Walmart manager kills six in latest US mass shooting

CHESAPEAK, United States A 31-year-old overnight manager at Walmart shot and killed six people at a store bustling with Thanksgiving holiday shoppers before turning the pistol on himself, authorities said Wednesday, in America's second mass shooting in four days.

Four other people remained hospitalized in unknown condition following the Tuesday night rampage in Chesapeake, Virginia, police chief Mark Solesky said.

The gunman is believed to have died of a "self-inflicted gunshot wound," Solesky told reporters, adding that the motive behind the country's latest outburst of gun violence was not yet known.

City authorities identified the shooter as Chesapeake resident Andre Bing, saying he was armed with one handgun and multiple magazines. Walmart confirmed in a statement that Bing was an overnight team lead, employed with the company since 2010.

An employee named Briana Tyler -- who survived the attack -- earlier described scenes of terror as a store manager entered a staff break room, and opened fire. 

"He wasn't aiming at anybody specifically," Tyler told ABC's "Good Morning America" program. "He just literally started shooting throughout the entire break room and I watched multiple people just drop down to the floor, whether they were trying to duck for cover or they were hit."

She said the gunman looked right at her and fired but missed by mere inches. "He didn't say a word, he didn't say anything at all," Tyler said.

The assault came two days before the quintessential American family holiday, which falls on Thursday, and on the heels of a weekend gun attack at an LGBTQ club in Colorado that killed five people.

It was also the second mass shooting in the state of Virginia this month: three students at the University of Virginia who played on its football team were killed November 13 by a classmate after a field trip.

President Joe Biden called the attack senseless and said "there are now even more tables across the country that will have empty seats this Thanksgiving."

'Extremely crowded' 

In the Walmart attack, emergency calls were first made just after 10:00 pm Tuesday (0300 GMT Wednesday) while the store was still open. Chesapeake is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) southeast of the US capital Washington.

Officers entered the store a few minutes later, Solesky said.

The shooter and two victims were found dead in the break room, while another body was found next to the front of the store, the city said. Three people taken to hospital with gunshots wounds later died.

Terri Brown, who was in the Walmart but left just before the shooting, said the store was packed with holiday shoppers.

"It was extremely crowded," Brown told the local ABC affiliate 13NewsNow. "All of the checkouts were extremely busy. They had most registers open. There were long, long lines at the self-checkout."

In the store parking lot on Wednesday, a makeshift memorial of flowers and small white electric candles sat against a tree beneath crime scene tape. White, blue and golden balloons tied to a tree blew in the wind. 

Gun attacks in grocery stores in America have become increasingly common in recent years. A teenage gunman killed 10 people, most of them Black, at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York in May.

Last year a shooting at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado also left 10 dead. And in a particularly gruesome attack in 2019, a young gunman killed 23 and wounded 26 as he stalked shoppers at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.

An advocacy group called Guns Down America has reported that from January 1, 2020 to May 14 of this year there were 448 "gun incidents" and 137 deaths at 12 large national retailers.

So far in 2022, the Gun Violence Archive website has tracked more than 600 mass shootings in the United States -- defined as an incident with four or more people shot or killed, not including the shooter. 

Tyler, the store employee, told ABC that the manager in question had a reputation as a difficult character.

"He was the manager to look out for because there was always something going on with him, just having an issue with someone," she said. "I would've never thought he would do something like this."

The incident occurred three nights after a gunman opened fire inside an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, killing five people and injuring at least 18.

Lawyers for the 22-year-old suspect in that attack, Anderson Lee Aldrich, said in court documents that the suspect identifies as non-binary, and uses they/them pronouns.

Aldrich on Wednesday made a brief court appearance by video, in which no charges were levied, and no pleas entered.

Agence France-Presse

Trump tweets and golfs, but makes no mention of virus’s toll

WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump’s motorcade pulled into his golf club in Virginia on an overcast Sunday, a small group of protesters waited outside the entrance. One held up a sign.

“I care do U?” it read. “100,000 dead.”

Trump and his advisers have said that he does, but he has made scant effort to demonstrate it this Memorial Day weekend. He finally ordered flags lowered to half-staff at the White House only after being badgered to do so by his critics and otherwise took no public notice as the American death toll from the coronavirus pandemic approached a staggering 100,000.

While the country neared six digits of death, the president who repeatedly criticized his predecessor for golfing during a crisis spent the weekend on the links for the first time since March. When he was not zipping around on a cart, he was on social media embracing fringe conspiracy theories, amplifying messages from a racist and sexist Twitter account and lobbing playground insults at perceived enemies, including his own former attorney general.

This was a death toll that Trump once predicted would never be reached. In late February, he said there were only 15 coronavirus cases in the United States, understating even then the actual number, and declared that “the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” In the annals of the American presidency, it would be hard to recall a more catastrophically wrong prediction. Even after he later acknowledged that it would not be zero, he insisted the death toll would fall “substantially below the 100,000” mark.

As it stands now, the coronavirus has infected 1.6 million and taken so many lives it is as if an entire midsize American city — say Boca Raton, Florida, just to pick an example — simply disappeared. The toll is about to match the 100,000 killed in the United States by the pandemic of 1968 and is closing in on the outbreak of 1957-58, which killed 116,000. At this pace, it will stand as the country’s deadliest public health disaster since the great influenza of 1918-20 — all at the same time the nation confronts the most severe economic collapse since the Great Depression.

The historical comparisons are breathtaking. More Americans have died of the coronavirus in the last 12 weeks than died in the Vietnam and Korean wars combined and nearly twice as many as died of battle wounds during World War I. The death toll has nearly matched the number of people killed by the initial blasts of the world’s first atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In terms of American deaths, it is the equivalent of 22 Iraq wars, 33 Sept. 11 attacks, 41 Afghanistan wars, 42 Pearl Harbors or 25,000 Benghazis.

Trump, who has been sharply criticized for a slow and initially ineffective response to the pandemic, focused Sunday on the more recent progress, looking ahead, not behind. “Cases, numbers and deaths are going down all over the Country!” he exulted on Twitter.

Even that was not completely true. While total new cases nationally have begun declining, hospitalizations outside New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have increased slightly in recent days, as Trump’s own former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, pointed out.

Altogether, cases are falling in 14 states and Washington, D.C., but holding steady in 28 states and Guam while rising in eight states plus Puerto Rico, according to a New York Times database. The American Public Health Association said the 100,000 milestone was a time to reinforce efforts to curb the virus, not abandon them.

“This is both a tragedy and a call to action,” it said in a statement. “Infection rates are slowing overall in the U.S., but with 1.6 million cases across the nation in the past four months, the outbreak is far from over. New hot spots are showing up daily, and rates remain steady in at least 25 states.”

And even that grim total barely begins to scratch the surface of the pain and suffering endured by a country under siege by the worst public health crisis combined with the worst economic crisis in decades.

“It’s a milestone to reflect on the fact that even those who didn’t die got sick, to reflect on the sacrifices people made to stay home, the sacrifices of the health care workers who shouldn’t have had to sacrifice,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Most importantly, it should lead us to take this seriously. It’s 100,000, but it looks like we’re still at the beginning of this pandemic.”

The White House on Sunday expressed condolences on the president’s behalf.

“President Trump’s prayers for comfort and strength are with all of those grieving the loss of a loved one or friend as a result of this unprecedented plague, and his message to this great nation remains one of resilience, hope and optimism,” said Judd Deere, a spokesman.

For the president, the emphasis now is on recovery, not tragedy, as he urges the country to reopen the shuttered economy and return to some form of public life. While he will travel to Baltimore on Monday to mark Memorial Day and pay tribute to fallen troops — and perhaps the virus victims — he was sending a different signal by golfing two days in a row, telling the nation that it was all right to leave home, head to the course, attend church, frolic on the beach and get back to work.

Golfing during a crisis has always proved problematic for presidents. Dwight D. Eisenhower was criticized for playing after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. George W. Bush gave up golfing during the Iraq War to avoid looking insensitive to the troops and their families. Barack Obama was excoriated for golfing after an American was beheaded by terrorists in the Middle East.

Among those who regularly assailed Obama for golfing was Trump — by one count, 27 times. “Can you believe that, with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf,” Trump wrote in 2014. He was criticizing Obama for golfing after just two cases of Ebola were confirmed in the United States. “When you’re president you sort of say, like, ‘I’m going to sort of give it up for a couple of years and I’m really going to focus on the job,’” he said on “Fox & Friends.”

Giving up, though, is not Trump’s style, nor is public mourning. Since the outbreak, he has hosted corporate executives, truck drivers and governors at the White House; toured factories producing medical equipment; and celebrated doctors, nurses and others responding to the virus. He welcomed to the White House several patients who recovered. But he has arranged no event for those who have lost loved ones, nor publicly dwelled on their grief.

He deals with the death count in clinical terms, making forecasts quickly overtaken by reality, then declaring that the new reality is better than it could have been. In effect, he is making a grim political argument, asserting success if the final toll turns out to be anything less than the most extreme 2.2 million fatalities predicted if the country had done nothing at all to respond.

At the White House last week, Trump took credit again for limiting travel from China in early February. “We would have lost millions of lives if we didn’t,” he said. “Think of it: If we lost 100,000 lives, the minimum we would have lost is a million-two, a million-three, a million-five maybe. But take it to a million. So that would mean 10 times more than we lost already.”

Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, amplified that idea Sunday, pointing back to projections made at the end of March that the coronavirus would kill 100,000 to 240,000 Americans if lockdowns and social distancing measures were imposed, and that up to 2.2 million Americans would die if nothing was done.

“When we had that first briefing, we talked about 1.2 million to 2.4 million, and 100,000 to 240,000 people succumbing to this incredibly aggressive virus,” Birx said. “Those are the figures that we continue to stand by.”

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Birx tried to square those numbers with rosier projections she later made April 10, when aggressive social distancing measures appeared to be slowing the spread of the virus and she embraced a new projection of 60,000 dead. “There are different models we have been using all along,” she said.

The president’s critics said he would not be able to convince voters this fall that he should be celebrated for a death toll of 100,000 or more just because it could have been worse.

“It’s not the moving of the goal posts on loss of life that hurts Trump as much as the loss of life itself,” said Margie Omero, a Democratic pollster and principal at the firm GBAO. “The facts are what worry people — majorities hold Trump responsible for high death tolls, high unemployment and a lack of testing. And even more now than a month ago.”

Republicans, though, have argued that voters will blame China for not being more forthcoming about the virus and see the rest through the lens of their preexisting views of Trump. “Mostly, I think this will wind up falling on our normal partisan lines,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican operative. “If you hate Trump, you won’t find anything he did to be right. If you love Trump, you will find the media and Democratic governors at fault for overhyping and overreacting.”

If the country’s losses were on his mind this weekend, Trump did a good job of hiding it. His Twitter feed was full of everything but that. He tweeted or retweeted messages falsely implying that “Psycho Joe Scarborough,” the MSNBC host, murdered an aide in 2001; suggesting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has denture problems and likes to “drink booze on the job”; and declaring that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions “had no courage” and “ran for the hills” by recusing himself from the Russia investigation in 2017 as required by ethics rules.

Trump reposted eight tweets from John K. Stahl, a conservative who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California in 2012. Stahl has a history of racist and sexist posts, especially against black women like Sen. Kamala Harris of California (“Willie’s Ho”); Stacey Abrams, the former candidate for governor of Georgia (“Shamu”); and Joy Reid, the MSNBC host (“butt ugly” and a “skank”).

While the president indulged his political feuds, experts were warning that the pandemic was hardly over. Another 1,000 Americans or more will most likely die by Monday and another 1,000 the day after that and another 1,000 the day after that.

Imperial College London predicted last week that the relaxation of quarantine measures encouraged by Trump “will lead to resurgence of transmission” and that “deaths over the next two-month period could exceed current cumulative deaths by greater than twofold” — in other words, another 200,000 deaths by August.

As the nation reaches this macabre milestone, that is the grim worry: That it is not the last one. “To me,” Frieden said, “the most important question is are we going to do what we need to do to prevent the next 100,000?”

-Peter Baker, The New York Times-

Liberty University brings back its students, and coronavirus, too

LYNCHBURG, Virginia — As Liberty University’s spring break was drawing to a close this month, Jerry Falwell, its president, spoke with the physician who runs Liberty’s student health service about the rampaging coronavirus.

“We’ve lost the ability to corral this thing,” Dr. Thomas Eppes said he told Falwell. But he did not urge him to close the school. “I just am not going to be so presumptuous as to say, ‘This is what you should do, and this is what you shouldn’t do,’” Eppes said in an interview.

So Falwell — a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and an influential voice in the evangelical world — reopened the university last week, igniting a firestorm. As of Friday, Eppes said, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggest COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. Three were referred to local hospital centers for testing. Another eight were told to self-isolate.

“Liberty will be notifying the community as deemed appropriate and required by law,” Falwell said in an interview Sunday when confronted with the numbers. He added that any student returning now to campus would be required to self-quarantine for 14 days.

“I can’t be sure what’s going on with individuals who are not being tested but who are advised to self-isolate,” said Kerry Gateley, health director of the Central Virginia Health District, which covers Lynchburg. “I would assume that if clinicians were concerned enough about the possibility of COVID-19 disease to urge self-isolation that appropriate screening and testing would be arranged.”

Of the 1,900 students who initially returned last week to campus, Falwell said more than 800 had left. But he said he had “no idea” how many students had returned to off-campus housing.

“If I were them, I’d be more nervous,” he added, because they live in more crowded conditions.

For critical weeks in January and February, the nation’s far-right dismissed the seriousness of the pandemic. Falwell derided it as an “overreaction” driven by liberal desires to damage Trump.

Although the current crisis would appear epidemiological in nature, Eppes said he saw it as a reflection of “the political divide.”

“If Liberty sneezes, there are people who don’t like the fact that Liberty sneezed,” he said in an interview. “Mr. Falwell called me to listen to a view that wasn’t exactly his. Great leaders do that type of thing.”

The city of Lynchburg, Virginia, is furious.

“We had a firestorm of our own citizens who said, ‘What’s going on?’ ” said Treney Tweedy, the mayor.

Some Liberty officials accuse alarmed outsiders of playing politics. Tweedy has called Falwell “reckless.” And within the school, there are signs of panic.

“I’m not allowed to talk to you because I’m an employee here,” one student living on campus wrote in an email. But, he pleaded, “we need help to go home.”

Under the Falwell family’s leadership, Liberty University has grown in five decades from a modest Baptist college to an evangelical powerhouse with cash investments and endowments of nearly $2 billion, nearly 46,000 undergraduates and a campus that sprawls across Lynchburg and neighboring counties in Virginia. Total enrollment, including online students, exceeds 100,000.

The institution is a welcome and generous presence in this Blue Ridge Mountain region, where the percentage of Lynchburg residents living in poverty is twice the state average. Liberty and its Thomas Road Baptist Church donate goods and services; its medical students conduct free health screenings; and its students participate in city beautification, maintenance and charity projects.

The university was founded by Falwell’s famous father as a bastion of social conservatism, one that was unabashedly combative as it trained what it called “Champions for Christ.” If anything, the younger Falwell has made it more so since his father’s death.

The mayor and city manager here, Bonnie Svrcek, felt relieved two weeks ago, when Falwell assured them that he fully intended to comply with Virginia’s public health directives and close the school to virtually all students, most of whom were scattering for spring break. Then he changed his mind.

“We think it’s irresponsible for so many universities to just say ‘closed, you can’t come back,’ push the problem off on other communities and sit there in their ivory towers,” Falwell said Wednesday on a radio show hosted by a far-right conspiracy theorist, Todd Starnes.

“We’re conservative, we’re Christian, and therefore we’re being attacked,” he said.

Michael Gillette, a former mayor of Lynchburg and a bioethicist now working with its hospitals on rationing scarce ventilators, disagrees.

“To argue that criticism of Liberty is based on political bias is unfounded and unreasonable,” he said. “Liberty just did not take this threat as seriously as others have.”

Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, Lynchburg city officials and a growing number of Liberty students, parents and employees have urged Falwell to reverse course, but such pleas have only prompted a stream of often conflicting statements.

“Our messages did change throughout the week as the governor’s orders changed. We had to adapt,” Falwell said.

Falwell initially said only international students or those with nowhere else to go would remain. Then he welcomed back a much larger group of about 1,900 students to campus housing last week, in addition to faculty members and staff. Others returned to off-campus rentals in Lynchburg.

Students who remained at home had to return last week to clean out their rooms, a requirement that was later relaxed. Faculty members were at first ordered back to campus, even though they would be teaching online. Then some were allowed to work from home. Falwell also waffled on whether the school would issue refunds to students who did not return for the semester before announcing Friday that most would receive a $1,000 credit for next year’s bills.

Falwell and his administration have worked to tamp down dissent. After a Liberty undergraduate, Calum Best, wrote on his personal Facebook page that students should receive refunds, he said Liberty’s spokesman, Scott Lamb, called his cellphone to berate him. Asked about the call, Lamb said he was simply objecting to an error in the post, and Best was “spinning.”

After Marybeth Davis Baggett, a professor, wrote an open letter asking the university’s board of trustees to close the campus, Falwell mocked her on Twitter as “the ‘Baggett’ lady.”

Jeff Brittain, a Liberty parent, wrote on Twitter, “I’m as right wing as they get, bud. But as a parent of three of your students, I think this is crazy, irresponsible and seems like a money grab.” Falwell replied, calling him a “dummy.”

All of this has left even his critics scratching their heads.

“It’s honestly hard to figure out what his motives are,” Best, the student who wrote the Facebook post, said in an interview. “If he had purely political motives, he’s being way more conservative than even Trump is being right now. Trump is at least allowing doctors to say their piece. Jerry is not. It kind of shocks me at this point.”

On campus, the administration says it is adhering to Virginia’s public health mandates, but students are flouting them. While security guards appear to be enforcing state advisories requiring a 6-foot distance from others and gatherings of no more than 10 people, students are still assembling in closer proximity to eat, play sports, study and use dormitory restrooms. Decals slapped on furniture that say “Closed for Social Distancing” have wound up on laptops and car bumpers. Study tables are farther apart, but shared computer terminals remain. While some students are trying to adhere to social distancing guidelines, they live in group houses, pile onto city buses and crowd the few businesses that remain open in Lynchburg.

It was not supposed to be this way. As the number of reported cases of the coronavirus in Virginia began rising, Tweedy said Falwell personally assured her that the school would not fully reopen. “We have some students who cannot go anywhere or they have nowhere to go,” she recalled his telling her. “The number on that day was 300 or so students, and even if it was a few more, we said, ‘OK, well, thank you.’ ”

But as spring break drew to a close in mid-March, all Liberty students were encouraged to return.

“We never discussed numbers, and I never told them the dorms would be closed,” Falwell said Sunday. “We’re going to have to agree to disagree on what was said.”

Falwell runs Liberty his own way, and his word is law. Professors are not tenured and can be fired at will. The administration controls the student newspaper.

Falwell echoes Trump’s talking points on the coronavirus, which he often calls the “flu.”

“It’s just strange to me how many are overreacting” to the pandemic, Falwell said on “Fox & Friends” on March 10. “It makes you wonder if there is a political reason for that. Impeachment didn’t work, and the Mueller report didn’t work, and Article 25 didn’t work, and so maybe now this is their next attempt to get Trump.”

Lynchburg is particularly ill-prepared to become a hot spot. Hospitals in the region have a total of 1,174 beds, only 55 of them intensive care, according to a recent analysis by the Harvard Global Health Institute. Those must serve 217,000 adults, nearly 50,000 of whom are 65 or older. Tests for the coronavirus remain in short supply.

Falwell has played down the dangers of his decision in interviews with the news media, where he has even suggested that the coronavirus is a North Korean bioweapon. On Fox News, he blithely asserted that the cure rate for COVID-19 “is 99.7% for people under 50,” adding that “we have talked to medical professionals, numerous medical professionals, before we made this decision.”

An archived version of Liberty’s website said those medical professionals included the school’s own public health faculty and campus health providers as well as “Dr. Jeffrey Hyman of Northwell Health, New York’s largest health care provider.”

When contacted by The New York Times, Northwell Health denied that Hyman provided any formal guidance to Liberty, adding that he is not an infectious disease specialist. In a statement, the hospital system said that Hyman was a personal friend of the Falwell family who told them in private conversation “that reconvening classes would be a ‘bad idea.’”

c.2020 The New York Times Company

Shooting at Virginia Beach municipal center leaves 12 dead, including suspect

A disgruntled city employee opened fire at the municipal center in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Friday afternoon, killing 11 people and wounding at least six others before he was killed himself, the city's police chief said.

Chief James Cervera said the precise circumstances of the shooting in the coastal resort city remained under investigation. He gave few details of what was known, but said a police officer was among those who were struck by gunfire but survived.

Cervera said the suspect was a longtime current municipal employee, and described him as "disgruntled." It was not made immediately clear whether the gunman took his own life or was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police.

The shooting unfolded, according to Cervera, shortly after 4 p.m. at Building Two of the municipal center complex, a facility which houses the city's public works and utilities next door to City Hall.

Virginia Beach, which sits on the Atlantic coast at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, is the state's most populous city with roughly 450,000 year-round residents.

"This is the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach," Mayor Bobby Dyer said at a news conference with the police chief. "The people involved are our friends, co-workers, neighbors, colleagues."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google to spend over $13-billion on US data centers, offices

Alphabet Inc's Google said on Wednesday it would spend more than $13 billion on data centers and offices in the United States this year.

"These new investments will give us the capacity to hire tens of thousands of employees, and enable the creation of more than 10,000 new construction jobs in Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post.

With the new investment Google will now be in 24 out of the 50 states in the US

Google will continue to expand its presence in Chicago and Washington, and the company's workforce would double in Virginia and Georgia, according to the blog post.

The company said it had hired more than 10,000 people in the United States and made over $9 billion in investments in the last year.

For the fourth quarter, Google reported $31.07 billion in costs and expenses, up 26 percent from last year. Capital expenditure rose 64 percent to $7.08 billion.

Last week, Reuters reported Amazon.com Inc was exploring alternatives to locate part of its new headquarters in New York in case the plan fails due to local opposition.

Google has seen some pushback about its plans to expand in San Jose, near its Mountain View headquarters, but otherwise has not met strong local opposition.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Wife of unpaid federal employee wins $100,000 on lottery

WASHINGTON - Her husband is one of thousands of federal employees who haven't been paid due to the US government shutdown -- but a Virginia woman snagged her family some extra income, winning $100,000 and a car in the state lottery.

"I cried. I couldn't believe it," Carrie Walls said, recalling the moment she realized she had won, the Virginia Lottery said in a news release.

Along with the $100,000, Walls -- who lives in Ashburn, a suburban town near Washington -- also bagged a Ford Expedition SUV.

Around 800,000 federal employees have been on mandatory leave or working without pay for 24 days as US President Donald Trump and Congress wrangle over funding for a wall on the southern border.

On Friday, Congress voted to guarantee federal employees retroactive pay once the shutdown ends.

tu/ska/jm

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Chopper crashes into US townhouse, 1 dead: reports

WASHINGTON - A helicopter crashed into a townhouse complex in the US state of Virginia on Sunday, leaving one person dead and the building ripped apart and damaged by fire, local media said.

The incident occurred in Williamsburg, in the state's southeast and not far from Norfolk, which is home to a naval station which supports the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet.

The Daily Press newspaper quoted Virginia State Police as saying there was "one confirmed fatality within the residential structure."

AFP could not immediately reach the police for comment.

WAVY-TV showed pictures of the low-rise residential complex, with much of its roof sheared off, exposing a gaping hole in the structure.

The station quoted a witness as saying he heard a "big explosion," while others reported a helicopter flying low before the incident.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

LOOK: Soldier steals armored vehicle, takes it on two-hour ride in Virginia

A soldier stole an armored personnel carrier from a National Guard base in Virginia on Tuesday and took the vehicle on a two-hour drive that ended in a police chase through downtown Richmond, the state capital, state police said.

The unidentified man took the vehicle at about 7:50 p.m. from Fort Pickett, a Army National Guard base in Blackstone, Virginia, state police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said in an email to Reuters.

The suspect then drove the military vehicle, which was not equipped with any weaponry, east on Route 460 and then north into Richmond on Interstate 95 at about 40 miles (65 km) per hour, Geller said.

Once in Richmond, several police squads followed the armored personnel carrier, which travels on tracks similar to a tank, through downtown as it headed toward the Capitol building, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Capitol police officers with combat-style rifles guarded the entrance to Capitol Square as a police helicopter shined a spotlight on the vehicle and police worked to stop traffic, the newspaper reported.

"This is INSANE! Someone has hijacked a 'Tank-like' vehicle from Fort Pickett and just drove it by our apartment!," Parker Slaybaugh, the communications director for the Virginia Speaker of the House, said on Twitter.

At about 9:40 p.m. local time, the driver drove the armored vehicle onto a median and was surrounded by police, ending the 60-mile (95 km) pursuit, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. Police tased the suspect, who was identified as a military soldier, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Keeli Hill said during a news conference.

No crashes or injuries occurred during the incident, Geller said. Charges are pending against the man, who was in state police custody, she said

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Storm lashing US Northeast kills at least five people

BOSTON - A powerful storm lashing the northeastern United States on Friday killed at least five people as winds topping 129 kms per hour helped flood streets in Boston, ground flights and halt train service across the region.

Almost 1.7 million homes and businesses were without power in the Northeast and Midwest as the storm pummeled the East Coast from Virginia to Maine. Government offices in Washington closed as winds gusted to more than 96 kph in the US capital.

A flood surge at extreme high tide sent seawater into Boston's coastal streets, the second time this year that the area had flooded. Wind gusts approaching 70 mph (113 kph) helped force in the water while downing trees and power lines.

The high water receded in the afternoon, but the National Weather Service said Boston could face renewed flooding with a near-record high tide forecast around midnight on Friday.

"That one still looks like it's going to be on target for at least moderate coastal flooding, which means we're going to see some problems in Boston," said Jim Hayes, a meteorologist with the agency's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

Snow and rain are forecast to taper off through Friday night and into Saturday as skies clear, Hayes said, adding that winds are also expected to drop somewhat overnight and into Saturday as the offshore storm system recedes.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency, streamlining state aid to communities harmed by high winds.

The storm packed a deadly punch, with a falling tree killing a man in his 70s in Newport, Rhode Island, a police spokesperson said.

In Putnam Valley, New York, an 11-year-old boy was killed when a tree crashed into his home, WPIX television reported, citing Putnam County sheriff's deputies. A spokesman for the sheriff's department could not be reached for comment.

A 44-year-old male passenger in a truck was killed in James City County, Virginia, when an oak tree toppled onto the vehicle, police said in a statement.

In Chesterfield County, Virginia, a tree fell onto a home and struck a sleeping 6-year-old boy, the county said in a statement. The child died of his injuries at a hospital.

Outside Baltimore, a 77-year-old woman was struck by a falling tree branch at her home near Kingsville, Maryland, a Baltimore County Fire Department spokesperson said.

Private forecasting service AccuWeather said the storm dumped as much as 46 cms of snow on parts of New York state and Pennsylvania.

It also snarled transportation from the Middle Atlantic into New England, with more than a quarter of flights into and out of New York's three major airports and Boston's airport canceled, according to tracking service FlightAware.com.

One flight landing at Washington's Dulles International Airport came in through turbulence so rough that most passengers became sick and the pilots were on the verge of becoming ill, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Passenger railroad Amtrak halted service between Boston and Washington through Friday, and said it was suspending southbound service out of the US capital until at least Saturday morning because of downed trees on the track.

Hayes said top wind speeds had been clocked at 134 kph in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and reached 125 kph at Etlan, Virginia.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Best And Cheapest Car Insurance In Virginia

$25,000 bodily injury per person
$50,000 per accident
$20,000 property damage

The province of Virginia enables drivers to pay a $500 Uninsured Engine Vehicle exp

Virginia requires that car insurance policies include:

Substantial Damage and Property Harm Obligation: this covers the driver in the event that they are in charge of making damage or harm someone else or property. Under protected/uninsured Scope: Under safeguarded pays on the off chance that you are engaged with a mishap and the other driver doesn't have enough scope to pay for harms. Uninsured spreads on the off chance that you are in a mischance and the driver has no scope.

Virginia State Law: How It Affects You

There are a few laws that are imperative to recollect when looking for auto insurance in Virginia. Auto insurance rates depend on driving records, and if these laws are broken they can influence your accident coverage rate.

In Virginia a DUI is viewed as a BAC (blood liquor focus) of 0.08%. A BAC more than 0.15% expands the punishment for DUI. Virginia has a few wireless/messaging laws that deny drivers from utilizing a phone while driving. Adolescent's can drive with an allow at 15 years and a half year. The province of Virginia utilizes a Graduated Driver Permitting framework for high schooler drivers. Visit a neighborhood DMV (Bureau of Engine Vehicles) office to get more data about authorizing your adolescent driver.

The territory of Virginia needs to enable drivers to get solid, and reasonable auto insurance. A speedy hunt on the territory of Virginia's DMV site will interface you with significant data on looking for auto insurance. A speedy web inquiry will associate you to the accident coverage organizations in the express that you can get cites from. The territory of Virginia has additionally settled the State Partnership Commission which gives aides, assets, and data on vehicle insurance agencies. This is a decent site to visit when getting ready to search for car insurance in Virginia.

Since you are outfitted with the data you require about auto insurance, in Virginia, at that point picked no less than three organizations to get auto cites from, and start shopping. With a little data and some time you can get the best auto insurance rate in Virginia, and be headed to safe driving.
ense in the event that they need to drive without insurance, and at their own hazard. This charge must be restored when the auto enlistment lapses. Drivers that don't convey accident auto insurance, or pay the state expense can have their driver's permit suspended, be required to round out a SR-22, or budgetary duty protection endorsement, and pay a restoration charge.
(By John Tahan)

source: theinsuranceinfo.ga

Woman becomes first transgender elected official in Virginia

An American Democrat made history on Tuesday by becoming Virginia's -- and possibly the nation's -- first openly transgender state delegate, winning her bid for a seat in the legislature.

In a campaign that garnered national attention, musician and former journalist Danica Roem, 33, prevailed in her race against Republican Robert Marshall, who has served as a delegate for a quarter century and once referred to himself as Virginia's "chief homophobe."

With 95 percent of the vote counted, Roem was leading with 55 percent of the vote against Marshall's 45 percent.

The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund described Roem as the only out transgender person in US history to win a seat in a state legislature.

"Tonight voters chose a smart, solutions-oriented trans leader over a divisive anti-LGBTQ demagogue, sending a powerful message to anti-trans legislators all across the nation," Victory Fund president Aisha Moodie-Mills said in a statement.

Roem rode to victory on strong fundraising by the Victory Fund and other pro-LGBT groups and voters, which helped her grass-roots effort to raise awareness of her campaign in Virginia's Prince William County.

She will now serve 2 years in the House of Delegates in Richmond, where Democrats gained several seats Tuesday and appeared close to seizing control of the legislature from Republicans.

The former journalist emphasized last month that she was not entering politics to be an LGBTQ symbol, under a president who recently banned transgender people from serving in the military.

Instead she aimed to take on municipal issues using the knowledge she amassed during nearly a decade covering local news for the Gainesville Times paper.

The septuagenarian Marshall -- a staunch gay marriage opponent -- refused to use the pronoun "she" when referring to Roem during the campaign, and he also refuses to debate her.

In a brief statement on Facebook, Marshall thanked his supporters.

"For 26 years I've been proud to fight for you, and fight for our future. Though we all wish tonight would have turned out differently, I am deeply grateful for your support and effort over the years," he wrote.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Obama breaks Twitter record with Charlottesville tweet

A tweet by former US President Barack Obama soon after the outbreak of violence at a nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday garnered 2.8 million "likes" to become the most liked Twitter message ever by Tuesday, the social media network said.

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion...," Obama tweeted, quoting South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

At the time this story was posted early Friday morning (Manila time), the number of "likes" reached 4.2 million.

He followed that record-breaking tweet with the following messages:

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Merck CEO resigns from Trump council over Charlottesville

Merck & Co Inc Chief Executive Kenneth Frazier resigned from US President Donald Trump's American Manufacturing Council on Monday, saying he was taking a stand against intolerance and extremism.

Trump denounced neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan as criminals and thugs on Monday, bowing to mounting political pressure after initially saying many sides were to blame after a white-nationalist rally turned deadly in Virginia.


Frazier, who is African-American, is the only CEO so far to leave one of Trump's advisory councils because of his reaction to the violence in Virginia, although the AFL-CIO said it was considering pulling its representative on the committee. Prominent Democrats and Republicans criticized Trump's response to the violence over the weekend.

The gathering of hundreds of white nationalists took a deadly turn on Saturday when a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters and killed at least one person.

Trump had said "many sides" were involved, drawing fire from across the political spectrum for not specifically denouncing the far right.

"America's leaders must honor our fundamental views by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal," Frazier said in a statement announcing his resignation.

"As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism," he said.

Trump responded shortly after in a tweet, saying that now "Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"

Trump doubled down on his attack later in the day, tweeting that Merck "is a leader in higher & higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of the US Bring jobs back & LOWER PRICES!"

The son of a janitor, Frazier joined Merck as general counsel of one of the drugmaker's subsidiaries in 1992, working his way up to CEO of the company in 2011.

He made his name as the company's top lawyer, steering it through daunting litigation over Vioxx, its widely used painkiller that was withdrawn in 2004 after being linked to heart attacks.

Many observers thought Merck would eventually have to shell out $10 billion or more to thousands of plaintiffs over the drug's withdrawal. But Frazier's legal strategy led to a $4.85 billion settlement in 2007, allowing Merck to refocus on its pipeline of experimental medicines.

Merck shares rose 0.5 percent in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange, roughly in line with the wider market.

Frazier frequently made political contributions during the 2016 election, donating to both Republican and Democratic members of Congress but making no donations to a presidential candidate during the year.

The political PAC maintained by Merck and funded through donations from Merck employees made over $1.1 million in candidate contributions during the 2016 campaign - but did not contribute to Trump or his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, according to documents filed with the Federal Elections Commission.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents the pharmaceutical industry and lobbies on its behalf in Congress, declined to offer a statement of support for Frazier or to comment on Trump’s reaction.

The industry’s silence comes as Trump is finalizing an executive order on drug prices that would relax industry regulation and contains measures that, some say, would protect existing drug prices or even increase them.

Individually, at least one CEO, John Maraganore of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, tweeted his support, saying he was “proud to stand with leaders like Ken Frazier.”

Other top business leaders also spoke out in response to the violence in Charlottesville.

"I support Ken Frazier’s decision. I’m thankful we have business leaders such as Ken to remind America of its better angels," said Hewlett Packard Enterprises CEO Meg Whitman, who ran for governor of California as a Republican in 2010.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein tweeted: "Lincoln: 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' Isolate those who try to separate us. No equivalence w/ those who bring us together."

Richard Trumka, president of the largest federation of U.S. labor unions, the AFL-CIO, questioned the council's effectiveness and said the group was mulling leaving.

"The AFL-CIO has unequivocally denounced the actions of bigoted domestic terrorists in Charlottesville and called on the president to do the same," Trumka said in a statement.

Several executives from top US companies have previously stepped down from a number of presidential advisory councils in protest to Trump policies.

Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk and Walt Disney Co CEO Robert Iger left the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a business advisory group, in June, after Trump said he would withdraw from the Paris climate accord. Musk also left the manufacturing council.

Former Uber Technologies Inc CEO Travis Kalanick quit the business advisory council in February amid pressure from activists and employees who opposed the administration's immigration policies.

The White House said Sunday that Trump's remarks condemning violence at a white nationalist rally were meant to include the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups.

Democrats and Republicans criticized Trump for waiting too long to address the violence - his first major domestic crisis as president - and for failing when he did speak out to explicitly condemn white-supremacist marchers who ignited the melee.

Trump on Saturday initially denounced what he called "this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides."

On Sunday, however, the White House added: "The president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry, and hatred, and of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi, and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Seahawks' Bennett sits out national anthem to protest Virginia violence

Seattle Seahawks player Michael Bennett remained seated during the playing of the U.S. national anthem before a pre-season National Football League game to protest deadly violence at a white supremacist rally in Virginia over the weekend, his team said.

With his gesture on Sunday, the 31-year-old defensive end became the latest NFL player to use the playing of the Star Spangled Banner anthem as a protest forum.

Last season, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick grabbed the media spotlight when he refused to stand for the anthem, saying he was protesting police brutality and social inequality. Kaepernick opted out of his contract in March and has not been signed by another team.

Bennett remained on the bench with a towel over his head before Sunday's game with the Los Angeles Chargers at Southern California's StubHub Stadium, the pre-season opener for both teams. He said he would keep up the protest all season.

"With everything that's been going on the last couple of months, and especially after the last couple of days seeing what's going on in Virginia, and earlier today in Seattle, I just wanted to be able to use my platform to be able to continuously speak on injustice," Bennett said in a story on the Seahawks' website.

In Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, a woman was killed and 19 hurt when a car plowed into counter-protesters near a white nationalist rally. James Fields, 20, who had Nazi sympathies as a teenager, according to acquaintances, has been charged with second-degree murder in the incident.

The violence sparked protests and vigils in cities across the United States on Sunday, including Seattle, where clashes occurred between supporters and opponents of President Donald Trump.

The president raised a furor when he initially failed to explicitly single out the white supremacists widely seen as sparking the melee, saying "many sides" were involved, although he was more explicit in his criticism in a statement on Monday.

Bennett said he was not anti-military or anti-American but opposed intolerance and injustice. He said he expected to face criticism over his decision, adding, "This is bigger than football."

A spokesman for the team did not respond to a request for comment.

On Saturday, Oakland Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch also sat during the national anthem before a game against the Arizona Cardinals. But Oakland's head coach, Jack del Rio, quoted Lynch at a postgame news conference as saying sitting out the anthem had no significance in his case and was simply something he had done for the past 11 years.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Frank McGurty and Tom Brown)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

3 killed, dozens hurt at violent US white supremacist rally

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia - At least 3 people were killed on Saturday and 35 injured after protests turned violent in Charlottesville, Virginia, as white nationalists protesting plans to remove the statue of a Confederate general clashed with counter-demonstrators and a car plowed into a crowd, officials said.

A 32-year-old female was among those killed, said Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas, and injuries ranged from life-threatening to minor. The male driver of the vehicle that plowed into a crowd is in custody, Thomas said, and police were treating the incident as a criminal homicide investigation.

"I am heartbroken that a life has been lost here," Charlottesville Mayor Mike Singer said on his Twitter feed.

Video on social media and Reuters photographs showed a car slamming into a large group of what appeared to be counter-protesters, sending some flying into the air.

The car incident was being treated as a homicide, local TV broadcaster WVIR reported, citing a city attorney.

“We’re closely following the terrible events unfolding in Charlottesville, Virginia," Trump told reporters at his New Jersey golf course.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides."

A reporter shouted a question to Trump about whether he had spoken out strongly enough against white nationalists but the president made no comment.

The clashes highlight how the white supremacist movement has resurfaced under the "alt-right" banner after years in the shadows of mainstream American politics.

'DOMESTIC TERRORISM?'

Prominent Democrats, civil rights activists and even a few Republicans said it was inexcusable of the President not to denounce white supremacy.

Republican US Senator Cory Gardner wrote on Twitter: "Mr. President - we must call evil by its name," adding "These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism."

"What we’ve seen today in Charlottesville needs to be condemned and called what it is: hatred, evil, racism & homegrown extremism," former US Secretary of State John Kerry said in a tweet. Kerry served under Democratic President Barack Obama.

The Charlottesville confrontation was a stark reminder of the growing political polarization that has intensified since Trump's election last year.

"You will not erase us," chanted a crowd of white nationalists, while counter-protesters carried placards that read: "Nazi go home" and "Smash white supremacy."

A silver sedan driving at high speed plowed into the crowd before reversing along the same street. The incident took place about two blocks from the park that houses the statue of Robert E. Lee, who headed the Confederate army in the American Civil War.

Witnesses said it looked like the driver intended to mow down people. Police have not offered any details on the car incident.

“From what I saw, it looked extremely deliberate,” Will Mafei, 23, of Charlottesville said. He also witnessed the car hitting pedestrians as it went in reverse.

The University of Virginia Health Systems received 20 patients from the scene near the car strike. One of those people died and 19 were being treated, a spokeswoman said without offering details on the injuries.

The City of Charlottesville said 15 people were injured at the nearby site of the rally.

Earlier, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency in the city, home of the University of Virginia's flagship campus. The gathering was declared an "unlawful assembly," allowing police to disperse the protesters, and police cleared the park where the rally was to be held.

"I am praying that God help us all," Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy said in an interview with CNN. "We are better than this."

The violence broke out on Friday night, when hundreds of white marchers with blazing torches appeared at the campus of the University of Virginia in a display that critics said was reminiscent of a Ku Klux Klan rally

On Saturday morning, fighting broke out in the city's downtown when hundreds of people, some wearing white nationalist symbols and carrying Confederate battle flags, were confronted by a nearly equal number of counter-protesters.

David Duke, a former leader of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan, was in Charlottesville for the rally, according to his Twitter account.

The rally was part of a persistent debate in the US South over the display of the Confederate battle flag and other symbols of the rebel side in the Civil War, which was fought over the issue of slavery.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

'He's got a gun!' Gunfire turns lawmakers' baseball practice into 'killing field'

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia - US representatives Ron DeSantis and Jeff Duncan had ducked out of baseball practice early on Wednesday when a middle-aged man in the parking lot asked them if the players in red shirts on the field were Republicans or Democrats.

"Republican," Duncan said before departing.

Minutes later, the man, rifle and handgun in tow, opened fire on the congressmen's teammates - Republican lawmakers gathered on a muggy morning near Washington to prepare for a charity ballgame.

"A killing field," U.S. Senator Rand Paul said in a televised interview, describing the scene in Arlington, Virginia.

"We were sitting ducks," said Representative Roger Williams.

Williams, the team coach, told reporters he was hitting ground balls when he heard what sounded like a car engine backfiring.

"He's got a gun! Run for cover," Williams heard next.

He dove into the dugout behind first base. Zack Barth, a staffer shot in the leg, ran in from the outfield and landed in Williams' arms.

Barth texted for help as more bullets flew. U.S. Senator Jeff Flake used his belt as a makeshift tourniquet to stop the staffer's bleeding, Williams said.

Taking cover behind home plate, U.S. Representative Mo Brooks saw a rifle pointing from a chain link fence behind the third base dugout.

A scream rang out from second base, Brooks said.

Steve Scalise, the No. 3 Republican in the House of Representatives, had been shot in the hip and fell to the ground. He left a trail of blood as he dragged himself to the outfield, seeking distance from the gunman who said nothing as he fired.

On her front porch just across the street from the field in a trendy, family-friendly neighborhood, Reba Winstead heard a dozen shots.

"A bullet just came down my street,” she told an emergency dispatcher.

Police audio obtained by media recorded a flood of frantic calls: "Shots being fired ... We need medics ... Victim down in the baseball field.”

Alexandria police arrived at 7:12 a.m., about three minutes after the first emergency phone call reporting an active shooter. Members of the Capitol Police, serving as security detail to Scalise, were firing at the gunman.

By 7:14 a.m., the gunman, 66-year-old James Hodgkinson from the St. Louis suburb of Belleville, Illinois, was down. Later he died.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Virginia Senator Creigh Deeds stabbed multiple times; son died from gunshot

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.—Police say early indications are that the son of a state senator in Virginia stabbed his father before shooting himself to death.

Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corrine Geller said Tuesday afternoon at a news conference that authorities are still investigating the stabbing of Sen. Creigh Deeds, but it appears it was an attempted murder and suicide.

“Based on the evidence we have right now we are looking into this as an attempted murder and suicide,” Geller told a news conference. “That is not an absolute determination.”

The senator’s 24-year-old son, Gus, died at the home of a gunshot wound. Geller says Deeds and his son were the only people at the home Tuesday morning.




The Democratic senator, who ran unsuccessfully for governor four years ago, was at first listed in critical condition. A hospital spokeswoman said his condition has improved to fair.

Authorities received an emergency call Tuesday morning and responded to the senator’s home in rural Bath County in western Virginia, police said. They found the 55-year-old senator with multiple stab wounds. His son was also found at the home, suffering from a gunshot wound.

Geller said police had talked with the senator, but she wouldn’t reveal what he said. She also did not say who made the emergency call.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell said in a statement the news was “utterly heartbreaking.”

“Creigh Deeds is an exceptional and committed public servant who has always done what he believes is best for Virginia and who gives his all to public service,” McDonnell said in the statement.

Gus Deeds is one of the senator’s four adult children. He had been enrolled at the College of William and Mary off and on since 2007, and withdrew last month, school spokesman Brian Whitson said. The college did not say why he left.

During Deeds’ bid for governor, his son took off a semester to join his dad on the campaign trail.

“He needs me and I need him,” Deeds told a reporter in the fall of 2009, about campaigning with Gus.

“I’ve got to go through this campaign process, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got to be completely separated from my family the whole time,” he said.

source: thestar.com