Category: US

CNN
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The 19-year-old White man who killed 10 people in a racist mass shooting at a grocery store in a predominantly Black area of Buffalo last May apologized to the victims’ families and was sentenced to life in prison during an emotional court hearing Wednesday.

“I’m very sorry for all the pain I forced the victims and their families to suffer through. I’m very sorry for stealing the lives of your loved ones. I cannot express how much I regret all the decisions I made leading up to my actions on May 14,” Payton Gendron, wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles, said in court.

“I did a terrible thing that day. I shot and killed people because they were Black. Looking back now, I can’t believe I actually did it. I believed what I read online and acted out of hate. I know I can’t take it back, but I wish I could, and I don’t want anyone to be inspired by me and what I did.”

The statement came during the state sentencing hearing for Gendron, who pleaded guilty in November to one count of domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate, 10 counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder and a weapons possession charge for the mass shooting at Tops Friendly Markets on May 14, 2022.

A number of victims’ family members spoke emotionally Wednesday about how the mass shooting had changed their lives. At one point, Gendron took off his glasses and began crying during the testimony from the victims’ families.

At another point, a man in a gray sweatshirt rushed at Gendron in court but was quickly blocked by security, and Gendron was taken out of the courtroom.

After a short break, Gendron returned to the courtroom and Erie County Court Judge Susan Eagan restarted the hearing.

“We cannot have that in the courtroom,” Eagan said. “We must conduct ourselves appropriately because we are all better than that.”

In the end, the judge sentenced Gendron to life in prison on each of the terrorism and murder charges and offered a stern rebuke of him.

“There is no place for you or your ignorant, hateful and evil ideologies in a civilized society,” she said. “There can be no mercy for you, no understanding, no second chances. The damage you have caused is too great, and the people you have hurt are too valuable to this community. You will never see the light of day as a free man ever again.”

Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn said after court the sentence put legal closure on the case, but not on the broader issues.

“It certainly does not put any closure on what we need to do as a society and a community going forward,” Flynn said. “Justice was done with a small ‘j’ today, but we still have a big ‘J’ of Justice to do.”

The attempted attack on Gendron came during a particularly intense victim impact statement by Barbara Mapps, the sister of Katherine Massey, a 72-year-old who was killed in the attack.

“I want personally to choke you,” Mapps said in a loud voice. “Your little punk a** decided to come here to kill Black people.”

Flynn said the man will not be charged with a crime, explaining he did not want to compound the tragedy.

Other families of victims offered more somber memories of their loved ones and criticisms of Gendron’s violent actions and hateful ideology. Many of the victims’ family members voiced that they wish for Gendron to be sentenced to life in prison, rather than the death penalty, so the shooter will have to suffer with his thoughts for the rest of his life.

“One day I hope you find it in your heart to apologize to those families,” Wayne Jones, the son of Celestine Chaney, said in court.

“I pray to God they do not kill you,” said Brian Talley, family member of shooting victim Geraldine Talley. “You need to be known worldwide … I forgive you, but I forgive you not for your sake, but for mine and for this Black community.”

Christopher Braden, who said he was shot in his leg, said he saw dead bodies on the floor as he was led out of the supermarket to the hospital.

“The visions haunt me every day,” Braden said, adding he continues to suffer from night terrors and post-traumatic stress disorder from the shooting.

Zeneta Everhart, whose son Zaire Goodman was shot and injured, said her son has survivor’s guilt.

“He is dealing with the pain that I as a mother cannot bear,” Everhart said. “On that day this terrorist made the choice that the value of a Black human meant nothing to him … whatever the sentence is that [Gendron] receives, it will never be enough.”

Michelle Spight, who said she lost her aunt and her cousin in the shooting, said she hopes Gendron is haunted every day and every night.

“You came to Buffalo with hatred and anger in your heart,” Spight said, also speaking on behalf of her other family members.

Speaking after court, several Buffalo officials and families said they did not believe Gendron’s apology was genuine. Everhart said the gunman should be scared.

“Yes, somebody rushed at [Gendron] today in the courtroom, but that’s the emotion that all of these families feel on the inside,” Everhart said. “I feel like that every single day. We all feel like that every single day. I was happy to see him scared today. He should be able to feel what those families felt that day when he pointed that gun in their faces. That is how he should feel all day, every day.”

On the afternoon of May 14, Gendron turned the community’s source of necessities into a crime scene.

Gendron was heavily armed and wore tactical gear – including a tactical helmet and plated armor, police said at the time. He also livestreamed his actions using a camera.

Using an illegally modified semi-automatic rifle, the gunman shot four people outside the grocery store – three of whom died. He continued the massacre inside the store, fatally shooting an armed security guard and eight others, six of whom didn’t survive.

The shooting traumatized the predominantly Black neighborhood of Masten Park on Buffalo’s east side. The area was a food desert and the Tops Friendly Markets was the only supermarket in the neighborhood.

Gendron shot a total of 13 people, including 11 Black people and two White people, authorities said. All the victims killed were Black.

Prosecutors have argued the horror that unfolded both inside and outside the supermarket was rooted in Gendron’s racism toward Black people. Evidence included social media posts and a lengthy document written by Gendron, revealing he had planned the attack and visited the supermarket several times prior to the massacre.

Gendron posted he chose the Tops market as his target because it’s located in the 14208 ZIP code in Buffalo which is home to the highest percentage of Black people close enough to where he lived in Conklin, New York.

In the document, he attributed the internet for most of his beliefs and describes himself as a fascist, a White supremacist and an antisemite.

The shooter’s charges included the first use of New York’s terrorism motivated by hate charge since it became available in 2020 under state law.

On the federal level, Gendron faces 10 counts of hate crime resulting in death, three counts of hate crime involving bodily injury, 10 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a violent crime, and three counts of use and discharge of a firearm during a violent crime, according to a criminal complaint.

He has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, which carry the potential for the death penalty.

In December, Gendron’s attorneys said during a court hearing he would be willing to plead guilty to the federal charges if prosecutors agreed to remove the death penalty as punishment.

Correction: An earlier version of this story gave the wrong last name for Barbara Mapps.

CNN
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The Arizona Department of Public Safety has reinstated a shelter-in-place order for a one-mile perimeter around a crash involving a commercial tractor truck hauling liquid nitric acid which resulted in a hazardous spill along Interstate 10 in Tucson.

The crash led to evacuation orders which were lifted Tuesday night, but reinstated Wednesday morning, authorities said.

“While crews were attempting to remove the load from the commercial vehicle, gassing occurred,” DPS said in a news release.

Interstate 10 remains closed in both directions between Kolb and Rita roads in Tucson, according to DPS.

“Unified Command advises anyone within the one-mile perimeter to turn off heaters and/or air conditioning systems that bring in outside air,” the news release said. “The public should avoid the area and motorists should seek an alternate route.”

DPS did not indicate when the shelter-in-place would be lifted.

The driver of the truck died in the crash, the department said, without identifying the person publicly.

Shawn Bilkey said the orange-colored gas that came from an overturned tractor-trailer carrying liquid nitric acid smelled like smoke, “but not fire smoke … just not pleasant.”

Bilkey was driving east along I-10 Tuesday near the Rita Road exit, shortly after the truck overturned.

“The traffic never stopped while we were there, it had to have just happened because there was only one cop there at the time,” he said.

He remembered traffic in front of him suddenly slowed, and then he began seeing the orange-colored gas in front of him.

“It was a color I’d never seen in vapor form before, so I decided to start recording,” he said. “Just in case Tucson were to turn into East Palestine y’know?”

In the video, a thick plume of gas is seen emanating from the overturned tractor trailer. It’s seen drifting northward, into and across the westbound Interstate 10 lanes.

“It didn’t smell like anything when we drove by, probably helped that the wind was taking it in the opposite direction,” Bilkey said. “But I was dropping off my friend who lives in Rita Ranch about half a mile north from where the spill was, in the direction the wind was blowing, and when he got out of the car it almost smelled like smoke but not fire smoke it’s hard to explain, just not pleasant.”

Nitric acid is a colorless liquid, has yellow or red fumes and acrid odor, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Exposure to it can cause irritation to the eyes, skin and mucous membranes.

Minneapolis
CNN
 — 

US retail sales surged in January by the most in almost two years, soaring by 3%, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

Economists had anticipated sales would rise by 1.8%, after the 1.1% decline in December when consumers pulled back on spending amid high inflation and concern about the direction of the economy.

January was the largest monthly sales bump since March 2021, with increases across all retail categories. Some of the largest jumps were at department stores (17.5%), food services and drinking places (7.2%), and auto dealers (6.4%).

The retail sales data is not adjusted for inflation. In January, the Consumer Price Index showed annual inflation moderating 0.1 percentage point to 6.4%.

On a year-over-year basis, retail sales were up 6.4% from January 2022, when the Omicron variant was surging. Favorable weather, a strong labor market and post-holiday discounting helped contribute to the rebound in sales.

January’s blowout report is likely to underscore the Federal Reserve’s resolve to keep raising interest rates to cool demand as it tries to rein in inflation.

“The economy remains strong, unemployment is low, and that is what is going to keep inflation elevated. The Fed is going to need to raise rates higher — and hold them higher for longer — than people currently expect, and this is going to cause markets to go through some significant volatility as stock and bond markets are priced for benign scenarios and not the more difficult one that we are headed towards,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance, in a note Wednesday morning.

Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst for LendingTree, told CNN: “What we’ve seen is a lot of resilience among consumers. Generally, Americans overall have done a pretty good job of managing through some challenging times.”

This story is developing and will be updated.

CNN
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A little more than five years ago, an Amish dairy farmer in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, welcomed a nervous, fidgeting man onto his property to discuss the sale of puppies that the farmer breeds as a side business.

“He says, ‘We are going to take that puppy and that puppy,’” said the farmer, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity. “And his assistant grabs the two puppies, takes them out the door, and he pulls out a check. I was like, ‘Oh no, is this guy going to pay me with a check?’ I was very suspicious.”

His instinct was right. The check bounced. The name on it: George Santos, better known today as a recently elected and increasingly scandal-plagued Republican congressman from New York.

Not long after his interaction with the Amish farmer, Santos was charged with theft in Pennsylvania after several bad checks were written in his name to dog breeders in the region, according to a former lawyer friend who helped him navigate the case. The case was confirmed as “theft by deception” by the York County District Attorney’s Office, which told CNN it was later dismissed.

The charges centered on a series of nine checks totaling more than $15,000 that went to the dog breeders, according to Tiffany Bogosian, a childhood friend of Santos and personal-injury lawyer who said she assisted Santos in February 2020 after he was served with an extradition warrant.

Bogosian said she sent an email to a Pennsylvania state trooper, a copy of which she provided to CNN, on Santos’ behalf, outlining his contention that one of his four checkbooks had gone missing before the bad checks had been written. Speaking about the episode more recently, Bogosian said she no longer believes Santos’ story

In the farmer’s account, Santos was accompanied by an unnamed woman, described as an assistant, and asked to purchase a pair of German shepherds. A deal was struck, in principle, inside the farmer’s milk house. The assistant quickly grabbed the dogs and left for the car.

By then, the farmer told CNN, he began to realize he was “stuck,” hoodwinked by a stranger he thought he’d never see or hear of again.

“I told him I don’t take checks. All I can take is cash. And he said, ‘You expect me to carry that much cash to buy a bunch of puppies on a trip like this? I do not have cash. The only thing I can give you is a check,’” the farmer recounted. “I thought to myself, it looks like I am done!”

As he expected, the check bounced – leaving the farmer on the hook for a bank fee. He was never repaid.

Neither Santos nor his lawyers responded to requests for comment on the details of the allegations.

Days after the exchange, Santos participated in an adoption event at a pet supply store in Staten Island, New York, according to the business’ former owner, Daniel Avissato.

Avissato told CNN that he wrote a check to Santos’ charity supporting pets after the event, but when he viewed the bank transaction online saw that the organization’s name had been crossed and replaced with the name Anthony Devolder, a version of Santos’ full name he often used as a pseudonym.

CNN
 — 

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the trailer for Celine Dion’s new feature film debuted on Tuesday.

“Love Again” stars Dion, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and “Outlander” star Sam Heughan and follows Mira (Chopra Jonas), who is grieving the death of her fiancé by texting love notes to his old cell phone number. That number now belongs to Rob (Heughan), who is a journalist, and a romantic connection begins to form.

Naturally, Dion stars as herself in the rom-com and appears to help guide Rob toward love in the trailer.

Dion’s uber hit “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” is played as the Grammy winner can be heard saying, “Love has a plan for each and everyone one of us.”

The trailer also mentions that new music from Dion is featured in the film.

“It’s a wonderful feel-good story, and I hope that people will like it and like the new songs too,” Dion told People magazine in an article published on Tuesday.

Chopra’s husband, Nick Jonas, also makes a hilarious cameo in the trailer. The singer appears in the back the of a taxi with a less-than-pleased-looking Chopra Jonas, awkwardly trying to make a move on her.

“Love Again” is the American film adaptation of Sofie Cramer’s 2009 novel, “SMS für dich (Text for You),” and will premiere in theaters on May 12.

Can you feel the power of love yet?