WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump struck a solemn tone Thursday after the deadly school shooting in Florida, describing a “scene of terrible violence, hatred and evil” and promising to “tackle the difficult issue of mental health,” but avoiding any mention of guns.
Taking up the now-familiar ritual of public consolation after terrible violence, Trump spoke from the White House Diplomatic Room. In a slow, deliberate style, he sought to reassure a troubled nation as well as students’ families and shooting survivors in Florida.
“We are all joined together as one American family, and your suffering is our burden also,” Trump said. “No child, no teacher, should ever be in danger in an American school.”
Trump, who owns a private club in Palm Beach, Florida about 40 miles from the town of Parkland, where the shooting happened, said Thursday he was making plans to visit the grieving community.
He did not answer shouted questions about guns as he exited the room.
The president’s address came a day after a former student opened fire at the Parkland, Florida, high school with an AR-15 rifle, killing 17 people and injuring 14 more. It was the nation’s deadliest school shooting since a gunman attacked an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years ago.
At the Capitol, the usual divisions over gun laws were evident.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in a statement that it is time for action. “Congress has a moral responsibility to take common-sense action to prevent the daily tragedy of gun violence in communities across America,” she said. “Enough is enough.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, did not mention guns as he said the Senate would observe a moment of silence at noon. “To say that such brutal, pointless violence is unconscionable is an understatement,” he said.
Before he was a candidate, Trump at one point favored some stricter gun restrictions. However, early in his administration, he told the National Rifle Association he was their “friend and champion.” He signed a resolution passed by the GOP-led Congress blocking an Obama-era rule designed to keep guns out of the hands of certain mentally disabled people.
Trump on Thursday praised teachers and first responders and also offered a direct message to children.
“I want you to know that you are never alone and you never will be,” Trump said. “You have people who care about you who love you and who will do anything at all to protect you. If you need help, turn to a teacher, a family member, a local police officer or a faith leader. Answer hate with love, answer cruelty with kindness.”
Trump also pledged that his administration would work with state and local officials to improve school safety and to “tackle the difficult issue of mental health.”
He later added that “it is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference, we must actually make that difference.”
Trump, who did not speak publicly immediately after the shooting, weighed in on Twitter early Thursday, calling the suspect “mentally disturbed” and stressing it was important to “report such instances to authorities, again and again!” He tweeted about the shooting twice on Wednesday, expressing condolences and saying he spoke with Florida’s governor.
The president also issued a proclamation mourning the victims and ordering American flags at public buildings across the country flown at half-staff.
Trump has offered consolation before after horrific violence. A mass shooting in Las Vegas last year was the deadliest in modern history, with a gunman killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more, before killing himself. And a shooting in a Texas church in November left more than two dozen dead.
He has largely focused on mental health as a cause for mass shootings, dismissing questions about gun control.
After the Texas church shooting, the president said, “This isn’t a guns situation.” When he visited Las Vegas to mourn with the families of those victims, Trump called the shooter “demented” and a “very sick individual,” though he added that “we’ll be talking about gun laws as time goes by.”
The 19-year-old suspect, Nikolas Cruz, is a troubled teenager who posted disturbing material on social media. He had been expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for “disciplinary reasons,” Broward County, Florida, Sheriff Scott Israel said.
Mayor Beam Furr said on CNN that the shooter was getting treatment at a mental health clinic for a while, but that he hadn’t been back to the clinic for more than a year.
While Trump has offered sober responses to some tragedies since he took office, he has also drawn criticism for more inflammatory reactions to acts of violence.
After the Orlando shootings at a gay nightclub that left 49 dead, he tweeted, “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism.” In the wake of a deadly terror attack in London in June, he went after the Mayor Sadiq Khan on Twitter, suggesting he wasn’t taking the attacks seriously enough.
Trump cites mental health in shooting, no mention of guns
Trump cites mental health in shooting, no mention of guns
Undocumented immigrants in US ‘terrified’ as Trump returns
- Trump repeatedly rail against illegal immigrants during the election campaign
The 22-year-old, a graduate student in biomedical engineering who lives in Phoenix, Arizona, is haunted by the incoming president’s promises of mass deportations.
“I was terrified,” said Palazuelos, reflecting on the moment he heard the news.
“I am in fear of being deported, of losing everything that I’ve worked so hard for, and, most importantly, being separated from my family.”
Born in Mexico, he has lived in the United States since he was four years old. He is one of the country’s so-called “Dreamers,” a term for migrants who were brought into the country as children and never obtained US citizenship.
Throughout the election campaign, Palazuelos heard Trump repeatedly rail against illegal immigrants, employing violent rhetoric about those who “poison the blood” of the United States.
Trump has never specified how he intends to go about his plan for mass deportation, which experts warn would be extremely complicated and expensive.
“What do mass deportations mean? Who does that include?” Palazuelos asked.
“Does it include people like me, Dreamers, people that came here from a very young age, that had no say?“
Compounding the stress, the southwestern state of Arizona has just approved by referendum a law allowing state police to arrest illegal immigrants. That power was previously reserved for federal border police.
If the proposition is deemed constitutional by courts, Palazuelos fears becoming the target of heightened racial profiling.
“What makes someone a suspect of being here illegally, whether they don’t speak English?” he asked.
“My grandma, she’s a United States citizen, however, she doesn’t speak English very well. Meanwhile, I speak English, but is it because of the color of my skin that I would possibly be suspected or detained?“
Jose Patino, 35, also feels a sense of “dread” and “sadness.” His situation feels more fragile than ever.
Born in Mexico and brought to the United States aged six, he now works for Aliento, a community organization helping undocumented immigrants.
He personally benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigrant policy brought in by Barack Obama, offering protections and work permits for those in his situation.
But for Patino, those safeguards will expire next year, and Trump has promised to end the DACA program.
Indeed, Trump already tried to dismantle it during his previous term, but his decree was scuppered by a US Supreme Court decision, largely on procedural grounds.
Faced with this uncertainty, Patino is considering moving to a state that would refuse to report him to federal authorities, such as Colorado or California.
He remembers well the struggle of being undocumented in his twenties — a time when he could not obtain a basic job like flipping burgers in McDonald’s, and could not apply for a driver’s license or travel for fear of being deported.
“I don’t personally want to go back to that kind of life,” Patino said.
For him, Trump’s electoral win is not just scary, but an insult.
“We’re contributing to this country. So that’s the hard part: me following the rules, working, paying my taxes, helping this country grow, that’s not enough,” he said.
“So it’s frustrating, and it’s hurtful.”
Patino understands why so many Hispanic voters, often faced with economic difficulties, ended up voting for Trump.
Those who are here legally “believe that they’re not going to be targeted,” he said.
“A lot of Latinos associate wealth and success with whiteness, and they want to be part of that group and to be included, rather than be outside of it and be marginalized and be considered ‘the other,’” he said.
Still, he is angry with his own uncles and cousins who, having once been undocumented themselves, voted for Trump.
“We cannot have a conversation together, because it’s going to get into argument and probably into a fight,” he said.
Putin says Ukraine must remain neutral for there to be peace
- “If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine the existence of any good-neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine,” Putin said
- Putin said Russia had recognized Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders based on the understanding that it would be neutral
SOCHI, Russia: President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Ukraine should remain neutral for there to be a chance for peace, adding that the borders of Ukraine should be in accordance with the wishes of the people living in Russian-claimed territory.
“If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine the existence of any good-neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine,” Putin said.
Putin said Russia had recognized Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders based on the understanding that it would be neutral. The US-led NATO military alliance has repeatedly said that Ukraine would one day join.
If Ukraine was not neutral, it would be “constantly used as a tool in the wrong hands and to the detriment of the interests of the Russian Federation,” Putin said.
Russia controls about a fifth of Ukraine after more than two and a half years of war. Putin on
June 14
set out his terms for an end to the conflict: Ukraine would have to drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from all of the territory of the regions claimed by Russia.
Ukraine rejects those conditions as tantamount to surrender and President Volodymyr Zelensky has presented a “victory plan” for which he has requested additional Western support.
“We are determined to create conditions for a long-term settlement so that Ukraine is an independent, sovereign state, and not an instrument in the hands of third countries, and not used in their interests,” Putin said.
Asked about the future borders of Ukraine, Putin said: “The borders of Ukraine should be in accordance with the sovereign decisions of people who live in certain territories and which we call our historical territories.”
Ukraine says that it will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory though even US generals say that such an aim would take massive resources that Ukraine currently does not have.
Russian attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia kills four, wounds 40
- Russian forces have stepped up their attacks in Zaporizhzhia in recent days
- “The death toll as a result of Russia’s strikes on Zaporizhzhia has risen to four,” the emergency services said
KYIV: Russian aerial attacks on the frontline city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday killed at least four people and wounded another 40, including children, officials said.
Another two were killed in a separate attack on the eastern Donetsk region, strikes that followed a wave of overnight drone attacks, including on the capital Kyiv.
Russian forces have stepped up their attacks in Zaporizhzhia in recent days and are making rapid advances in the industrial territory of Donetsk, both of which the Kremlin says are Russian territory.
“The death toll as a result of Russia’s strikes on Zaporizhzhia has risen to four,” the emergency services said in a statement on social media.
“Forty were wounded, including four children,” governor Ivan Fedorov said in a separate statement.
Officials said earlier that a hospital had been damaged in Zaporizhzhia, which had a pre-war population of more than 700,000 people and lies around 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the nearest Russian positions.
A four-month old girl and boys aged one, five and 15 were wounded in the attacks, Fedorov said.
Officials posted images showing rescue workers pulling victims from the rubble and holding back distressed locals from getting to the destroyed buildings.
The strikes later in the Donetsk region killed two people and wounded five more in the village of Mykolaivka, the region’s governor Vadym Filashkin announced on social media.
“One of the shells hit a five-story building and four buildings nearby were damaged,” he wrote on social media.
He posted a photo of a Soviet-era residential building on fire, dozens of its windows blown out with debris littering the ground beneath it.
Grenade attack targeted Israeli embassy in Denmark: report
- The grenades landed on the terrace of a house adjacent to the embassy
- Two Swedes aged 17 and 19 have been detained
COPENHAGEN: Israel’s embassy in Denmark was likely the target of grenades thrown nearby last month, Danish media reported Thursday, citing the pre-indictment of two teenage suspects detained in the case.
Two Swedes aged 17 and 19 went before a judge in Copenhagen who remanded them for another 20 days.
Their pre-indictment, citing investigations, said they were suspected of violating terrorism laws by “throwing hand grenades at the Israeli embassy in Denmark on October 2,” the Ritzau news agency reported.
The grenades landed on the terrace of a house adjacent to the embassy, where they exploded, causing no injuries.
The two suspects were arrested at a Copenhagen railway station hours later initially on suspicion of violating gun laws.
They have since been accused of a terror offense and police, who have arrested a man in his fifties in connection with the incident, are also looking for other accomplices.
“It makes no sense to imagine this is an act they committed alone. There must be accomplices,” Ritzau quoted prosecutor Soren Harbo as saying at the start of the hearing.
The teens deny the accusations.
The case comes against a backdrop of severe tensions in the Middle East, with conflict in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as increasing gang violence with Danish criminal gangs suspected of recruiting underage Swedes to settle scores.
Renowned Indian scholar, philanthropist Dr. Syed Shah Khusro Hussaini dies aged 80
Funeral prayers were held on Thursday evening at the Sharif Mosque. He is survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.
He completed a Master of Arts in Islamic Studies at McGill University in Canada and was awarded a Ph.D. from Belford University, US, for his research work.
Since 2007 he brought significant changes to the Khaja Education Society on the organizational, administrative and functional levels. He also expanded existing institutions and was instrumental in establishing Khaja Bandanawaz Institute of Medical Sciences at Kalaburagi in 2000.
Through perseverance, he established Khaja Bandanawaz University in August 2018. As vice-president of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board and chancellor of Khaja Banda Nawaz University, he played a vital role in promoting modern and Islamic education in India.
In addition to his administrative skills, Hussaini was known for his deep and scholarly understanding of Sufism. He was awarded the prestigious Karnataka Rajyotsava Award for excellence in education by the government of Karnataka in 2017.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and other political leaders expressed their condolences over his death.
