WAYNESBURG, Pa. (AP) — Authorities have filed charges against three more people in the case of a Pennsylvania 911 operator accused of failing to send an ambulance to the rural home of a woman who died of internal bleeding about a day later.
Kelly Titchenell sits on her porch in Mather, Pa., holding a photo of her mother Diania Kronk, and an urn containing her mother’s ashes, Thursday, July 7, 2022. A Greene County, Pa., detective last week filed charges against 911 operator Leon “Lee” Price, 50, of Waynesburg, in the July 2020 death of Diania Kronk, 54, based on Price’s reluctance to dispatch help without getting more assurance that Kronk would actually go to the hospital. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
According to a criminal complaint, the three men were charged Monday with tampering with public records, tampering with or fabricating evidence and obstruction.
They are or were managers for Greene County’s emergency management. Prosecutors allege they failed to provide policy memo binders that detail standard operating procedures.
According to the criminal complaint, the three conspired to “knowingly and purposefully conceal, withhold, omit, obstruct or pervert the release of documents” to investigators.
Earlier this month, authorities charged 911 operator Leon “Lee” Price, 50, of Waynesburg, with involuntary manslaughter in the July 2020 death of Diania Kronk, 54, based on Price’s reluctance to dispatch help without getting more assurance that Kronk would actually go to the hospital.
“I believe she would be alive today if they would have sent an ambulance,” said Kronk’s daughter Kelly Titchenell, 38.
Price, who also was charged with reckless endangerment, official oppression and obstruction, questioned Titchenell repeatedly during the four-minute call about whether Kronk would agree to be taken for treatment.
VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — An Oregon man has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison in connection with a stolen firearms trafficking scheme that led to the shooting death of Clark County sheriff’s Sgt. Jeremy Brown in southwest Washington.
Brian Clement, 51, pleaded guilty in Clark County Superior Court Tuesday to second-degree burglary and theft of a firearm, The Columbian reported. A charge of unlawful possession of a firearm was dismissed as part of his plea agreement.
The plea deal also requires Clement to testify against his co-defendant, Misty Raya. Prosecutors say he helped her break into a storage unit to steal firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Prosecutors have said one of the stolen guns was used by Raya’s brother-in-law, Guillermo Raya Leon, to shoot Brown as he was working undercover July 23, 2021 at an apartment complex in east Vancouver.
Senior Deputy Prosecutor Jessica Smith said during Tuesday’s hearing that Clement was not directly involved in Brown’s death, but Clement’s actions set off a series of events that led to it. She said he helped Raya break into safes inside the storage unit to get to the guns and ammunition.
Defense attorney Kari Reardon said that under different circumstances, she likely would’ve asked Judge John Fairgrieve to sentence Clement to drug treatment court, because he had relapsed at the time.
Clement apologized to the Brown family Tuesday and said he wouldn’t have been involved if he knew someone would be killed.
“As a previous military police officer, my heart goes out to the family,” Clement said.
Fairgrieve ordered the agreed-upon 90-month sentence and acknowledged the compromises prosecutors have made to ensure cooperation agreements and stronger cases against those charged directly with Brown’s killing. He also recognized that Clement showed remorse for his role.
Investigators have said that Raya Leon admitted to shooting Brown, 46, while the detective was seated in an unmarked police SUV.
Detectives were following Raya Leon, his brother, Abran Raya Leon and his brother’s wife, Misty Raya that day as part of an investigation into the firearms and ammunition theft from the storage unit.
Court records say Misty Raya’s friend, Lani Kraabell, was helping them find buyers for the stolen guns when Guillermo Raya Leon shot Brown.
Kraabell pleaded guilty in June to second-degree manslaughter in connection with Brown’s death and also agreed to cooperate with the criminal cases against her co-defendants. She was sentenced to six years in prison.
Raya Leon has pleaded not guilty to first-degree aggravated murder and other charges. Misty Raya has pleaded not guilty to burglary, identity theft and multiple counts of firearm theft.
CHICAGO (AP) — A federal lawsuit filed Thursday alleges Chicago police misused “unreliable” gunshot detection technology and failed to pursue other leads in investigating a grandfather from the city’s South Side and charging him with killing a neighbor.
FILE – Michael Williams sits for a portrait in his South Side Chicago home Tuesday, July 27, 2021. Williams was behind bars for nearly a year before a judge dismissed the murder case against him in July 2021 at the request of prosecutors, who then said they had insufficient evidence. A lawsuit filed in federal court on Thursday, July 21, 2022, alleges that Chicago police misused “unreliable” gunshot detection technology and displayed tunnel vision in investigating Williams and charging him with killing a neighbor. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Chicago prosecutors used audio picked up by a network of sensors installed by the gunshot detection company ShotSpotter as critical evidence in charging Michael Williams with murder in 2020 for allegedly shooting the man inside his car. Williams spent nearly a year in jail, and The Associated Press reported last year that a judge dismissed his case at the request of prosecutors, who said they had insufficient evidence.
The lawsuit filed by the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University’s law school seeks damages from the city for mental anguish, loss of income and legal bills for the 65-year-old Williams, who said he still suffers from a tremor in his hand that developed while he was locked up. It also details the case of a second plaintiff Daniel Ortiz, a 36-year-old father who the lawsuit alleges was arbitrarily arrested and jailed by police who were responding to a ShotSpotter alert.
The suit seeks class-action status for any Chicago resident who was stopped on the basis of the alerts. And among other things, it seeks a court order barring the technology’s use in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city.
“Even though now I’m so-called free, I don’t think I will ever be free of the thought of what they have done and the impact that has on me now, like the shaking with my hand,” Williams said. “I constantly go back to the thought of being in that place. … I just can’t get my mind to settle down.”
ShotSpotter isn’t named as a defendant in the 103-page filing though the lawsuit claims the company’s algorithm-powered technology is flawed. The suit also alleges the city’s decision to place most of its gunshot-detection sensors in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods is racially discriminatory.
Messages seeking comment were left with the city of Chicago and ShotSpotter after the lawsuit was filed late Thursday morning.
ShotSpotter has vigorously defended the reliability and validity of its system, saying evidence collected by its system has been admitted in more than 200 court cases around the country. It has also pointed to an audit the company commissioned to study the effectiveness of the technology.
ShotSpotter’s website has described the company as “a leader in precision policing technology solutions” that helps stop gun violence by using sensors, algorithms and artificial intelligence to classify 14 million sounds in its proprietary database as gunshots or something else.
Those named in the lawsuit include Police Superintendent David O’Neal Brown and more than a dozen officers involved in Williams’ case, alleging they violated a host of rights guaranteed to him under Illinois law and the U.S. Constitution, including the right to due process.
Chicago police have long praised the ShotSpotter system, saying it puts officers on the scene of shootings far faster than if they wait for someone to call 911. Police have also said crime rates — not residents’ race — determine where the technology is deployed.
The filing places blame for Williams’ arrest squarely on investigating officers, who it says “put blind faith in ShotSpotter evidence they knew or should have known was unreliable” in order to charge Williams with killing 25-year-old Safarian Herring. The lawsuit alleges investigators used ShotSpotter material in a way that went beyond its intended use, quoting a disclaimer in one document related to Williams’ case that says the investigative lead summary “should only be used for initial investigative purposes.”
The AP investigation identified a number of flaws in using ShotSpotter as evidentiary support for prosecutors, and found the system can miss live gunfire right under its microphones, or misclassify the sounds of fireworks or cars backfiring as gunshots. Last year, Chicago’s nonpartisan watchdog agency concluded that actual evidence of a gun-related crime was found in about 9% of ShotSpotter alerts that were confirmed as probable gunshots.
The suit also accuses investigators of not pursuing other leads that could have produced credible suspects, including reports that someone previously shot at Herring at a bus stop.
Police and prosecutors never established a motive for Williams to have shot Herring, never found witnesses to the shooting, and never recovered a weapon or physical evidence tying Williams to the killing, the suit alleges.
“The Defendant Officers engaged in tunnel vision to target Mr. Williams, arresting him for First-Degree murder, without probable cause,” the lawsuit said.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The meeting place? A secret. Agenda? Not public. Name tags? Take them off in public.
Portland police close Commercial Street from Pearl to Franklin to traffic just after 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 13, 2022. Multiple streets in Portland’s downtown district and along its congested waterfront will be temporarily closed to traffic during the National Governor’s Association summer conference being held in the city. (Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald via AP)
Even one of the main social events — trivia night — would be at an undisclosed location. This was no meeting of spies or undercover law enforcement agents. Instead, these were the security protocols for a gathering this week in Madison, Wisconsin, of state election bureaucrats from around the U.S.
While the hush-hush measures might seem a bit extreme, they were put in place because of the very real threats against election workers that have been escalating since the 2020 presidential election as former President Donald Trump continues to promote the lie that widespread fraud cost him re-election.
Security increased at meetings of government officials after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, “but not like this where the agenda is kept secret,” said Kevin Kennedy, who was Wisconsin’s top election official for nearly four decades before retiring in 2016. He has attended meetings of the National Association of State Election Directors for more than 30 years and said it was jarring that otherwise anonymous election workers are now being targeted.
“This is just at a different level, and it’s a reflection of the times and it’s unfortunate,” he said.
State and local election officials have become targets for those upset with Trump’s loss and who believe any number of unfounded conspiracy theories about a rigged election. Many have retired or quit as a result, raising staffing concerns in some offices.
Three men have been charged by federal prosecutors, with one of them pleading guilty last month. In that case, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold was the subject of multiple threatening posts on social media.
Robert Heberle, deputy chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity section, told state election officials recently that dozens of cases were still under investigation and more prosecutions were expected.
Griswold, a Democrat who has received numerous death threats since the 2020 election, traveled to the National Association of Secretaries of State conference earlier this summer in Louisiana with private security.
In a statement to The Associated Press, Griswold said she won’t be intimidated by the threats and said a new state law she helped pass increases protections for election workers at all levels.
“We cannot allow violent threats to secretaries of state and election workers become an accepted norm in the United States,” she said.
Organizers of the secretaries of state meeting, held twice a year, have been increasing security measures since the 2020 election, said Maria Benson, the group’s communications director. That includes coordinating with law enforcement agencies before and during the conferences, she said.
At the group’s summer meeting earlier this month in Baton Rouge, local law enforcement officers were visible in the lobby and meeting areas of the hotel where the conference was being held. Members of the media were instructed to keep their credentials visible while in the meeting area.
It’s not just election officials who are commanding tighter security during their gatherings.
When the National Governors Association met earlier this month in Portland, Maine, security was the highest in the state in decades.
The heavy law enforcement presence included city police, state police and security details, including troopers from other states. Plainclothes police roamed the event, and extra officers were kept out of sight, in case they were needed.
The increased security presence took place as demonstrators gathered to protest new abortion restrictions in states such as Arkansas, home of outgoing association chairman and current Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican.
Security planning, which was in the works for months, also involved police K-9 units and patrol boats in the harbor.
“We are in different times right now,” said Shannon Moss, spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Public Safety. “Just look at recent events that happened in our country — mass shootings, violent and disruptive protests, a divisive political climate. Law enforcement has to be prepared to deal with these kinds of potential security threats.”
There were no protesters outside the gathering of election administrators this week in Wisconsin, but the threats of violence against election workers have become so pervasive that the group was taking no chances on security.
The exact location meeting — which ended up being just a block away from the state Capitol — wasn’t revealed to reporters who registered to cover it until four days before the event began. There were no signs in the hotel announcing the meeting. And the agenda detailing topics to be discussed, such as “understanding and preventing insider threats,” wasn’t handed out until the start of the meeting.
Amy Cohen, executive director of the state elections group, cautioned the 170 registered attendees from 33 states to wear their name tags when at the event, but to take them off when they left and went into the city.
“Don’t advertise who you are and exactly why you’re here,” she said.
Cohen said meeting organizers coordinated with federal, state and local law enforcement for the event. She encouraged attendees to report any suspicious activity they saw, and hotel staff had been trained to be vigilant.
She said the association did not live-stream any of the panels nor did it post any messages to its Twitter account during the gathering, although there were no social media prohibitions for those who attended.
“Please do be thoughtful about what you post and remember that some of the people in this room are dealing with serious security concerns and we need to be respectful to keep everyone safe,” Cohen said at the start of the gathering.
Judd Choate, Colorado’s state elections director for the past 13 years, attended the Wisconsin event and said he has been surprised at the level of rancor and hostility toward election workers. He said many of the attacks are coming from people with little understanding of how elections are run.
“We were kind of a sleepy part of government, and we’re not anymore,” he said.
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Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta; and David Sharp and Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.
PEARL RIVER COUNTY, Miss. (AP) — A volunteer fire department in a Mississippi community lost the use of three trucks when its own station went up in flames.
WLOX TV reports that the fire happened Monday night at the Nicholson Volunteer Fired Department station. Nicholson is a community in Pearl River County, near the Gulf Coast and the Louisiana state line. Five neighboring firefighting agencies assisted in fighting the blaze.
Three trucks were heavily damaged, according to the TV station. And a county press release says several other pieces of key firefighting equipment were destroyed in the fire.
Former Nicholson fire chief Bobby Robbins estimated the damage at $1 million and said it could take around 100 days to have the equipment replaced. There were no injuries. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
Robbins said the trucks were donated by Deep South, a company the team is now considering renting from. The Pearl River County Fire Marshal added they are working with other agencies in the meantime to borrow equipment.
Authorities must determine how the fire started as well as how to provide immediate protection in Nicholson without the fire trucks, equipment and a useable firehouse.
LITHONIA, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia man became trapped while trying to crawl down through a vent from a strip mall roof into a pizza restaurant on Tuesday, forcing firefighters to slice open the vent to free him, police said.
The man was taken to a hospital and the extent of his injuries was unclear.
Police told local news outlets that emergency responders cut open the vent where it extended upward from a pizza oven at a Little Caesars outlet in suburban Lithonia, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) east of downtown Atlanta.
Brittany Davis, a U.S. Army recruiter, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she could hear the man yelling for help when she arrived for work at a neighboring recruiting office.
“I looked on the roof but couldn’t see anybody,” Davis said. She called 911.
Davis said a Little Caesars employee told her he could hear the man’s voice coming from inside the oven. Davis said she went inside the pizza restaurant and spoke to the man, who reported he was in pain and having a panic attack.
“I’m not sure what time the restaurant closes at night but the oven still gives off heat after they close I imagine,” DeKalb County Fire Cpt. Jason Daniels told WXIA-TV. “For him to get down into the pipe … he had to do it in a certain window of time when the oven was cool enough and obviously nobody was there.”
The man walked to an ambulance shortly after being removed and was taken to a hospital. Police did not identify him or announce any criminal charges.
Photographs showed the vent broken off and laying on the roof and firefighters cutting away the sheet metal vent while standing atop the oven.
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER for Associated Press
A man who joined the pro-Trump mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol apologized Tuesday to officers who protected the building after telling lawmakers that he regrets being duped by the former president’s lies of election fraud.
Stephen Ayres, who pleaded guilty last in June 2022 to disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, shakes hands with Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges as the hearing with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, concludes at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, July 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
During a hearing before the U.S. House committee that’s investigating the insurrection, Stephen Ayres testified that he felt called by former President Donald Trump to come to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
He described being swept up by Trump’s bogus claims, and believing as he marched to the Capitol that Trump would join them there and that there was still a chance the election could be overturned.
“I felt like I had like horse blinders on. I was locked in the whole time,” said Ayres, who is scheduled to be sentenced in September after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor in the riot.
His message to others: “Take the blinders off, make sure you step back and see what’s going on before it’s too late.”
“It changed my life,” he said. “And not for the good.”
Ayres, who was not accused of any violence or destruction on Jan. 6, said he worked for a cabinet company in northeast Ohio for 20 years, but lost his job and sold his home after the riot. He was joined by his wife at the hearing.
After the hearing, Ayres approached officers in the committee room who have testified about being verbally and physically attacked by the angry mob. Ayres apologized for his actions to Capitol Police Officers Aquilino Gonell and Harry Dunn, Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges and former MPD officer Michael Fanone.
The officers appeared to have different responses to Ayres’ attempt to make amends.
Fanone told The Associated Press that the apology was not necessary because “it doesn’t do s— for me.” Hodges said on CNN that he accepted the apology, adding that “you have to believe that there are people out there who can change.”
Gonell, who recently found out that the injuries he succumbed to on Jan. 6 won’t allow him to be a part of the force any longer, said he accepted the sentiment from Ayres, but it doesn’t amount to much.
“He still has to answer for what he did legally. And to his God. So it’s up to him,” the former sergeant said.
Dunn, who didn’t stand up when Ayres approached him, said he does not accept his apology.
The Jan. 6 House committee that’s investigating the insurrection sought to use Ayres’ testimony to show how Trump’s Dec. 19, 2020, tweet calling his supporters to Washington mobilized not only far-right extremist groups, but average Americans to descend on the nation’s capital.
Ayres described being a loyal follower of Trump on social media before Jan. 6 and said he felt he needed to heed the president’s call to come to Washington, D.C., for the “Stop the Steal” rally.
“I was very upset, as were most of his supporters,” Ayres said when asked about Trump’s unfounded election claims. Asked by Rep. Liz Cheney if he still believes the election was stolen, Ayres said, “Not so much now.”
Ayres said he wasn’t planning to storm the Capitol before Trump’s speech “got everybody riled up.” He had believed the president would be joining them at the Capitol.
“Basically, we were just following what he said,” Ayres said.
Ayres said he and friends who accompanied him to Washington decided to leave the Capitol when Trump sent a tweet asking rioters to leave. If Trump had done that earlier in the day, “maybe we wouldn’t be in this bad of a situation,” Ayres said.
Ayres said it makes him mad that Trump is still pushing his bogus claims about the election.
“I was hanging on every word he was saying,” he said. “Everything he was putting out, I was following it.”
His testimony echoed the words of many Capitol rioters who have expressed remorse for their crimes at sentencing hearings.
He’s among about 840 people who have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot. More than 330 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor charges punishable by no more than one year in prison. More than 200 have been sentenced.
In his court case, Ayres admitted that he drove from Ohio to Washington on the eve of the “Stop the Steal” rally to protest Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote count. He entered the Capitol through the Senate Wing doors and remained inside for about 10 minutes, joining other rioters in chanting.
In a Facebook post four days before the riot, Ayres attached an image of a poster that said “the president is calling on us to come back to Washington on January 6th for a big protest.”
In another Facebook post before the riot, he wrote, “Mainstream media, social media, Democrat party, FISA courts, Chief Justice John Roberts, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, etc….all have committed TREASON against a sitting U.S. president! !! All are now put on notice by ‘We The People!’”
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Associated Press reporters Farnoush Amiri, Mary Clare Jalonick and Nomaan Merchant contributed to this report from Washington.
BANGKOK (AP) — The world’s largest recorded freshwater fish, a giant stingray, has been caught in the Mekong River in Cambodia, according to scientists from the Southeast Asian nation and the United States.
In this photo provided by Wonders of the Mekong taken on June 14, 2022, a man touches a giant freshwater stingray before being released back into the Mekong River in the northeastern province of Stung Treng, Cambodia. A local fisherman caught the 661-pound (300-kilogram) stingray, which set the record for the world’s largest known freshwater fish and earned him a $600 reward. (Chhut Chheana/Wonders of the Mekong via AP)
The stingray, captured on June 13, measured almost 4 meters (13 feet) from snout to tail and weighed slightly under 300 kilograms (660 pounds), according to a statement Monday by Wonders of the Mekong, a joint Cambodian-U.S. research project.
The previous record for a freshwater fish was a 293-kilogram (646-pound) Mekong giant catfish, discovered in Thailand in 2005, the group said.
The stingray was snagged by a local fisherman south of Stung Treng in northeastern Cambodia. The fisherman alerted a nearby team of scientists from the Wonders of the Mekong project, which has publicized its conservation work in communities along the river.
The scientists arrived within hours of getting a post-midnight call with the news, and were amazed at what they saw.
“Yeah, when you see a fish this size, especially in freshwater, it is hard to comprehend, so I think all of our team was stunned,” Wonders of the Mekong leader Zeb Hogan said in an online interview from the University of Nevada in Reno. The university is partnering with the Cambodian Fisheries Administration and USAID, the U.S. government’s international development agency.
Freshwater fish are defined as those that spend their entire lives in freshwater, as opposed to giant marine species such as bluefin tuna and marlin, or fish that migrate between fresh and saltwater like the huge beluga sturgeon.
The stingray’s catch was not just about setting a new record, he said.
“The fact that the fish can still get this big is a hopeful sign for the Mekong River, ” Hogan said, noting that the waterway faces many environmental challenges.
The Mekong River runs through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is home to several species of giant freshwater fish but environmental pressures are rising. In particular, scientists fear a major program of dam building in recent years may be seriously disrupting spawning grounds.
“Big fish globally are endangered. They’re high-value species. They take a long time to mature. So if they’re fished before they mature, they don’t have a chance to reproduce,” Hogan said. “A lot of these big fish are migratory, so they need large areas to survive. They’re impacted by things like habitat fragmentation from dams, obviously impacted by overfishing. So about 70% of giant freshwater fish globally are threatened with extinction, and all of the Mekong species.”
The team that rushed to the site inserted a tagging device near the tail of the mighty fish before releasing it. The device will send tracking information for the next year, providing unprecedented data on giant stingray behavior in Cambodia.
“The giant stingray is a very poorly understood fish. Its name, even its scientific name, has changed several times in the last 20 years,” Hogan said. “It’s found throughout Southeast Asia, but we have almost no information about it. We don’t know about its life history. We don’t know about its ecology, about its migration patters.”
Researchers say it’s the fourth giant stingray reported in the same area in the past two months, all of them females. They think this may be a spawning hotspot for the species.
Local residents nicknamed the stingray “Boramy,” or “full moon,” because of its round shape and because the moon was on the horizon when it was freed on June 14. In addition to the honor of having caught the record-breaker, the lucky fisherman was compensated at market rate, meaning he received a payment of around $600.
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Authorities in India and Bangladesh struggled Monday to deliver food and drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people evacuated from their homes in days of flooding that have submerged wide swaths of the countries.
A man stands at the doorway of his flooded shop in Sylhet, Bangladesh, Monday, June 20, 2022. Floods in Bangladesh continued to wreak havoc Monday with authorities struggling to ferry drinking water and dry food to flood shelters across the country’s vast northern and northeastern regions. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)
The floods triggered by monsoon rains have killed more than a dozen people, marooned millions and flooded millions of houses.
In Sylhet in northeastern Bangladesh along the Surma River, villagers waded through streets flooded up to their knees. One man stood in the doorway of his flooded shop, where the top shelves were crammed with items in an effort to keep them above water. Local TV said millions remained without electricity.
Enamur Rahman, junior minister for disaster and relief, said up to 100,000 people have been evacuated in the worst-hit districts, including Sylhet. About 4 million are marooned, the United News of Bangladesh said.
Flooding also ravaged India’s northeastern Assam state, where two policemen involved in rescue operations were washed away by floodwaters on Sunday, state officials said. They said about 200,000 people were taking shelter in 700 relief camps. Water in all major rivers in the state was above danger levels.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said Monday his administration is using military helicopters to airlift food and fuel to badly affected parts of the state.
Assam has already been reeling from massive floods after torrential rains over the past few weeks caused the Brahmaputra River to break its banks, leaving millions of homes underwater and severing transport links.
The Brahmaputra flows from Tibet through India and into Bangladesh, with a nearly 800-kilometer (500-mile) journey through Assam.
Major roads in affected regions of Bangladesh were submerged, leaving people stranded. In a country with a history of climate change-induced disasters, many expressed frustration that authorities haven’t done more locally.
“There isn’t much to say about the situation. You can see the water with your own eyes. The water level inside the room has dropped a bit. It used to be up to my waist,” said Muhit Ahmed, owner of a grocery shop in Sylhet.
Bangladesh called in soldiers on Friday to help evacuate people, but Ahmed said he hasn’t seen any yet.
“We are in a great disaster. Neither the Sylhet City Corporation nor anyone else came here to inquire about us,” he said. “I am trying to save my belongings as much as I can. We don’t have the ability to do any more now.”
The national Flood Forecasting and Warning Center said on Sunday that flooding in the northeastern districts of Sunamganj and Sylhet could worsen. It said the Teesta, a major river in northern Bangladesh, may rise above danger levels. The situation could also deteriorate in other northern districts, it said.
Officials said floodwaters have started receding in the northeast but are posing a threat to the central region, where water flows south to the Bay of Bengal.
Media reports said villagers in remote areas are struggling to obtain drinking water and food.
BRAC, a private nonprofit group, opened a center Monday to prepare food as part of plans to feed 5,000 families in one affected district, but the arrangements were inadequate, senior director Arinjoy Dhar said. In a video posted online, Dhar asked for help in providing food for flood-affected people.
Last month, a pre-monsoon flash flood triggered by water from upstream in India’s northeastern states hit Bangladesh’s northern and northeastern regions, destroying crops and damaging homes and roads.
Bangladesh is mostly flat and low-lying, so short-term floods during the monsoon season are common and are often beneficial to agriculture. But devastating floods hit the country every few years, damaging its infrastructure and economy. Almost 28% of the nation’s 160 million people live in coastal regions, according to the World Bank.
One of the worst floods took place in 1988, when much of the country was under water. In 1998, another devastating flood inundated almost 75% of the country. In 2004, more prolonged flooding occurred.
Scientists say flooding in Bangladesh has been worsened by climate change. According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, about 17% of the population will need to be relocated over the next decade or so if global warming persists at the present rate.
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Hussain reported from Gauhati, India. Associated Press writer Al-Emrun Garjon in Sylhet, Bangladesh, contributed to this report.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A judge on Tuesday rescheduled the state trial for two former Minneapolis police officers in George Floyd’s killing to Oct. 24 to resolve dueling requests for a new trial date after the state sought to start it as soon as this summer while a defense lawyer asked to delay it to next spring.
Community members lay flowers down near gravestone markers at the ‘Say Their Names’ cemetery Wednesday, May 25, 2022, in Minneapolis. The intersection where George Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police officers was renamed in his honor Wednesday, among a series of events to remember a man whose killing forced America to confront racial injustice. (Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune via AP)
Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the May 2020 killing of Floyd. Their trial was supposed to start this month, but Judge Peter Cahill earlier this month postponed it until Jan. 5, saying that would improve prospects for a fair trial. He settled on the October date during a brief hearing Tuesday.
Thao held back onlookers at the scene. Kueng helped restrain Floyd.
State prosecutor Matthew Frank on Friday had requested a speedy trial on behalf of Floyd’s family, which under Minnesota law could have meant mid-August. Kueng’s defense attorney, Tom Plunkett, followed with a request Sunday for a longer delay — until April — because of a scheduling conflict.
Attorneys for all sides told Cahill they agreed to the Oct. 24 start date for jury selection. The judge also scheduled a hearing on pretrial motions for Sept. 26-27.
Frank told the court that it would have been “traumatic” for the Floyd family to push the trial date out farther. Not only was their loved one killed by police officers, he said, they’ve had to watch the video of his dying minutes “time and time again in the media and throughout the trial process.”
Thao and Kueng have already been convicted of federal counts of violating Floyd’s rights. Their former colleague, Thomas Lane, was also convicted on a federal count and pleaded guilty in May to a state charge of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. All three are free pending their federal sentencing hearings, which have not been set.
Cahill also presided over last year’s trial of Chauvin, who was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 22 1/2 years. Chauvin has been in prison since that conviction. He also pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights charge.
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