaza for first time in months
NewsFeed For the first time in months, a trickle of aid has arrived in northern Gaza. 13 trucks drove from the Rafah border crossing in the south to deliver desperately needed flour, a day after the first sea delivery was unloaded. Published On 17 Mar 202417 Mar 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Israel’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 163
Aid trucks moving from the south have arrived safely in the northern Gaza Strip without incident. Here’s how things stand on Sunday, March 17, 2024: Fighting and humanitarian crisis At least 92 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes in Gaza in the last 24 hours, according to the Wafa news agency. Shelling on Sunday morning targeted areas in the south and northeast of Khan Younis as well as in the north of Rafah city. Late Saturday evening attacks in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza killed at least 12 people and wounded many more, including children, according to videos and witnesses. Several aid trucks arrived safely in Jabalia and Gaza City, marking the first convoys to travel from the south to the north of the Gaza Strip without incident in four months. Flour is now being distributed from at least six trucks secured at camps run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) A second aid ship will soon leave Cyprus for Gaza with tonnes of aid to join the Open Arms vessel which has started unloading 200 tonnes of aid cargo in Gaza. Diplomacy and regional tensions Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israeli troops would pursue a planned ground offensive in southern Gaza’s Rafah that has spurred fears of mass civilian casualties. Ceasefire talks could resume in Qatar as early as Sunday, with an Israeli delegation led by Mossad’s spy chief expected in Doha to discuss Hamas’s proposal for a three-stage plan to end the war. Amnesty International called on US President Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire and stop arms sales to Israel, saying that US-made munitions have killed many of the more than 30,000 fatalities in Gaza. Human Rights Watch called on the the international community to impose sanctions on Israel for its failure to comply with the International Court of Justice’s order to take provisional measures in Gaza to prevent genocide of the Palestinian people. Violence in the occupied West Bank Israeli forces detained at least 25 Palestinians from the West Bank in overnight and early Sunday raids. A Gazan female awaiting cancer treatment, a child, and former prisoners were among those arrested in Hebron, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Jenin, Tulkarem, Ramallah, and Jerusalem, Wafa reports. An Israeli rights group, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) has called on the international community to sanction Israel over its abuse and torture of Palestinian detainees. Adblock test (Why?)
Iceland in state of emergency after volcano erupts, fourth time in 3 months
Icelandic police declared a state of emergency on Saturday as lava spewed from a new volcanic fissure on the Reykjanes Peninsula, the fourth eruption to hit the area since December. A “volcanic eruption has started between Stori-Skogfell and Hagafell on the Reykjanes Peninsula,” said a statement from the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO). Live video images showed glowing lava and billowing smoke. Iceland’s Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management announced it had sent a helicopter to narrow down the exact location of the new fissure. The authority also said the police had declared a state of emergency due to the eruption. According to the IMO, it occurred close to the same location as a previous eruption on February 8. Lava appeared to flow south towards the dykes built to protect the fishing village Grindavik, it said. Just after 22:00 GMT, “the southern lava front was just 200 metres [656 feet] from the barriers on the eastern side of Grindavik and moving at a rate of about one km per hour”, it added. Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Blue Lagoon thermal spa, one of Iceland’s top tourist attractions, when the eruption began, national broadcaster RUV said. No flight disruptions were reported at nearby Keflavik, Iceland’s main airport. The eruption site is a few kilometres northeast of Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 people about 50km (30 miles) southwest of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, that was evacuated before the initial eruption in December. A few residents who had returned to their homes were evacuated again on Saturday. Grindavik was evacuated in November when the Svartsengi volcanic system awakened after almost 800 years with a series of earthquakes that opened large cracks in the ground north of the town. The volcano eventually erupted on December 18, sending lava flowing away from Grindavik. A second eruption that began on January 14 sent lava towards the town. Defensive walls that had been bolstered after the first eruption stopped some of the flow, but several buildings were consumed by the lava. Both eruptions lasted only a matter of days. A third eruption began February 8. It petered out within hours, but not before a river of lava engulfed a pipeline, cutting off heat and hot water to thousands of people. RUV quoted geophysicist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson as saying that the latest eruption is the most powerful so far. The IMO said some of the lava was flowing towards the defensive barriers around Grindavik. Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, sees regular eruptions and is highly experienced at dealing with them. The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and led to widespread airspace closures over Europe. No confirmed deaths have been reported from any of the recent eruptions, but a workman was declared missing after falling into a fissure opened by the volcano. Adblock test (Why?)
Professor Jeffrey Sachs: ‘‘US is complicit in Israeli genocide’
Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs says the war in Gaza could end today if the United States stopped supplying weapons to Israel. “Does the United States want to be complicit in genocide?” This is the question that US leaders should be asking themselves as Israel’s war on Gaza continues, argues Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs tells host Steve Clemons that Israel could not continue “for one day” without US support, and the rhetoric from top Democrats criticising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “meaningless” because no action is taken to stop the war crimes. This has led to US isolation on the world stage, as Israel is allowed to continue “whatever they have in their minds… which will never lead to peace”. Adblock test (Why?)
US man suspected of killing three family members arrested after manhunt
An ‘extremely dangerous’ suspect has been taken into custody in New Jersey following an hours-long effort to detain him. A suspect has been taken into custody in New Jersey after allegedly shooting dead three family members, authorities have said, following an hours-long effort to detain him. Andre Gordon, 26, “surrendered peacefully”, Trenton Police Department spokeswoman Lisette Rios told the AFP news agency on Saturday, after a trail of violence that triggered shelter-in-place orders in two states. Authorities said Gordon, who is believed to be homeless, began the day by carjacking a vehicle in Trenton before driving some 65km (40 miles) to the northern Philadelphia suburb of Levittown. There, police said, the suspect killed two people – identified as his 52-year-old stepmother and his 13-year-old sister. Three others, including a minor, managed to hide “as he went through the house searching for them”, Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said in a briefing. The suspect then drove to a nearby residence where he broke in before shooting and killing a 25-year-old woman – who Schorn said was the mother of his two children – before bludgeoning her mother with the butt of his rifle. Driving to a nearby discount store, the suspect carjacked a 44-year-old man before fleeing. The man was not injured, according to Falls Township Sheriff Nelson Whitney. The suspect then drove across the state line back to Trenton, where police believed he had barricaded himself in a three-storey house. Whitney had said the suspect was believed to be armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and police described him as “extremely dangerous”. For several hours they appealed to him to surrender, after SWAT officers evacuated people in the home through a second-storey window. “Andre, get away from the windows. We know you’re inside, if you’d like to surrender, dial 911 now,” police said over a loudspeaker. “You’re a young man, you have too much to live for.” Later on Saturday Gordon was “located at another location in Trenton”, police spokeswoman Rios said. Trenton Police Director Steve Wilson said Gordon was uninjured and walking along a street when a patrol officer approached him. Gordon had apparently slipped out of the house before police had completed setting up a perimeter, Wilson said. Because the suspect crossed state lines, federal authorities – including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – were working the case, along with local, county and state police. Officials said they could not yet speak to a motive for the attacks. While Gordon had had some minor brushes with the law, they were “nothing that would indicate that anything like this would happen”, Whitney, the Sheriff said at a news conference. The mayhem forced the cancellation of a St Patrick’s Day parade and shut down a Sesame Street-themed amusement park. Adblock test (Why?)
Iceland volcano erupts forcing residents to evacuate
NewsFeed Sirens blared as a volcano erupted in Iceland for the fourth time since December. Residents were ordered to leave their homes as lava spewed out of an almost 3km-long fissure in Reykjanes Peninsula. Published On 17 Mar 202417 Mar 2024 Adblock test (Why?)