Nation & World Glance
ASSOCIATED PRESS Maui town ravaged by fire will ‘rise again,’ Hawaii governor says of long recovery ahead
LAHAINA, Hawaii – Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said Friday that what’s rebuilt from the ashes of the devastating wildfires on Maui will be determined by the people.
“Lahaina will rise again,” Green said during a livestreamed evening address from Honolulu. The seaside town will be rebuilt as a living memorial to those lost – a number that increased by three on Friday to 114 – while preserving and protecting Native Hawaiian culture, he said.
His wife, Jaime Kanani Green, stood next to him and cried as she described Lahaina as a vibrant community rich in history and culture.
“Tragically it took less than a single day for us to lose Lahaina in the deadliest fire our country has seen in more than a century,” she said.
Native Hawaiians and others from Lahaina said earlier Friday they worry Hawaii’s governor is moving too quickly to rebuild what was lost while the grief is still raw.
Russian missile attack kills 7 in northern Ukrainian city as Zelenskyy visits NATO candidate Sweden
CHERNIHIV, Ukraine – A Russian missile attack in the center of a northern Ukrainian city on Saturday killed seven people and wounded over a hundred others, including children, Ukrainian officials said.
The attack in Chernihiv happened as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Sweden on his first foreign trip since attending a NATO summit in Lithuania last month.
Images of the aftermath showed badly damaged buildings including a theater with its roof blown away, mangled cars and survivors walking amid the debris with bloodstained clothes. The dead in the daytime strike included a 6-year-old girl, while 15 children were among the 129 wounded, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
The square in front of the theater building had been bustling with life, with people returning from church after celebrating the Apple Feast of the Savior religious holiday, baskets of consecrated apples in hand, Klymenko said. Following the strike, debris from the theater roof littered the square, along with shattered glass from the windows of nearby cars and restaurants.
The strike hit the theater during a gathering of drone manufacturers and aerial reconnaissance training schools, organizer Mariia Berlinska confirmed. Berlinska said that the event was officially agreed in advance with both the local authorities and the venue. The Chernihiv City Council denied that they had approved the event or issued any permits.
Suspect arrested in killing of 11-year-old Texas girl whose body was left under bed
PASADENA, Texas — A man suspected of sexually assaulting and killing an 11-year-old girl before stashing her body under her bed in her family’s suburban Houston apartment has been arrested, police said Saturday.
The 18-year-old man was identified as a person of interest Friday. The Pasadena Police Department said in a statement Saturday that since then, investigators were able to obtain additional evidence linking him to the death of Maria Gonzalez, and they arrested him in Shreveport, Louisiana.
According to KHOU-TV, Pasadena Police Chief Josh Bruegger said investigators interviewed and collected DNA from the suspect the day Maria Gonzalez’s body was found, but said he wasn’t on their radar at the time.
Police have said that Maria Gonzalez had been home alone last Saturday morning when someone knocked at the door. The girl texted her father, Carmelo Gonzalez, who had just gone to work. He told KHOU that he told his daughter not to answer the door. Maria Gonzalez said she wouldn’t and would stay in her bed. But she didn’t answer his subsequent calls.
So Carmelo Gonzalez asked his brother and sister-in-law, who live in the same apartment complex, to check on his daughter, police said Tuesday. They found the front door unlocked and things out of place when they went inside. But they did not find her.
When Carmelo Gonzalez returned home, he searched the apartment and found his daughter underneath her bed, wrapped in a trash bag and placed inside a laundry basket. Police said the girl had been strangled to death and sexually assaulted.