Pence says Trump pushed him ‘essentially to overturn the election’
Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that former President Donald Trump and his advisers had tried to get him “essentially to overturn the election” and that the American people needed to know it. The remarks, made in an interview with Fox News, came as Pence, who is trailing his former boss, the GOP front-runner, in the Republican primary, has faced a slog in his attempt to get enough small-donor donations to qualify for the first Republican debate on Aug. 23. An adviser to Pence said he got more than 7,000 donations Wednesday, the day after Trump’s indictment on charges of conspiring to overthrow the 2020 election.
Families confront Pittsburgh synagogue gunman as he is sentenced to death
Survivors of the massacre and relatives of the 11 worshippers who were killed on Oct. 27, 2018, in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh confronted the gunman in court Thursday. One by one, they described the holes left in their lives by the gunman. Then, U.S. District Judge Robert Colville sentenced the gunman, Robert Bowers, to death, imposing the sentence rendered a day earlier by the jury. All the while, Bowers, 50, who has expressed no remorse since the attack, looked the other way and flipped through a stack of papers. Bowers was automatically granted an appeal, and his lawyers have indicated that they intend to pursue it.
Body of migrant found in Texas’ buoy barrier in Rio Grande
The body of a man who drowned in the Rio Grande was found Wednesday in the barrier of buoys installed by the state of Texas, officials said. It was not immediately clear how the man, who was not identified, ended up in the barrier, which runs for roughly 1,000 feet in the middle of the river in the small border city of Eagle Pass. The Mexican government has objected to the placement of the buoys in the river, which were installed without federal approval last month by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas as part of his program to deter illegal crossings from Mexico.
Cardinals fan known as ‘Rally Runner’ Is charged in Jan. 6 riot
A St. Louis Cardinals superfan known as Rally Runner was charged Wednesday with joining a mob during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, where, wearing his signature red face paint, he used a riot shield to push against police officers to help other rioters advance, the Justice Department said. The man, Daniel Donnelly Jr., 43, of St. Louis, was charged with one count of civil disorder, a felony, and several misdemeanor offenses, including disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, impeding passage through the Capitol grounds and theft of government property, the federal agency said in a news release.
Pastor or traitor? Ukrainians shun a church seen as a
Kremlin tool.
For two decades, Ilya Solkan served as the parish priest in a tiny Ukrainian village outside the capital, Kyiv. He baptized babies, blessed marriages and conducted funerals. The Orthodox church stood at the heart of the village and Solkan was central to its life. Today, he is unemployed and has been ostracized from the village after parishioners booted him out in October for putting politics into his pastoral care. The removal of Solkan reflects the gradual rejection by much of Ukrainian society of a church that answers to Moscow. Villagers say that Solkan for years had peppered his sermons with expressions of support for the Kremlin’s foreign policy.
Colombia and rebel group
begin cease-fire after decades
of combat
A cease-fire between the Colombian government and the country’s largest remaining rebel group took effect Thursday, the longest halt to hostilities the group has agreed to and a milestone in efforts to end the country’s 60-year internal conflict, which has killed roughly 450,000 people. The cease-fire, supposed to last six months, could pave the way for a permanent truce with the guerrilla organization known as the ELN, which operates in the countryside and has helped fuel the violence that plagues parts of rural Colombia. Previous discussions between the ELN and the government have collapsed several times since the Marxist-Leninist group was founded in 1964.
Hundreds fall ill from heat at scout gathering in South Korea
As thousands of teenagers sat in a grass field in rural South Korea on Wednesday for the opening ceremony of a global scout gathering, hundreds of attendees began falling ill from the heat. At least 125 people were hospitalized with heat exhaustion, and hundreds more have exhibited heat-related symptoms in the five days since scouts and scout leaders from around the world began arriving in South Korea for the World Scout Jamboree, officials said Thursday. Attendees continued to struggle with the heat Thursday, officials said, though none of the cases treated were severe.
Poland and Lithuania warn against ‘provocations’ from Wagner in Belarus
Leaders of Poland and Lithuania warned against “provocations” and “sabotage actions” from neighboring Belarus by relocated members of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force Thursday, days after two Belarusian helicopters breached Polish airspace and heightened jitters in the region. Belarus, a staunch Russian ally, shares sizable borders with Poland and Lithuania, both NATO members that support Ukraine. There are at least 4,000 members of the Wagner group in Belarus, Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said Thursday. He said the group is “being redeployed to NATO’s eastern flank to destabilize it.” After the helicopter incident, Polish authorities alerted NATO and said they were deploying extra troops and helicopters to the border.
Blinken asks other nations to confront Russia and say ‘enough’
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned the weaponization of food in wars and said conflicts and climate were the root causes of food instability and hunger around the world in a speech at a U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday. He said all countries should call out Russia, which for the past few weeks has carried out nearly daily assaults on Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, and tell it “enough.” The council, in a rare consensus, also issued a statement denouncing the weaponization of food, and 91 countries signed a separate communique that condemned using the “starvation of civilians as a tactic of warfare.”
By wire sources
