Ohio governor ready to approve bill Ok’ing armed school workers
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio school districts could begin arming employees as soon as this fall under legislation approved by Republican lawmakers and set to be signed by GOP Gov. Mike Dewine.
Democrats said the proposal, which is optional for schools, sends the wrong message a week after the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Republicans say the measure could prevent such shootings.
Lawmakers fast-tracked the legislation to counter the impact of a court ruling that said, under current law, armed school workers would need hundreds of hours of training.
The bill will protect children by ensuring instruction is specific to schools and including significant scenario-based training, Dewine said late Wednesday in announcing his support.
The measure is opposed by major law enforcement groups, gun control advocates and the state’s teachers’ unions, which asked Dewine to veto the measure. It’s supported by a handful of police departments and school districts.
Under the latest version of the bill, school employees who carry guns would need up to 24 hours of initial training, then up to eight hours of requalification training annually.
Dewine, who is expected to sign the bill this month, also announced that the state’s construction budget will provide $100 million for school security upgrades in schools and $5 million for upgrades at colleges.
Buffalo mass shooting: The white gunman who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket pleaded not guilty Thursday to hate-motivated domestic terrorism and other charges as a prosecutor called the evidence against him overwhelming.
A lawyer entered the plea for Payton Gendron, 18, who didn’t speak during a brief hearing amid a heavy security presence.
Witnesses, police and Gendron’s own writings and livestreamed video incriminated him as the gunman who used a semi-automatic rifle to target shoppers and employees of a Tops Friendly Market. Authorities said he chose that location because it’s in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
All 10 people killed in the May 14 assault were Black. Three other people were wounded.
“The defendant was caught at the scene of the crime with the weapon in his hands,” Assistant District Attorney John Fereleto said.
Gendron has been held without bail since the shooting and is due back in court July 7.
Yemen truce renewal: The United Nations said Thursday that Yemen’s warring parties have agreed to renew a nationwide truce for another two months. The development offered a glimmer of hope for a country plagued by years of civil war.
The cease-fire between Yemen’s internationally recognized government and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels went into effect April 2.
Though each side at times accused the other of violating the cease-fire, it was the first nationwide truce in the past six years of the conflict in the most impoverished nation in the Arab world.
The announcement came hours before the original
truce was to expire.
The fighting in Yemen erupted in 2014, when the Houthis descended from their northern enclave and took over the capital of Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognized government to flee into exile in Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in early 2015 to try to restore the government to power.
The conflict, which eventually descended into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has killed more than 150,000 people, including over 14,500 civilians, and pushed millions of Yemenis to the brink of famine.
Turkey name change: Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has sent a letter to the United Nations formally requesting that his country be referred to as “Türkiye,” the state-run news agency reported.
The move is seen as part of a push by Ankara to rebrand the country and dissociate
its name from the bird by the same name and some negative connotations that are associated with it.
Anadolu Agency said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman to U.N. Secretary-general Antonio Guterres, confirmed receipt of the letter late Wednesday. The agency quoted Dujarric as saying that the name change had become effective “from the moment” the letter was received.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has been pressing for the internationally recognized name Turkey to be changed to “Türkiye” as it is spelled in Turkish.
The country called itself “Türkiye,” pronounced tur-key-yay, in 1923 after its declaration of independence.
Pakistan peace talks: The Pakistani Taliban said Thursday they have extended a cease-fire with the government in Islamabad, following two days of talks with a
delegation of Pakistani tribal elders that were hosted by the Afghan Taliban.
According to Mohammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the outlawed Tehrik-e-taliban Pakistan group or TTP, the decision was made after “substantial progress” in the talks with the 50-member team of elders.
He did not elaborate and there was no confirmation from the Pakistani government about the extension of the truce.
The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in their country last August as the U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout from Afghanistan.
The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan over the past 14 years.
Among things the group wants are stricter enforcement of Islamic laws in the country, the release of their members who are in government custody and a reduction
of Pakistani military presence in the country’s former tribal regions.
Monkeypox: Africa must be part of a united global fight against monkeypox, the World Health Organization’s Africa office said Thursday, as countries in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere respond to unusual outbreaks of the disease.
“We must have one connected global response to monkeypox to avoid it becoming endemic in more countries,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Africa director, said in an online briefing.
Monkeypox is ordinarily found in West and Central African countries with tropical rainforests but recently the disease has been discovered in more than 20 countries, including Australia, Britain and the United States.
More than 500 cases have been reported, many apparently tied to sexual activity at two raves in Europe. No deaths have been reported.