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Tag: death and dying

  • Florida ocean temps surge to 100 degrees as mass coral bleaching event is found in some reefs | CNN

    Florida ocean temps surge to 100 degrees as mass coral bleaching event is found in some reefs | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    An urgent rescue operation is underway to save Florida coral species from extinction as a mass bleaching event and die-off from unprecedented water temperatures spreads across reefs in the the Florida Keys.

    Multiple reefs around the Florida Keys are now completely bleached or dead in a grim escalation that took place in as little as two weeks, coral experts told CNN.

    Experts now say they expect “complete mortality” of the bleached reefs in just a week, and worry reefs at greater depths could face the same fate if the unprecedented ocean warmth continues to escalate.

    Extreme heat and a lack of rain and wind pushed water temperatures around Florida to some of the highest levels ever observed anywhere. A buoy in the Florida Bay hit 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit at a depth of 5 feet Monday, in an area where coral is scant. Many other stations in the area topped 96 degrees, including one that hit 99 degrees, according to the National Data Buoy Center.

    The most significant concentration of coral isn’t located in the shallower Florida Bay, where the readings were taken, but that matters little for coral around the Florida Keys baking in water temperatures topping 90 degrees.

    Coral is extremely sensitive to temperature changes. Temperatures that are too hot for too long cause coral to bleach and turn white as they expel their algal food source and slowly starve to death. The water is typically in mid-80s in the region, experts said.

    Temperatures at a reef managed by the Florida Aquarium were 91 degrees on July 6. The coral was completely healthy then, but when aquarium teams returned on July 19, all of the coral was bleached and an estimated 80% of it was dead. Another report from the Coral Restoration Foundation found “100% coral mortality” at Sombrero Reef off the coast of Marathon in the Florida Keys.

    “This is akin to all of the trees in the rainforest dying,” Keri O’Neal, the director and senior scientist at the Florida Aquarium, told CNN. “Where do all of the other animals that rely on the rainforest go to live? This is the underwater version of the trees in the rainforest disappearing. Corals serve that same fundamental role.”

    Andrew Ibarra was worried about his “favorite reef,” Cheeca Rocks, he told CNN. So he grabbed his snorkeling gear and his camera, hopped in his kayak and paddled the short mile and a half off Islamorada to the site.

    “I found that the entire reef was bleached out,” said Ibarra, a NOAA monitoring specialist at Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. “Every single coral colony was exhibiting some form of paling, partial bleaching or full-out bleaching. Including recent mortality for some corals that have already died.”

    Coral bleaching as seen at Cheeca Rocks off Islamorada in the Florida Keys.

    Ibarra’s photos and videos show a ghastly graveyard of corals sapped of color and life.

    “The pictures are frankly horrifying,” Katie Lesneski, the monitoring coordinator for NOAA’s Mission: Iconic Reefs told CNN. “It’s hard for me to put into words how I’m feeling right now.”

    Lesneski said that she found two other reefs with “very, very high mortality” but also found a “a little hope spot” on a dive in a deeper reef on Monday, where only 5% of the coral was starting to bleach because water temperatures are slightly cooler in what are called “depth refuges.”

    But even those corals could bleach and die if there’s no respite from the intense water temperatures. Previous mass bleaching events in Florida happened weeks later than this event, when ocean temperatures typically peak.

    Dead Coral at Sombrero Reef

    Reef restoration experts are now plucking genetically important species from their nurseries – where they plant and cultivate coral bred to be more resilient – and taking them to land where they will wait out the extreme heat.

    “Scientists are just really scrambling to keep what we have alive. It’s pretty crazy that at this point the best solution we have is to take as much coral out of the ocean as we can,” O’Neal told CNN. “It’s shocking when you think about that.”

    It includes corals like Staghorn and Elkhorn that are “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act because there are just a few hundred genetically unique individuals left, O’Neal said. Florida has lost 90% of its Elkhorn, which is mighty and grows all the way to the surface and is therefore vital in reducing destructive waves from hurricanes.

    Coral bleaching as seen at Cheeca Rocks off Islamorada in the Florida Keys.

    The thousands of saved coral bits end up in rows of climate-controlled water-filled tables at places like the Florida Institute of Oceanography’s Keys Marine Laboratory. KML has already taken in at least 1,500 corals and expects the number to grow to 5,000 or more as the great rescue operation plays out.

    “At this point we’re in emergency triage mode,” Cynthia Lewis, a biologist and the director of KML told CNN. “Some of these corals that came in last week were looking very bad, and we may lose them.”

    Lewis said that while a lot of the coral was in OK shape, up to 10% of it was dying at the lab.

    But experts said every piece saved would help them learn which corals can survive warmer oceans, and also be the foundation for rebuilding Florida’s reefs after this year’s bleaching event.

    “If anything our work is more important than ever because we’re really depending on aquarium facilities to keep these species from going extinct in Florida,” O’Neal told CNN.

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  • Deadly extreme heat is on the rise in national parks — a growing risk for America’s great outdoors | CNN

    Deadly extreme heat is on the rise in national parks — a growing risk for America’s great outdoors | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Extreme heat appears to be killing people in America’s national parks at an alarming pace this year, highlighting both its severity and the changing calculus of personal risk in the country’s natural places as climate change fuels more weather extremes.

    More people are suspected to have died since June 1 from heat-related causes in national parks than an average entire year, according to park service press releases and preliminary National Park Service data provided to CNN. No other year had five heat-related deaths by July 23, park mortality data that dates to 2007 shows, and the deadliest month for heat in parks – August – is yet to come.

    The deaths reported so far are still under investigation, but all five died in temperatures that hit 100 degrees, a searing microcosm of a much more widespread pattern of extreme heat that has broken more than 3,000 high temperature records across the US since early June.

    That kind of heat has proven an indiscriminate killer in the nation’s parks:

    • A 14-year-old boy died on a trail in southwest Texas’ Big Bend National Park in 119-degree heat, his 31-year-old father died seeking help to save him.
    • A 65 year-or-older man died hiking on June 1 in Big Bend.
    • A 57-year-old woman died hiking a trail in Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park.
    • A 71-year-old man collapsed and died outside a restroom in California’s Death Valley National Park after park rangers believe he hiked a nearby trail.
    • A 65-year-old man was found dead in his disabled vehicle on the side of the road in Death Valley National Park, with park rangers suspecting he succumbed to heat illness while driving and then baked in temperatures as high as 126 degrees.

    Heat is the deadliest type of weather, killing on average more than twice as many people each year as hurricanes and tornadoes combined. But heat deaths are notoriously difficult to track in the US, with one 2020 study estimating that they were undercounted in some of the most populous counties.

    The National Park Service faces the same challenges, and told CNN that the true toll of this year’s extreme heat and recent past heat may be even higher. They need to collect and corroborate death reports with hundreds of individual parks and the equally vast and complex web of local and state officials that medically determine cause of death.

    As a result, some of the most recent death statistics from 2020 to 2023 could “change significantly,” park spokespeople said.

    That’s already proven true. Two of this year’s five deaths happened after the park service provided the data to CNN in early July. Still, the current statistics offer a glimpse into the deadly potential of this unrelenting heat, especially in its epicenter: the Southwest.

    All of this year’s suspected heat-related deaths took place in just three national parks: Grand Canyon, Death Valley and Big Bend. These three parks are also responsible for more than half of the 68 heat-related deaths reported by the park service since 2007.

    And that’s no surprise – all three parks are located in the nation’s oven, the Southwest, and all but one of the deaths happened west of the Mississippi River.

    It’s normal for the Southwest to be hot. But the heat this year, especially the longevity of it, is far from normal. Phoenix, just a few hours south of the Grand Canyon, shattered its record for consecutive days at 110 degrees-plus and only dropped to 97 degrees overnight at times during the streak, a record warm low temperature.

    A recent report from Climate Central, a non-profit research group, found that the Southwest heat wave in the first half of July was made at least five times more likely by human-caused climate change.

    Average annual temperatures across the Southwest increased by 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit between 1901 and 2016, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, the federal government’s periodic climate change report. The climate crisis has also worsened the region’s most severe drought in centuries, which created an ongoing crisis over water supplies from the river that etched the Grand Canyon into the earth. And projections show that temperatures will continue to rise to the tune of 8.6 degrees – resulting in 45 more days over 90 degrees each year for parts of the region by 2100 under the worst-case scenarios.

    The country’s national parks are ground zero for this warming. A 2018 study found that they had warmed twice as fast as the rest of the US from 1895 to 2010 due to human-caused climate change.

    National parks in the Southwest and in Alaska were the “most severely damaged by human-caused climate change” and experienced the most pronounced warming, said Patrick Gonzalez, climate scientist at the University of California at Berkeley and the study’s author. But he also said that damage was happening “all across America and all across our national parks.”

    “Carbon pollution from cars, power plants and deforestation – human sources – has already damaged our national parks, and in years like this we see the potential acute damage, severe one year damage,” Gonzalez told CNN.

    Heat risk and damage to national parks will only increase if unabated carbon pollution continues, Gonzalez said. That’s changing the personal risk calculus for summer recreation now and in the future in increasingly hotter national parks.

    The 300 million-plus people who visit the parks each year are already encountering warmer temperatures and are at a greater risk for heat illness as a result. Park visitation also peaks during the summer, furthering that risk.

    The park service doesn’t universally keep track of heat-related illnesses that don’t result in death, but multiple park representatives said the number of heat illnesses was much greater than heat mortality. Multiple medical responses a week that are “probably heat-related” happen during the summer at Death Valley National Park, park spokesperson Abby Wines told CNN.

    Grand Canyon National Park doesn’t track heat-specific illness, but carries out hundreds of rescues and so-called “hiker assists” for less-severe issues most commonly because of “lack of physical conditioning,” park spokesperson Joelle Baird told CNN.

    Baird said they see a spike in ranger responses to heat-related illnesses when temperatures reach 95 degrees on trails at the midway point between the top and the bottom of the canyon.

    Extreme heat can trigger heat illness in as little as 20 to 30 minutes for people doing anything strenuous outdoors, like hiking, because heat acts as a “perfect storm,” which overloads the body until it eventually short-circuits and shuts down, Dr. Matthew Levy, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told CNN.

    Hiking was the most common cause of heat-related death in the national parks data, representing more than 60% of all deaths. Park spokespeople said that typically, less-experienced hikers find themselves in compromising situations by overestimating their abilities or underpreparing for the heat, but heat illness and death can and has happened in experienced hikers, too.

    Maggie Peikon is a self-proclaimed “avid hiker” who has climbed some of the country’s highest mountains and even scaled an active volcano in Indonesia.

    She said part of the allure of hiking for experienced hikers is to “challenge my will.” But even so, she said, hiking in this kind of heat isn’t worth it.

    “Most of the challenges I’ve pushed myself to do, there’s a level of enjoyment there, and it just feels like a punishment to go out when it’s that hot,” said Peikon, who works as the manager of communications at the American Hiking Society.

    “I think I’ve just learned what I’m capable of, and that’s not just from a physical standpoint, hiking is very mental as well,” Peikon told CNN. “That was something that has stuck with me on every single hike that I do, especially the challenging ones: What you’re capable of is entirely up to you.”

    Tourists stand next to an unofficial heat reading at Furnace Creek Visitor Center during a heat wave in Death Valley National Park.

    Personal responsibility weighs heavily in the policy direction the individual national parks take when dealing with the heat.

    Parks proactively message visitors about the heat online and in signage posted at the trails that warns of the dangerous and “tragic” consequences of high temperatures. Death Valley posts bright red “STOP Extreme Heat Danger” signs at low elevation trailheads, which urge people to stay off trails after 10 a.m. and to hike only at high elevations, where temperatures are lowest.

    “People are responsible for their own safety,” Death Valley spokesperson Abby Wines told CNN. “We try to get information out to people so they’re aware, but one of the problems with heat, I think, is that often people think it’s a matter of being tough enough. They think ‘oh, I might be uncomfortable, but that’s all and I can push through it.’ But heat is deadly.”

    It’s so hot in Death Valley that the park warns visitors that it can’t and won’t rescue people.

    “We don’t want to put our own staff at risk of heat fatality by doing a physical carry out in extreme heat conditions,” Wines said, adding that the medical helicopter can’t get enough lift to take off because temperatures are so hot.

    That was the case in the most recent death in Death Valley on July 19 when the temperature was 117 degrees, a park release notes.

    What parks seem to rarely do is close trails because of the heat. The park representatives CNN spoke to said there is no national policy or guidance to close if temperatures reach a certain level.

    Trails do close because of other kinds of extreme weather, including winter storms and tropical systems. Park officials said those decisions are made at the individual park level based on the hazards there and that it was technically possible individual parks could choose to close trails or limit access if the heat got too extreme.

    Trails in Lake Mead National Recreational area in Arizona and Nevada do close seasonally because of the heat, and Grand Canyon National Park has at least entertained the idea to close trails.

    “It is something that I’ve heard come up every single year, this time of year, so I don’t think it’s beyond the National Park Service or Grand Canyon,” Baird, Grand Canyon National Park’s spokesperson, told CNN. “I think the thought and stance has always been to push out more hiker education to try to change and influence people’s behavior rather than having a reactionary decision to close trails, because people can hike successfully. We just have to provide enough information and tools for them to be successful.”

    Grand Canyon is the deadliest park for extreme heat with 16 deaths since 2007, the preliminary data from the National Park Service would suggest, a toll Baird said would be “much higher” if the park didn’t also have one of the most robust and proactive responses to heat.

    Grand Canyon pioneered a Preventative Search and Rescue team after a particularly dangerous and taxing year for rescue teams in 1996.

    Emergency Services Coordinator James Thompson observes and directs operations during a search and rescue training exercise at the Grand Canyon.

    The teams are medically trained and meet hikers at the start of trails to make sure they are adequately prepared for the journey, provide assistance with water or snacks and even contact and check in with hikers once they’re on the trails.

    This preventative approach has decreased the number of expensive, “last resort” search and rescues that are typically done via helicopter. But despite these efforts, there are still between 300 and 350 search and rescues each year at Grand Canyon and there have been 172 so far this year, with around 70 coming since Memorial Day.

    “Grand Canyon is an amazing place, everyone should hike into the canyon if they have the ability to do so,” Baird said. “However, this time of year is not optimal.”

    Park officials and hiking experts recommended checking the weather and park alerts before going out on the trail, to get acclimated to heat before your trip and know your personal limits, to shorten activities outdoors, carry more water than you think you might need, find shadier trails, tour the park by air-conditioned car or even just skip the hike altogether to reduce the chance that heat continues to turn deadly.

    “It’s not worth the risk of experiencing heat illness because of the outcomes,” Andrea Walton, Southeast Region Public Affairs Specialist for the park service, told CNN. “At minimum you’re going to feel really bad the next day” or worse, “potentially ending up in the hospital, or worst case, experiencing a fatal incident.”

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  • Cape Cod boat crash leaves 1 dead and others injured, officials say | CNN

    Cape Cod boat crash leaves 1 dead and others injured, officials say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A 17-year-old girl has died after a boat crashed into a jetty in Sesuit Harbor on Cape Cod Friday night, according to Massachusetts State Police.

    The teenager’s body was recovered from the water around 11:30 p.m. by the regional dive team with assistance from Dennis Fire-Rescue, according to a Saturday news release from the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office. Officials have not released the girl’s name “out of respect for the privacy of her family,” the release said.

    Six people, including the girl who sustained fatal injuries, were on the boat before it crashed around 9 p.m., according to the release. Other passengers were transported to Cape Cod Hospital for treatment, police said.

    The State Police Detective Unit for the Cape and Islands District is investigating the teen’s death alongside the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office, the Massachusetts Environmental Police, Dennis Police, and the State Police Crime Scene Services Section, according to the news release.

    Police said the Massachusetts State Police Marine Unit and the MSP Underwater Recovery Unit, along with Massachusetts Environmental Police marine assets, are conducting dive operations at the crash site to search for debris from the boat as part of the investigation.

    CNN has reached out to the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office, Dennis Police, and the United States Coast Guard for further information.

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  • Kentucky governor declares emergency after heavy rainfall causes widespread flooding | CNN

    Kentucky governor declares emergency after heavy rainfall causes widespread flooding | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Kentucky’s governor declared an emergency Wednesday after heavy – and potentially record-setting – rain caused widespread flooding throughout the state.

    The western town of Mayfield saw 11.28 inches of rain from early Wednesday to 1 p.m., the National Weather Service in Paducah said.

    If verified, that would establish a new 24-hour rainfall record for the state, the service said. The record heading into Wednesday was 10.48 inches of rain, set in Louisville in 1997, the weather service said.

    “An incredible amount of water in a very short duration unfortunately,” the weather service said.

    “Please pray for Mayfield and areas of Western Kentucky impacted by significant flooding from last night’s storms,” Gov. Andy Beshear said in a news release. “We’re working to assess the damage and respond. Just like every challenge we’ve faced, we will be there for all those affected. We will get through this together.”

    Mayfield still is recovering from a devastating tornado in 2021 that left at least 80 people dead in Kentucky. The tornado was one of at least 50 that struck several states that December.

    Wednesday morning, the whole town was covered in water.

    Officials received the first calls for assistance around 4:30 a.m., Mayor Kathy Stewart O’Nan said, and first responders began knocking on doors to help residents evacuate.

    The sun was shining again by Wednesday afternoon, and most roads had reopened by the evening, O’Nan said.

    “By mid-morning no one had checked into a shelter, so we are counting our blessings,” the mayor said.

    Tia Nalani Nathaniel Rhodes, who lives with her family in Mayfield, said she first noticed the neighborhood was flooding around 3 a.m. Wednesday. A nearby creek overflowed and added to the flash flooding, she said.

    “The water reached the front door of my home,” Rhodes said. “The insides of many cars and trucks were also flooded and everyone’s yard furniture is floating around. Mayfield is a disaster area.”

    A dozen roads were closed following the floods and others were washed out, the Graves County Sheriff’s Office said.

    It urged “extreme caution” on roads with washouts, where the asphalt has broken and fallen away.

    The sheriff’s office called it “major flooding like many have never seen.”

    Beshear urged residents to keep themselves and their families safe.

    “Remember, we can replace stuff and we can rebuild homes. We don’t want to lose any lives,” Beshear said in a video as he signed the emergency declaration.

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  • A suspect was charged in the Gilgo Beach serial killings cold case. Here’s a timeline of the case and the investigation | CNN

    A suspect was charged in the Gilgo Beach serial killings cold case. Here’s a timeline of the case and the investigation | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    For more than a decade, a string of unsolved killings known as the Gilgo Beach murders terrorized residents and confounded authorities on Long Island’s South Shore after a woman’s 2010 disappearance led investigators to find at least 10 sets of human remains and launched the hunt for a possible serial killer.

    Authorities announced a major breakthrough in the case on Friday, charging New York architect Rex Heuermann, 59, with murder in connection to the killings of three of the four women who became known as the “Gilgo Four.”

    The suspect was taken into custody Thursday night, authorities said. He has been indicted on one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in each of the three killings – Melissa Barthelemy in 2009, and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello in 2010, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney.

    Heuermann, who told his attorney he is not the killer, is also the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance and death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, according to a bail application from prosecutors. He has not been charged in that homicide but the investigation “is expected to be resolved soon,” the document says.

    Authorities said once Heuermann was identified in early 2022 as a suspect, they watched him and his family, getting DNA samples from items in their trash as they built a case.

    He was remanded without bail Friday. He entered a not guilty plea through his attorney. His next court date is scheduled for August 1.

    Here is a timeline of the Gilgo Beach murders, how the investigation unfolded and what ultimately led to Heuermann’s arrest.

    Police discovered the first set of female remains in bushes along an isolated strip of waterfront property on Gilgo Beach while searching for another missing woman: Shannan Gilbert, a 23-year-old from Jersey City, New Jersey who hadn’t been seen since May 2010.

    The remains of Melissa Barthelemy, 24, were the first to be discovered in the case during the search on December 11, 2010, according to Suffolk County officials. Two days later, investigators discovered the remains of three additional victims – Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Costello and Megan Waterman – strewn across a half-mile stretch on Gilgo Beach.

    The four women, who were wrapped in camouflaged burlap, worked as escorts who advertised on Craigslist and were last seen between July 2007 and September 2010, officials said.

    On March 29, 2011, the partial skeletal remains of another woman were found several miles east of where the bodies of the “Gilgo Four” were discovered.

    The woman was first known as Jane Doe #5 before investigators identified her as Jessica Taylor, another escort whose partial remains were previously discovered in Manorville in 2003, police said.

    The following month, on April 4, 2011, three more sets of remains were found on a stretch of Ocean Parkway in Suffolk County near the beach. They included a female toddler, an unidentified Asian male and a woman initially referred to as Jane Doe #6, investigators said.

    One week later, two additional sets of human remains were found in Nassau County, about 40 miles east of New York City, one of which was identified as the mother of the toddler through DNA analysis. The mother’s partial remains were first discovered in 1997, officials said.

    The other set of remains “genetically matched” with remains found in 1996 on Fire Island, “significantly expanding the timeline and geographic reach” of the investigation, officials said.

    In December 2011, Gilbert’s body was found in the wooded marshes of Suffolk County’s Oak Beach. That beach is about 9 miles from where the 10 other sets of human remains were found.

    Authorities later said they believed Gilbert’s death may have been accidental and not related to the Gilgo Beach slayings.

    In January 2020, Suffolk County police released photos of what it said could be a significant piece of evidence: a black leather belt embossed with the letters “WH” or “HM.” The department also launched a website to collect new tips in the investigation.

    “We believe the belt was handled by the suspect and did not belong to any of the victims,” former Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart told reporters at the time.

    On May 28, 2020, New York’s Suffolk County Police Department identified “Jane Doe #6” as Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old Philadelphia mother who went missing two decades earlier.

    The FBI helped identify Mack’s remains using advanced forensic DNA technology, officials said.

    Using samples from her remains, Suffolk County investigators were able to find Mack’s biological relatives through genetic genealogy, which ultimately led to her adoptive family and son, Hart said to reporters at the time.

    In February 2022, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison formed a multi-agency task force to investigate the Gilgo Beach killings.

    The task force included the Suffolk County Police Department, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office, the New York State Police and the FBI.

    On March 14, 2022, Heuermann was first mentioned as a possible suspect in the Gilgo Beach murder case after a New York state investigator identified him in a database, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.

    On July 13, 2023, a suspect connected to some of the Gilgo Beach murders was taken into custody in New York City, marking the first arrest in the case, according to Harrison. He was transported back to Suffolk County Police headquarters in the hamlet of Yaphank on Long Island, the police commissioner said.

    A day later, authorities identified the suspect as Heuermann, a registered architect who has owned the New York City-based architecture and consulting firm, RH Consultants & Associates, since 1994, according to his company’s website.

    The case against Heuermann came together over two years with the restart of the investigation, in which investigators used “the power of the grand jury,” including more than 300 subpoenas and search warrants, to collect evidence and tie Heuermann conclusively to the murders, Tierney said during a news conference.

    And authorities have hinted more charges could be coming, noting in court documents Heuermann has been tied to at least one other disappearance – that of Brainard-Barnes – of a woman who was later found dead.

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  • Killings of 3 women in Long Island went unsolved for more than a decade. Here’s how authorities tracked down the suspect | CNN

    Killings of 3 women in Long Island went unsolved for more than a decade. Here’s how authorities tracked down the suspect | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    After the remains of four women were found near a beach in Long Island, New York, more than a decade ago, investigators say DNA evidence and cellphone data now point to a murder suspect – a local architect whose internet history showed him often searching the status of the case and details about the victims.

    Rex Heuermann was arrested in New York City on Thursday, more than a year after a police task force explored his possible connection to the cold case known as the “Gilgo Four,” named for the beach where the remains were found.

    Heuermann, 59, was indicted on one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in each of three of the killings – Melissa Barthelemy in 2009, and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello in 2010, according to the indictment. He pleaded not guilty Friday during his first court appearance on Long Island and was remanded without bail.

    The defendant, who told his attorney he did not carry out the killings, is also the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance and death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, according to a bail application from Suffolk County prosecutors. Heuermann has not been charged in the case, but the investigation “is expected to be resolved soon,” the document states.

    “Rex Heuermann is a demon that walks among us. A predator that ruined families. If not for the members of this task force, he would still be on the streets today,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison said during a news conference Friday, and offered his condolences to the victims’ families.

    “To the family members of Amber Costello, Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman. I can only imagine what you’ve had to endure over the last decade regarding knowing that your killer was still loose. God bless you,” Harrison said before hugging a few people standing behind him.

    Authorities had been left with little information after a search for a missing woman in 2010 led to the discovery of multiple sets of human remains at Gilgo Beach. By the time the remains of the missing woman, Shannan Gilbert, were found the following year, at least 10 sets of human remains had been recovered across two Long Island counties.

    As they searched for a suspect in the “Gilgo Four” case, investigators combed through phone records from both midtown Manhattan and the Massapequa Park area in Long Island – places where the suspect is believed to have used a burner phone, court documents show.

    “For each of the murders, he got an individual burner phone, and he used that to communicate with the victims. Then shortly after the death of the victims, he then would get rid of the burner phone,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said during a news conference Friday.

    In February 2022, Harrison created a task force to focus on solving the cold case. By mid-March, Heuermann’s name showed up on authorities’ radar after a New York state investigator identified him in a database, according to Tierney.

    Investigators say they narrowed cell tower records from thousands of possible individuals down to hundreds and then to a handful of people. Next, authorities focused on residents who also matched a physical description provided by a witness who had seen the suspected killer.

    As the search pool narrowed, they zeroed in on anyone with a connection to a green pick-up truck a witness had seen the suspect driving, according to two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case. Later, authorities learned Heuermann drives a green pickup truck registered to his brother.

    Eventually, investigators found Heuermann matched a witness’s physical description, lived close to the Long Island cell site and worked near the New York City cell sites where other calls were captured.

    Cell phone and credit card billing records show numerous instances where Heuermann was in the general locations as the burner phones used to call the three victims “as well as the use of Brainard-Barnes and Barthelemy’s cellphones when they were used to check voicemail and make taunting phone calls after the women disappeared,” Suffolk County prosecutors allege.

    The defendant’s next court appearance is scheduled on August 1.

    A major factor in the case that helped point investigators to Heuermann as a suspect is DNA evidence, which was made possible due to the latest scientific innovations in the field.

    After Heuermann was identified as a suspect in March 2022, authorities placed him and his family under surveillance and would obtain DNA samples from discarded items. A team later gathered a swab of Heuermann’s DNA from leftover crust in a pizza box he threw in the trash, according to Tierney.

    During the initial examination of one of the victims’ skeletal remains and materials discovered in the grave, the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory recovered a male hair from the “bottom of the burlap” the killer used to wrap her body, according to prosecutors. Analysis of the DNA found on the victim and the pizza showed the samples matched.

    Additionally, hair believed to be from Heuermann’s wife was found on or near three of the murder victims, prosecutors allege in the bail application, citing DNA testing. The DNA came from 11 bottles inside a garbage can outside the Heuermann home, the court document says.

    The hairs, found in 2010, were degraded and DNA testing at the time couldn’t yield results. But as technology progressed, mitochondrial DNA testing allowed investigators to make the connection, Tierney explained.

    The victims’ remains “were out in a tough environment for a prolonged period of time. So, there was not a lot of forensic evidence,” Tierney told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Friday, and credited the FBI and one of its agents for a “phenomenal job” with extracting the evidence.

    Evidence shows Heuermann’s wife and children were out of the state when the three women are believed to have been killed, Tierney said during Friday’s news conference.

    A search of Heuermann’s computer revealed he had scoured the internet at least 200 times, hunting for details about the status of the investigation, Tierney added. Heuermann’s internet history also turned up searches for torture porn and “depictions of women being abused, being raped and being killed,” Tierney said.

    Heuermann was also compulsively searching for photos of the victims and their relatives, and he was trying to track down relatives, the district attorney said.

    Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello and Megan Waterman

    While the 10 sets of human remains found are all being investigated as victims of suspected homicide, four of the women found have garnered specific attention due to the similarities found in their deaths.

    The victims known as the “Gilgo Four” were all last seen alive between 2007 and 2010, and their remains were found along a quarter-mile stretch of road in a span of three days in December 2010.

    The women, who all worked in the sex industry, were also buried in a similar fashion, Tierney noted.

    “All the women were petite. They all did the same thing for a living. They all advertised the same way. Immediately there were similarities with regard to the crime scenes,” he said. The killer concealed their bodies by wrapping them in camouflaged burlap, the type used by hunters.

    Authorities have said they believe the death of Gilbert, whose disappearance sparked the searches that found the other victims, may have been accidental and not related to the other killings.

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  • Seven dead and thousands evacuate homes in South Korea due to heavy rain | CNN

    Seven dead and thousands evacuate homes in South Korea due to heavy rain | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Seven people have died and thousands have evacuated their homes in South Korea due to heavy rain.

    Three others were missing, the country’s Yonhap News Agency reported Saturday, citing the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters.

    In Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, two people died Friday after their building collapsed due to a landslide, it reported, adding that one person was killed in a mudslide in the central part of the country.

    Across South Korea, more than 1,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes and seek temporary shelter on Saturday, Yonhap reported. In addition, some 8,300 households in four provinces are experiencing power outages.

    Prime Minister Han Duck-soo ordered authorities to evacuate those in landslide-prone regions and to carry out rescue efforts, according to the South Korean news agency.

    Last year, the South Korean capital Seoul logged record downpours that inundated homes, roads and subways, killing at least nine people.

    Scientists have warned the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall is increasing across East Asia as the human-caused climate crisis accelerates the probability of extreme weather events.

    The newest round of heavy rains in South Korea come just days after devastating floods wreaked havoc in neighboring Japan, killing at least six people and injuring 19.

    Torrential rain in southwestern Japan prompted the country’s weather agency to issue emergency warnings at the start of the week for the Fukuoka and Oita prefectures, on Kyushu, the country’s third largest island.

    Earlier this month, heavy downpours also caused flooding in southwest China, killing at least 15 people in the city of Chongqing.

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  • Burner phones. Pizza crust. DNA on burlap. A New York architect was charged with killing 3 women in Gilgo Beach serial killings cold case | CNN

    Burner phones. Pizza crust. DNA on burlap. A New York architect was charged with killing 3 women in Gilgo Beach serial killings cold case | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A New York architect was charged with murder in connection to the killings of three of the women who became known as the “Gilgo Four,” according to the Suffolk County District Attorney, in a case that baffled authorities for more than a decade in suburban Long Island.

    Rex Heuermann – who told his attorney he is not the killer – was taken into custody for some of the Gilgo Beach murders, an unsolved case tied to at least 10 sets of human remains discovered since 2010, authorities said.

    The case was broken open thanks to cell phone data, credit card bills and DNA testing, which ultimately led them to arrest Heuermann, 59, authorities said.

    Heuermann was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in each of the three killings – Melissa Barthelemy in 2009, and Megan Waterman and Amber Costello in 2010 – according to the indictment. A grand jury made the six charges, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.

    He is also the prime suspect in the 2007 disappearance and death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, according to a bail application from prosecutors. Heuermann has not been charged with that homicide but the investigation “is expected to be resolved soon,” the document says.

    This is the first arrest in the long-dormant case, which terrorized residents and sparked conflicting theories about whether a serial killer was responsible.

    Tierney said authorities, fearing the suspect might be tipped off they were closing in, moved to arrest him Thursday night.

    “We were playing before a party of one,” he told reporters. “We knew the person responsible for these murders would be looking at us.”

    See our live coverage here

    Authorities said once Heuermann was identified in early 2022 as a suspect, they watched him and his family and got DNA samples from items that were thrown away.

    During the initial examination of one of the victims’ skeletal remains and materials discovered in the grave, the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory recovered a male hair from the “bottom of the burlap” the killer used to wrap her body, according to the bail application.

    A surveillance team later gathered a swab of Heuermann’s DNA from leftover crust in a pizza box he threw in the trash, the district attorney said.

    Hair believed to be from Rex Heuermann’s wife was found on or near three of the murder victims, prosecutors allege in the bail application, citing DNA testing. The DNA came from 11 bottles inside a garbage can outside the Heuermann home, the court document says.

    Evidence shows Heuermann’s wife and children were outside of the state at the times when the three women were killed, Tierney said.

    The hairs found in 2010 were degraded and DNA testing at the time couldn’t yield results but improvements in technology eventually gave investigators the DNA answers they needed.

    Heuermann was in tears after his arrest, his court appointed attorney, Michael Brown, said Friday.

    “I did not do this,” Brown said Heuermann told him during their conversation after his arrest.

    Rex Heuermann

    Heuermann was remanded without bail. He entered a not guilty plea through his attorney. His next court date is scheduled for August 1.

    Police were still searching his home Friday night, according to a CNN team outside the house.

    Heuermann, who a source familiar with the case said is a father of two, is a registered architect who has owned the New York City-based architecture and consulting firm, RH Consultants & Associates, since 1994, according to his company’s website.

    In 2022, Heuermann was interviewed for the YouTube channel “Bonjour Realty.” He spoke about his career in architecture, and said he was born and raised in Long Island. He began working in Manhattan in 1987.

    CNN has reached out to Heuermann’s company for comment.

    The remains of the Gilgo Four were found in bushes along a quarter-mile stretch of Ocean Parkway in Oak Beach over a two-day period in 2010.

    The skeletal remains of Barthelemy were discovered near Gilgo Beach on December 11. Barthelemy, who was a sex worker, was last seen July 12, 2009, at her apartment when she told a friend she was going to see a man, according to a Suffolk County website about the killings.

    The remains of three other women were found on December 13, 2010: Brainard-Barnes, who advertised escort services on Craigslist and was last seen in early June 2007 in New York City; Amber Lynn Costello, who also advertised escort services and was last seen leaving her North Babylon home in early September 2010; and Waterman, who also advertised as an escort and was last seen in early June 2010 at a Holiday Inn Express in Hauppauge.

    Tierney said of the women, “They were buried in a similar fashion, in a similar location, in a similar way. All the women were petite. They all did the same thing for a living. They all advertised the same way. Immediately there were similarities with regard to the crime scenes.”

    Tierney said the killer tried to conceal the bodies, wrapping them in camouflaged burlap, the type used by hunters.

    The suspect made taunting phone calls to Barthelemy’s sister, “some of which resulted in a conversation between the caller, who was a male, and a relative of Melissa Barthelemy, in which the male caller admitted killing and sexually assaulting Ms. Barthelemy,” according to the bail application.

    The court document alleges cell phone and credit card billing records show numerous instances where Heuermann was in the general locations as the burner phones used to call the three victim,s “as well as the use of Brainard-Barnes and (Barthelemy’s) cellphones when they use used to check voicemail and make taunting phone calls after the women disappeared.”

    The district attorney said the killer got a new burner phone before each killing.

    The case against Heuermann came together in the two years since the restart of the investigation by Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison, authorities said.

    Harrison put together a task force including county police detectives, investigators from the sheriff’s office, state police and the FBI.

    Tierney said the task force held its first meeting in February 2022.

    “Six weeks later, on March 14, 2022, the name Rex Heuermann was first mentioned as a suspect in the Gilgo case,” Tierney said. “A New York state investigator was able to identify him in a database.”

    Investigators had gone backward through phone records collected from both midtown Manhattan and the Massapequa Park area – two areas where a “burner phone” used by the alleged killer were detected, according to court documents.

    Rex Heuermann is seen purchasing extra minutes for one of the burner cell phones connected to some of the crimes at a cellphone store in Midtown Manhattan, prosecutors allege.

    Authorities then narrowed records collected by cell towers to thousands, then down to hundreds, and finally down to a handful of people who could match a suspect.

    From there, authorities worked to focus on people who lived in the area of the cell tower who also matched a physical description given by a witness who had seen the suspected killer.

    In the narrowed pool, they searched for a connection to a green pickup a witness had seen the suspect driving, the sources said.

    Investigators found Heuermann, who matched a witness’s physical description, lived close to the Long Island cell site and worked near the New York City cell sites where other calls were captured.

    They also learned he had often driven a green pickup, registered to his brother. But they needed more than circumstantial evidence.

    When investigators searched Heuermann’s computer, they found a disturbing internet search history, including 200 searches aimed at learning about the status of the investigation, Tierney said Friday.

    His searches also included queries for torture porn and “depictions of women being abused, being raped and being killed,” Tierney said.

    The DA said the suspect was still compulsively searching for photos of the victims and their relatives.

    Heuermann was trying to find the relatives, he added.

    The murder mystery had confounded county officials for years. In 2020, they found a belt with initials that may have been handled by the suspect and launched a website to collect new tips in the investigation.

    Police said some victims identified had advertised prostitution services on websites such as Craigslist.

    The mystery began in 2010 when police discovered the first set of female remains among the bushes along an isolated strip of waterfront property on Gilgo Beach while searching for Shannan Gilbert, a missing 23-year-old woman from Jersey City, New Jersey.

    An aerial view of the area near Gilgo Beach and Ocean Parkway on Long Island where police have been conducting a prolonged search after finding 10 sets of human remains in April 2011 in Wantagh, New York.

    By the time Gilbert’s body was found one year later on neighboring Oak Beach, investigators had unearthed 10 sets of human remains strewn across two Long Island counties.

    The grim discoveries generated widespread attention in the region and sent waves of fear across some communities on Long Island’s South Shore.

    Authorities later said they believe Gilbert’s death may have been accidental and not related to the Gilgo Beach slayings.

    Still, Gilbert’s disappearance led to the discovery of others.

    Crime scene investigators use metal detectors to search a marsh for human remains in December 2011 in Oak Beach, New York.

    Additional remains were uncovered in neighboring Gilgo Beach and in Nassau County, about 40 miles east of New York City. They included a female toddler, an Asian male and a woman initially referred to as “Jane Doe #6,” investigators said.

    In 2020, police identified “Jane Doe #6” was as Valerie Mack, a 24-year-old Philadelphia mother who went missing two decades earlier.

    Mack’s partial remains were first discovered near Gilgo Beach in 2000, with additional dismembered remains found in 2011, according to the Suffolk County police.

    John Ray, a lawyer who represents the family of Shannon Gilbert – whose disappearance and search led to the discovery of “Gilgo Four” and other remains – said Friday he does not know if Heuermann is also responsible for her death.

    “We breathe a great sigh of relief,” Ray said. “We’re happy the police are finally taking a positive step in this respect, but this is just the beginning … This is just the edge of a bigger body of water, shall we say, of murder that has taken place.”

    Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello and Megan Waterman

    Ray also represents the family Gilgo Beach victim Jessica Taylor.

    “We don’t know if he is connected to Jessica Taylor’s murder,” he said.

    Jasmine Robinson, a family representative for Taylor, said she’s “hopeful for the future and hopeful that a connection is made” to resolve the other cases.

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  • Lisa Marie Presley died of complications from prior weight-loss surgery, autopsy report shows | CNN

    Lisa Marie Presley died of complications from prior weight-loss surgery, autopsy report shows | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A report by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner states Lisa Marie Presley’s death in January was caused by a “sequelae of a small bowel obstruction.”

    A small bowel obstruction is a blockage in the small intestine, often because of things like scar tissue, a hernia or cancer. Without surgery, it can cause bowel tissue to die or perforate, leading to death.

    Presley’s autopsy report, obtained by CNN on Thursday, included the official opinion of deputy medical examiner Dr. Juan M. Carrillo, who attributed her small bowel obstruction to “adhesions (or, scar tissue) that developed after bariatric surgery years ago. This is a known long term complication of this type of surgery.”

    Carrillo also stated that he reviewed the autopsy toxicology results, which showed “therapeutic” levels of oxycodone in Presley’s blood – i.e., levels that are in the range of medically helpful, and not dangerous. He added that quetapine metabolite (used to treat depression, schizophrenia or manic episodes) and buprenorphine (a painkiller that can also be used to treat opioid addiction) were present but “not contributory to death.”

    “There is no evidence of injury or foul play. The manner of death is deemed natural,” Carrillo concluded.

    Dr. Michael Camilleri, a consultant and professor in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Mayo Clinic, told CNN on Thursday that the medications found in Presley’s may “have slowed down the motility of the intestine and would have made it perhaps more likely” for it to get “obstructed by the adhesions.”

    “Unfortunately, adhesions can happen to anybody,” he added. “And just because there were these other medications on board doesn’t necessarily mean that the person was more prone to develop the complications.”

    Lisa Marie Presley, the only daughter of the late Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley, died hours after being hospitalized following an apparent cardiac arrest on January 12. The medical examiner’s report also detailed that she was complaining of abdominal pain on the morning of her death.

    Dr. Folasade P. May, associate professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and director of the Melvin and Bren Simon Gastroenterology Quality Improvement Program, told CNN Thursday that she suspects Presley “developed a cardiac arrest because she had a severe complication from the small bowel obstruction.” Neither doctor interviewed by CNN for this report was directly involved in Presley’s case.

    She was 54.

    Video shows Lisa Marie Presley on the Golden Globes red carpet

    “Priscilla Presley and the Presley family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Lisa Marie,” the family said in a statement at the time. “They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time.”

    Lisa Marie Presley’s last public appearance just days before her death was at the Golden Globe Awards, which she attended with her mother to support the Baz Luhrmann film “Elvis,” about her late father.

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  • Six killed in Nepal helicopter crash near Mount Everest | CNN

    Six killed in Nepal helicopter crash near Mount Everest | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Six people have died in a helicopter crash in Nepal, a spokesperson for Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport said Tuesday.

    The Manang Air helicopter was carrying five Mexican passengers and a Nepali pilot, Teknath Sitoula told CNN.

    Reuters reported that Manang Air caters to tourists wanting a view of Nepal’s peaks, including Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain.

    It set off from Solukhumbu district, where Everest is situated, at 10:05 a.m. local time (12:20 a.m. ET) on Tuesday, heading for the capital, Kathmandu, according to a statement issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.

    The helicopter lost contact less than 10 minutes later, at 10:13 a.m., and was later found crashed in Solukhumbu’s rural municipality of Likhupike, according to the authority.

    It added that locals and police who reached the crash site found the bodies of all on board.

    “All six bodies have been located. We are now starting the process to take them to Kathmandu. It will take some time because it means traveling by road from the crash site and then flying to Kathmandu,” Sitoula told CNN.

    He added that the cause of the crash has not yet been determined.

    Nepal’s inclement weather, low visibility and mountainous topography all contribute to its reputation as notoriously dangerous for aviation.

    In January, at least 68 people were killed when an aircraft went down near the city of Pokhara in central Nepal. This was the Himalayan nation’s deadliest plane crash in more than 30 years.

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  • A Texas zoo is mourning the death of its 31-year-old giraffe, Twiga | CNN

    A Texas zoo is mourning the death of its 31-year-old giraffe, Twiga | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Texas zoo has announced the death of its 31-year-old giraffe, Twiga, saying she was believed to have been one of the oldest in captivity.

    The female Maasai giraffe was born in Los Angeles Zoo in 1991 and had reached the age of 31 years, 9 months and 7 days when she died Friday night in Lufkin, the Ellen Trout Zoo said in a statement on Facebook.

    “Twiga held the record for the oldest living giraffe in human care. Giraffes typically live about 25 years,” the zoo said.

    The giraffe arrived at the Ellen Trout Zoo in 2008, having previously been housed at the Racine Zoo in Wisconsin.

    “Twiga helped our other two giraffes, Kellen and Luna, feel comfortable in their new home in Lufkin,” the zoo’s director, Gordon Henley, said in the statement. “She will be greatly missed.”

    In 2021, a zoo in Australia announced that the country’s oldest giraffe in captivity died just months after her 31st birthday.

    Later that year, a zoo in Japan said that country’s oldest giraffe had died just before her 32nd birthday, according to local news outlet Kyodo News. In 2017, Oklahoma City Zoo said its Rothschild’s giraffe, Ursula, had died aged 32.

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  • Texas sued over plan to deploy floating barrier on Rio Grande to curb border crossings | CNN

    Texas sued over plan to deploy floating barrier on Rio Grande to curb border crossings | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The owner of a Texas canoe and kayaking company filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking to stop the installation of a marine floating barrier on the Rio Grande, claiming Gov. Greg Abbott has no right to regulate the border.

    The lawsuit was filed on the same day that Texas started deploying buoys for the barrier in an attempt to deter migrant crossings on the river along the US-Mexico border.

    The suit lists the state of Texas and Abbott, as well as the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard. CNN has reached out to Abbott’s office for comment.

    “Our lawsuit seeks to protect communities on the Texas-Mexico border from Governor Abbott’s misleading politics,” said attorney Carlos Flores, who represents plaintiff Jessie Fuentes, the owner of Epi’s Canoe & Kayak Team Llc.

    Abbott, a longtime critic of the Biden administration’s border policies, announced the plan to install the 1,000-foot floating barrier last month.

    The lawsuit alleges the buoys will prevent Epi’s and Fuentes, the company’s owner-operator, from conducting tours and canoe and kayak sessions in the border town Eagle Pass, causing “imminent and irreparable harm to EPI.”

    The suit accuses the Republican governor of misapplying the Texas Disaster Act of 1975 to justify the buoy system – which “has no logical connection to the purpose of the Disaster Act, which is to respond to ‘the occurrence or imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property resulting from any natural or man-made cause.’ “

    Abbott, the suit said, cannot “create his own border patrol agency to regulate the border and prevent immigrants from entering Texas.”

    Additionally, the US Constitution and federal statues do not empower Texas with authority to enforce immigration laws, according to the suit.

    The suit said the buoys “represent a hateful policy that intends to create the impression that Mexicans, immigrants, and Mexican Americans … are dangerous.” The floating devices also will prevent Epi’s from conducting tours and canoe and kayak sessions in Eagle Pass, according to the suit.

    Flores said the lawsuit, which seeks a temporary and permanent injunction, was filed on Friday before the buoys were installed in the Rio Grande.

    Abbott posted a 15-second video to Twitter showing buoys being loaded from trailers that would be deployed near Eagle Pass. The Texas Department of Public Safety is overseeing the deployment, the governor said in the tweet Friday.

    During last month’s announcement, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Col. Steven McCraw touted the buoy barrier could be “quickly deployed” and said it’s mobile. He explained the buoy would be anchored to the bottom of the waterway, adding the buoys are roughly 4 to 6 feet in height depending on the water level.

    The new barrier comes after a series of migrant drownings in the Rio Grande River in recent days left four people dead, including an infant, officials said.

    Last weekend, a woman and a baby girl were found unresponsive in the river, said Texas DPS Lt. Christopher Olivarez. A dead man and woman were found on Sunday and Monday, respectively, he added.

    In recent years, migrants have resorted to increasingly risky – and often fatal – paths to evade detection and enter the US. In March, a migrant was found dead among a dozen people stowed away in a train car near Eagle Pass.

    In 2022, a Texas National Guardsman drowned in the Rio Grande attempting to rescue a woman crossing the river. That year was the deadliest for migrants crossing the US-Mexico border, with at least 748 people dying at the border.

    Immigrant rights advocates have attributed the rise in deaths at the border to policies that have made it more difficult for migrants to seek refuge in the US.

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  • At least 11 killed in building collapse in Brazil | CNN

    At least 11 killed in building collapse in Brazil | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    At least 11 people, including four children, were killed after a building collapsed in Brazil’s northeastern state of Pernambuco on Friday, according to CNN affiliate CNN Brasil, citing the state’s Secretariat of Social Defense (SDS.)

    The children who died were ages five, eight, 12 and 16, according to CNN Brasil citing SDS.

    The body of a 19-year-old was also pulled from the rubble by the Fire Department on Saturday morning.

    Three people were rescued alive after the building collapsed in the Janga neighborhood on the outskirts of state capital Recife, SDS said, as cited by CNN Brasil.

    According to CNN Brasil, citing SDS, 10 people were found dead in the rubble while one person was pulled out of it alive but died later at the hospital.

    Three people remain missing, including two children, as search and rescue operations continue at the Conjunto Beira Mar building.

    Firefighters and public safety teams were mobilized to the area to help in the ongoing rescue operations at the Conjunto Beira Mar building, SDS said on its Facebook page on Friday.

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  • Family of Alabama man who died after police tased him demands to see body camera video | CNN

    Family of Alabama man who died after police tased him demands to see body camera video | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The family of an Alabama man who died after a police officer tased him is demanding to view body camera footage of the incident and claims the man was mistakenly apprehended, according to the family’s attorney.

    Mobile Police officers responded Sunday to a residential burglary in progress at a mobile home park around 9:45 p.m., authorities said.

    Arriving officers found two men “at the scene,” and while trying to identify one of them, that man tried to flee, police said in a July 4 news release.

    The man, who police identified as 36-year-old Jawan Dallas, “physically resisted” when officers tried to apprehend him, police claim.

    An officer deployed his Taser to “gain compliance,” the release stated, but police said the initial stun “failed to have any effect.”

    Dallas then allegedly “attempted to grab” the Taser from the officer, the statement claims, and once the officer regained control, the officer again deployed the Taser against Dallas.

    Police said, “Following standard protocol, medical personnel were called to the scene to evaluate” Dallas, who then experienced a medical emergency. Dallas was transported to a local hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

    “We are currently awaiting several reports as a part of this investigation to assist with determining the exact cause of death,” the release from Mobile police said.

    The officers involved have been placed on administrative leave and the investigation remains active, Mobile Police Cpl. Katrina H. Frazier told CNN.

    National civil rights lawyer Harry Daniels, who is representing Dallas’ family, said at a news conference Thursday that Dallas was an “innocent bystander,” and that multiple eyewitnesses had reported to his firm that Dallas was “nowhere near an alleged burglary.”

    According to Daniels, Dallas was about 200 yards down the street from the incident when police arrived.

    “He had no reason to speak to them because (…) he wasn’t a suspect of any crime. There was no probable cause he was involved in any crime,” Daniels said.

    Daniels said the family submitted a request to view body camera video of the incident with Mobile’s mayor, chief of staff, city clerk and city attorney on Thursday morning.

    “My son shouldn’t have left here this way. If he was sick, or something, I can understand it, but for him to be tased to death, beat or whatever – is not right,” Dallas’ mother, Christine Dallas, said.

    “It’s unimaginable, it hurts, and I want something done about it,” she said.

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  • Democratic lawmakers demand Pentagon disclose findings of investigation into drone strike that may have killed civilian | CNN Politics

    Democratic lawmakers demand Pentagon disclose findings of investigation into drone strike that may have killed civilian | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Democratic lawmakers are demanding that the Pentagon disclose the findings of its ongoing investigation into a US airstrike in Syria in May that may have killed a civilian, according to a letter Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris van Hollen and Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs sent to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Thursday.

    US Central Command launched an official investigation into the May 3 drone strike late last month after a preliminary civilian casualty credibility assessment determined that there were sufficient grounds to more thoroughly probe whether a civilian had been killed, rather than a senior al Qaeda leader as Central Command initially claimed.

    “While we recognize that this specific incident is part of an ongoing investigation, this does not negate the need for you to provide answers to Congress on the processes to implement the CHMR-AP,” the lawmakers wrote, referring to the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan.

    That policy was developed in 2022 after a botched US drone strike in Kabul killed 10 civilians in August 2021.

    “Given the significant public interest in this strike, we urge you to publicly release as much of the investigation as possible,” the lawmakers wrote, providing a deadline of July 19.

    In their letter, the lawmakers ask why it took two weeks for CENTCOM to begin assessing whether a civilian was killed in the airstrike. As CNN has reported, a civilian casualty assessment was only launched after The Washington Post presented information to CENTCOM about the strike potentially killing a civilian instead of the intended target.

    “[I]t is unclear why CENTCOM waited for weeks to fully investigate this matter, and why the tweet announcing that CENTCOM had targeted a senior AQ leader remains online without recognition that this incident is now under investigation,” the lawmakers wrote.

    As CNN first reported, the senior general in charge of US forces in the Middle East, General Erik Kurilla, ordered that Central Command announce on Twitter that a senior al Qaeda leader had been targeted by the drone strike – despite not yet having confirmation of who was actually killed.

    “We are particularly troubled by reports that CENTCOM Commander General Erik Kurilla was personally involved in the decision to tweet that CENTCOM had targeted a Senior AQ leader, without confirming the victim’s identity,” the lawmakers wrote, citing CNN’s reporting.

    “By announcing the strike before confirming who DoD actually killed and delaying the process of opening an investigation into reports of civilian deaths, CENTCOM undermined DoD’s and its own credibility and commitment to civilian harm prevention and response,” they added.

    As CNN reported in May, the episode raised questions about how thoroughly CENTCOM has implemented the military’s civilian harm mitigation policy – a process for preventing, mitigating and responding to civilian casualties caused by US military operations – since the botched Kabul strike in 2021.

    CNN previously reported that there is growing belief inside the Pentagon that the individual killed in the May 3 strike – identified by his family as Loutfi Hassan Mesto, a 56-year-old father of ten – was a farmer with no ties to terrorism.

    Mesto’s family told CNN that he had been out grazing his sheep when he was killed. Loutfi never left his village during the Syrian uprisings and did not support any political faction, his brother said.

    The lawmakers requested that the Pentagon make the civilian casualty credibility report about the May 3 strike public, and to explain why Kurilla ordered the announcement before knowing who was actually killed.

    They also requested more information about the department’s “process for verifying the status and identity of an individual targeted for or killed in a strike,” and asked whether it will commit to providing condolence payments to the family of any civilian killed in the strike.

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  • Philadelphia police search for motive in mass shooting that left 5 dead and 2 children injured | CNN

    Philadelphia police search for motive in mass shooting that left 5 dead and 2 children injured | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Philadelphia police are investigating a mass shooting that left five people dead and two children injured across a sprawling scene Monday evening, before authorities arrested a suspect who they said had a bulletproof vest, an AR-15 style rifle and a handgun.

    Authorities initially said four people, all adult men, were killed. But early Tuesday, they announced the discovery of a fifth body in a house in the same Kingsessing neighborhood in southwestern Philadelphia, saying they believe based on preliminary evidence that person, also a man, was killed in the same spree.

    The shooting spanned several blocks and consisted of at least 50 spent shell casings and damaged vehicles, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle M. Outlaw said in a Monday night news conference.

    Authorities have “absolutely no idea” why the shooting happened, Outlaw said, and have yet to find any connection between the victims and the suspect, who has not been identified. Outlaw believes he is 40 years old, she said.

    When officers arrested the suspect after a foot pursuit, he was wearing a bulletproof vest stocked with several ammunition magazines and was carrying the two guns and a scanner, according to the commissioner.

    “We’re canvassing the area to get as much as we can – to identify witnesses, to identify where cameras are located, and do everything we can to figure out the ‘why’ behind this happening,” she said.

    The gunfire in Philadelphia erupted Monday evening as the United States endures a seemingly neverending epidemic of gun violence, including another Monday night shooting in Fort Worth, Texas, that left at least three people dead and eight wounded. Another shooting in Baltimore on Saturday left two people dead and 28 others injured.

    The shootings in all three cities were among at least 345 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, not including the shooter.

    “This devastating violence must stop,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said in a tweet Monday evening.

    “My heart is with the loved ones and families of everyone involved, and I send my prayers to the victims,” Kenney said.

    Outlaw described the conditions of the injured children – ages 2 and 13 – as stable.

    Of the four slain victims that police initially knew about, three were men ages 20, 22 and 59. The fourth was also a man but investigators didn’t know his age, Outlaw said.

    The fifth victim was a 31-year-old man, city police Chief Inspector Scott Small said. He was discovered early Tuesday hours after the other victims were found in a home in Kingsessing, a neighborhood that sits on the west bank of the Schuylkill River in southwest Philadelphia.

    A second person also was in custody Monday night – someone who authorities believe may have returned fire, Outlaw said.

    President Joe Biden condemned the “wave of tragic and senseless shootings” across the country, saying in a statement he and first lady Jill Biden “grieve for those who have lost their lives and, as our nation celebrates Independence Day, we pray for the day when our communities will be free from gun violence.”

    Tuesday, he pointed out, marks one year since a mass shooting at a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Illinois, left seven dead and dozens more wounded.

    Police on the scene of a shooting in Philadelphia on Monday night.

    Police officers were flagged down in the area where the shooting began around 8:30 p.m. Monday, Outlaw said, and discovered multiple gunshot victims.

    “As they were scooping up victims and preparing them for transport to the hospital, they also heard multiple gunshots up the street,” Outlaw said.

    Again, as officers were responding to the second shooting scene, more gunshots could be heard on a nearby street, she said.

    Officers found the suspect and pursued him on foot as he continued shooting, Outlaw said. The suspect was finally cornered in an alley and apprehended, she said.

    “Thank God our officers were here on scene (and) they responded as quickly as they did,” Outlaw said Monday. “I can’t even describe the level of bravery and courage that was shown.”

    Investigators are seen at the site of Monday's mass shooting.

    The body of the slain 31-year-old man was found around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday by his father in the living room, according to Small, the chief inspector.

    The father reported this to an officer who was in the area investigating the shooting from hours earlier. The man had been shot several times, and responding medics declared him dead shortly after, Small said.

    Investigators found seven rifle rounds inside the home, Small said. Because of the home’s location and ballistic evidence, investigators believe that person’s death is related to the others, Small said.

    “We believe now this is the seventh (person shot) and it’ll be the fifth person that was shot and killed,” Small said.

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  • Woman dies after tree falls on her car during Saturday’s severe weather in St. Louis | CNN

    Woman dies after tree falls on her car during Saturday’s severe weather in St. Louis | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A woman died Saturday in St. Louis when a tree fell on her car during severe weather, according to police.

    St. Louis Police Sgt. Charles Wall told CNN in an email the woman had been “parked and seated inside of the vehicle when a tree fell on top of it during severe weather.” The 33-year-old woman was “pronounced deceased,” Wall wrote.

    There were at least eight reports of hail in Missouri on Saturday, including some reports house windows were broken by the frozen pellets, according to the National Weather Service. There were also several reports of severe wind, including in St. Louis, where large trees were uprooted, the NWS said.

    Severe weather is expected to continue affecting several parts of the United States ahead of the Fourth of July. One hundred million people are under severe weather threats from the eastern Rockies through the Ohio and Tennessee River Valleys and into the mid-Atlantic region.

    There is a Level 3 of 5 risk for much of Kentucky and northern Tennessee, impacting five million people in cities like Louisville, Lexington, Nashville, where damaging wind, large hail and a few tornadoes are likely.

    On Sunday morning, storms already began appearing in Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Iowa. The storms are expected to continue into the afternoon and evening.

    A flash flood warning was put into place for nearly five million people in Illinois, including residents of Chicago, due to thunderstorms and heavy rain. The rain caused delays and cancellations for some sporting events scheduled for Sunday in the Windy City: The Chicago Cubs had to push their game against the Cleveland Guardians back by several hours, and NASCAR had to alter its racing slate and truncate one of its scheduled races.

    And 63 million people are under a combination of heat advisories and excessive heat warnings, with severe heat spreading from the Southwest to the Southeast. Around 70% of the country’s population, about 225 million people, will experience high temperatures above 90 degrees. And around 8% of the population, or 26 million people, will see highs above 100 degrees.

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  • Migrant who died in ICE custody was held for months, despite recommendation for release, SPLC says | CNN

    Migrant who died in ICE custody was held for months, despite recommendation for release, SPLC says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Nicaraguan national who died last week in federal immigration custody had spent more than one year in detention. Despite having been recommended for release more than seven months ago, he continued to be held in immigration custody, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    Ernesto Rocha-Cuadra, 42, died last Friday. His preliminary cause of death was cardiac arrest, according to statement from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    In November 2022, an ICE panel recommended Rocha-Cuadra be released from custody, but officials at the facility declined to release him, a statement from the SPLC said.

    “The details leading up to this tragic death are still unclear, and his attorneys say Ernesto never mentioned having, nor did his medical records reflect, any heart-related medical issues,” a statement from the SPLC said.

    The SPLC said Rocha-Cuadra’s death was the fifth since 2016 at ICE’s facility in Jena, Louisiana.

    “For years, the New Orleans ICE Field Office (“NOLA ICE”) and private prison officials have demonstrated a disturbing pattern of deadly medical neglect against the immigrants detained under their authority, disregarding their constitutional rights and engaging in other human rights abuses and violations,” the SPLC said.

    Rocha-Cuadra had been scheduled for an immigration hearing on July 9, according to a statement his family.

    In a written statement to the press, Rocha-Cuadra’s brother joined a chorus of immigration rights advocates calling for the ICE facility to be investigated.

    “He was guaranteed he was coming home. Our message is, we want to know what happened to our Ernesto and we will not stop until we find out,” his brother, Frank Rocha-Cuadra, said.

    Rocha-Cuadra had been in immigration custody after crossing the border illegally near Andrade, California, on April 17, 2022, according to a statement from ICE earlier this week.

    “ICE remains committed to ensuring that all those in its custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments,” it said in the statement. “Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay.”

    “All people in ICE custody receive medical, dental, and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care. At no time during detention is a detained noncitizen denied emergent care,” the statement said.

    CNN has reached out to ICE for further comment about Rocha-Cuadra’s death.

    ICE’s Central Louisiana processing center in Jena, Louisiana, is privately owned by the GEO Group Inc.

    In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for the GEO Group said, “We are unable to provide comment regarding specific cases related to individuals in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Healthcare services at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center are provided directly by the federal government through the ICE Health Services Corps.”

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  • ‘I blame one person,’ mother of teen killed by police says as hundreds arrested in fresh violence across France | CNN

    ‘I blame one person,’ mother of teen killed by police says as hundreds arrested in fresh violence across France | CNN

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    Nanterre, France
    CNN
     — 

    The mother of a 17-year-old killed by French police said she blames only the officer who shot her son for his death, a tragedy that has sparked three consecutive nights of destructive unrest and revived a heated debate about discrimination and policing in low-income, multi-ethnic communities.

    The boy, Nahel, was shot dead during a traffic stop Tuesday morning in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Footage of the incident filmed by a bystander showed two officers standing on the driver’s side of the car, one of whom fired his gun at the driver despite not appearing to be in any immediate danger.

    The officer said he fired his gun out of fear that the boy would run someone over with the car, according to Nanterre prosecutor Pascal Prache.

    “I don’t blame the police, I blame one person, the one who took my son’s life,” Nahel’s mother, Mounia, told television station France 5 in an on-camera interview.

    Prache said that it is believed the officer acted illegally in using his weapon. He is currently facing a formal investigation for voluntary homicide and has been placed in preliminary detention.

    Despite calls from top officials for patience to allow time for the justice system to run its course, a sizable number of people across France remain shocked and angry, especially young men and women of color who have been victims of discrimination by police.

    That anger has, for three nights in a row, given way to violent protests across the nation.

    Ahead of another expected night of unrest, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 45,000 policemen would deploy across France on Friday, and that he is also mobilizing more special units, armored vehicles and helicopters.

    Some 917 people were detained following overnight violence on Thursday, including 13 children, Darmanin told French TV channel TF1.

    The death of the young man “cannot justify the disorder and the delinquency,” the minister added.

    Fires were set in the Paris suburb of Montreuil early Friday morning.

    Confrontations flared between protesters and police in Nanterre on Thursday, where a bank was set on fire and graffiti saying “vengeance pour Nael” (using an alternative spelling of his name) was spray painted on a wall nearby.

    Overseas French territories have also witnessed protests. A man was killed by a “stray bullet” in Cayenne, capital of French Guiana, during riots on Thursday.

    Scars from three days of protests were clear in the suburb on Friday, as was the acrid smell left behind by burning detritus, which was being removed. Streets remained charred where burning cars used to be, with patches of graffiti calling on justice for Nahel and insulting the police. Near the site of a pitched battle with police, a smattering of dug-up bricks, tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and metal barriers remain splayed about.

    Across the country, 200 government buildings were vandalized on Thursday night, according to the French Interior Ministry.

    All “large-scale events” in France have been banned as of Friday afternoon, and bus and tram services across faced a nationwide shutdown ordered for 9 p.m. on Friday evening.

    In Britain, authorities issued a travel warning due to “violent” riots targeting “shops, public buildings and parked cars.” They also cautioned disruptions to road travel, local transportation and the implementation of curfews.

    The German government expressed “concern” over the nationwide protests in France, adding there was no indication that Macron would cancel an upcoming state visit to Berlin.

    The violence has prompted President Emmanuel Macron to hold a crisis meeting the second day in a row, BFMTV reported, as his government tries to avoid a repeat of 2005. The deaths of two teenage boys hiding from police that year sparked three weeks of rioting and prompted the government to call a state of emergency.

    He had returned from a European Council summit on Thursday in Brussels to convene the crisis meeting.

    The French president called for calm and asked parents to take responsibility for their children amid the unrest. He said the situation is “unacceptable” and “unjustifiable, especially when the violence is targeting public building.”

    A third of the almost 900 people detained overnight are young, Macron told reporters at the Interior Ministry. Authorities will be investigating the role of social media in inciting the riots, and there will be further “measures” announced in the coming hours, he added.

    Continued unrest would be a major blow to the government’s agenda. Macron and his ministers have spent much of the year dealing with the fallout of pushing through extremely unpopular pension reforms that were divisive enough that the government felt it necessary to launch a 100-day plan to heal and unite the country.

    That deadline is up on July 14, France’s national day.

    Macron attended an Elton John concert in Paris on Wednesday, even as the demonstrations boiled over.

    Elton John’s husband, David Furnish posted a picture on Instagram on Thursday of himself and Elton John smiling backstage with the French president and his wife, Brigitte Macron after the show at the Accor Arena.

    If Macron’s government is to address allegations of institutional racism in response to Nahel’s death, it will be a tough balancing act.

    The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on France to address “deep issues of racism and discrimination in law enforcement’ on Friday, a statement the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs described as “totally unfounded.”

    The ministry described law enforcement in France as subject to various levels of “judicial control that few countries have.

    “France, and its police forces, fight with determination against racism and all forms of discrimination. There can be no doubt about this commitment,” the ministry added. “The use of force by the national police and gendarmerie is governed by the principles of absolute necessity and proportionality, strictly framed and controlled.”

    Race and discrimination are always tricky political issues, but in France they are particularly challenging due to the country’s unique brand of secularism, which seeks to ensure equality for all by removing markers of difference, rendering all citizens French first.

    In practice, however, that vigorous adherence to French Republicanism often prevents the government from doing anything that would appear to differentiate French citizens on the basis of race, including collecting statistics.

    Mounia, like other activists, believes her son’s race was a factor in his killing. French media have reported that Nahel was of Algerian descent, and the country’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday issued a statement extending its condolences to Nahel’s family.

    “He saw an Arab face, a little kid, and wanted to take his life,” she said, referring to the police officer who fired their weapon.

    “Killing youngsters like this, how long is this going to last?” she added. “How many mothers are going to be like me? What are they waiting for?”

    While the government’s approach has so far been cautious, left-wing politicians and some activists have called for police reform, including abolishing a 2017 law that allowed police greater leeway in when they can use firearms.

    Laurent-Franck Lienard, the lawyer of the officer accused of shooting Nahel, told French radio station RTL that his client acted in “compliance of the law.” He claimed his client’s prosecution was “political” and being used as a way to calm the violent tensions.

    He added that his client was “devastated” by Nahel’s death and he did not want to kill him.

    “He committed an act in a second, in a fraction of a second. Perhaps he made a mistake, justice will tell,” Lienard said.

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  • Kramatorsk restaurant strike shows that in Ukraine, death can come any time, anywhere | CNN

    Kramatorsk restaurant strike shows that in Ukraine, death can come any time, anywhere | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    It was dinner time and the restaurant – a popular pizza joint in the center of Kramatorsk – was crammed with people. Just after 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, a Russian missile ripped through, killing at least 11 people. For millions across the country, the strike was yet another reminder of the horrifying reality of life in Ukraine.

    Authorities said three teenagers, including a 17-year-old girl and 14-year-old twin sisters Yulia and Anna Aksenchenko, were among those killed in the strike. At least 61 people, including a baby, were injured in the attack, State Emergency Services said, warning the toll could increase in the coming hours.

    The strike – the deadliest attack against civilians in months – came just as Russia emerged from a major crisis sparked by a short-lived uprising led by the head of the Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin. Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday, after staging what was the biggest ever challenge to the authority of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

    Rescue workers are still searching the rubble, after having to temporarily pause the work late Tuesday night because of another air raid alarm.

    The people of Kramatorsk are no strangers to Russian attacks. The eastern Ukrainian city lies about 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the front line, according to the Institute for the Study of War’s assessments of the current situation on the ground.

    But despite the proximity to the fighting, Kramatorsk remains a busy city. The area around Ria Lounge, the restaurant that was struck, is a particularly popular spot with a busy post office, a jewelery store, a cafe and a pharmacy all within a stone’s throw from Ria. One of Kramatorsk’s biggest supermarkets is just down the road.

    Being so near the fighting, the city is popular with soldiers seeking some respite from the fighting.

    A Ukrainian soldier assisting rescue efforts told CNN that the victims he saw were “mostly young people, military and civilians; there are small children.”

    The soldier, who asked to be identified only by his call sign Alex, said there had been a banquet for 45 people at one of the restaurants when the strike occurred, and that it hit “right in the center of the cafe.”

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack a “manifestation of terror.”

    “Each such manifestation of terror proves over and over again to us and to the whole world that Russia deserves only one thing as a result of everything it has done – defeat and a tribunal, fair and legal trials against all Russian murderers and terrorists,” he said.

    Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Dontesk region military administration, said the strike used Iskanders – high-precision, short-range ballistic missiles.

    Rescuers search for survivors after the Russian missile attack hit the Ria restaurant in Kramatorsk.

    EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed Zelensky’s words on Wednesday. “In another demonstration of the terror Russia is imposing on Ukrainian civilians, a Russian cruise missile hit a restaurant and shopping centre in Kramatorsk,” Borrell said in a post on Twitter.

    Kramatorsk, has been the target of frequent shelling since the war between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The city was briefly occupied by separatists in 2014, but has remained under Ukrainian control since then.

    The Ukrainian Security Service alleged on Wednesday that the attack was premeditated, saying that it had detained a man who allegedly scouted the restaurant and sent a video to the Russian Armed Forces prior to the strike Tuesday.

    The man was described by the Ukrainians as a “Russian intelligence agent” and an “adjuster.”

    “To execute the enemy’s instructions, the GRU agent took a covert video recording of the establishment and vehicles parked nearby. Then the suspect forwarded the footage to Russian military intelligence,” the service said in a statement on Telegram.

    “Having received this information, Russian invaders fired on the cafe with people inside,” it added.

    The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Wednesday that the target of the missile strike in Kramatorsk was “a temporary command post” of a Ukrainian army unit.

    Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that Russia “does not strike at civilian infrastructure” and the strikes are carried out “only on objects that are connected with military infrastructure.”

    The frequency and intensity of the attacks increased after Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022. One attack in particular sparked international outrage and led to accusations of Russia deliberately targeting civilians.

    In April last year, Russian forces carried out a missile strike on Kramatorsk’s railway station which was being used to shelter civilians fleeing the fighting.

    More than 50 people, including several children, died in that one attack, which was called “an apparent war crime” by Human Rights Watch and SITU Research.

    According to their report, several hundred civilians were waiting at the station when “a ballistic missile equipped with a cluster munition warhead exploded and released dozens of bomblets, or submunitions.”

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