Buffalo shooter targeted Black neighborhood, officials say

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The white 18-year-old who fatally shot 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket researched the local demographics and arrived a day in advance to conduct reconnaissance with the intent of killing as many Black people as possible, officials said Sunday.

The racially motivated attack came a year after the gunman was taken to a hospital by State Police after making threats involving his high school, according to authorities.

He wasn't charged with a crime and was out of the hospital within a day and a half, police said, but the revelation raised questions about his access to weapons and whether he could have been under closer supervision by law enforcement.

The Buffalo attack prompted grief and anger in the predominantly Black neighborhood around Tops Friendly Market. A group of people gathered there Sunday afternoon to lead chants of “Black lives matter” and mourn victims that included an 86-year-old woman who had just visited her husband in a nursing home and a supermarket security guard, both of whom were Black.

“Somebody filled his heart so full of hate that he would destroy and devastate our community,” the Rev. Denise Walden-Glenn said.

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Small wins buoy Ukraine; West says Russians losing momentum

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Almost three months after Russia shocked the world by invading Ukraine, its military faces a bogged-down war, the prospect of a bigger NATO, and an opponent buoyed Sunday by wins on and off the battlefield.

Top diplomats from NATO met in Berlin with the alliance's chief, who declared that the war "is not going as Moscow had planned.”

“Ukraine can win this war,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, adding that the alliance must continue to offer military support to Kyiv. He spoke by video link to the meeting as he recovers from a COVID-19 infection.

On the diplomatic front, both Finland and Sweden took steps bringing them closer to NATO membership despite Russian objections. Finland announced Sunday that it was seeking to join NATO, saying the invasion had changed Europe's security landscape. Several hours later, Sweden's governing party endorsed the country's own bid for membership, which could lead to an application in days.

If the two nonaligned Nordic nations become part of the alliance, it would represent an affront to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has called NATO’s post-Cold War expansion in Eastern Europe as a threat to Russia. NATO says it is a purely defensive alliance.

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Finland, Sweden inch closer to seeking NATO membership

BERLIN (AP) — Finland's government declared a “new era” is underway as it inches closer to seeking NATO membership, hours before Sweden's governing party on Sunday backed a plan to join the trans-Atlantic alliance amid Russia's war in Ukraine.

Russia has long bristled about NATO moving closer to its borders, so the developments will be sure to further anger Moscow. President Vladimir Putin has already warned his Finnish counterpart on Saturday that relations would be “negatively affected.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday the process for Finland and Sweden to join could be very quick. He also didn't expect Turkey to hold up the process.

Speaking after top diplomats from the alliance’s 30 member states met in Berlin, Stoltenberg also expressed his hope that Ukraine could win the war as Russian military advances appear to be faltering.

In Finland, President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin confirmed earlier statements that their country would seek membership in NATO during a joint news conference at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki. The Nordic country, which was nonaligned before changing its stance on NATO, shares a long border with Russia.

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California churchgoers detained gunman in deadly attack

LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. (AP) — A man opened fire during a lunch reception at a Southern California church on Sunday, killing one person and injuring several others before being stopped and hog-tied by parishioners in what a sheriff’s official called an act of “exceptional heroism and bravery.”

One person was fatally shot and four others were critically wounded by gunfire at Geneva Presbyterian Church in the city of Laguna Woods, Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials said. A sixth person had minor injuries but was not struck by bullets.

The suspect in the shooting, an Asian man in his 60s, was in custody and deputies recovered two handguns at the scene, Undersheriff Jeff Hallock said. A motive for the shooting wasn't immediately known but investigators don't believe the gunman lives in the community, he said.

The majority of those inside the church at the time were believed to be of Taiwanese descent, said Carrie Braun, a sheriff’s spokesperson.

Between 30 and 40 members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church were gathered for lunch after a morning church service at Geneva when gunfire erupted shortly before 1:30 p.m., officials said. When deputies arrived, parishioners had the gunman hog-tied and in custody.

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'Hero' guard, shoppers among Buffalo shooting victims

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Aaron Salter was a beloved community member and security guard who knew the shoppers of Tops Friendly Market by name. When they came under attack from a gunman with a rifle, he sprang into action.

The retired Buffalo police officer fired multiple times at the attacker, striking his armor-plated vest at least once. The bullet didn't pierce, and Salter, 55, was shot and killed.

“He’s a true hero," Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Sunday. “There could have been more victims if not for his actions.”

Salter was one of 10 killed in an attack whose victims represented a cross-section of life in the predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. They were gunned down by a white man who authorities say showed up at the store with the “express purpose” of killing Black people. Three others were wounded.

All but one of the people killed was over age 50, according to police.

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Buffalo shooting: Sites yank videos faster, but not by much

NEW YORK (AP) — Social platforms have learned to remove violent videos of extremist shootings more quickly over the past few years. It's just not clear they're moving quickly enough.

Police say that when a white gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others — most of them Black — in a “racially motivated violent extremist” shooting in Buffalo Saturday, he livestreamed the attack to the gaming platform Twitch, which is owned by Amazon. It didn’t stay there long; a Twitch spokesperson said it removed the video in less than two minutes.

That's considerably faster than the 17 minutes Facebook needed to take down a similar video streamed by a self-described white supremacist who killed 51 people in two New Zealand mosques in 2019. But versions of the Buffalo shooting video still quickly spread to other platforms, and they haven't always disappeared quickly.

In April, Twitter enacted a new policy on “perpetrators of violent attacks” to remove accounts maintained by “individual perpetrators of terrorist, violent extremist, or mass violent attacks,” along with tweets and other material produced by perpetrators of such attacks. On Sunday, though, clips of the video were still circulating on the platform.

One clip purporting to display a first-person view of the gunman moving through a supermarket firing at people was posted to Twitter at 8:12 a.m. Pacific time, and was still viewable more than four hours later.

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Kim blasts pandemic response as North Korean outbreak surges

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un blasted officials over slow medicine deliveries and ordered his military to respond to the surging but largely undiagnosed COVID-19 crisis that has left 1.2 million people ill with fever and 50 dead in a matter of days, state media said Monday.

More than 564,860 people are in quarantine due to the fever that has rapidly spread among people in and around the capital, Pyongyang, since late April. Eight more deaths and 392,920 newly detected fevers were reported Monday, the North's emergency anti-virus headquarters said.

State media didn’t specify how many were confirmed as COVID-19, but North Korea is believed to lack sufficient testing supplies to confirm coronavirus infections in large numbers and is mostly relying on isolating people with symptoms at shelters.

Failing to slow the virus could have dire consequences for North Korea, considering its broken health care system and that its 26 million people are believed to be unvaccinated, with malnourishment and other conditions of poverty.

Kim during a ruling party Politburo meeting on Sunday criticized government and health officials over what he portrayed as a botched pandemic response, saying medicine supplies aren’t being distributed to pharmacies in time because of their “irresponsible work attitude” and lack of organization, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

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EXPLAINER: What do we know about John Fetterman's diagnosis?

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — John Fetterman, Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor and a top Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, is recovering from a stroke he said was caused by a heart condition called atrial fibrillation.

Fetterman said in a statement Sunday that doctors believe he's on his way to making “a full recovery.”

A look at what happened, the diagnosis, the future of Fetterman's campaign and what can cause A-fib.

WHAT HAPPENED?

It was on Friday morning when Fetterman's campaign first canceled an event. The campaign's communications director, Joe Calvello, told scores of people waiting to see Fetterman at Millersville University that he hadn't been feeling well that morning and had to cancel.

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Naomi Judd celebrated at 'River of Time' memorial service

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Naomi Judd was celebrated with words and soaring music at a public memorial service Sunday that ended with her daughter Wynonna announcing that a tour planned for later this year would go on.

“Tonight is a celebration, and at the same time I can't put into words how devastated I am,” Wynonna Judd said. "I miss her so much.

“After a lot of thought, I'm going to have to honor her and do this tour. I'm just going to have to," she said to applause and cheers at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. “Tonight, as we close, the show must go on, as hard as it may be. And we will show up together and you will carry me.”

Judd died April 30 at age 76, one day before she and daughter Wynonna were scheduled to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The ceremony went on, though until Sunday it was unclear whether Wynonna Judd would continue plans for The Judds tour slated to begin in September.

In a statement provided to The Associated Press, the family said they lost her to “the disease of mental illness.”

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Rodrigo, Drake, Ye early winners at Billboard Music Awards

Olivia Rodrigo, Kanye West and Drake are already big winners before the Billboard Music Awards officially kicks off.

Rodrigo and West, known as Ye, both have taken home the most awards with six during a non-televised ceremony on Sunday. Rodrigo, who won best new artist, is a finalist in the top female artist category, which will be announced later in the show's live broadcast.

Sean “Diddy” Combs will emcee the show, which is being broadcast live from the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas and will air live beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern on NBC and its Peacock streaming service.

Drake was named top artist, male artist, rap artist, rap male artist and rap album for “Certified Lover Boy.” The rapper extended his record as the most decorated winner in the history of the awards show with 34 wins.

Ye made his mark in the faith-based categories - again: The rapper won top Christian artist for the first time, but he claimed top gospel artist and gospel song for a third year in a row. He also received top gospel album for the second time.

News from © The Associated Press, 2022