The US will send Ukraine more advanced rocket systems to help it defend itself, President Biden has announced.
The weapons, long requested by Ukraine, are to help it strike enemy forces more precisely from a longer distance.
Until now, the US had refused the request out of fear the weapons could be used against targets in Russia.
But on Wednesday, Mr Biden said the lethal aid would strengthen Kyiv’s negotiating position against Russia and make a diplomatic solution more likely.
Writing in the New York Times, he said: “That is why I’ve decided that we will provide the Ukrainians with more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine.”
This is a fine balancing act for Mr Biden, as providing more powerful weapons could risk drawing the US and its Nato allies into direct conflict with Russia.
New weaponry will include the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), a senior White House official said – although he did not specify how many of them would be supplied.
The systems can launch multiple precision-guided missiles at targets as far as 70km (45 miles) away – far further than the artillery that Ukraine currently has. They are also believed to be more accurate than their Russian equivalents.
Last month, Ukraine’s army chief said that getting the HIMARS units would be “crucial” in allowing it to counter Russian missile attacks.
The US expects Ukraine to deploy the weapons in the eastern Donbas region, where the fighting is most intense, and where they can be used to strike Russian artillery units and forces targeting Ukrainian towns.
White House officials agreed to provide the rockets, they said, only after gaining assurances from President Volodomyr Zelensky that the weapons would not be used to attack targets inside Russia.
“We are not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia,” Mr Biden wrote on Wednesday.
Simone Johnson, daughter of WWE Hall of Famer Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, is kickin’ ass and takin’ names before ever stepping foot in a WWE ring … hitting back at “fans” criticizing her wrestling name.
On Sunday, the 20-year-old, who signed with WWE in 2020, announced her pro wrestling name would be “Ava Raine” which disappointed some fans.
The trolls came out in full force saying “The Pebble” (sigh) would be a more fitting name — an obvious play on The Rock’s on-camera name.
Well, Simone is already following in her father’s footsteps, and was quick with the comebacks, saying, “I beg of you guys to find a new joke. Anything.”
She went on “I probably sound like a broken record & hopefully this is the last I’ll mention this, but I don’t understand why people being portrayed as separate individuals from their family name is such a heated topic.” “A name doesn’t discredit any prior accomplishments from any family.”
It’s not easy being the child of a WWE legend such as The Rock — one of the greatest sports entertainers in the world — and Simone recognizes she’ll be judged harshly no matter what she does.
“I could build my entire career around my father & people would still bash me anyway,” Simone tweeted. Simone is a fourth-generation wrestler. Her grandpa (Rock’s dad) was Rocky Johnson, and her great-grandfather, Peter “High Chief” Maivia both paved the way for Dwayne.
A knee injury initially delayed Simone’s WWE debut, but she’s expected to make her first appearance sometime later this year.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced that his government will introduce new legislation to implement a ‘national freeze’ on handgun ownership and prevent people from buying and selling handguns anywhere in the country.
‘The day this legislation goes into effect it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns in Canada,’ Trudeau told reporters on Monday, May 30.
The handgun freeze would contain exceptions, including for elite sport shooters, Olympic athletes, and security guards. Canadians who already own handguns would be allowed to keep them.
The new laws would also ban some toys that look like real guns, such as airsoft rifles. Last week Toronto police shot and killed a man carrying a pellet gun.
“Because they look the same as real firearms, police need to treat them as if they are real. This has led to tragic consequences,” Justice Minister David Lametti told reporters.
Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association, welcomed some of the moves, such as the “red flag” provisions in the case of domestic violence, and said he would like more information on enforcement and resources for measures such as the handgun freeze.
He completely supported a crackdown on fake guns, which he said were a “big challenge.”
“You cannot distinguish between what’s a replica firearm and what’s a real firearm, particularly when these incidences involving replica firearms occur often in very dynamic, quickly evolving circumstances.”
If passed, the freeze on handguns is expected to come into force in the autumn.
Canada’s public safety minister has tabled regulatory amendments in parliament to ensure it can be implemented swiftly, according to a ministry statement.
This comes after the last week’s killing of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas has fed concern about gun violence worldwide.
In 2020, Canada banned the sale and use of some 1,500 models of assault weapons, like the AR-15 rifle in the wake of a mass shooting in Portapique, Nova Scotia, a move some firearms owners say they are contesting in court.
LOS ANGELES — The harm to African Americans that started with slavery persists to this day through systemic discrimination that requires California to make “comprehensive reparations” and extensive reforms in housing, education and the justice system, according to a sweeping report released Wednesday by a first-in-the-nation state reparations task force.
The panel, whose recommendations pertain to California, also urged the creation of a special office charged with providing a pathway for financial reparations for Black residents, according to version of the report examined by USA TODAY.
At nearly 500 pages, the task force interim report extensively chronicles centuries of racial oppression from the start of slavery here in the 1600s to present-day inequities experienced by Black Americans in California and the rest of the country. It includes recommendations for repairing the damage in more than a dozen categories.
Members say it is the first government-commissioned detailing of transgressions against Black Americans since the federal Kerner Commission report in 1968.
The history of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation and other discrimination against Black Americans detailed in the report lays out the reasons a reparations program is needed, task force member Lisa Holder said.
“The depth, breadth and scope of the report is astounding,” Holder said. “We are evaluating racism beginning in 1619 and going all the way to the present … and connecting (past) injustices to injustice that we are seeing today.”
The report recounts what it calls “the horrors and harms perpetrated against Black Americans in California and the nation,” explains the existence of a huge wealth gap and argues for reparation payments, a contentious issue in which opinion has been divided by race. According to a 2019 Gallup poll, Black Americans widely supported reparations, while white Americans substantially opposed it.
More than 150 years after slavery was abolished, its legacy remains “embedded in the political, legal, health, financial, educational, cultural, environmental, social and economic systems of the United States,” the report states.
It argues that unequal treatment instituted by federal, state and local governments over centuries has created a huge wealth gap between Black and white Americans that requires financial remedies such as reparations. “Segregation, racial terror, harmful racist neglect, and other atrocities in nearly every sector of civil society have inflicted harms, which cascade over a lifetime and compound over generations,” the report says.
The most complex determinations, including proposals for the size, structure and logistics of a reparations plan, will come in a final report next year to California’s legislature and governor, who appointed the panel’s members and ultimately will decide on its recommendations. The panel, which includes lawmakers, lawyers, academics and civil rights activists, includes one non-Black member, Donald Tamaki, a Japanese American who worked to overturn the conviction of Fred Korematsu, who resisted internment during World War II and whose case played a key role in gaining reparations for Japanese Americans.
The task force, which has held numerous hearings in the past year, made a big reparations decision in March, voting 5-4 to restrict compensation to descendants of enslaved and free Black people who were in the U.S. in the 19th Century.
The interim report’s recommendations focus on California, but the work taking place in the nation’s largest state is being looked at as a potential model for reparations efforts in other parts of the country and as a way to build momentum for a reparations bill that has been introduced for decades in Congress.
“There’s a history of policies first being championed in California and then being replicated throughout the states and even by the federal government,” task force Chair Kamilah Moore said. “I hope that reparations for African Americans is one of those policy issues that … will reverberate to other states and to the federal level, as well.”
Deep-blue California, which entered the union as a free state in 1850 but enforced fugitive slave laws, comes in for harsh criticism in the report for policies and practices that have discriminated for years against Black Americans, although task force members credit the state for its groundbreaking effort to consider reparations.
Chapter titles convey the physical, verbal and emotional violence experienced by Black Americans: “Enslavement”; “Racial Terror”; “Political Disenfranchisement”; “Separate and Unequal Education”; “An Unjust Legal System”; and “Pathologizing the Black Family.”
The report includes a broad range of preliminary recommendations, including increasing access to parks and public transportation in Black neighborhoods; stopping banking and mortgage-related discrimination; establishing a free tuition initiative and adopting a school curriculum that includes more expansive discussion of the experiences of Black Americans.
Although much hard work remains, California task force member Holder hopes the interim report can help boost a reparations effort that gained support in the social justice movement that arose in 2020 following the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people. However, the report also comes at a time of increased backlash regarding the teaching of racial history, with other states considering legislation restricting educational curriculums.
“We’re really trying to correct the historical record, to reimagine the narrative in a way that is truly inclusive of people of color,” Holder said.
A phone app that allows women in the Palestinian Gaza Strip to report domestic abuse anonymously is allowing growing numbers of victims to seek help while avoiding the shame and reprisals that put many off going to the authorities directly.
The “Masahatuna” or “Our Spaces” app was developed by local computer engineer Alaa Huthut, who saw the need for a way to seek advice safely in a society where family pressures keep much domestic violence hidden out of sight.
“Privacy was very important as fear is usually the main cause women don’t contact or visit centres,” she told Reuters.
The app allows women to register with the service without giving their names or leaving a trace of their contacts with care centres on their own phones.
“If anyone looks at the phone they wouldn’t know she made contact,” Huthut said.
Gaza, run by the Islamist Hamas group, is home to some 2.3 million people, nearly half of them women, according to Palestinian records.
In 2019, the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics said 41% of women in Gaza had faced domestic violence and women’s groups say that, as in many other countries, the problem worsened during coronavirus lockdowns.
“I faced verbal and physical violence for many years,” said a Gaza woman, 28, who asked not to be named. Following her divorce two years ago, the woman said she faced threats from her former husband and his family who threatened to take her 7-year old son away.
Kholoud Al-Sawalma of the Gaza Community Media Centre said 355 women had downloaded the app and 160 had contacted help centres that provide psychological and legal support.
Last month, a Gaza court handed down the death penalty to a man who beat his wife to death. But women’s groups say more needs to be done to stop domestic violence in Gaza, where they say some women who report abuse at times get directed to clan leaders to resolve it.
In some cases where women have died due to abuse, some men may try to escape severe punishment by accusing their partners of adultery or fake mental health problems, law advocates said.
