Tornadoes leave trail of death and destruction across parts of US

Published

1 month ago

May 27, 2024

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Powerful storms have killed at least 15 people and left a trail of destruction in their wake as they swept across parts of the central United States.

A tornado tore through a rural area in northern Texas, near the Oklahoma border, on Saturday night, killing at least seven people.

Cooke County sheriff Ray Sappington said two children, aged two and five, were among the victims, with numerous injuries also reported.

He said some of the many trailer homes in the area were “completely gone”, while others suffered massive damage from the storm which left a quarter of a mile-wide path of destruction for three to four miles.

“It’s just a trail of debris left,” he said. “The devastation is pretty severe.”

Storms also killed two people and destroyed houses in Oklahoma, where guests at an outdoor wedding were injured, while at least five people were killed in Arkansas, including a 26-year-old woman.

Elsewhere, a man was killed in Louisville, Kentucky, when a tree fell on him on Sunday.

The small community of Valley View, a town in Cooke County, where barely 800 people live, was among the hardest hit.

Kevin Dorantes, 20, said he came across a father and son trapped under the debris and friends and neighbours worked to get them out.

“They were conscious but severely injured,” he said. “The father’s leg was snapped.”

He said they managed to carry the father on a mattress to a truck and he and his son were driven to a nearby ambulance.

Hugo Parra said he sheltered with around 40 to 50 people in the bathroom of a truck stop near Valley View as the storm sheared the roof and walls off the building, mangling metal beams and leaving battered cars in the car park.

“The best way to describe this is the wind tried to rip us out of the bathrooms,” he said.

The full scale of the devastation began to come clear on Sunday morning as aerial footage showed dozens of damaged homes, many without roofs and others reduced to rubble, as residents woke up to overturned cars and collapsed garages.

Hundreds of thousands of customers were without power across a large part of the country, including in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas on Sunday, according to poweroutages.us.

In Indiana, bad weather delayed the start of the famous Indy 500 car race.

More severe weather is expected across parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, with the National Weather Service warning of damaging winds, large hail and more tornadoes in the affected areas.

April and May have been a busy month for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest, with Iowa hit hard last week, when a deadly twister devastated Greenfield.

US

West Virginia white couple alleged to have kept five adopted black children ‘locked in barn and used as slaves’

Published

27 mins ago

June 26, 2024

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West Virginia white couple alleged to have kept five adopted black children 'locked in barn and used as slaves'

A white couple from West Virginia have been accused of child neglect after allegedly forcing their adopted black children to work as ‘slaves’ and locking them in a barn.

Donald Ray Lantz, 63, and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 62, pleaded not guilty at Kanawha County court on Tuesday to multiple charges, including human trafficking of a minor child, use of a minor child in forced labour, and child neglect creating substantial risk of serious bodily injury or death, according to local news outlet Metro News.

They also face allegations of human rights violations, over specifically targeting black children and forcing them to work because of their race, Metro News said.

Kanawha County circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers claimed that the children were “used basically as slaves”, citing what the indictment alleges.

The couple were first arrested in October 2023 after a wellness check led to the discovery of two of the couple’s five adopted children – aged six, nine, 11, 14 and 16 – living in inhumane conditions at a property in Sissonville.

In a previous statement made to the court, Whitefeather alleged that the barn where the 14 and 16-year-old were found in was a “teenage clubhouse” and denied that they were locked in.

A nine-year-old girl was found inside the main house before Lantz came home with an 11-year-old boy and later, Whitefeather returned with a six-year-old.

Their bail has been set at $500,000 each, up from the previous amount of $200,000.

A trial date for the couple has been set for 9 September.

US

Evan Gershkovich: US journalist seen with shaved head as he goes on trial in Russia for spying

Published

27 mins ago

June 26, 2024

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Evan Gershkovich: US journalist seen with shaved head as he goes on trial in Russia for spying

Evan Gershkovich has been seen with a shaved head as he went on trial behind-closed-doors in Russia accused of spying.

Reporters were allowed to briefly film the US journalist on Wednesday before the start of the hearing in the city of Yekaterinburg where he is charged with espionage, which he denies.

Mr Gershkovich was seen standing in a glass box wearing a black-and-blue checked shirt before the proceedings were closed.

The next hearing was set for 13 August.

The Wall Street Journal reporter was first arrested and detained in March 2023 after Russia claimed he had been “gathering secret information” on orders from the CIA.

The 32-year-old reporter, who has already spent nearly 15 months behind bars in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo jail, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

Russian courts convict more than 99% of the defendants who come before them, and prosecutors can appeal sentences they regard as too lenient, and can even appeal acquittals.

Last week, the first details of the allegations against him emerged as it was claimed he was seeking details about Uralvagonzavod, a facility that produces and repairs military equipment, the prosecutor general’s office said.

The authorities have not publicly disclosed any evidence to back up the accusations.

The trial is due to take place behind closed doors – something Russia says is normal in espionage cases.

Kremlin claims reporter ‘collected secret information’ for CIA

Wall Street journalist Evan Gershkovich is on trial in Russia accused of spying.

He has been charged with espionage under article 276 of the criminal code of the Russian Federation.

It is alleged the 32-year-old, acting under instruction of the CIA “collected secret information” about the operation of Uralvagonzavod, a plant about 90 miles (150km) north of Yekaterinburg that produces and repairs tanks and other military equipment.

Mr Gershkovich, the US-born son of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, was arrested by officers of the FSB security service while he was on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains on 29 March, 2023.

The Kremlin has stated – without publishing evidence – that he was caught “red-handed”.

If convicted Mr Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in jail.

The journalist, his newspaper – The Wall Street Journal – and the US strongly reject the allegations.

Washington has accused Russia of conducting “hostage diplomacy” and has designated Mr Gershkovich and another jailed American, Paul Whelan, as “wrongfully detained”.

Mr Gershkovich, his employer and the US government strongly deny the claims and Washington has designated him wrongfully detained.

Jay Conti, executive vice president and general counsel for Dow Jones, which publishes the Journal, described the trial as a sham, saying: “He was an accredited journalist doing journalism, and this is a sham trial, bogus charges that are completely trumped up.”

“Evan has done nothing wrong. He should never have been arrested in the first place. Journalism is not a crime,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said last week.

He added: “The charges against him are false. And the Russian government knows that they’re false. He should be released immediately.”

The White House has sought to negotiate Mr Gershkovich’s release, but Russia’s foreign ministry said Moscow would consider a prisoner swap only after a trial verdict.

However, that could be months away, because Russian trials often adjourn for weeks.

While Russia-US relations are fraught over the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin and Washington did agree a high-profile prisoner exchange in 2022 that secured the release of basketball star star Brittney Griner, who was serving a lengthy sentence for cannabis possession.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested Mr Gershkovic could be swapped in return for the release of Vadim Krasikov, a Russian imprisoned in Germany for assassinating a Chechen rebel leader in Berlin.

However, this would require the cooperation of Germany in a Russia-US dispute.

Mr Gershkovich, the American-born son of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, was the first US journalist detained on espionage charges since Nicholas Daniloff in 1986 at the height of the Cold War.

It followed a crackdown on freedom of speech after Mr Putin sent troops into Ukraine.

US

Huge former Twitch streamer Dr DisRespect admits to ‘inappropriate’ messages to minor in lengthy statement

Published

27 mins ago

June 26, 2024

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Huge former Twitch streamer Dr DisRespect admits to 'inappropriate' messages to minor in lengthy statement

One of Twitch’s former biggest streamers has admitted to sending “inappropriate” messages to a minor but says he’s “no f***ing predator or paedophile”.

Dr DisRespect, real name Herschel “Guy” Beahm, had more than four million followers on Twitch before his channel was abruptly removed in 2020.

He was only halfway through a two-year exclusivity deal with the platform.

Now, Beahm, 42, has addressed the ban to his followers on X, saying: “Were there Twitch Whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes.”

Twitch Whisper was a messaging functionality on the site.

“Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not,” Beahm’s statement added.

The explanation comes after a former Twitch employee shared an explosive post on X on Friday that appeared to refer to Beahm, although it did not name him.

Cody Conners, who worked on Twitch’s strategic partnerships team until last year, wrote: “He got banned because he got caught sexting a minor in the then existing Twitch Whispers product. He was trying to meet up with her at TwitchCon.”

Shortly after Conners’ post went viral, Beahm appeared to deny the allegations, posting on X: “I didn’t do anything wrong, all this has been probed and settled, nothing illegal, no wrongdoing was found, and I was paid.”

In an earlier post, he said Twitch had paid out his whole contract despite the ban.

After the ban he moved to YouTube, where he has more than 4.7 million followers and still streams regularly.

Game studio drops Beahm

Midnight Society, a game studio that was working with Beahm on a new game, has now dropped him.

Robert Bowling, a co-founder of the studio, posted on Tuesday: “If you inappropriately message a minor, I cannot work with you. Period. I promised to only act on facts, and I did.”

On Tuesday, about an hour before Beahm published his statement, Bloomberg quoted three unnamed sources who it said confirmed Conners’ claims.

Tech news site The Verge also spoke to an anonymous Twitch employee who backed up the allegations.

In his lengthy X statement, Beahm said the decision to leave the Midnight Society studio was “painful” and “collective”.

“Our team is full of incredibly talented and good people that have high career ambitions and families,” he said, “and I’d never want to jeopardise the culture we have carefully crafted.”

‘They want me to disappear’

“These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more,” Beahm added on X about the conversations with a minor.

“Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual.

“I should have never entertained these conversations to begin with. That’s on me. That’s on me as an adult, a husband and a father.”

However, he hit out at people accusing him of being predatory.

“I’m no f***ing predator or paedophile. Are you kidding me? Anyone that truly knows me f***ing knows where I stand on those things with those types of people.”

Despite the studio dropping him, Beahm said he won’t be going anywhere and plans to carry on streaming.

“I’m taking an extended vacation with my family […] and I’m coming back with a heavy weight off my shoulders.

“They want me to disappear… yeah f***ing right.”