Author: CNN

CNN
 — 

Ending the war in Ukraine on terms acceptable to its President Volodymyr Zelensky will require the West to convince Russian leader Vladimir Putin he’s losing.

Good luck with that.

Ahead of next week’s anniversary of the Russian invasion, US and Western leaders are gearing up for a show of unity and strength designed to establish once and for all that NATO is in the conflict for the long haul and until Moscow’s defeat.

“Russia has lost – they’ve lost strategically, operationally, and tactically,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said on Tuesday. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned Wednesday that “Putin must realize that he cannot win” as he explained the rationale for rushing arms and ammunition to Ukrainian forces. And Julianne Smith, the US ambassador to NATO, told CNN’s Becky Anderson that Washington was doing all it could to “continue to apply pressure on Moscow to affect (Putin’s) strategic calculus.”

And in an opinion article by CNN’s Peter Bergen, retired US General and former CIA Chief David Petraeus said the conflict would end in a “negotiated resolution” when Putin realizes the war is unsustainable on the battlefield and on the home front.

The Western rhetorical and diplomatic offensive will ratchet up further as Vice President Kamala Harris heads to the Munich Security Conference this week. President Joe Biden will meanwhile visit Poland and a frontline NATO and ex-Warsaw pact state next week, bolstering his legacy of offering the most effective leadership of the Western alliance since the end of the Cold War.

See bird’s-eye-view footage of Ukraine destroying weapon that rips the oxygen out of humans’ lungs

By most objective standards Putin already seems to be losing. His war aims of crushing Ukrainian sovereignty, capturing Kyiv, toppling an elected government, proving Russian might and severing Ukraine’s relationship with the West have backfired terribly. Russia is a pariah state and its economy is in ruins because of international sanctions. Putin is being branded a war criminal. And far from being cut off from the West, Ukraine is now in the extraordinary position of being effectively a NATO client state propped up by the US and Europe, whose survival, even if there’s an eventual ceasefire deal, will probably require decades of Western support.

Yet Western logic about what is happening in the war may only disguise insight into Putin’s mindset. The Russian leader long saw the world through a different strategic and historic lens. Many foreign observers, though not in the US government, convinced themselves after all that it was not in Russia’s interest to invade Ukraine – but Putin went ahead anyway. He’s showing no sign of being deterred by a year of defeats and a stunning influx of sophisticated NATO weapons and ammunition into Ukraine. He’s sending Russian convict recruits to their deaths in futile World War I-style advances even though Russian forces have already suffered massive losses.

This war is also not some mere territorial dispute he’s likely to give up lightly. It’s born from his belief that Ukraine is not a country and must be folded into Russia. His survival in power could also depend on not being seen to have lost. And while the West says it’s in for the long haul, Putin has already been at war in Ukraine since 2014 after the annexation of Crimea.

A frozen conflict that lasts for many more years and prevents Ukraine becoming whole may be a sustainable position for him. He’s already shown he’s indifferent to massive human losses. And judging by his rhetoric he believes he’s locked into a titanic geopolitical struggle with NATO vital for Russia’s prestige. The question is whether the West has a similar appetite for the long haul.

See why Ukraine thinks Russia will launch new offensive from Belarus

All of this explains why western strategists see the next phase of the war as critical, as Russian forces prepare for an apparent spring offensive and Ukraine awaits the arrival of recently pledged western tanks that it hopes will turn the tide.

NATO’s unity and staying power has confounded skeptics, largely due to Biden’s leadership. But political conditions in Washington and allied nations are not static and could shape Putin’s thinking.

In the US House for instance, some members of the new Republican majority are skittish. Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz last week demanded an end to aid to Ukraine and for the US to demand all combatants “reach a peace agreement immediately.” A bipartisan majority for saving Ukraine still exists in the House and the Senate. But it’s not certain Biden can guarantee massive multi-billion dollar aid packages for Ukraine in perpetuity. And US aid might be in serious doubt if ex-President Donald Trump or another Republican wins the 2024 election.

So while Ukraine’s backers hope for breakthroughs on the battlefield, months more bloody fighting seem likely.

CNN’s Jim Sciutto reported this week that the US and its allies believed that Russia’s coming offensive was unlikely to result in major battlefield gains. “It’s likely more aspirational than realistic,” said a senior US military official. There are also doubts whether Ukrainian forces have the capacity to sever entrenched Russian defenses in the east and southern areas in a way that could threaten Putin’s land bridges to Crimea. And Stoltenberg said Wednesday at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels that the conflict was becoming a “grinding war of attrition” as he called on the allies to rush ammunition to Ukraine.

Russian mothers gather to send Putin a message about their sons fighting in war

The outside world knows Putin is not contemplating defeat or an exit from the war because of the complete lack of any diplomatic framework for ceasefire talks.

Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that there’s no prospect of this situation changing any time soon.

“President Putin shows no sign that he is preparing for peace. On the contrary, he is launching new offensives and targeting civilians, cities and critical infrastructure,” Stoltenberg said in Brussels.

Fiona Hill, a leading expert on Russia and Putin, who worked in Trump’s White House, said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday that there were few signs Putin’s determination is waning.

“I think this is a pretty grim picture, in part because Putin didn’t feel deterred in the first place,” Hill said. “The other thing is that Putin also feels that he has a lot of support from the rest of the world, including from China … it may very well take countries like China, pushing Russia, for there to be any break in Putin’s resolve.”

The prospect of China leaning on Putin for an end to the war was remote even before the lurch in US-China relations caused by the flight of a Chinese spy balloon across the US this month.

And even if Beijing might be embarrassed at Putin’s performance in Ukraine after the two sides declared a “no limits” partnership last year, it may see an advantage in seeing the US preoccupied with a proxy war against Russia as it escalates its challenge to American power in Asia.

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman however warned Beijing on Wednesday that a long-term bet on Putin would only deliver disappointment.

“You’re going to end up with an albatross around your neck,” Sherman said at an event at the Brookings Institution, though admitted the US was concerned about tightening ties between China and Russia at a time when it is locked in simultaneous showdowns with each power.

“The Ukrainians are going to deliver a strategic failure for Putin. And that’s going to create a lot of problems for those who are supporting this unholy invasion going forward,” she said.

The problem however is that there’s no sign yet that Putin agrees.

Putin’s reputed girlfriend makes public comments about Ukraine war

CNN
 — 

One person was killed and three others were injured in a shooting Wednesday evening at a mall in El Paso, Texas, police said, sending patrons running or sheltering in a community scarred three years ago by a shooting massacre in a store just down the road.

Two people, both male, were taken into custody after the gunfire inside the Cielo Vista Mall, interim El Paso Police Chief Peter Pacillas said Wednesday night. Police have not commented on possible motives.

“It was chaotic. People did flee. They were scared,” police Sgt. Robert Gomez said.

Surveillance video from a bar inside the mall captured more than a dozen people sprinting away from the sound of gunshots and, later, paramedics wheeling in a stretcher.

All four people shot were male, Pacillas said. Two of the injured were brought to the University Medical Center of El Paso in critical condition, the hospital told CNN. The third injured person was also hospitalized, Gomez said, but their condition is unknown.

The mall sits next to a Walmart where a shooting in 2019 killed 23 and left nearly two dozen more injured. Last week, the 24-year-old gunman pleaded guilty to 90 federal charges as part of a plea deal.

The Wednesday shooting is yet another example of gunfire shattering the sense of security many Americans once felt in public spaces, like shopping centers, grocery stores and schools.

So far this year, there have been more than 70 mass shootings across the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Both CNN and the archive define a “mass shooting” as a shooting that injured or killed four or more people, not including the shooter.

Robert Gonzalez was at the mall Wednesday and during the 2019 shooting, he told CNN. He saw people “running to the exit” Wednesday, he said, and video he took inside the mall shows several storefronts had their security gates down. Outside, a second video shows police gathered at the entrance.

“I was working (at the mall) the last time this happened with the Walmart shooting so it just brought back bad memories,” Gonzalez said.

Investigators preliminarily believe the shooting occurred around the food court in the upper level of the mall, Gomez said.

Marie Hall had just clocked in for her shift at a salad shop in the food court when she heard gunshots ring out, she told CNN affiliate KFOX. She ran to the back of the restaurant and hid in a walk-in fridge with another employee and two customers, she said.

“Nothing prepares you for that,” she told the affiliate. “I didn’t really feel safe (going to work) in the beginning because of the shooting in 2019. … It is definitely going to be more difficult to be going in to work.”

An off-duty police officer who was working security in one of the mall’s stores was able to respond to the scene within three minutes and take a person into custody, Pacillas said. He did not say when, where or how the second person was apprehended.

Multiple law enforcement agencies, including El Paso police, the Texas Department of Public Safety and US Border Patrol, responded to the scene and worked into the night to clear the building and begin a preliminary investigation, police said.

The FBI, which is assisting with the investigation, has created a website for people to submit photos and video of the incident.

Even some community members who were not present during Wednesday’s shooting feel the event has reopened old wounds.

Albert Hernandez, whose sister Maribel and brother-in-law Leo Campos were killed in the 2019 shooting, told KFOX he feels political leaders are “not accepting the full scope of the situation” of gun violence and are “numb to what’s going on.”

“We felt the same feelings come back to us as the day of the Walmart shooting. Everything comes back and we’re just wondering, now what? How many people are going to get hurt?” Hernandez said.

CNN
 — 

LeBron James returned from a three-game absence and helped his new-look Los Angeles Lakers to an impressive 120-102 win over the New Orleans Pelicans.

The 37-year-old James had missed the three previous games due to ankle soreness but returned to action on Wednesday night to great effect.

In 29 productive minutes on the floor, James scored 21 points and added six rebounds and six assists as he steered the Lakers past the Pelicans.

Former Pelican Anthony Davis led Los Angeles with 28 points as well as 10 rebounds, five assists and two blocks while new addition D’Angelo Russell chipped in with 21 points and seven assists in the Lakers’ final game before the All-Star break.

After the game, James said that the victory with the revamped roster will be a good starting point for the team to return to after the break.

“I think we’re going to continue to build off tonight,” James told reporters. “I think our skill sets all kind of fit each other.”

It was the Lakers’ 30th different starting lineup in its 59th game of the up-and-down season, comprised of James, Davis, Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt – who acquired in a three-team trade last week.

As well as the acquisitions of Mo Bamba and Rui Hachimura – and the departure of Russell Westbrook, Damian Jones and Juan Toscano-Anderson – it has given the Lakers a roster seemingly more well-suited to fitting around its star players.

They showed glimpses of what the future could hold, racing into an early 17-4 lead against the Pelicans, generating an assist on every bucket.

And despite the promise shown on Wednesday night, James said that there is “a lot of work to do still.”

“And every game is going to be tough for us, especially going down the stretch, knowing the type of push that we need to make,” James told reporters afterwards.

“I want the guys to enjoy the break but don’t get 100% detached because we want to come back and try to keep this thing going.

“I feel really good about what we have brewing, but it’s going to take a lot of commitment from us going down the stretch, so I’m looking forward to that.”

The win improves the Lakers’ record to 27-32, but they remain 13th in the Western Conference standings, two games outside of the play-in places.

The Pelicans, who were led in scoring by former Laker Brandon Ingram with 25 points, slip to 30-29 on the season. They sit eighth in the Western Conference.

New Delhi
CNN
 — 

Indian tax officials continued their search of the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai for the third consecutive day, two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN, weeks after the country banned a documentary from the British broadcaster that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in deadly riots more than 20 years ago.

BBC employees have been told not to disclose information about the searches. A spokesperson for the broadcaster said it was cooperating with authorities.

Some staff members were asked to remain at the offices overnight on Tuesday, the BBC said. But the offices are now open for people to enter and leave as needed.

The searches come nearly a month after the Indian government said it banned the two-part documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” from being aired in the country and used “emergency powers” to block clips of the film from circulating on social media domestically. Twitter and YouTube complied with the order, the government said.

The documentary revives the most controversial chapter of the Indian leader’s political career, when he was the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat in 2002.

Modi was accused of not doing enough to stop some of the most heinous violence in India’s post-indpendence history, when riots broke out between the state’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims.

More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the violence and at least 220 more went missing, according to government figures.

Modi has denied accusations that he failed to stop the violence. A special investigation team appointed by India’s Supreme Court in 2012 found no evidence to suggest he was to blame.

Two years later, Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power in India, riding on a wave of Hindu nationalism in the country of 1.3 billion, where nearly 80% of the population follow the faith.

The government’s move to block the documentary polarized opinion in the world’s largest democracy. Critics decried it as an assault on press freedom, while Modi’s supporters rallied to his defense.

India’s main opposition Congress party described the ongoing tax searches at the BBC offices as a “brazen attack” on India’s free press.

“If someone tries to shed light on the prime minister’s past, or dig out details of his past…the present and future of that media house will be destroyed by his agencies. That is the reality,” the party’s media department head, Pawan Khera, told reporters Wednesday. “India is the mother of democracy but why is India’s prime minister the father of hypocrisy?”

The BJP has tried to justify the move by saying nobody in the country is above the law.

Speaking at a news conference Tuesday, the party’s spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said companies, including media agencies, must “follow and respect Indian law.”

“Anyone, any agency, whether tied to the media, a company, if they are working in India, they must follow and respect Indian law. If they follow the law, then why should they be scared or worried? Let the Income Department do its job,” he said.

The raids raised fears of censorship in India, with several media organizations issuing statements condemning the government’s actions.

Now ranked between Turkey and Sudan, India dropped eight places to 150 out of 180 nations in last year’s World Press Freedom Index published by the Paris-based group, Reporters Without Borders.

The Press Club of India said in a Tuesday statement the raids “will damage the reputation and image of India as the world’s largest democracy.”

“It is deeply unfortunate as this latest instance appears to be a clear cut case of vendetta, coming within weeks of a documentary aired by the BBC,” it said, urging the government to “restrain its agencies from misusing its powers in order to intimidate the media.”

CNN
 — 

Portions of a highly anticipated report by the Atlanta-area special grand jury that investigated Donald Trump’s actions in Georgia after the 2020 election will be released Thursday, giving the public its clearest look yet into the two-year probe into Trump and his associates’ efforts to reverse his election defeat.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered the limited release earlier this week, writing in his order that the report’s introduction and conclusion, as well as concerns the panel had about witnesses lying under oath, will made be public on Thursday.

Here’s what to know about the report’s release.

The big question is whether the portions will include any bits of information that shed new light on what Trump himself did two years ago and whether the special grand jury concluded that the former president committed any crimes.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ sweeping investigation has sought to determine not only whether Trump committed crimes but also whether there was a broader criminal conspiracy playing out in the efforts to overturn Georgia’s election results.

Trump lost to Joe Biden in Georgia by nearly 12,000 votes in 2020. The former president has insisted that there was nothing problematic about his activities contesting the election.

In document preservation requests to Georgia officials in February 2021, Willis said she was investigating potential crimes, including solicitation of election fraud, making false statements to government bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and violence or threats related to election administration.

“I think that it is certainly possible that what is released … will indicate that the special grand jury has found that there was criminal conduct involved in the activities of the Trump Campaign in Georgia after the election,” said Clark Cunningham, the W. Lee Burge Chair in Law and Ethics at Georgia State University College of Law.

Cunningham added to CNN that “there is no doubt that whatever (the report is) referring to is either conduct that was done directly by Donald Trump or done on his behalf.”

“That would tell us that this cross section of citizens, having spent nine months working hard at this, has concluded that at least some of what was done on behalf of the former president to overturn the election results was a crime,” he said. “I think that’s terrifically significant.”

The Georgia probe was set off nearly two years ago by an hourlong January 2021 phone call from Trump to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” the votes necessary for Trump to win the Peach State. Trump has referred to it as a “perfect” phone call.

Over time, the investigation expanded well beyond the Trump phone call to include false claims of election fraud to state lawmakers, the fake elector scheme, efforts by unauthorized individuals to access voting machines in one Georgia county as well as threats and harassment against election workers. Willis also investigated the sudden departure of BJay Pak, the US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.

Willis designated a number of people as targets of her probe last year, including 16 Georgia Republicans who served as pro-Trump electors in 2020 and Rudy Giuliani, who was working as a lawyer for Trump.

The special grand jury, barred from issuing indictments, penned their final report as a culmination of its seven months of work, which included interviewing 75 witnesses, from Giuliani to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham.

On Thursday, the report’s introduction and conclusion, as well as concerns the panel had about witnesses lying under oath, will be made public. McBurney noted that some information in those sections might be redacted.

Other findings by the special grand jury won’t be public yet – particularly the parts where the report makes recommendations about potential charges. That’s because some of the people named in those recommendations may not have appeared in grand jury proceedings so far.

Its final report is likely to include some summary of the panel’s investigative work, as well as any recommendations for indictments and the alleged conduct that led the panel to its conclusions.

No one has been charged in the case yet, and another grand jury in Fulton County would make those decisions now that the special grand jury has presented its findings to Willis.

During a hearing last month on whether to publicly release the report, Willis, a Democrat, suggested the special grand jury has recommended multiple indictments and said that her decision on whether to bring charges is “imminent.”

Editor’s Note: Rosemary Sullivan is a Canadian author. She has published 16 books, most recently “Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary ad Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva (2015)” and “The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation (2022).” The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion on CNN.

CNN
 — 

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was back in the spotlight last week after appearing at two lavish military events in Pyongyang. In one photograph, he is seen with his generals reviewing a midnight parade of ballistic missiles. Beside him stands his roughly 9-year-old daughter.

Ironically, the photo exactly mirrors one taken almost 100 years ago of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin standing on a similar balcony in Moscow reviewing a military parade with a young girl standing beside him.

Both children look enraptured to have the dictator’s attention. And I think: The predicament of the dictator’s daughter! What will Kim Ju Ae’s future be?

In my biography of Svetlana Alliluyeva, “Stalin’s Daughter,” I quoted Svetlana’s comment on her fate in her own memoir, “Only One Year.” She writes: “You are Stalin’s daughter. Actually, you are already dead. Your life is already finished. You can’t live your own life. You can’t live any life. You exist only in reference to a name.”

On a lengthy visit to Moscow in 2013, I was able to interview Stalin’s grandson Alexander Burdonsky, who told me that life in the Soviet army felt like a liberation after life at home. Like his aunt Svetlana, he took his mother’s name to escape his lineage.

Of Svetlana, he said: “I admired her as a woman and as a human being. I cannot say that of all my relatives. I loved her very much.”

He explained that his father Vasily Stalin was “a product of the freeloaders and leaches who surrounded him.” But Svetlana was her father’s daughter. “She had his organized intelligence, his unbelievable will, but she did not have his evil.”

During her childhood, Svetlana was the “beloved daughter.” Stalin called her his little hostess, little fly, little sparrow. She was the only one who could stop his rages against her mother by wrapping her arms around his Cossack boots.

After her mother’s suicide, her letters to her father are poignant. At age seven, she wrote: “Hello my dear Paposhka, How are you living and how is your health. … I wait for you in Sochi.” In a game he invented for her, Stalin advised his daughter that she should never ask for things; she should give orders. He was her Secretary No. 1.

All this changed when Svetlana was 16 and had her first chaste love affair with a famous filmmaker Aleksei Kapler, who was 39 (the same age as Stalin when he married Svetlana’s mother.) Stalin exiled Kapler to the Gulag for 10 years for having the audacity to romance his daughter. This was when Svetlana began to understand who her father was. Her status as beloved was conditional.

Stalin died in 1953. And Svetlana eventually defected to the US in 1967, but discovered that she still carried her father’s shadow; she was expected to cooperate with the CIA. When she was seduced back to Russia in 1984 to see her son who was supposedly ill, the government there offered her luxury dachas, apartments, cars. She refused them. She slipped back into the US and ended her life in virtual poverty.

She summed up her life in her memoir: “Wherever I go, whether to Australia or some island, I will always be the political prisoner of my father’s name.”

Burdonsky told me that the children of dictators have either to totally reject their heritage or to follow in their father’s footsteps. He said Svetlana was caught in between. She did not defend her father’s murderousness, but she thought he had been turned into a sinkhole for all the evil of his regime.

“He knew what he was doing,” she said of her father in her memoir. “He was neither insane nor misled. With cold calculation he cemented his power, afraid of losing it more than anything else in the world.” But a dictator needs accomplices. He was the head of a homicidal system she had the courage to reject.

This makes me think of Russian President Vladimir Putin today. We know virtually nothing about Kim Jung Un’s daughter, but we know a little about Putin’s two daughters, Mariya and Katerina. As children of the “first person,” people are careful not to speak about them; to do so would be dangerous.

Shrouded in secrecy, they attended university under assumed names (classmates had no idea who they were); they had guards to go to the movies and security details at home. Told that Putin loves his children and spoils them, a journalist once asked if the girls had Putin wrapped around their little fingers. Their mother Lyudmila replied: “Nobody can wrap Papa around their little finger.”

It appears that Putin’s daughters have chosen their father’s side. It is reported that Katerina is head of a new AI institute at Moscow State University and is said to be worth several billion. Mariya leads a state funded genetics program that has received billions from the Kremlin, according to US officials. Supposedly neither have political ambitions, which is reportedly the way Putin wants it.

But it would seem that Kim Jong Un might indeed be grooming his daughter to carry on his dynasty. North Korea just released a new postage stamp carrying photos of the dictator and his “beloved daughter” standing together watching the test-firing of the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile.

Will she, like Svetlana, inherit her father’s will but reject his murderous legacy? Or will she prove a well-trained apprentice and possibly become more dangerous than her father? Given the closed universe of North Korea and the seduction of wealth and power, the latter is more likely.

Now, though, instead of being sold at auction, Mayhew’s old items will go to the late actor’s foundation and then be displayed at a Texas toy store dedicated to “Star Wars.”

Mayhew, center, played Chewbacca in several “Star Wars” films, appearing last in 2015’s “The Force Awakens.” Credit: Lucasefilm/Bad Robot/Walt Disney Studios/Kobal/Shutterstock

Within days of Angie Mayhew’s tweets and a chorus of “Star Wars” fans’ differing opinions on what to do with the items, the auction was called off. Ryedale Auctioneers head Angus Ashworth said in a statement to CNN that the couple who uncovered the “Star Wars” memorabilia in their attic were “quite happy to donate” the lot of items to the Peter Mayhew Foundation to have in its collection, “not for profit, so that fans can access it in perpetuity.”

“I can only apologise to all of the Star Wars (sic) fans who had already shown great interest in owning a bit of film history!” Ashworth said.

As for Mayhew’s souvenirs from his stint as Chewbacca, the foundation’s philanthropy director, Matthew Egan, told CNN that the items will be displayed at the Holocron Toy Store in Fort Worth, Texas, a popular “Star Wars” shop Egan said has donated more than $300,000 in “Star Wars” toys that the foundation then distributed to patients at children’s hospitals and to shelters for women who have experienced domestic violence.

Top image: Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca for decades in “Star Wars” films, left several scripts and memorabilia from his time on the films in his former home’s attic

Washington
CNN
 — 

US intelligence officials are assessing the possibility that the suspected Chinese spy balloon was not deliberately maneuvered into the continental US by the Chinese government and are examining whether it was diverted off course by strong winds, multiple people briefed on the intelligence tell CNN.

After the balloon lifted off from Hainan, China last month, US officials monitored it as it made its way across the Pacific, sources said. After tracking the balloon for a little while, officials believed it would head towards Guam, where it would probably try to surveil military sites on the island.

But the balloon instead went north unexpectedly and crossed into Alaska, Canada, and then downward, reentering the US through northern Idaho and moving towards Montana – a path that US officials are not sure was purposeful, and may have been determined more by strong winds than deliberate, external maneuvering by Beijing.

China did maintain some ability to maneuver the balloon, however. Once the balloon was over Montana, officials believe China took advantage of its position to loiter over sensitive sites and try to collect intelligence.

The balloon then moved eastward over the US and was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on February 4 by US fighter jets. As CNN has reported, the US intelligence community last year developed a method of tracking what it says is a fleet of Chinese balloons operating across the globe.

Weather modeling done by CNN suggests it is plausible that the wind currents at the time diverted the balloon northward toward Alaska.

The Washington Post first reported that officials are examining the possibility that China didn’t intend for the balloon to travel over the continental US.

Any intelligence suggesting that the balloon’s path into the US may have been unintentional could ease tensions between Washington and Beijing and may offer both countries a way out of what has become an increasingly tense diplomatic crisis.

A day after the US publicly revealed the balloon had been spotted, Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a high-profile trip to Beijing and accused China of deliberately flying the balloon over the US in call with his counterpart Wang Yi, calling it “both unacceptable and irresponsible.”

“I made clear that the presence of this surveillance balloon in US airspace is a clear violation of US sovereignty and international law, that it’s an irresponsible act and that the PRC (People’s Republic of China) decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have,” Blinken told reporters on February 2.

Blinken and Wang will both attend the Munich Security Conference this weekend. US officials said a meeting between the two is not currently planned but have not fully ruled out the possibility.

It is not clear what intelligence the US has gleaned that has made officials consider it a credible possibility that the balloon’s overall trajectory may have been at least partly accidental. The US intelligence community is also closely scrutinizing which elements of the Chinese government ordered and approved the balloon’s mission.

The US and Chinese governments have been clashing publicly over the vessel, which China has said was a weather balloon that accidentally entered US airspace.

“Affected by the westerly wind and with limited self-control ability, the airship seriously deviated from the scheduled route,” China’s Foreign Ministry said on February 3. “China regrets that the airship strayed into the United States due to force majeure. China will continue to maintain communication with the US to properly handle the unexpected situation.”

The US, however, has insisted that the balloon was being used for surveillance, and that it was not completely at the mercy of the winds. China has flown similar surveillance balloons into mainland US airspace in the past, including near Florida and Texas. But US officials have acknowledged that the balloon’s maneuverability was limited.

Asked earlier this month whether the Chinese government is “controlling the movement of the balloon, or is it just floating with air streams,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder declined to comment in detail.

“I’m not going to go into any specific intelligence that we may have,” he said. “Again, we know this is a Chinese balloon and that it has the ability to maneuver, but I’ll just leave it at that.”

CNN
 — 

Some Michigan State University students who survived Monday’s mass shooting – and their parents – had already been through a similar, horrific experience.

“(Fourteen) months ago I had to evacuate from Oxford High School when a fifteen year old opened fire and killed four of my classmates and injured seven more. Tonight, I am sitting under my desk at Michigan State University, once again texting everyone ‘I love you,’” Emma Riddle, a freshman studying history at the university tweeted overnight Monday. “When will this end?”

Her father, Matt Riddle, told CNN Tuesday his daughter survived the November 30, 2021, shooting at Oxford High School in a community about 80 miles northeast of the MSU campus in East Lansing.

There, another gunman opened fired Monday night, killing three students and wounding five others and sending terrified students running or escaping out of windows while others barricaded themselves inside classrooms. The shooter died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.

Emma Riddle survived the first shooting in Oxford by hiding in the band hall where others had barricaded the door before eventually fleeing to a store in the area, her father said, recalling the phone call he got as she ran away.

Less than a year and a half later, his daughter called again, Matt Riddle said – this time hiding in her dorm at Michigan State.

“She was very fearful and scared,” Matt Riddle told CNN. “And shocked. She has been through this before. I just talked to her and tried to make her feel calm.”

In the hours after the shots rang out, as hundreds of police officers converged on the school to search for the gunman, the father and daughter exchanged texts and phone calls.

“Not knowing what was happening and the danger was hard,” Riddle said.

Andrea Ferguson told CNN affiliate WDIV her daughter and other classmates were also survivors of both shootings.

“I never expected in my lifetime to have to experience two school shootings,” Ferguson said. “There’s several kids there that our daughter’s friends with that are going through the same thing.”

CNN has reached out to Ferguson for comment.

Her daughter, Ava, a freshman, told “CNN This Morning” on Wednesday that the MSU shooting compounded her trauma from the 2021 tragedy.

“After Oxford they said that this wasn’t going to happen again, that we were going to be safe going back to school, and that’s just not the case,” Ava Ferguson said. “The other night, I was in shock. I didn’t think it was real, honestly.”

Ferguson said the latest shooting was “traumatizing all over again” and she’s “still a little like shaken up by it.”

“There should have been laws made here years ago – when Sandy Hook happened – and it never did,” she said. “And I feel like now’s the time people need to start realizing there is people dying every day because of gun violence and something needs to be done about it.”

Ava Ferguson said she is a cancer survivor and had only been on the MSU campus for a few weeks.

Her mother told WDIV that Ava was getting on a bus on another part of campus on Monday when she started receiving texts about the shooting.

“It was like reliving Oxford all over again,” said Ferguson, who had been on the phone with her daughter when the young woman received texts about the latest mass shooting.

The mother described her daughter as “unbelievably terrified” and said it was “really, really surreal” to relive such a horrific experience.

US Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, said it was haunting to see a young person wearing an “Oxford Strong” sweatshirt in footage from MSU after Monday’s shooting.

“As a representative of Oxford, Michigan, I cannot believe that I’m here again doing this 15 months later,” Slotkin said during a news conference Tuesday. “And I am filled with rage that we have to have another press conference to talk about our children being killed in their schools.”

She added, “We have children in Michigan who are living through their second school shooting in under a year and a half. If this is not a wake-up call to do something, I don’t know what is.”

“I feel for our children and young people,” East Lansing Mayor Ron Bacon told CNN on Tuesday.

“We now have a complete generation that has grown up with this, many times over, from elementary all the way up to now, they live with this the entire time,” Bacon added.

Monday’s assault occurred hours before the five-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It marked the 67th mass shooting – with four or more shot, not including a gunman – in 2023, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard confirmed deputies from his office responded to both the Oxford High and MSU shootings.

“So very many thoughts are running through my head right now after being on Michigan State’s campus last night during the tragedy,” he tweeted Tuesday.

“To our Oxford community, I know that this is terribly traumatic. Know that we are here for you.”

As for Emma Riddle, her father drove from his home in Oxford to the Michigan State campus to pick up his daughter and her roommate. Emma is home for now until classes resume, he said, and she is working through the trauma.

“She is OK – as OK as she can be,” he said. “It was heartbreaking, as a parent, because she said ‘I have tools to work through this. I have been through this before so I know how to process this.’”

Riddle advised other parents in the same situation as his family to just let their children know they aren’t alone.

“Just being there for them, no matter what they need,” he said. “As much as you are able don’t let them be alone.”

London
CNN
 — 

Duangphet Phromthep, one of the 12 boys rescued from a flooded Thai cave after a weekslong operation that drew global attention in 2018, has died in the UK, British and Thai officials announced Wednesday.

Phromthep, who was enrolled in a soccer academy in Leicestershire, England, died after being rushed to hospital on Sunday, Leicestershire Police said in a statement to CNN.

Th northern regional branch of the Thai government’s public relations arm said on Facebook that Phromthep, 17, died due to an accident, without providing more details.

“The atmosphere at his house in Chiang Rai province was full of sorrow,” PR Thailand’s statement said.

Zico Foundation, a Thai non-profit organization which had helped Phromthep study in the UK via a soccer scholarship, wrote on Facebook Wednesday: “Zico Foundation would like to express our sorrow for the pass of Dom Duangpet Phromthep, a scholarship student from Zico foundation,” posting a picture of Phromthep.

Phromthep was the captain of the Wild Boars youth soccer team which was rescued after being trapped for more than two weeks in a flooded cave network in the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai in the summer of 2018.

The 12 boys and their coach became trapped when rising flood water cut them off deep inside the cave, sparking what became a near three-week international rescue effort.

The miraculous story of the Thai cave rescue

Divers involved in the rescue described treacherous conditions, with fast-moving shallow water passing through very narrow passages.

In a complicated three-day final operation, the boys were split into groups of four and provided with 5-millimeter-thick wetsuits, full face mask breathing apparatus and air bottles.

Each boy was taken out by two divers, who carried their oxygen tanks and guided them through murky tunnels. Each rescue took several hours, with much of the time spent under water.

The most dangerous part was the first kilometer, during which the divers and boys were required to squeeze through a narrow, flooded channel.

Rescuers needed to hold the boys’ oxygen tanks in front of them and swim pencil-like through submerged holes. Having completed this section, the boys were then handed over to separate, specialist rescue teams, who helped assist them through the remainder of the cave, much of which they could wade through.

Phromthep, known as Dom, left the cave as part of the second group of boys carried out on more than two weeks after they were first trapped. He was one of three boys whose birthdays slipped by while they were deep underground. In his first message to his parents he implored them not to forget. “I’m fine, but the weather is quite cold. But don’t worry,” he said. “Don’t forget my birthday,” he said.

From hospital, after his rescue, he said he wanted pork and rice to eat and thanked everyone for all their support.

All 12 of the rescued boys and their coach were then transported to a nearby hospital for recuperation.

Family members greeted the news of their rescue with relief and tears of happiness, punching the air when they heard that their boys were alive.

Reacting to Phromthep’s death, Prajak Sutham, one of the Thai cave survivors, wrote on Facebook: “We have been through together a lot, good and bad times. We had went through life and death situations together, when you told me to wait and see the time you became a national player. I always believed that you could do it. Last time we met before you left to UK, I jokingly told you that, when you’re back I would ask for your signature. Rest in Peace Bro, we always have each other, the 13 of us.”

Rick Stanton, the lead diver from the 2018 rescue mission, told CNN’s Don Riddell that he was shocked at the news, and said that fellow rescuers had been informed.

“When John Volanthen and I first found the Wild Boars at the end of a fraught nine day search, it was Dom who took the lead and wrote the first messages to the outside world,” he said in an email.

“As a personal recollection, it was Dom whose unconscious body I swam with as I escorted him to safety on the second day of the rescue mission. I carefully held his precious life in my grasp, bearing the full weight of responsibility towards his survival through the most extreme of circumstances.”

The Doi Wao temple in his hometown in Chiang Rai also expressed their condolences to Phromthep’s mother.

Brooke House College, the school which Phromthep attended as a Football Academy student, said in a statement that his death “has left our college community deeply saddened and shaken.”

“This event has left our college community deeply saddened and shaken. We unite in grief with all of Dom’s family, friends, former teammates and those involved in all parts of his life, as well as everyone affected in any way by this loss in Thailand and throughout the college’s global family,” the college’s principal, Ian Smith, said.

According to the statement, Brooke House College is liaising with statutory authorities and the Royal Thai Embassy in London, and “dedicating all resources to assist our student body, as they as young people process Dom’s passing.”