Tag: Local governments

Thai police investigating CNN crew’s coverage of attack

UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand — Thai police are investigating a report that a CNN crew inappropriately entered the day care center while reporting on the aftermath of the massacre in the building that left more than 20 preschoolers dead, authorities said Sunday.

Danaichok Boonsom, head of the local township administration, told reporters that he had submitted his report alleging unauthorized entry onto the government property and that police were investigating.

“Let the legal process run its course, I don’t want to disclose all the details,” he said as he left the Na Klang district police station in northeastern Thailand. “Let the police do their work investigating.”

Authorities began looking into the incident after a Thai reporter posted an image on social media of two members of the crew leaving the scene, with one climbing over the low wall and fence around the compound, over police tape, and the other already outside.

CNN tweeted that the crew had entered the premises when the police cordon had been removed from the center, and were told by three public health officials exiting the building that they could film inside.

“The team gathered footage inside the center for around 15 minutes, then left,” CNN said in its tweet. “During this time, the cordon had been set back in place, so the team needed to climb over the fence at the center to leave.”

The tweet came in response to criticism from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand, which said it was “dismayed” by CNN’s coverage and the decision to film the crime scene inside.

“This was unprofessional and a serious breach of journalistic ethics in crime reporting,” the FCCT said.

The Thai Journalists’ Association criticized CNN’s actions as “unethical” and “insensitive,” and called for an internal company investigation of the incident in addition to the official Thai probe.

In a later statement, CNN International’s executive vice president and general manager Mike McCarthy reiterated that his reporters sought permission to enter the building but the team “now understands that these officials were not authorized to grant this permission,” adding that it was “never their intention to contravene any rules.”

He said CNN had ceased broadcasting the report and had removed the video from its website.

“We deeply regret any distress or offense our report may have caused, and for any inconvenience to the police at such a distressing time for the country,” he said in the statement tweeted by CNN.

Deputy national police chief Surachate Hakparn said the two journalists entered Thailand on tourist visas, which had now been revoked. He said they had been detained pending their expulsion from the country, but refused to provide further details.

Surachate later told reporters that the investigation was not yet concluded, but it appeared the crew had been waved in to the center and believed they had permission to enter, making it likely they would only be fined for working while on a tourist visa and sent home.

In the attack Thursday, police said 36 people, 24 of them children, were killed by a former police officer who was fired earlier this year on drug charges and had been due in court on Friday.

As Thailand’s worst such massacre ever, the attack drew widespread international media attention to the small town of Uthai Sawan in the country’s rural northeast. By Sunday, few remained but a large number of Thai media continued to report from the scene.

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October 9, 2022
Thai police investigating CNN crew’s coverage of attack

UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand — Thai police are investigating a report that a CNN crew inappropriately entered the day care center while reporting on the aftermath of the massacre in the building that left more than 20 preschoolers dead, authorities said Sunday.

Danaichok Boonsom, head of the local township administration, told reporters that he had submitted his report alleging unauthorized entry onto the government property and that police were investigating.

“Let the legal process run its course, I don’t want to disclose all the details,” he said as he left the Na Klang district police station in northeastern Thailand. “Let the police do their work investigating.”

Authorities began looking into the incident after a Thai reporter posted an image on social media of two members of the crew leaving the scene, with one climbing over the low wall and fence around the compound, over police tape, and the other already outside.

CNN tweeted that the crew had entered the premises when the police cordon had been removed from the center, and were told by three public health officials exiting the building that they could film inside.

“The team gathered footage inside the center for around 15 minutes, then left,” CNN said in its tweet. “During this time, the cordon had been set back in place, so the team needed to climb over the fence at the center to leave.”

The tweet came in response to criticism from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand, which said it was “dismayed” by CNN’s coverage and the decision to film the crime scene inside.

“This was unprofessional and a serious breach of journalistic ethics in crime reporting,” the FCCT said.

The Thai Journalists’ Association criticized CNN’s actions as “unethical” and “insensitive,” and called for an internal company investigation of the incident in addition to the official Thai probe.

Deputy national police chief Surachate Hakparn said the two journalists entered Thailand on tourist visas, which had now been revoked. He said they had been detained pending their expulsion from the country, but refused to provide further details.

In the attack Thursday, police said 36 people, 24 of them children, were killed by a former police officer who was fired earlier this year on drug charges and had been due in court on Friday.

As Thailand’s worst such massacre ever, the attack drew widespread international media attention to the small town of Uthai Sawan in the country’s rural northeast. By Sunday, few remained but a large number of Thai media continued to report from the scene.

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October 9, 2022
‘War crime:’ Industrial-scale destruction of Ukraine culture

KYIV, Ukraine — The exquisite golden tiara, inlaid with precious stones by master craftsmen some 1,500 years ago, was one of the world’s most valuable artifacts from the blood-letting rule of Attila the Hun, who rampaged with horseback warriors deep into Europe in the 5th century.

The Hun diadem is now vanished from the museum in Ukraine that housed it — perhaps, historians fear, forever. Russian troops carted away the priceless crown and a hoard of other treasures after capturing the Ukrainian city of Melitopol in February, museum authorities say.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, now in its eighth month, is being accompanied by the destruction and pillaging of historical sites and treasures on an industrial scale, Ukrainian authorities say.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Ukraine’s culture minister alleged that Russian soldiers helped themselves to artifacts in almost 40 Ukrainian museums. The looting and destruction of cultural sites has caused losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of euros (dollars), the minister, Oleksandr Tkachenko, added.

“The attitude of Russians toward Ukrainian culture heritage is a war crime,” he said.

For the moment, Ukraine’s government and its Western backers supplying weapons are mostly focused on defeating Russia on the battlefield. But if and when peace returns, the preservation of Ukrainian collections of art, history and culture also will be vital, so survivors of the war can begin the next fight: rebuilding their lives.

“These are museums, historical buildings, churches. Everything that was built and created by generations of Ukrainians,” Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, said in September when she visited a Ukrainian museum in New York. “This is a war against our identity.”

Workers at the Museum of Local History in Melitopol first tried hiding the Hun diadem and hundreds of other treasures when Russian troops stormed the southern city. But after weeks of repeated searches, Russian soldiers finally discovered the building’s secret basement where staff had squirrelled away the museum’s most precious objects — including the Hun diadem, according to a museum worker.

The worker, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, fearing Russian punishment for even discussing the events, said the Ukrainians don’t know where Russian troops took the haul, which included the tiara and some 1,700 other artifacts.

Dug up from a burial chamber in 1948, the crown is one of just a few Hun crowns worldwide. The museum worker said other treasures that disappeared with Russian soldiers include 198 pieces of 2,400-year-old gold from the era of the Scythians, nomads who migrated from Central Asia to southern Russia and Ukraine and founded an empire in Crimea.

“These are ancient finds. These are works of art. They are priceless,” said Oleksandr Symonenko, chief researcher at Ukraine’s Institute of Archaeology. “If culture disappears, it is an irreparable disaster.”

Russia’s Culture Ministry did not respond to questions about the Melitopol collection.

Russian forces also looted museums as they laid waste to the Black Sea port of Mariupol, according to Ukrainian officials who were driven from that the southern city, which was relentlessly pounded by Russian bombardment. It fell under Moscow’s complete control only in May when Ukrainian defenders who clung to the city’s steelworks finally surrendered.

Mariupol’s exiled city council said Russian forces pilfered more than 2,000 items from the city’s museums. Among the most precious items were ancient religious icons, a unique handwritten Torah scroll, a 200-year-old bible and more than 200 medals, the council said.

Also looted were art works by painters Arkhip Kuindzhi, who was born in Mariupol, and Crimea-born Ivan Aivazovsky, both famed for their seascapes, the exiled councillors said. They said Russian troops carted off their stolen bounty to the Russian-occupied Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

The invasion has also wrought extensive damage and destruction to Ukraine’s cultural patrimony. The U.N.’s cultural agency is keeping a tally of sites being struck by missiles, bombs and shelling. With the war now in its eighth month, the agency says it has verified damage to 199 sites in 12 regions.

They include 84 churches and other religious sites, 37 buildings of historic importance, 37 buildings for cultural activities, 18 monuments, 13 museums and 10 libraries, UNESCO says.

Ukrainian government tallies are even higher, with authorities saying their count of destroyed and damaged religious buildings alone is up to at least 270.

While invasion forces hunted for treasures to steal, Ukrainian museum workers did what they could to keep them out of Russian hands. Tens of thousands of items have been evacuated away from the front lines and combat-struck regions.

In Kyiv, the director of the Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine lived in the building, guarding its artifacts, during the invasion’s first weeks when Russian forces sought, unsuccessfully, to encircle the capital.

“We were afraid of the Russian occupiers, because they destroy everything that can be identified as Ukrainian,” recalled the director, Natalia Panchenko.

Fearing Russian troops would storm the city, she sought to confuse them by taking down the plaque on the museum’s entrance. She also dismantled exhibits, carefully packing away artifacts into boxes for evacuation.

One day, she hopes, they’ll go back into their rightful place. For now, the museum is just showing copies.

“These things were fragile, they survived hundreds of years,” she said. “We couldn’t stand the thought they could be lost.”

———

AP journalist John Leicester in Paris contributed. Efrem Lykatsky contributed from Kyiv.

———

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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October 8, 2022
Ukrainian authorities take stock of ruins in liberated Lyman

LYMAN, Ukraine — Ukrainian authorities are just beginning to sift through the wreckage of the devastated city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine as they assess the humanitarian toll, and possibility of war crimes, from a months-long Russian occupation.

Few of the buildings in the city in the Donetsk region — an area which Moscow illegally claimed as Russian territory last week following a staged “referendum” — have survived without damage, and most houses are without basic utilities.

Walls around the town bear graffitied reminders of the four-month occupation by Russian troops, with words like “Russia,” “USSR” and “Russian World” scrawled on surfaces that are riddled by bullets.

Mark Tkachenko, communications inspector for the Kramatorsk district police of the Donetsk region, said Friday that authorities are still searching for the bodies of civilians amid the destruction, and trying to determine causes of death.

“They will look at when people died and how they died. If it was in the period when the city was occupied and they have injuries from Kalashnikov rifles, then of course, it’s a war crime,” Tkachenko told The Associated Press.

While it is still unclear how many died in the city since it was overrun by Russian forces in May, he said, Lyman today has become a “humanitarian crisis” which could still hold further grim discoveries.

“Some people died in their houses, some people died in the streets, and the bodies are now being sent to experts for examination,” he said. “For now we are looking for grave sites, and there are probably mass graves.”

The road approaching Lyman, which Russians used as a strategic logistics and transport hub during its occupation, is littered with miles of desolation left behind from intense fighting as Ukrainian troops pressed to retake it late last week.

The forests surrounding the city were decimated by the fighting, and the burned out and twisted wreckage of dozens of vehicles lined the road which was pockmarked by craters from falling rockets.

Tetyana Ignatchenko, spokeswoman for the Donetsk regional administration, said the city’s civilian infrastructure had been “completely destroyed,” and that an effort was ongoing to clear it of the bodies of Russian soldiers abandoned during their army’s retreat.

“Police and criminologists are working, looking for Russian bodies and collecting them in the streets and forests. There are very many of them because the occupiers didn’t bring them with them,” Ignatchenko said.

As they left Lyman, Russian soldiers placed mines on the bodies of some of their fallen comrades, set to explode when Ukrainian authorities attempted to clear them, said Tkachenko of the Kramatorsk district police. Some had exploded, but caused no injuries.

As Ukrainian authorities entered the city, they found that many civilian residents had been killed by shelling while others, mostly older people, had died during the Russian occupation because of a lack of food and medicine, Tkachenko said.

Looting of civilian homes by Russian soldiers, he said, was widespread.

Anatolii, 71, a Lyman resident who lined up in the city’s central square Friday to receive humanitarian aid, said Russian soldiers generally left people his age alone, but that he had heard rumors of prolonged detentions of civilians and that his daughter’s home had been robbed.

“I was looking after my daughter’s house when they came over and opened the house with a crowbar and stole everything that they needed and escaped,” he said. “What could I say, and to whom? Could I fight with them? No.”

The liberation of Lyman came as the latest in a series of gains by Ukrainian forces as part of successful counteroffensive operations in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions.

Even as Ukraine has recovered thousands of square miles of territory in the last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties to illegally annex the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Western leaders decried the move as illegitimate and a reckless escalation of the war, which began on Feb. 24.

As Ukrainian forces moved back into liberated cities and towns, they discovered some instances of mass graves and torture sites, such as those recently observed by AP journalists in recaptured settlements in the Kharkiv region.

In one liberated city, Izium, an AP investigation uncovered 10 separate torture sites.

Ukrainian media earlier reported the discovery of a mass grave in Lyman, but authorities on site wouldn’t confirm or deny its existence and wouldn’t elaborate further, saying only that investigations were ongoing.

But Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko on Friday said that two burial sites had been found in Lyman, including around 200 individual civilian graves and a mass grave with an undetermined number of bodies.

On Friday, Tetyana, who didn’t want to give her last name, wheeled a hand cart full of squashes toward her house on the outskirts of Lyman on a street where most houses bore damage from the fighting.

Her home had been heavily damaged in a Russian attack, she said, pointing at what used to be a window in her kitchen from when a rocket came through the wall.

“I was at home and fell into the bathroom, and my daughter was in the hallway. How we weren’t killed, I don’t know,” she said. “The storage shed is destroyed, the roof was destroyed, but now we’ve repaired it. Here you see the doors are also damaged.”

Tetyana pointed to a pair of green trousers she was wearing, and several camouflage coats hanging on hooks outside her house. She’d found the Russian uniforms, she said, “laying around. All my stuff was destroyed so I have nothing to wear.”

Daria Yevheniivna, 15, said that while she had spent most of the occupation at home in hiding, she now feels a new sense of hope that her city can be salvaged.

“Everything got better,” she said. “It became very calm. I don’t hear shooting anymore, and I can sleep in the house, not in the cellar. People became more kind.”

Anatolii, who also didn’t give his last name, complained as he spoke on the central square that some of his neighbors only watched Russian television, which he said had “messed with their heads.” He has tried to influence them, he said, but without success.

“There are some people who were waiting for the Russians, but I am Ukrainian, and we don’t like them,” he said.

“War is war. This is a real war,” he said. “Russians shout that it’s a special operation, but it’s only a special operation for them. For us, it’s a real war.”

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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October 8, 2022
Mayor declares state of emergency for NYC over migrants

NEW YORK — New York City’s mayor declared a state of emergency on Friday over the thousands of migrants being sent from southern border states since the spring, saying the demand being put on the city to provide housing and other assistance is “not sustainable.”

“A city recovering from an ongoing global pandemic is being overwhelmed by a humanitarian crisis made by human hands,” Mayor Eric Adams said. “We are at the edge of the precipice. … We need help. And we need it now.”

By the end of its fiscal year, Adams said the city expected to spend $1 billion helping the new arrivals, many of whom are heavily reliant on government aid because federal law prohibits them from working in the U.S.

The administration did not specify what costs are being included in that amount.

Adams, a Democrat, said the new arrivals are welcome in the city. And he spoke with pride of New York City’s history as a landing spot for new immigrants.

“New Yorkers have always looked out for our immigrant brothers and sisters. We see ourselves in them. We see our ancestors in them,” he said.

But, he said, “though our compassion is limitless, our resources are not.”

New York City’s already strained shelter system has been under even greater pressure for much of this year because of the unexpected increase of those needing help.

Between five and six buses of migrants are arriving per day, Adams said, with nine on Thursday alone. Many of those buses have been chartered and paid for by Republican officials in Texas and Arizona who have sought to put pressure on the Biden administration to change border policies by sending migrants to Democratic-leaning cities and states in the north.

One out of five beds in New York City’s homeless shelter system is now occupied by a migrant, and the sudden influx has swelled its population to record levels. The city has opened 42 new, temporary shelters, mostly in hotels, but Adams said more would need to be done.

On Friday, he said that included city agencies coordinating to build more humanitarian centers; fast-tracking New Yorkers from shelters to permanent housing, which would clear space for new arrivals to the city; and putting together a process for New Yorkers who have extra room to house those in need.

He called for state and federal financial aid, federal legislation that would allow asylum seekers to legally work sooner, and federal plans to fairly distribute asylum seekers throughout the country “to ensure everyone is doing their part.”

City officials estimated that about a third of migrants who arrive in New York City want to go elsewhere.

Adams said New York would continue to do what it could.

“Generations from now, there will be many Americans who will trace their stories back to this moment in time,” he said. “Grandchildren, who will recall the day their grandparents arrived here in New York city and found compassion, not cruelty, a place to lay their head. A warm meal. A chance at a better future.

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October 7, 2022
Drug gang kills 20 in attack on city hall in southern Mexico

SAN MIGUEL TOTOLAPAN, Mexico — A drug gang shot to death 20 people, including a mayor and his father, in the mountains of the southern Mexico state of Guerrero, officials said Thursday.

Residents began burying the victims even as a video posted on social media showed men who identified themselves as the Tequileros gang claiming responsibility for the mass shooting.

The Guerrero state security council said gunmen burst into the town hall in the village of San Miguel Totolapan Wednesday and opened fire on a meeting the mayor was holding with other officials.

Among the dead were Mayor Conrado Mendoza and his father, Juan Mendoza Acosta, a former mayor of the town. Most of the other victims were believed to be local officials.

The walls of the town hall, which were surrounded by children’s fair rides at the time, were left riddled with bullets. Totolapan is geographically large but sparsely populated mountainous township in a region known as Tierra Caliente, one of Mexico’s most conflict-ridden areas.

There were so many victims that a backhoe was brought into the town’s cemetery to scoop out graves as residents began burying their dead Thursday. By midday, two bodies had already been buried and 10 more empty pits stood waiting.

A procession of about 100 residents singing hymns walked solemnly behind a truck carrying the coffin of one man killed in the shooting. Once they neared the cemetery, several men hoisted the coffin out of the truck and walked with it the waiting grave. Dozens of soldiers were posted at the entrance to the town.

Ricardo Mejia, Mexico’s assistant secretary of public safety, said the Tequileros are fighting the Familia Michoacana gang in the region and that the authenticity of the video was being verified.

“This act occurred in the context of a dispute between criminal gangs,” Mejia said. “A group known as the Tequileros dominated the region for some time; it was a group that mainly smuggled and distributed opium, but also engaged in kidnapping, extortion and several killings in the region.”

Totolapan was controlled for years by drug gang boss Raybel Jacobo de Almonte, known by his nickname as “El Tequilero” (“The Tequila Drinker”).

In his only known public appearance, de Almonte was captured on video drinking with the elder Mendoza, who was then the town’s mayor-elect, in 2015. It was not clear if the elder Mendoza was there of his own free will, or had been forced to attend the meeting.

In that video, de Almonte appeared so drunk he mumbled inaudibly and had to be held up in a sitting position by one of his henchmen.

In 2016, Totolapan locals got so fed up with abductions by the Tequileros that they kidnapped the gang leader’s mother to leverage the release of others.

While the Tequileros long depended on trafficking opium paste from local poppy growers, the growing use of the synthetic opioid fentanyl had reduced the demand for opium paste and lowered the level of violence in Guerrero.

Also Wednesday, in the neighboring state of Morelos, a state lawmaker was shot to death in the city of Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City.

Two armed men traveling on a motorcycle fatally shot state Deputy Gabriela Marín as she exited a vehicle outside a pharmacy. A person with Marín was reportedly wounded in the attack.

“Based on the information we have, we cannot rule out a motive related to politics,” Mejia said of that killing. “The deceased, Gabriela Marín, had just taken office as a legislator in July, after another member of the legislature died, and there were several legal disputes concerning the seat.”

The killing of Mendoza brought to 18 the number of mayors slain during the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the number of state lawmakers to eight, according to data from Etellekt Consultores.

Mexico’s Congress this week is debating the president’s proposal to extend the military’s policing duties to 2028. Last month, lawmakers approved López Obrador’s push to transfer the ostensibly civilian National Guard to military control.

While attacks on public officials are not uncommon in Mexico, these come at a time when the López Obrador’s security strategy is being sharply debated. The president has placed tremendous responsibility in the armed forces rather than civilian police for reining in Mexico’s persistently high levels of violence. He pledged to continue, saying “we have to go on doing the same things, because it has brought results.”

López Obrador sought to blame previous administrations for Mexico’s persistent problem of violence.

“These are (criminal) organizations that have been there for a long time, that didn’t spring up in this administration,” López Obrador said. He also blamed local people in the Tierra Caliente region for supporting the gangs — and sometimes even electing them to office.

“There are still communities that protect these groups, and even vote them into office as authorities,” the president said.

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October 6, 2022
Attackers kill 18 in attack on city hall in southern Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Attackers gunned down a mayor, his father and 16 other people in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero on Wednesday, authorities said.

State Attorney General Sandra Luz Valdovinos told Milenio television late Wednesday that 18 people were killed and two were wounded in the town of San Miguel Totolapan. Among the dead were Mayor Conrado Mendoza and his father, a former mayor of the town, she said. Two additional people were wounded.

Images from the scene showed a bullet-riddled city hall.

Later Wednesday, in the neighboring state of Morelos, a state lawmaker was shot to death in the city of Cuernavaca south of Mexico City.

While attacks on public officials are not uncommon in Mexico, these come at a time when the security strategy of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is being sharply debated. The president has placed tremendous responsibility on the armed forces rather than civilian police for reining in Mexico’s persistently high levels of violence.

San Miguel Totolapan is a remote township in Tierra Caliente, which is one of Mexico’s most conflict-ridden areas, disputed by multiple drug trafficking gangs.

In 2016, Totolapan locals fed up with abductions by the local gang “Los Tequileros” kidnapped the gang leader’s mother to leverage the release of others.

In Cuernavaca, Morelos State Attorney General Uriel Carmona said two armed men traveling on a motorcycle fatally shot state Deputy Gabriela Marín as she exited a vehicle.

Local outlets said Marín, a member of the Morelos Progress party, was killed at a pharmacy in Cuernavaca. A person with Marín was reportedly wounded in the attack.

Morelos Gov. Cuauhtémoc Blanco condemned the attack and said via Twitter that security forces were deployed in search of the attackers.

The deaths of Mendoza and Marín brought the number of mayors killed during López Obrador’s administration to 18 and the number of state lawmakers to eight, according to data from Etellekt Consultores.

Mexico’s Congress this week is debating the president’s proposal to extend the military’s policing duties to 2028. Last month, lawmakers approved López Obrador’s push to transfer the ostensibly civilian National Guard to military control.

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October 5, 2022
Sanibel Island residents return to see if their homes survived devastating Hurricane Ian as Biden surveys damage | CNN

CNN
—

Residents of Florida’s Sanibel Island are warned they could be shocked when they return by boat Wednesday to their hard-hit community to set eyes for the first time on the devastation wrought a week ago by Hurricane Ian whose damage zone President Joe Biden is also due to visit today.

“It is going to be emotional when they see their properties up close and the amount of damage that this storm inflicted upon them,” City Manager Dana Souza told CNN of how residents and business owners may react on Sanibel Island, where Ian wiped out parts of the causeway, severing its connection to the mainland.

The opening of Sanibel to residents comes the same day President Joe Biden is visiting Florida to see Ian’s destruction first-hand. The President, who received an aerial tour of the damage in Fort Myers, was also briefed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Florida officials on the response to the storm and recovery efforts.

“Today we have one job and only one job,” Biden said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “That’s to make sure the people of Florida get everything that they need to fully, thoroughly recover.”

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At least 110 people have been reported killed as a result of the storm – 105 of them in Florida and five in North Carolina. And it’s not clear how many people are still missing as officials work to compile a list of those who remain unaccounted for, Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said Monday.

More than 1,000 search and rescue personnel have combed through 79,000 structures across the Sunshine State, DeSantis told reporters Tuesday, with more than 2,300 rescues logged.

Statewide, about 290,000 customers still have no power Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.us, many of them in hard-hit Lee and Charlotte counties. Many schools also remain shuttered, some hospitals are still struggling to provide care, and boil-water notices remain in place in some areas.

DeSantis toured the damage on Sanibel Wednesday for the first time. “You can go over it in a helicopter and you see damage, but it does not do it justice until you are actually on the ground, and you see concrete utility poles sawed off right in half, massive power lines everywhere, massive amounts of debris,” he said.

As Sanibel Island residents access their properties, the area is still “extremely unsafe,” Mayor Holly Smith said. And houses that look fine from the outside may prove to be too damaged to live in.

Wednesday was the first time Julie Emig, 64, and Vicki Paskaly, 68, returned to their home on the island. The couple – who have been married since 2020, but together since 1992 – bought their “dream home” two years ago and initially evacuated thinking they would be gone for just three days.

“Pulling up here we can already see the vegetation is in tatters. It’s really hitting home now,” Vicki told CNN as she and her partner pulled up to their home by boat.

The couple’s garage was full of mud. Lines on the wall show water downstairs reached about 6 feet, and on their lower level, the refrigerator was now on the counter and the kitchen island was on its side.

“It’s just gone, our beach is gone, the building’s trashed, the trees are gone, it was all so lush in there,” Paskaly said.

“It’s surreal, it’s a dream and I know we’ll wake up to a nightmare,” Emig said.

Dan and Tony Tabor were lucky. The couple returned to their Sanibel home prepared for the worst, with water, bleach and drywall cutters in tow to begin the rebuilding process.

Instead, they found it practically untouched by the storm, with the screens on their porch still in place and plants left outside still upright. If they wanted to, they said, they could spend tonight in the home. “We are so happy,” Tony Tabor said, but “I feel so guilty, because our neighbors have seen so much damage to their houses.”

Meanwhile, it could be some time before hundreds of residents of Naples, in Collier County, can get back in their homes, City Manager Jay Boodheshwar, told CNN.

“There was a significant amount of homes, in fact, an entire neighborhood was submerged at least with 3 feet of water. Some areas got 6 to 7 feet of water,” Boodheshwar said. “I would guess it’s probably hundreds of households that are going to be experiencing a period of time when they’re not going to be able to be in their homes.”

Collier County issued a mandatory curfew Wednesday beginning at midnight – Naples’ begins at 10 p.m. – and ending at 6 a.m. Thursday, according to a Facebook post from Collier County Emergency Management.

“The purpose of the curfew is to protect the safety of the citizens of Collier County and their property as they begin the process of recovering from the effects of Hurricane Ian,” the post read, adding that the curfew does not apply to emergency responders, employees at health care facilities, any essential workers that provide important services or those seeking medical assistance.

Those in violation of the curfew will be subject to a second-degree misdemeanor, the agency said.

Many homes in the once-tranquil community on Sanibel Island “are not livable,” Sanibel Fire Chief William Briscoe has said.

“There are places off their foundation, and it’s very dangerous out there,” he said previously. “There are alligators running around, and there are snakes all over the place.”

Most of the electrical poles and transmission lines remain down, along with wastewater systems, Souza said. “Without those necessary infrastructure, it is difficult to sustain a community of 7,000 people year around,” Souza added.

“It will be some time before we can resume normal life on Sanibel,” he said.

The island’s year-round population is about 7,000 people, growing to 35,000 during the high season that typically would begin in about a month, Souza said.

But it could take a month or longer just to restore power to some areas of Sanibel and Pine islands, Lee County Electric Cooperative spokesperson Karen Ryan told CNN.

“It will be much easier to restore power once we can gain access to the island,” she said.

DeSantis directed transportation authorities to prioritize the repair of the Sanibel Causeway.

“Access to our barrier islands is a priority for our first responders and emergency services who have been working day and night to bring relief to all Floridians affected by Hurricane Ian,” he said in a statement.

Pine Island residents should be able to access their community by car later Wednesday, Gov. DeSantis announced, when crews are expected to complete a temporary fix for a part of a damaged bridge washed away in the storm.

At Salty Sam’s Marina in Fort Myers, owner Darrell Hanson and many of his employees – about 120 at this time of year and up to 200 at the height of tourist season – are working to salvage what they can, some of them dealing with the loss of their livelihoods and personal property.

“In the parking lot, we must have had about 12 feet of water. Everything on the first floor was … destroyed,” said Hanson, who has so far been unable to access his own home on Sanibel Island. “All our gift stores and restaurants and everything, they’ve lost all their inventory. It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars that each business lost.”

“But the employees have all come together,” he said, choking back tears. “They’re all out there working their butt off.”

Employee Ty Landers, who works on a pirate cruise at the marina, rode out the storm at his family’s home in Fort Myers. Fortunately the home and his family are safe, he said.

But some of his coworkers weren’t so lucky.

“Many of our employees, even on the pirate ships, my crewmates, they lost their houses, they lost everything,” Landers told CNN. “Hopefully when the time’s right they’ll come back. But right now their lives fell apart, and they’re putting it back together.”

In Charlotte County, north of Fort Myers, public schools will be closed until further notice after several of its 22 schools were damaged by Ian.

“The storm lasted here for over 12 hours, just hammering away. Nothing is safe right now,” Charlotte County public schools spokesperson Mike Riley said.

Florida hospitals have also been struggling. Emergency departments sustained damage, staffing is impacted as hospital workers were displaced or lost their vehicles, and some facilities lost reliable access to water.

“We were ready, we had our generators all ready. We had plenty of fuel. What we couldn’t anticipate and didn’t anticipate was the loss of water from our utility companies,” said Dr. Larry Antonucci, president and CEO of Lee Health.

Many areas remain under boil water notices since the storm made landfall, damaging critical infrastructure, as well as homes.

Residents of Lee and Charlotte counties – the two counties with the highest death tolls from the hurricane – will be able to get temporary blue coverings with fiber-reinforced sheeting at no cost for their roofs to help reduce further damage, according to a Charlotte County news release.

Jessica Hernstadt, a resident of Fort Myers Beach in Lee County, said the community “looked like an apocalyptic disaster” when she made her way there after Ian slammed the shore, with cars, pots, pans and clothing littering the area.

Homes the storm tore from their foundations blocked the streets leading to her house, which she found ablaze when she arrived, she told CNN in an interview Wednesday.

Later, combing through the ashes, Hernstadt found just one item unscathed: a candlestick holder her great-grandmother carried in her pockets as she emigrated from Poland to the US.

“It was the simplest, most prized possession that I had, and it gave me a sense of hope, especially today being Yom Kippur,” she said Wednesday, the holiest day of the year in Judaism. “We will survive. Our town will survive, and there’s hope to rebuild.”

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October 5, 2022
Noru became a super typhoon in 6 hours. Scientists say powerful storms are becoming harder to forecast | CNN

CNN
—

Residents on the small resort island of Polillo are accustomed to severe weather – their island sits in the northeastern Philippines, on the edge of the Pacific Ocean where storms typically gather strength and turn into typhoons.

But even they were stunned by the intensity of Typhoon Noru, known locally as Typhoon Karding, that turned from a typhoon into a super typhoon in just six hours before hitting the region earlier this week.

“We’re used to typhoons because we’re located where storms usually land,” said Armiel Azas Azul, 36, who owns the Sugod Beach and Food Park on the island, a bistro under palm trees where guests drink coconut juice in tiny thatched huts.

“But everything is very unpredictable,” he said. “And (Noru) came very fast.”

The Philippines sees an average of 20 tropical storms each year, and while Noru didn’t inflict as much damage or loss of life as other typhoons in recent years, it stood out because it gained strength so quickly.

Experts say rapidly developing typhoons are set to become much more common as the climate crisis fuels extreme weather events, and at the same time it will become harder to predict which storms will intensify and where they will track.

“The challenge is accurately forecasting the intensity and how fast the categories may change, for example from just a low-pressure area intensifying into a tropical cyclone,” said Lourdes Tibig, a meteorologist and climatologist with the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities.

The same happened in the United States last week when Hurricane Ian turned from a Category 1 storm into a powerful Category 4 hurricane before making landfall along the southwestern coast of Florida on Wednesday.

Such rapid intensification, as it’s known in meteorological terms, creates challenges for residents, authorities and local emergency workers, including those in the Philippines, who increasingly have no choice but to prepare for the worst.

When Azul received warning that Typhoon Noru was approaching the Philippines last Saturday, he began his usual preparations of setting up his generator and tying down loose items.

At that stage, Noru was predicted to make landfall on Sunday as the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane.

But as the storm grew closer, it strengthened into a super typhoon, the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane, making landfall Sunday evening with ferocious winds that lifted waves and lashed properties on the shoreline.

Azul said his community was fortunate to have TV signal in the resort, and as soon as they found out that the typhoon was much stronger than forecast, his staff brought in all the bistro’s outdoor furniture and tied down the roofs of their guesthouses, while local government units evacuated people living near the shore.

“But other parts of the island which don’t have internet connectivity and only rely on radio signals might not have got the message in time,” he said.

The typhoon damaged the resort town, as strong winds toppled beach huts and damaged nearby fishing cages.

Azul added that coconut trees planted across the island about a decade ago after Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) battered the area had just started to bear fruit but were now completely wiped out.

“We have to pick up the pieces, and rebuild again,” he said.

On the main island of Luzon, Noru left a trail of destruction in the province of Nueva Ecija, known as the “rice granary” of the country.

Ruel Ladrido, 46, a farmer owner in Laur, Nueva Ecija, said his rice fields were not flooded but strong winds damaged his crops.

“It didn’t rain hard near me, but the winds uprooted some of my fields. It will affect our harvest this season, but what can we do? I don’t know the extent of the damage yet, but we’ll have to plant again,” he told CNN on Tuesday.

As of Friday, 12 people had died in the aftermath of Noru, including five rescue workers in Bulacan province, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

The estimated damage to agriculture ballooned to some 3 billion Philippine pesos (about $51 million), affected 104,500 farmers and fisher folk, and damaged over 166,630 thousand hectares of crop land, according to the NDRRMC.

The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands, is already vulnerable to typhoons, but as sea levels rise and ocean temperatures warm, the storms expected to become more powerful, according to research published in 2018.

The study found that the stronger typhoons carry more moisture and track differently. They are also “aggravated by sea level rise, one of the most certain consequences of climate change.”

A separate study published last year, by researchers at the Shenzhen Institute of Meteorological Innovation and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, found that typhoons in east and southeast Asia now last between two and nine hours longer and travel an average of 100 kilometers (62 miles) further inland than they did four decades ago. By the end of the century, they could have double the destructive power.

As such, it’ll become more difficult to forecast their track and predict ones that will quickly gain strength, or undergo rapid intensification – defined as when wind speeds increase by at least 35 miles per hour (56 kilometers per hour) in 24 hours or less.

Although rare, the Philippines is no stranger to this phenomenon as 28% of all tropical cyclones that made landfall in the country dating back to 1951 underwent rapid intensification based on official data, according to Gerry Bagtasa, a professor with the University of the Philippines’ Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology.

Bagtasa said factors such as high moisture, warm ocean surface temperatures and low wind shear determine the scale of rapid intensification, but those weather readings “don’t have to be extraordinary in their values” to create rapid intensification.

He remarked that Typhoon Noru’s track across the Philippine Sea before making landfall was “just average for this season” and the wind shear – or the change of wind speed and strength with height in the atmosphere – was not extraordinarily low.

Bagtasa also said forecasters find it difficult to predict rapid intensification in the Pacific, because even though satellite monitoring has improved, there isn’t enough data to forecast worsening weather events.

“There are also many unprecedented events happening recently worldwide, and since forecasters typically rely on their past experiences, new events can ‘throw off’ forecasts, so to speak,” he said.

Mirian Abadilla, a doctor and municipal health officer in Cabangan, Zambales province, on the Philippine island of Luzon, has been involved in her community’s disaster management response since 1991.

She says in that time, typhoons have become harder to forecast, and her community has no choice but to prepare for the worst.

“The typhoons are definitely getting stronger because of climate change, and getting harder to predict,” she said. “But each time we get hit with a typhoon, we try to keep improving our disaster response – that’s the only way for us to stay alert.”

She said local governments held meetings as Typhoon Noru approached the coast to go over relief and rescue plans.

“Filipinos are getting better at disaster preparedness … because we have to be,” she said.

Every province, city, municipality and barangay in the Philippines is required to follow national disaster risk reduction and management system under an act imposed in 2010 to address the island nation’s climate vulnerability.

Local governments must conduct preemptive evacuation based on the projected warnings from the national weather department, and it’s recommended they hold regular disaster rescue drills with responders and host briefing seminars for communities.

In a press briefing on Monday, Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. praised local government units for “doing a good job” in explaining the situation to the local population as Noru approached, and for carrying out evacuations that may have prevented mass casualties.

But he also seemed to acknowledge the unpredictability of the storms that regularly threaten the Philippine coast, and the need to always be prepared.

“I think we may have gotten lucky at least this time, a little bit,” Marcos Jr. said.

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October 1, 2022
Cinema opens in Kashmir city after 14 years but few turn up

SRINAGAR, India — A multi-screen cinema hall opened on Saturday in the main city of Indian-controlled Kashmir for the first time in 14 years in the government’s push to showcase normalcy in the disputed region that was brought under India’s direct rule three years ago.

Decades of a deadly conflict, bombings and brutal Indian counterinsurgency campaign have turned people away from cinemas, and only about a dozen viewers lined up for the first morning show, the Bollywood action movie “Vikram Vedha.” The 520-seat hall with three screens opened under elaborate security in Srinagar’s high security zone that also houses India’s military regional headquarters.

“There are different viewpoints about (cinema) but I think it’s a good thing,” said moviegoer Faheem, who gave only one name. “It’s a sign of progress.”

Others at the show declined to comment.

The afternoon and evening shows had less than 10% occupancy on Saturday, according to India’s premier movie booking website in.bookmyshow.com.

The multiplex was officially inaugurated on Sept. 20 by Manoj Sinha, New Delhi’s top administrator in Kashmir. The cinema is part of Indian multiplex chain Inox in partnership with a Kashmiri businessman.

After Kashmiri militants rose up against Indian rule in 1989, launching a bloody insurgency that was met with a brutal response by Indian troops, the once-thriving city of Srinagar wilted. The city’s eight privately owned movie theaters closed on the orders of rebels, saying they were vehicles of India’s cultural invasion and anti-Islamic.

In the early 1990s, government forces converted most of the city’s theaters into makeshift security camps, detention or interrogation centers. Soon, places where audiences thronged to Bollywood blockbusters became feared buildings, where witnesses say torture was commonplace.

However, three cinema halls, backed by government financial assistance, reopened in 1999 amid an official push to project the idea that life had returned to normal in Kashmir. Soon after, a bombing outside one hall in the heart of Srinagar killed a civilian and wounded many others and shut it again. Weary Kashmiris largely stayed away, and the other hall locked its doors within a year. One theater, the Neelam, stuck it out until 2008.

Officials said the government is planning to establish cinemas in every district of the region, where tens of thousands have been killed in the armed conflict since 1989. Last month, Sinha also inaugurated two multipurpose halls in the southern districts of Shopian and Pulwama, considered as hotbeds of armed rebellion.

“The government is committed to change perceptions about Jammu and Kashmir, and we know people want entertainment and they want to watch movies,” Sinha told reporters at the inauguration.

In 2019, India revoked the region’s semi-autonomy and brought it under direct control, throwing Kashmir under a severe security and communication lockdown.

The region has remained on edge ever since as authorities also put in place a slew of new laws, which critics and many residents fear could change the region’s demographics.

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October 1, 2022
Max Baer, Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s chief justice, dies

PITTSBURGH — Max Baer, the chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, has died only months before he was set to retire, the court confirmed Saturday. He was 74.

Baer died overnight at his home near Pittsburgh, the court said in a news release. The court didn’t give a reason for his death but called his “sudden passing” a “tremendous loss for the court and all of Pennsylvania.”

The court said Justice Debra Todd now becomes chief justice “as the justice of longest and continuous service on the court.” She is the first female chief justice in the commonwealth’s history, a court spokesperson confirmed.

“Chief Justice Baer was an influential and intellectual jurist whose unwavering focus was on administering fair and balanced justice,” Todd said in the release. “He was a tireless champion for children, devoted to protecting and providing for our youngest and most vulnerable citizens.”

Gov. Tom Wolf ordered state flags at commonwealth facilities, public buildings and grounds lowered to half-staff, saying he was “extremely saddened” by the death of such a “respected and esteemed jurist with decades of service to our courts and our commonwealth.”

Baer, a Duquesne Law graduate, was an Allegheny County family court judge and an administrative judge in family court before he was elected to the high court in 2003 and became its chief justice last year. Baer also served as deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania from 1975 to 1980 and was in private practice before entering the judiciary.

Earlier this year, Baer was part of the 5-2 majority as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld a wide expansion of mail-in voting in Pennsylvania.

Baer was set to retire at the end of 2022 after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75. The court said the seat had already been slated to be on the 2023 ballot, and “in the interim the governor may choose to make an appointment, subject to confirmation by the Senate.” Baer was elected as a Democrat and his death leaves a 4-2 Democratic majority on the high court.

Duquesne’s president, Ken Gormley, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Baer believed justices shouldn’t be public figures and that he therefore shied away from the limelight, using his position to uplift others in the profession.

“He was collegial, he worked really hard to have the court function as a family, and he led by example,” Gormley said. “He was the most caring person imaginable — always put others first and celebrated their successes. He hated pettiness. He had no time for pettiness.”

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October 1, 2022
India launches 5G services, Modi calls it step in new era

NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched 5G services in India on Saturday, calling it a “step towards the new era.”

The launch in select cities will cover the entire country over the next couple of years, a government statement said.

Modi launched the much-awaited services that aim to provide seamless coverage, high data rate, less delay in internet connectivity and highly reliable communications in presence of India’s telecom leaders in New Delhi.

“This event will be etched in history,” Modi said at the launch. He said it was a “step towards the new era in the country” and “the beginning of infinite opportunities.”

Bharti Airtel is rolling out its 5G services in eight cities on Saturday and has set March 2024 as the deadline for countrywide coverage for as many as 5,000 towns.

Reliance Jio telecom company plans to start from four metropolitan areas in October and hopes to reach most cities and towns in 18 months.

The government said that the cumulative economic impact of 5G on India is expected to reach $450 billion by 2035.

Research agency OMDIA projects that with 369 million 5G subscriptions — over half the total global 5G subscriptions currently — India will be just behind China and the U.S. in world rankings by 2026. India would have ousted Japan from the third spot with 147 million customers, according to Business Standard newspaper.

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October 1, 2022
India launches 5G services, Modi calls it step in new era

NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched 5G services in India on Saturday, calling it a “step towards the new era.”

The launch in select cities will cover the entire country over the next couple of years, a government statement said.

Modi launched the much-awaited services that aim to provide seamless coverage, high data rate, less delay in internet connectivity and highly reliable communications in presence of India’s telecom leaders in New Delhi.

“This event will be etched in history,” Modi said at the launch. He said it was a “step towards the new era in the country” and “the beginning of infinite opportunities.”

Bharti Airtel is rolling out its 5G services in eight cities on Saturday and has set March 2024 as the deadline for countrywide coverage for as many as 5,000 towns.

Reliance Jio telecom company plans to start from four metropolitan areas in October and hopes to reach most cities and towns in 18 months.

The government said that the cumulative economic impact of 5G on India is expected to reach $450 billion by 2035.

Research agency OMDIA projects that with 369 million 5G subscriptions — over half the total global 5G subscriptions currently — India will be just behind China and the U.S. in world rankings by 2026. India would have ousted Japan from the third spot with 147 million customers, according to Business Standard newspaper.

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October 1, 2022
Water crisis tests Mississippi mayor who started as activist

JACKSON, Miss. — The mayor of Mississippi’s capital was 5 years old when his parents moved their family from New York to Jackson in 1988 so that his father, who had been involved in a Black nationalist movement in the 1970s, could return to the unfinished business of challenging inequity and fighting racial injustice.

“Instead of shielding their most precious resource, their children, from the movement or movement work, they felt that they would give us to it,” said Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, now 39.

Lumumba describes himself as a “radical” who is “uncomfortable with oppressive conditions.” A Democrat in his second term as mayor, he faces a high-pressure leadership test as Jackson struggles to consistently produce a basic necessity of life — safe, clean drinking water.

The city has had water problems for decades. Most of Jackson was recently without running water for several days after heavy rains exacerbated problems at a water treatment plant. For a month before that happened, the city was under a boil-water notice because state health officials found cloudy water that could cause illness. Thousands of people lost running water during a cold snap in 2021.

Jackson’s population and tax base eroded as mostly white middle-class residents started moving to the suburbs about a decade after public schools integrated in 1970. More than 80% of Jackson’s 150,000 residents are Black. The city’s poverty rate of 25% is almost double the national rate.

“I see a community that has often been left out of the equation, that has been treated disproportionately in terms of equity of resources,” Lumumba told The Associated Press. “And so I believe that it is imperative that someone stand up for them and someone speak to those issues.”

Emergency repairs are being done at Jackson’s two water treatment plants. Water pressure has been restored. And although Republican Gov. Tate Reeves announced Sept. 15 that people can once again drink water from the tap after seven weeks of the boil order, the state health department says pregnant women or young children should take precautions because of lead levels previously found in some homes on the Jackson water system.

Lumumba’s supporters say the mayor cares deeply for Jackson but faces opposition from Republican state leaders, and he inherited extensive problems from previous city administrations, including an unreliable billing system that has undercut revenue for repairs and maintenance.

Critics, though, say Lumumba has failed to provide clear leadership — allowing dangerous levels of understaffing at the treatment plants, obscuring concerns raised by the Environmental Protection Agency and not providing detailed budget proposals for fixing the water system.

Othor Cain, a Jackson radio host, is among the critics. Cain taught Lumumba in Sunday school at a Methodist church when Lumumba was young. He described the mayor as “a nice guy” and a talented orator. But he said Lumumba has not surrounded himself with strong managers and has faltered in building work relationships with other elected officials.

“You can’t blame him for the age-old water system and the age-old infrastructure,” Cain said. “But you can blame him from 2017, when he was elected, for doing nothing.”

Robert Luckett, a civil rights historian, was appointed by Lumumba to serve on the Jackson school board. Luckett said he respects the mayor and believes he’s doing a good job. Like many friends and acquaintances, Luckett calls Lumumba by his middle name.

“When Antar first ran for mayor and lost, and then ran and won, there was an idealism to his campaign that was the hallmark of early-career politicians,” Luckett said. “In his first term as mayor, the shine on that idealism was kind of taken off a little bit.”

Republicans control the Mississippi Legislature and all statewide offices. Lumumba and most other Jackson officials are Democrats. The mayor and Gov. Reeves rarely talked before Jackson’s latest water crisis, and they’ve only made a few appearances together since it started.

The day after announcing the end of the boil-water notice in Jackson, the governor spoke at the opening of a business in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

“I’ve got to tell you, it is a great day to be in Hattiesburg. It’s also, as always, a great day to not be in Jackson,” Reeves said. “I feel I should take off my emergency management director hat and leave it in the car, and take off my public works director hat and leave it in the car.”

Lumumba is an attorney and has been a community organizer. He said he’s able to work with people who have different vantage points.

“If you can only organize people who think like you, you’re not much of an organizer,” he said.

Lumumba is the second person in his family to be mayor of Jackson. The man he calls his hero, his father Chokwe Lumumba, was elected mayor in 2013 after serving four years on the city council. Chokwe Lumumba persuaded Jackson voters to approve a 1% local sales tax to fund infrastructure improvements. He died in 2014, after less than nine months in office.

The elder Lumumba, a Michigan native, had lived in Mississippi in the 1970s and was active in a Black nationalist organization, the Republic of New Afrika. After he practiced law in the North for several years, he and his wife, Nubia, moved their family back to Mississippi.

The younger Lumumba said he spent part of his childhood working at Jackson’s Malcolm X Grassroots Center for Self-Determination and Self-Defense. He said the center had summer programs for young people, offering them political lessons and leisure activities such as swimming.

“I’m grateful to my parents for giving me that value system in my work today,” Lumumba said.

After his father died, the younger Lumumba ran unsuccessfully in a special mayoral election in 2014.

He won his first term as mayor in 2017 and easily won a second term in 2021. Lumumba said as he was growing up and earning a law degree, he did not aspire to become mayor but prayed God would use him to do big work.

“I believe that the Lord keeps our prayers stored up in vials and they’re like a sweet-smelling aroma to him,” said Lumumba, who attends a nondenominational Christian church. “So, the prayer that I made at like around 8 years old, He remembered and I think that is why I’m in position here.”

Corey Lewis of Gulfport, Mississippi, said he and Lumumba are best friends. They met in 2001 when Lewis was a student at Tougaloo College and Lumumba was graduating from Jackson’s Callaway High School.

“He cares about the city of Jackson — like, that is a passion,” Lewis said. “We could be out having fun or going on a trip and he’d be like, ‘Man, I just don’t know what I’m going to do about this situation.’”

Cain, though, said he thinks leading a city is a larger job than the current Mayor Lumumba anticipated.

“I just believe there is a difference between a politician or an elected official than an advocate or an activist,” the radio host said. “I don’t think this guy has been able to make the transition.”

In a 2017 speech at Millsaps College in Jackson, Lumumba said that as a child of two activists, he tends to talk about big issues like social justice and self-determination.

“But as I quickly learned on the campaign trail,” he said, “when you knock on a gentleman or a lady’s door and you talk about these great big ideas, you’re confronted with a brother or sister who says, ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s good, young brother, but how are you going to fix that pothole in the middle of my street?’”

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Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter at http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus.

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September 30, 2022