CHICAGO: Gunfire erupted at a party on Chicago’s South Side early Sunday, killing two people and wounding 13 others in what authorities say may have been a gang-related shooting.
Officers responded at around 4:40 a.m. to reports of a shooting at a towing company where the party took place, police said. Jose Jara, a department spokesman, said in a statement that those shot were between the ages of 20 and 44.
Seven of the wounded were taken to hospitals in serious to critical condition, fire department spokesman Larry Merritt told the Chicago Sun-Times. Others went to hospitals on their own or were taken by acquaintances, which complicated getting an accurate count of the wounded, said authorities, who initially reported that 10 people had been shot but later raised the total to 12 and then 15 people.
Red and black balloons and a shoe were on the ground outside the business shortly after the shooting, the Chicago Tribune reported. It said a blood stain was also visible on concrete.
The Tribune cited preliminary information in a police report as saying the shooting may have been gang-related. A woman who had been shot in the head was found dead outside the building, and a 39-year-old man was found dead inside in a back room, according to the police report. Authorities hadn’t made any arrests as of Sunday afternoon.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office later identified those killed as 30-year-old Rayneesha Dotson and 39-year-old Lionel Darling. They were pronounced dead at 4:55 a.m. at the scene, the medical examiner’s office said.
Speaking to reporters near the scene of the shooting in Chicago’s Park Manor neighborhood, Police Superintendent David Brown said investigators were still seeking a possible motive.
Brown said four guns were recovered at the scene, but he didn’t say whether investigators believe more than one person fired shots.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Brown said. “Detectives are really just getting started.”
A bar had been step up in a garage attached to the business for what Brown described as a “pop-up party.”
“We don’t know what the celebration associated with this party was at this point, we’re still trying to follow-up on leads on what that motive might be,” Brown said.
More than 760 people were killed in Chicago in 2020, one the highest homicide totals in the city in 20 years. Police blamed many of those killings on disputes between rival gangs.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called the shooting “outrageous” in a series of Twitter posts Sunday, urging those who witnessed it to come forward and tell police what they saw. She added that “people out there, people reading this, know who pulled the trigger last night.”
“For the mothers who will never hear their child’s voice again, and the children who will grow up without a parent, I urge you to please support our city in this investigation so justice can be served and our families can move forward from this tragic and heart-shattering loss,” Lightfoot said.
2 killed, 13 wounded at party on Chicago’s South Side
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2 killed, 13 wounded at party on Chicago’s South Side
- Fatal gunfire erupted at a party on Chicago’s South Side early Sunday
- Investigators were still seeking a possible motive
Pakistan ex-PM Khan, wife appeal graft convictions: lawyer
- Imran Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month
- A special graft court found the pair guilty of ‘corruption and corrupt practices’
Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month in the latest case to be brought against them.
“We have filed appeals today and in the next few days it will go through clerical processes and then it will be fixed for a hearing,” Khan’s lawyer Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry said.
The papers were filed at the Islamabad High Court.
A special graft court found the pair guilty of “corruption and corrupt practices” over a welfare foundation they established together called the Al-Qadir Trust.
Khan, 72, has been held in custody since August 2023 charged in around 200 cases which he claims are politically motivated.
Kremlin says it has yet to hear from US about a possible Putin-Trump meeting
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it appeared a “certain amount of time” was needed before a meeting between the two leaders could take place. He said Russia understood that Washington was still interested in organizing such a meeting.
Putin said on Friday that he and Trump should meet to talk about the Ukraine war and energy prices, issues that the US president has highlighted in the first days of his new administration.
India minister pledges to evict ‘illegal’ immigrants from capital
NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest political ally has pledged to rid the capital of “illegal’ immigrants if his party wins looming elections, in a forceful appeal to his party’s Hindu constituency.
Interior minister Amit Shah said every unlawful migrant from neighboring Bangladesh would be expelled from New Delhi “within two years” if his party succeeded in next month’s provincial polls.
“The current state government is giving space to illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas,” Shah told an audience of several thousand at Sunday’s rally.
“Change the government and we will rid Delhi of all illegals.”
India shares a porous border stretching thousands of kilometers with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and illegal migration from its eastern neighbor has been a hot-button political issue for decades.
There are no reliable estimates of the number of Bangladeshis living illegally in Delhi, a city to which millions have flocked in search of employment from elsewhere in India over recent decades.
Critics of Modi and Shah’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accuse the party of using the issue as a dog whistle against Muslims to galvanize its Hindu-nationalist support base during elections.
Delhi, a sprawling megacity home to more than 30 million people, has been governed for most of the past decade by charismatic chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Kejriwal rode to power as an anti-corruption crusader a decade ago and his profile has bestowed upon him the mantle of one of the chief rivals to Modi and Shah’s party.
His popularity has been burnished by extensive water and electricity subsidies for the capital’s millions of poorer residents.
But he spent several months behind bars last year on accusations his party took kickbacks in exchange for liquor licenses, along with several fellow party leaders.
Kejriwal denies wrongdoing and characterised the charges as a political witch-hunt by Modi’s government, and despite resigning as chief minister last year vowed to return to the office if his party won re-election.
The BJP has led a spirited campaign in its efforts to dislodge Kejriwal’s party ahead of the February 5 vote.
Modi is expected to make a pilgrimage to the ongoing Kumbh Mela, the biggest festival on the Hindu calendar, to bathe in the sacred Ganges river on the day of the Delhi assembly vote.
Results of the election will be published on February 8.
Ukraine’s Zelensky urges action against ‘evil’ on Auschwitz anniversary
- The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022
- Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker
KYIV : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said the world must unite against evil, in comments marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death.
The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 claiming that the government in Kyiv contained neo-Nazi elements and saying the country must be demilitarized.
Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker and said some countries are still trying to destroy entire nations.
“We must overcome the hatred that gives rise to abuse and murder. We must prevent forgetfulness,” he said, according to a statement from the presidency.
“And it is everyone’s mission to do everything possible to prevent evil from winning,” he added.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that Russia’s invasion “brought back to Ukrainian soil horrors that Europe has not seen since World War II.”
“Jewish communities of Ukraine are also suffering from constant Russian terror, in particular in the cities of Dnipro and Odesa, which have a population of over a million, and other localities,” it added.
The Holocaust decimated the Jewish community in Ukraine, which during World War II was part of the Soviet Union.
It was not the first massacre of Jewish people in Ukraine’s history, which had seen previous anti-Semitic pogroms.
Russia drone barrage sparks fire in western Ukraine
KYIV: A barrage of more than 100 Russian drones sparked a fire at an industrial facility in western Ukraine and damaged residential buildings in other regions, Ukrainian officials said Monday.
The Ukrainian airforce said Moscow had dispatched 104 drones, including attack drones, and that 57 of the unmanned aerial vehicles had been shot down.
Emergency services in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region said the strikes had resulted in two fires at an industrial facility, and that firefighters were working to extinguish one.
They did not specify the type of facility hit but said there were no casualties.
The airforce said there was damage in four Ukrainian regions including Kyiv, where AFP journalists heard drones flying overhead and air defense systems countering the attack.
