The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said deputies were called to the business on Sunday around 2:47 am following a report of an attempted armed robbery.
Surveillance video obtained by CNN shows a man entering the Norco Market & Liquor store and pointing a rifle at the owner behind the counter. The owner then reaches for a firearm and shoots the suspect.
The sheriff’s department said the owner fired a single round from a shotgun, which caused the suspect to flee.
“A lawfully armed member of our community prevented a violent crime and ensured their own safety, while being confronted with multiple armed suspects,” the department said.
The owner, who did not want to be identified to protect his privacy, told CNN he had seen an armed man approaching the store moments before he entered.
Surveillance footage outside the store shows another armed man get out of a parked SUV and move toward the store just before the injured suspect runs back to the vehicle, apparently screaming “he shot my arm off.”
Authorities said one suspect was later found at a Southern California hospital suffering from an apparent shotgun wound. He remains hospitalized in critical, but stable condition, the sheriff’s department said, noting he will be booked into jail after he is released from medical treatment.
Three other people in the SUV were arrested and booked on robbery and conspiracy charges, the department said, adding authorities found multiple stolen firearms inside the stolen vehicle.
They were arraigned in court Wednesday and entered pleas of not guilty, a spokesperson for the Riverside County District Attorney told CNN.
WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) – US Congresswoman Jackie Walorski and two members of her staff died on Wednesday when the vehicle they were traveling in collided head-on with a car that veered into their lane, police in Indiana and her office said.
Walorski, 58, a Republican who represented Indiana’s 2nd congressional district in the US House of Representatives, was mourned by President Joe Biden and her colleagues in Congress as an honorable public servant who strived to work across party lines to deliver for her constituents. The White House said it would fly flags at half-staff in her memory of her.
The congresswoman had been traveling down an Indiana road on Wednesday afternoon with her communications chief, Emma Thomson, 28, and one of her district directors, Zachery Potts, 27, the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office said.
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“A northbound passenger car traveled left of center and collided head on” with Walorski’s vehicle, killing all three occupants, the sheriff’s office said. The driver of the other car, 56-year-old Edith Schmucker, was pronounced dead at the scene, near the northern Indiana town of Nappanee, it added.
Confirming her death in a statement shared on Twitter by House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, Walorski’s office said: “Dean Swihart, Jackie’s husband, was just informed by the Elkhart County Sheriff’s office that Jackie was killed in a car accident this afternoon.”
Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN) speaks as US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar testifies to the House Select Subcommittee on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, October 2, 2020. J. Scott Applewhite/Pool via REUTERS
It added: “Please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers. We will have no further comment at this time.”
Walorski was a lifelong resident of Indiana, according to her official biography. She served on the House Ways and Means Committee and was the top Republican on the subcommittee on worker and family support.
Prior to her election in 2012 to the House, Walorski served three terms in the Indiana legislature, spent four years as a missionary in Romania along with her husband and worked as a television news reporter in South Bend, according to a biography posted on her congressional website.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said he and Walorski “may have represented different parties and disagreed on many issues, but she was respected by members of both parties for her work on the House Ways and Means Committee on which she served.”
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, said in a statement that Walorski “passionately brought the voices of her north Indiana constituents to the Congress, and she was admired by colleagues on both sides of the aisle for her personal kindness.”
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Reporting by Rami Ayyub, Eric Beech, Dan Whitcomb, Costas Pitas and Frank McGurty; Editing by Leslie Adler and David Gregorio
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Jaylin White, 20, pleaded no contest to one count of second-degree robbery and admitted to an allegation that a member of the group was armed during the incident, according to Greg Risling, spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Other charges and allegations filed against White were dismissed, Risling told CNN. He had previously been charged with one count of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit robbery, according to the DA’s office.
The shooting and dog-napping on February 24 were caught on dramatic surveillance video that showed at least two men accosting Ryan Fischer, who was walking the star’s three French bulldogs.
A physical altercation ensued. The footage shows one attacker restraining the victim as another appears to point a gun.
A gunshot is then heard, and the victim falls backward while the assailants race back to a car. Fischer, who was struck by gunfire and seriously injured, survived the attack.
Suspect mistakenly released from custody is recaptured
The assailants took two of the dogs, Koji and Gustav, but they were recovered days later after the singer offered a $500,000 reward.
White and four others were arrested weeks later in connection with the shooting and robbery. They included two people who faced charges of accessory after the fact.
One of the suspects, James Jackson, was mistakenly released from police custody in April due to what officials called “a clerical error.”
Jackson was found and taken into custody on Wednesday, following a search by several law enforcement agencies, including the US Marshal Service, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
Jackson is being held on attempted murder charges. Charges are still pending against a third suspect in the case.
A map showing locations where Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will conduct military exercises and training activities including live-fire drills is seen on newspaper reports of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, at a newsstand in Beijing, China August 3 , 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang
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BEIJING, Aug 4 (Reuters) – China’s People’s Liberation Army has begun military exercises including live firing on the waters and in the airspace surrounding the island of Taiwan, Chinese state television reported on Thursday.
The drills, spread out across six locations, are due to end at 12:00 pm (0400 GMT) on Sunday. The exercises followed US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, a trip condemned by Beijing, which claims the self-governed island as its own.
Significantly, in the north, east and south, the exercise areas bisect Taiwan’s claimed 12 nautical miles of territorial waters – something Taiwanese officials say challenges the international order and amount to a blockade of its sea and air space. read more
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The locations encircle the island in an unprecedented formation, Meng Xiangqing, a professor at the National Defense University, told Chinese state television, describing how an actual military operation against Taiwan could play out.
“In fact, this has created very good conditions for us when, in the future, we reshape our strategic landscape conducive to our unification,” Meng said.
Chinese forces in two areas off the northern coast of Taiwan could potentially seal off Keelung, a major port, while strikes could be launched from an area east of Taiwan targeting the military bases in Hualien and Taidong, he said.
The “doors” to Kaoshiung could also be closed by Chinese military off the southwestern coast, Meng said.
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Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Jacqueline Wong & Simon Cameron-Moore
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Suspected drones fly over outlying Taiwanese islands
Defense ministry says its website attacked, briefly offline
Chinese military exercises, involving live-fire, set to begin
China says it’s an internal affair
TAIPEI, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Suspected drones flew over outlying Taiwanese islands and hackers attacked its defense ministry website, authorities in Taipei said on Thursday, a day after a visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi that outraged China.
China was to begin a series of military exercises around Taiwan on Thursday in response to Pelosi’s visit, some of which were to take place within the island’s 12-mile sea and air territory, according to the defense ministry in Taipei.
That has never happened before and a senior ministry official described the potential move as “amounting to a sea and air blockade of Taiwan”.
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China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, said on Thursday its differences with the self-ruled island were an internal affair. read more
“Our punishment of pro-Taiwan independence diehards, external forces is reasonable, lawful,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said.
China’s Xinhua news agency has said the exercises, involving live fire drills, will take place in six areas which ring Taiwan and will begin at 0400 GMT.
On Wednesday night, just hours after Pelosi left for South Korea, unidentified aircraft, probably drones, had flown above the area of the Kinmen islands, Taiwan’s defense ministry said. read more
Major General Chang Zone-sung of the army’s Kinmen Defense Command told Reuters that the drones came in a pair and flew into the Kinmen area twice on Wednesday night, at around 9 pm (1300 GMT). and 10 p.m.
“We immediately fired flares to issue warnings and to drive them away. After that, they turned around. They came into our restricted area and that’s why we dispersed them,” he said.
The heavily fortified Kinmen islands are just off the southeastern coast of China, near the city of Xiamen.
The defense ministry also said its website suffered cyber attacks and went offline temporarily late on Wednesday night, adding it was working closely with other authorities to enhance cyber security as tensions with China rise. read more
Pelosi, the highest-level US visitor to Taiwan in 25 years, praised its democracy and pledged American solidarity during her brief stopover, adding that Chinese anger could not stop world leaders from traveling there.
China summoned the US ambassador in Beijing and halted several agricultural imports from Taiwan.
Security in the area around the US Embassy in Beijing remained unusually tight on Thursday as it has been throughout this week.
Although Chinese social media users have vented fury on Pelosi, there were no signs of significant protests or calls to boycott US products.
‘WILL NOT LEAVE TAIWAN’
Taiwan scrambled jets on Wednesday to warn away 27 Chinese aircraft in its air defense zone, the island’s defense ministry said, adding that 22 of them crossed the median line separating the island from China. read more
Pelosi arrived with a congressional delegation on her unannounced but closely watched visit late on Tuesday, defying China’s repeated warnings and amid sharply deteriorating US-Chinese relations.
“Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon Taiwan,” Pelosi told Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, who Beijing suspects of pushing for formal independence – a red line for China. read more
“Now, more than ever, America’s solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, and that’s the message we are bringing here today.”
China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has never renounced using force to bring it under its control. The United States and the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations warned China against using the visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan.
“Sadly, Taiwan has been prevented from participating in global meetings, most recently the World Health Organization, because of objections by the Chinese Communist Party,” Pelosi said in a statement issued after her departure.
“While they may prevent Taiwan from sending its leaders to global forums, they cannot prevent world leaders or anyone from traveling to Taiwan to pay respect to its flourishing democracy, to highlight its many successes and to reaffirm our commitment to continued collaboration,” Pelosi added . read more
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Reporting by Yimou Lee; Additional reporting by Tony Munroe; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
People await the start of a product launch event at Apple’s new campus in Cupertino, California, US September 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam
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Aug 1 (Reuters) – Apple Inc is dropping its mask mandate for corporate employees at most locations, the Verge reported on Monday, citing an internal memo. (https://bit.ly/3oJ3EQN)
This comes even as COVID-19 infections in the United States have been on the rise with the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the Omicron variant accounting for more than 90% of infections, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
These subvariants have significant mutations from the earliest versions of Omicron and protection from vaccines wanes over time.
“Don’t hesitate to continue wearing a face mask if you feel more comfortable doing so,” the report quoted Apple as saying in the internal email. “Also, please respect every individual’s decision to wear a mask or not.”
Apple did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment outside regular business hours.
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Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Here’s what you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.
(You can get “5 Things You Need to Know Today” delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.)
1. Primary
Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington held primary elections yesterday, with several key votes on their ballots. Kansas voters rejected an amendment that would have removed the right to an abortion from the state’s constitution. This is the first time citizens have been able to weigh in on the issue at the polls since Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the high turnout in Kansas could be a sign that voters will continue to show up to make their disagreement known. In Missouri, disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens lost his Republican primary after a controversial attempt to reenter politics. Several election deniers backed by former President Donald Trump were on the ballot in Arizona, Michigan and Washington. Some of these races are still too close to call, but Trump-backed Tudor Dixon is projected to become Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s challenger in November.
2.Taiwan
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she wants to make it “unequivocally clear” that the US will not abandon Taiwan after meeting Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen today. Pelosi’s trip to the self-governing island during a congressional tour of Asia has stirred up controversy at home and abroad. Biden administration officials warned the trip would potentially damage relations between the US and China, and indeed, Beijing has already voiced displeasure. The country has planned provocative military drills close to Taiwan later this week in response to Pelosi’s visit from her. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi also called the visit a “complete farce” and warned that “those who play with fire will perish.” China has now suspended some trade with Taiwan in apparent retribution.
3. Monkeypox
Public health leaders want the Biden administration to declare a public health emergency to better tackle rising monkeypox cases. The limited supply of monkeypox vaccines in the US has led to hours-long waits and created dangerous situations where infected people don’t have access to tests or treatment. A drug is available for monkeypox patients who have or who are at risk of severe disease, but doctors say they continue to face challenges getting access to it. Organizations responding to the crisis say they are frustrated by the Biden administration’s lack of urgency. California, Illinois and New York state have declared public health emergencies, as has the World Health Organization.
4. January 6
The Defense Department wiped the phones of top departing DOD and Army officials at the end of the Trump administration, deleting any texts from key witnesses to events surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, according to court filings. The revelation further obscures attempts to bring more transparency to the context and events of the insurrection. The Department of Homeland Security is also under fire for the apparent loss of messages from the Secret Service that day. American Oversight, the watchdog agency that filed the lawsuit that unearthed the deletions, is now calling for a “cross-agency investigation” by the Justice Department to look into the destruction of the materials.
5.Kentucky
At least 37 people are dead following massive flooding in Kentucky last week, and storm damage is complicating efforts to locate those still missing. Heavily damaged infrastructure has made some communities nearly impossible to access, and Gov. Andy Beshear said the process of accounting for everyone could take weeks. The areas hit hardest by the floods are now facing scorching heat, and some communities are concerned about access to clean water. Among those who died in the floods is a father of five who disappeared after his truck was swept away by flood waters.
BREAKFAST BROWSE
The Mexican Pizza returns to Taco Bell after a three-month shortage
Come, let us prepare a feast. The lavish pizza is back!
Six tasks you’ve been putting off that you need to do now
This article immediately shamed me. Time to schedule an oil change and a closet clean-out.
Tito’s vodka is making fun of canned cocktails by selling an empty can for $20
Get it? It’s so you can make your own canned cocktail. (The proceeds go to charity, so it’s all good.)
Stretching and range of motion exercises can slow cognitive decline as much as aerobic exercises
They also keep your joints from sounding like a bowl of Rice Krispies in the morning.
Parts of the moon may provide stable temperatures for humans, researchers find
Say no more. I’m putting my moon boots on as we speak and blowing this popsicle stand once and for all.
IN MEMORY
legendary broadcaster vin scully, the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers for more than six decades, has died at the age of 94, the team announced Tuesday. Scully was known for his deft, engaging commentary, weaving stories between pitches with an artist’s skill. “Vin Scully was one of the greatest voices in all of sports. He was a giant of a man, not only as a broadcaster, but as a humanitarian,” said Stan Kasten, the President and CEO of the Dodgers.
TODAY’S NUMBER
$16 trillion
US household debt surpassed this massive number for the first time in history during the second quarter of 2022. The New York Federal Reserve says credit card debt is skyrocketing as people try to keep up with inflation and higher costs of living.
TODAY’S QUOTE
‘It seems so incredible to me that we have to do this. That we have to implore you — not just implore you, punish you — to get you to stop lying.
–Scarlett Lewis, to Alex Jones during the far-right personality’s defamation trial in Texas. Lewis’ son, Jesse Lewis, was murdered in the 2012 Sandy Hook Massacre. His parents of him are one of several Sandy Hook families who have taken legal action against Jones for his part of him in spreading false conspiracy theories about the tragedy.
TODAY’S WEATHER
Check your local forecast here>>>
AND FINALLY
‘Black & Blues’
If this jaw-dropping, goosebump-raising, completely masterful trombone solo doesn’t get you ready and rocking, nothing will. (Click here to view)
Aug 3 (Reuters) – Pro-Trump operatives are flooding local officials with public-records requests to seek evidence for the former president’s false stolen-election claims and to gather intelligence on voting machines and voters, adding to the chaos rocking the US election system .
The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office in Arizona, an election battleground state, has fielded 498 public records requests this year – 130 more than all of last year. Officials in Washoe County, Nevada, have fielded 88 public records requests, two-thirds more than in all of 2021. And the number of requests to North Carolina’s state elections board have already nearly equaled last year’s total of 229.
The surge of requests is overwhelming staffs that oversee elections in some jurisdictions, fueling baseless voter-fraud allegations and raising concerns about the inadvertent release of information that could be used to hack voting systems, according to a dozen election officials interviewed by Reuters.
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Republican and Democratic election officials said they consider some of the requests an abuse of freedom-of-information laws meant to ensure government transparency. Record requests facing many of the country’s 8,800 election offices have become “voluminous and daunting” since the 2020 election, said Kim Wyman, head of election security at the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Last year, when she left her job as Washington secretary of state, the state’s top election official, her office de ella had a two-year backlog of records requests.
“You still have a group of people in each state that believe that the election was stolen,” said Wyman, a Republican.
In April, the official in Arizona’s Maricopa County in charge of responding to public records requests, Ilene Haber, assigned four of her nine staffers to pull 20,000 documents out of holding boxes, sort them for scanning, and then carefully return them to their proper place . It took four days.
The staffers were filling just one of several records requests from Haystack Investigations, who had asked for chain-of-custody records for all 2.1 million ballots cast in the election. The firm says on its website that it conducts a variety of investigations for companies, law firms and individuals. The company worked on Arizona’s “forensic audit,” the examination of Trump’s defeat in the county by pro-Trump partisans that ended last year without uncovering voter fraud.
The labor-intensive Haystack requests illustrate the growing challenge facing stretched election offices across the country. In Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, extensive requests like the one submitted by Haystack make up about one-quarter of the total the office has received this year, said Haber, the director of communications and constituent services in the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office.
“The requests are getting bigger, more detailed, more burdensome, and going back even further” in time, she said.
Heather Honey, who heads Pennsylvania-based Haystack, said the requests were unrelated to the firm’s work on the Arizona audit and were for her own investigation. “All are meaningful and contribute to specific professional research activities,” said Honey, who has sought similar election-related records in Pennsylvania.
The local officials told Reuters that the surge in requests from election deniers is drowning their staffs in extra work at a time when they are struggling to recruit and retain voting administrators vital to democracy. Election workers have already endured an onslaught of death threats and harassment from Trump activists. Reuters has documented more than 900 such hostile messages since the 2020 vote.
“The concern is burnout,” said Jamie Rodriguez, the interim registrar of voters in Washoe County, Nevada. “With burnout does come the potential for mistakes.”
Rodriguez took over this week from the former registrar, who resigned after being targeted with death threats and other harassment.
Ryan Macias, an election security consultant for CISA, likened the swarm of records request to a denial-of-service cyber-attack, in which hackers attempt to overwhelm a network with internet traffic, and said it was creating potential security risks given the stresses already weighing on election workers.
“We have the attrition rate; we have people who are under threat from the community, people who are getting death threats, people who are overworked,” Macias said at a gathering of state election directors in Wisconsin on July 19.
SECURITY RISKS
All 50 US states have freedom-of-information laws that are used routinely by journalists, advocates, academics and everyday citizens to access records on government. Such statutes aim to ensure the public has the information needed to hold their leaders accountable. Local officials told Reuters they believe in the importance of such laws and said they are trying to find creative ways to lessen the burden of the election-related requests on their staffers.
Rather than ask for a bigger budget, Haber of Maricopa County said she has trained her whole team to help respond. Washoe County temporarily halts the production of documents at a certain point prior to the election, to ensure staff can focus on administering the vote, Rodriguez said. Donald Palmer, a commissioner on the federal Election Assistance Commission, told a gathering of secretaries of state on July 8 in Baton Rouge that they should help local officials more efficiently respond to the deluge of requests by, for instance, creating a “reading room” site to simultaneously respond to duplicative requests from different people.
Rodriguez said most of her nine current staffers joined in 2021 or 2022 after a rash of staff departures. She is trying to limit their overtime to keep them fresh for November.
But the records requests aren’t letting up. One request sought various information on the county’s election workers during the 2022 primary, including their phone number, mailing address and party affiliation. Another one was filed in late June by Robert Beadles, a businessman who moved from California to Reno in 2019 and is now leading a movement to push election-fraud theories and target politicians who do not support his agenda. Beadles requested 38 different data sets.
Beadles tells visitors to his website, operationsunlight.com, to send requests to their county clerks for a list of voters in the November 2020 election, broken down by voting method, and the total number of ballots cast for each candidate. He asks them to email the records to Shiva Ayyadurai, a leading purveyor of election fraud conspiracies.
Neither Beadles nor Ayyadurai responded to emails seeking comment.
As strapped government staffs struggle to keep up with the extensive inquiries, some election officials express concern about slipping up and releasing information that could compromise election security.
Samuel Derheimer, director of government affairs at voting-equipment manufacturer Hart InterCivic, said his company has seen an explosion of requests from election officials for help determining when releasing certain records threatens election integrity. Public records requests sometimes target operational manuals containing security protocols that should not be released to the public, he said.
Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said one of the challenges is analyzing whether seemingly separate individuals or groups might be working together to piece together sensitive information about voting equipment and processes.
“That’s when your antenna starts going up,” she said. “We are having to spend a lot of extra time thinking in those terms.”
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Reporting by Nathan Layne; editing by Jason Szep and Brian Thevenot
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Pelosi tells President Tsai “we will not abandon Taiwan”
China steps up military activity around Taiwan
Taiwan’s military increases alertness level
China summoned US ambassador in Beijing
TAIPEI, Aug 3 (Reuters) – US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taiwan on Wednesday after pledging solidarity and hailing its democracy, leaving a trail of Chinese anger over her brief visit to the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own.
China demonstrated its outrage over the highest-level US visit to the island in 25 years with a burst of military activity in surrounding waters, summoning the US ambassador in Beijing and halting several agricultural imports from Taiwan.
Some of China’s planned military exercises were to take place within Taiwan’s 12 nautical mile sea and air territory, according to Taiwan’s defense ministry, an unprecedented move a senior defense official described to reporters as “amounting to a sea and air blockade of Taiwan”.
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Taiwan scrambled jets on Wednesday to warn away 27 Chinese aircraft in its air defense zone, the island’s defense ministry said, adding that 22 of them crossed the median line separating the island from China. read more
Pelosi arrived with a congressional delegation on her unannounced but closely watched visit late on Tuesday, defying China’s repeated warnings, in a trip that she said demonstrated an unwavering US commitment to Taiwan’s democracy. read more
“Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon Taiwan,” Pelosi told Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who Beijing suspects of pushing for formal independence – a red line for China. read more
“Now, more than ever, America’s solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, and that’s the message we are bringing here today,” Pelosi said during her roughly 19-hour visit.
A long-time China critic, especially on human rights, Pelosi met with a former Tiananmen activist, a Hong Kong bookseller who had been detained by China and a Taiwanese activist recently released by China.
The last US House speaker to go to Taiwan was Newt Gingrich in 1997. But Pelosi’s visit comes amid sharply deteriorating Sino-US relations, and during the past quarter century China has emerged as a far more powerful economic, military and geopolitical force.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has never renounced using force to bring it under its control. The United States warned China against using the visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan.
In retaliation, China’s customs department announced a suspension of imports of citrus fruits and certain fish – chilled white striped hairtail and frozen horse mackerel – from Taiwan, while its commerce ministry banned export of natural sand to Taiwan.
While there was little sign of protest against US targets or consumer goods, there was a significant police presence outside the US consulate in Shanghai and what appeared to be more security than usual outside the embassy in Beijing.
Fury on the mainland over Pelosi’s defiance of Beijing was evident all over Chinese social media, with one blogger railing: “this old she-devil, she actually dares to come!” Pelosi is 82. read more
US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks with Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu before boarding a plane at Taipei Songshan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan August 3, 2022. Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Handout via REUTERS
Read More
MILITARY DRILLS
Shortly after Pelosi’s arrival, China’s military announced joint air and sea drills near Taiwan and test launches of conventional missiles in the sea east of the island, with Chinese state news agency Xinhua describing live-fire drills and other exercises around Taiwan from Thursday to Sunday.
China’s foreign ministry said Pelosi’s visit seriously damages peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, “has a severe impact on the political foundation of China-US relations, and seriously infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Before Pelosi’s arrival, Chinese warplanes buzzed the line dividing the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese military said it was on high alert and would launch “targeted military operations” in response to Pelosi’s visit.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said after Pelosi’s arrival in Taiwan that the United States “is not going to be intimidated” by China’s threats or bellicose rhetoric and that there is no reason her visit should precipitate a crisis or conflict.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the potential for Pelosi’s visit with counterpart Wang Yi during a G20 meeting in Bali last month, and said any such trip would be entirely Pelosi’s decision and independent of the US government, a senior US official said on Wednesday. read more
‘CHINA’S AMBITION’
The United States has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is bound by American law to provide it with the means to defend itself. China views visits by US officials to Taiwan as sending an encouraging signal to the pro-independence camp on the island. Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims, saying only the Taiwanese people can decide the island’s future.
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said during a visit to Myanmar that Pelosi’s trip was a deliberate US attempt to irritate China. read more
North Korea’s foreign ministry criticized Pelosi’s visit as US “reckless interference” in China’s internal affairs, the official KCNA said. read more
Taiwan’s military increased its alertness level. Its defense ministry said China was attempting to threaten key ports and cities with drills in the surrounding waters.
“The so-called drill areas are falling within the busiest international channels in the Indo-Pacific region,” a senior Taiwan official familiar with its security planning told Reuters.
“We can see China’s ambition: to make the Taiwan Strait non-international waters, as well as making the entire area west of the first island chain in the western pacific its sphere of influence,” the official said.
China’s foreign ministry said it has not seen its military drills around Taiwan causing any freedom-of-navigation issues.
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Reporting by Yimou Lee and Sarah Wu; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Stephen Coates and Will Dunham
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Police got a call Monday morning from a driver about a 12-year-old girl walking alone along County Road 34 in Dadeville, Tallapoosa County Sheriff Jimmy Abbett said Tuesday at a news conference.
The girl had been restrained to bed posts for about a week, according to a criminal complaint. She had chewed off her restraints — breaking her braces — and her wrists show marks consistent with restraint, it states.
The 12-year-old had been given alcohol to stay “in a drugged state” and was assaulted in the “head area,” the complaint states. She had not been reported missing, the sheriff said.
Jose Paulino Pascual-Reyes, 37, was arrested Monday about 25 miles away in Auburn on suspicion of first-degree kidnapping by US Marshals and police, the sheriff said, adding other agencies are also on the case.
While searching Pascual-Reyes’ home, detectives found two decomposed bodies, the sheriff said. A forensics team is working to identify the corpses, he said, and how and when they died wasn’t immediately known. The sheriff further stated that “other people” were living in the residence. The sheriff did not say whether these people were being charged or held in connection with the alleged crimes at the residence.
Pascual-Reyes also faces three counts of capital murder and two counts of abuse of corpse, Abbett said in a news release.
“We’re looking at multiple counts of capital murder, along with kidnapping in the first degree,” Tallapoosa County District Attorney Jeremy Duerr said during the news conference. “And of course, once we continue and finish our investigation, I feel certain that several more charges will follow.”
Pascual-Reyes awaits a bond hearing at the Tallapoosa County Jail, Abbett said. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had a lawyer.
“This is horrendous to have a crime scene of this nature and also a 12-year-old juvenile to deal with this horrendous situation,” Abbett said, calling the girl “a hero.”
While the Sheriff did not give any details about when the girl might have been kidnapped or any possible relationship with Pascual-Reyes, he did say she had received medical care and was doing well.
“She’s safe now and… we want to keep her that way,” Abbett said.
