Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of trying to humiliate the United Nations by raining missiles on Kyiv during a visit to the city by the U.N. chief, an attack that shattered weeks of relative calm in the capital and upset a tentative return to normal.
Ukraine’s forces, meanwhile, fought to hold off Russian attempts to advance in the south and east, Zelenskyy reported. And U.N.-backed efforts to arrange safe passage for residents trapped in the ruins of Mariupol continued. An official in the president’s office said an evacuation could happen as soon as Friday.
Russia pounded targets all over Ukraine on Thursday, hitting a residential high-rise and another building in Kyiv. U.S.-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said one of its journalists was killed.
Separately, a former U.S. Marine was killed while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, his relatives said in what would be the first known death of an American citizen taking part in the war. The U.S. has not confirmed reports of his death.
Classes suspended. Buildings and communities sealed off. Mass testing of residents. A rush to stock up on food, just in case.
Beijing, China’s sprawling capital, is starting to resemble other Chinese cities grappling with the latest wave of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Authorities are moving quickly to try to prevent a massive COVID-19 outbreak that could trigger a citywide lockdown like the one that has paralyzed Shanghai for more than three weeks. The political stakes are high as the ruling Communist Party prepares for a major congress this fall at which President Xi Jinping is seeking a third five-year term to reassert his position as China’s unquestioned leader.
Xi and the party’s main policymaking body, the Politburo, reaffirmed their commitment to a “zero-COVID” policy on Friday, putting China at odds with much of the world. While many countries are dropping restrictions and trying to live with the virus, China is keeping its international borders largely shut and closing off entire cities to all but essential travel.
The Politburo acknowledged the economic cost of lockdowns, saying efforts must be made to “minimize the impact of the epidemic on economic and social development,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Among the scathing findings of an investigation launched after the police killing of George Floyd is that Minneapolis police used covert or bogus social media accounts to monitor Black individuals and groups despite having no clear public safety rationale for doing so.
The report released Wednesday by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights echoes numerous past revelations that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have — sometimes illegally — secretly surveilled prominent people and communities of color even though they weren’t involved in any criminal activity.
Overall, the two-year investigation found that the Minneapolis Police Department engaged in a pattern of race discrimination for at least a decade, including stopping and arresting Black people at a higher rate than white people, more frequent use of force on people of color and a department culture that tolerated racist language.
Regarding social media, it spotlighted departmental abuses turned up in a review spanning activity between 2010 and 2020.
Officers used “covert, or fake” accounts to seek and gain access to the online profiles of Black individuals including an unnamed City Council member and a state elected official, the report said, as well as groups such as the Minneapolis NAACP and Urban League. The activity included friend requests, comments on posts, private messages and participation in discussions.
Natalie Hoepner can be reached at hoep8497@stthomas.edu.