Headline

Two Killed As Police Officer’s Son Opens Fire At US University

Published

6 months ago

April 18, 2025

Editor

Police charge woman for baking her newborn daughter to death
Two men were killed in a mass shooting at a university in Florida allegedly carried out by the son of a local deputy sheriff with her old service weapon, police in the southeastern US state said Thursday.

Five people were wounded when the gunman — identified as Phoenix Ikner — rampaged through Florida State University, shooting at students, before he was shot by local law enforcement.

A sixth person was hurt trying to run away from the shooting, Chief Lawrence Revell of the Tallahassee Police Department said in a statement.

The campus was locked down as gunfire erupted, with students ordered to shelter in place as first responders swarmed the site moments after the lunchtime shootings.

Ikner, 20, has been hospitalized with “serious but non-life-threatening injuries,” Revell added.

Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil told reporters Ikner was a student at the university and the son of a an “exceptional” 18-year member of his staff.

“Unfortunately, her son had access to one of her weapons, and that was one of the weapons that was found at the scene.

He added that the suspect was part of Sheriff’s Office training programs, meaning “it’s not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons.”

Bystander footage aired by CNN appeared to show a young man walking on a lawn and shooting at people who were trying to get away.

Witnesses spoke of chaos as people began running through the sprawling campus as shots rang out near the student union.

“Everyone just started running out of the student union,” a witness named Wayne told local news station WCTV.

“About a minute later, we heard about eight to 10 gunshots.”

The witness said he saw one man who appeared to have been shot in the midsection.

“The whole entire thing was just surreal. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“Everything was really quiet, then all chaotic.”

– ‘Make them take time’ –

The two people who died were “adult males” who were not students, police said.

The university, a public institution with more than 40,000 students, cancelled all classes and told students who did not live on campus to leave.

FSU President Richard McCullough said the university was working to support those affected by the attack.

“This is a tragic day for Florida State University,” he said.

“We’re absolutely heartbroken by the violence that occurred on our campus earlier today.”

Student Sam Swartz told the Tallahassee Democrat he had been in the basement of the student union when shooting started.

“Everyone started freaking out,” Swartz said, adding he had heard around 10 shots.

A group of eight people huddled in a hallway and barricaded themselves with trash cans and plywood.

“I remember learning to do the best you can to make them take time,” Swartz said, adding that mass shooters are “just trying to get as many people” as they can.

Footage on social media showed a stream of young adults walking through corridors with their hands in the air as they evacuated the building.

Mass shootings are common in the United States, where a constitutional right to bear arms trumps demands for stricter rules.

That is despite widespread public support for tighter control on firearms, including restricting the sale of high-capacity clips and limiting the availability of automatic weapons of war.

President Donald Trump called the shooting “a shame, a horrible thing,” but insisted that Americans should retain unfettered access to guns.

“I’m a big advocate of the Second Amendment. I have been from the beginning. I protected it,” he said, referring to the part of the US Constitution gun advocates say protects firearm ownership.

“These things are terrible, but the gun doesn’t do the shooting — the people do.”

A tally by the non-profit Gun Violence Archive shows there have been at least 81 mass shootings — which it defines as four or more people shot — in the United States so far this year.

AFP

Headline

White House Threatens Mass Firings Amid Stalled Shutdown Talks

Published

5 hours ago

October 2, 2025

Editor

Efforts to swiftly end the US government shutdown collapsed Wednesday as Democrats in Congress went home without resolving a funding stand-off with President Donald Trump and the White House threatened public sector jobs.

Federal funding expired at midnight after Trump and lawmakers failed to agree on a deal to keep the lights on, prompting agencies to wind down services, while the White House warned of “imminent” firings of public sector workers.

Senate Democrats — who are demanding extended health care subsidies for low-income families — refused to help the majority Republicans approve a House-passed bill that would have reopened the government for several weeks while negotiations continue.

Voting in the Senate is now adjourned until Friday, frustrating hopes for a quick resolution.

Around 750,000 federal employees are expected to be placed on furlough — a kind of enforced leave, with pay withheld until they return to work.

Essential workers, such as the military and border agents, may be forced to work without pay and some will likely miss their checks beginning next week. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association voiced fears for air safety as more than 2,300 members were sent home.

The crisis has higher stakes than previous shutdowns, with Trump racing to enact hard-right policies that include slashing government departments and threatening to turn many of the furloughs into mass firings.

Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters the administration was “working with agencies across the board to identify where cuts can be made… and we believe that layoffs are imminent.”

The Department of Energy announced plans to terminate clean energy projects, all in blue states, according to White House official Russell Vought, who said the slashed funding had been used to advance “the Left’s climate agenda”.

The Department of Transportation also froze nearly $18 billion in federal funding for major infrastructure projects in New York, which Governor Kathy Hochul called “political payback”.

– ‘Ridiculous’ –

Shutdowns are a periodic feature of gridlocked Washington, although this is the first since a record 35-day pause during Trump’s first term in 2019.

They are unpopular because services used by ordinary voters, from national parks to permit applications, become unavailable.

“I think our government needs to learn how to work together for the people and find a way to make things not happen like this,” said Terese Johnston, a 61-year-old retired tour guide visiting Washington from California as the government shut down.

“You compromise. You find ways. So everybody gives a little bit, everybody takes a little bit, and things work.”

Democrats — spurred by grassroots anger over the expiring health care subsidies and Trump’s dismantling of government agencies — have been withholding Senate votes to fund the government as leverage to try and force negotiations.

As the messaging war over the shutdown intensified, Vice President JD Vance took center stage at a White House briefing normally headed by Leavitt to upbraid Democrats over their demands.

“They said to us, ‘we will open the government, but only if you give billions of dollars of funding for health care for illegal aliens.’ That’s a ridiculous proposition,” Vance said in a rare appearance in the briefing room.

US law demands that anyone who presents at a publicly funded emergency room is treated, regardless of their ability to pay. But it bars undocumented immigrants from receiving the health care benefits Democrats are demanding, and the party has not called for a new act of Congress to change that.

– No compromise –

Republicans in the House of Representatives have already passed a stop-gap funding fix to keep federal functions running through late November while a longer-term plan is thrashed out.

But the 100-member Senate does not have the 60 votes required to send it to Trump’s desk, and Democrats say they won’t help unless Republicans compromise on their planned spending cuts — especially in health care.

Senate Republican leaders, who have just one rebel in their own ranks, need eight Democrats to join the majority and rubber-stamp the House-passed bill.

They got three moderates to cross the aisle in an initial vote Tuesday and were hoping to peel off five more as the shutdown chaos starts to bite. But Wednesday’s result went the same way.

Congress is not voting Thursday out of respect for the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday but the Senate returns to work on Friday and may be in session through the weekend.

The House is not due back until next week.

AFP

Headline

NIS Begins Crackdown On Foreigners With Expired Visas

Published

6 hours ago

October 2, 2025

Editor

The Nigeria Immigration Service has commenced a nationwide crackdown on foreign nationals who have overstayed their visas or breached entry conditions, following the expiration of a three-month amnesty granted by the Federal Government.

The amnesty, which opened on July 5 and lapsed at midnight on September 30, allowed foreigners with irregular immigration status to regularise their stay without penalties.

“With the expiration of the amnesty period, effective October 1, 2025, enforcement actions will commence nationwide against foreign nationals who have overstayed their visa or violated their entry conditions,” NIS spokesperson, Akinsola Akinlabi, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The exercise targets holders of expired Visa on Arrival, expired single and multiple-entry short visit or business visas, and individuals with expired Comprehensive Expatriate Residence Permits and Automated Cards.

Foreigners caught in violation face removal, daily fines, or entry bans. Overstayers of less than three months risk deportation, a $15 daily fine, or a two-year entry ban. Those who overstay between three months and one year face removal, daily fines, or a five-year entry ban, while individuals exceeding one year risk deportation and up to a 10-year or permanent entry ban.

The Service said the measures are aimed at safeguarding national security and ensuring strict compliance with immigration laws.

Interior Minister, Olubunmi, had earlier warned members of the diplomatic corps to advise their nationals to take advantage of the amnesty window, stressing that Nigeria’s immigration laws “are not meant to be abused but respected.”

The crackdown is part of wider reforms introduced in April, including a $15 daily surcharge for visa overstays, with a temporary moratorium to encourage compliance.

Headline

Earthquake Kills 72 In Philippines

Published

6 hours ago

October 2, 2025

Editor

The death toll from a powerful earthquake in the central Philippines rose to 72 on Thursday, officials said, as the search for the missing wound down and rescuers turned their focus to the hundreds injured and thousands left homeless.

The bodies of the three victims were pulled from the rubble of a collapsed hotel overnight Wednesday in the city of Bogo, near the epicentre of the 6.9-magnitude quake that struck on Tuesday.

“We have zero missing, so the assumption is all are accounted for,” National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council spokesman Junie Castillo said, adding that some rescue units in Cebu province have been told to “demobilise”.

The government said 294 people were injured and around 20,000 had fled their homes. Nearly 600 houses were wrecked across the north of Cebu, and many are sleeping on the streets as hundreds of aftershocks shake the area.

“One of the challenges is the aftershocks. It means residents are reluctant to return to their homes, even those houses that were not (structurally) compromised,” Castillo said.

Cebu provincial governor Pamela Baricuatro appealed for help on Thursday, saying thousands needed safe drinking water, food, clothes, and temporary housing, as well as volunteers to sort and distribute aid.

President Ferdinand Marcos flew to Cebu with senior aides on Thursday to inspect the damage.

He also visited a partially damaged housing project in Bogo, built for survivors of the 2013 Super Typhoon Haiyan, one of the deadliest natural disasters to hit the Philippines.

Eight bodies were “recovered from collapsed houses” in the project following the quake, a local government statement said.

A tiny village chapel in Bogo was serving as a temporary shelter for 18-year-old Diane Madrigal and 14 of her neighbours after their houses were destroyed. Their clothes and food were scattered across the chapel’s pews.

“The entire wall (of my house) fell, so I really don’t know how and when we can go back again,” Madrigal told AFP.

“I am still scared of the aftershocks up to now; it feels like we have to run again,” she added.

Mother-of-four Lucille Ipil, 43, added her water container to a 10-metre (30-foot) line of them along a roadside in Bogo, where residents desperately waited for a truck to bring them water.

“The earthquake really ruined our lives. Water is important for everyone. We cannot eat, drink, or bathe properly,” she told AFP.

“We really want to go back to our old life before the quake, but we don’t know when that will happen… Rebuilding takes a long time.”

Many areas remain without electricity, and dozens of patients were sheltering in tents outside the damaged Cebu provincial hospital in Bogo.

“I’d rather stay here under this tent. At least I can be treated,” 22-year-old Kyle Malait told AFP as she waited for her dislocated arm to be treated.

More than 110,000 people in 42 communities affected by the quake will need assistance to rebuild their homes and restore their livelihoods, according to the regional civil defence office.

Earthquakes are a near-daily occurrence in the Philippines, which is situated on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Most are too weak to be felt by humans but strong and destructive quakes come at random, with no technology available to predict when and where they might strike.

AFP