PESHTIGO, Wis. (WFRV) – The group “Marinette and Menominee Veterans in Need” held a special event to honor National Vietnam Veterans Day on Friday, March 29.
Veteran Dick Pier, who served in Vietnam from 1966 through 1967, attended the event and says the experience is something he will never forget.
“I was serving with the First Harbor Division, I was attached to the Army Security Agency, and I worked on getting information for our combat troops,” stated Pier.
Applications for the Appleton Flag Day Parade closing soon
The President of M&M County Veterans in Need, David Herold, says events like this help to honor and recognize those who have served.
“Back in the day when these guys came back, they were treated very poorly, so this is our way to show that the country is grateful for their service. Their country is truly grateful,” explained Herold.
M&M Veterans in Need looks to host more events for Veterans in the near future.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFRV Local 5 – Green Bay, Appleton.
Washington — President Biden pledged Friday to “continue working every day” to secure the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich from Russian detention, as the American journalist’s time imprisoned in Russia hit the one-year mark.
“We will continue to denounce and impose costs for Russia’s appalling attempts to use Americans as bargaining chips,” Mr. Biden said in a statement released Friday that also mentioned the case of Paul Whelan, another U.S. citizen who has been held in Russia since 2018.
Gershkovich — whom the U.S. State Department deemed “wrongfully detained” soon after his arrest — is still awaiting a trial on espionage charges that the White House, his family and his employer all insist are fabricated, but which could still see him sentenced to decades in prison.
The U.S.-born son of Soviet emigres covered Russia for six years, as the Kremlin made independent, on-the-ground reporting increasingly dangerous and illegal.
Journalist Evan Gershkovich, arrested on espionage charges, stands inside a defendants’ cage before a hearing to consider an appeal on his arrest at the Moscow City Court in Moscow, April 18, 2023.
NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty
His arrest in March 2023 on charges of spying — the first such charge against a Western journalist since the Soviet era — showed that the Kremlin was prepared to go further than ever before in what President Vladimir Putin has called a “hybrid war” with the West.
The Journal and the U.S. government dismiss the espionage allegations as a false pretext to keep Gershkovich locked up, likely to use him as a bargaining chip in a future prisoner exchange deal.
Putin said last month that he would like to see Gershkovich released as part of a prisoner swap, but the Biden administration has said Moscow rejected the most recent exchange offer presented to it.
The 32-year-old, who has been remanded in custody until at least the end of June, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.
The Gershkovich family said in a letter published by the Wall Street Journal on Friday that they would pursue their campaign for his release.
“We never anticipated this situation happening to our son and brother, let alone a full year with no certainty or clear path forward,” they said. “But despite this long battle, we are still standing strong.”
Gershkovich reported extensively on how ordinary Russians experienced the Ukraine conflict, speaking to the families of dead soldiers and Putin critics. Breaking stories and getting people to talk was becoming increasingly hard, Gershkovich told friends before his arrest.
But as long as it was not impossible, he saw a reason to be there.
Zelenskyy on Ukraine’s ability to win war against Russia
02:15
“He knew for some stories he was followed around and people he talked to would be pressured not to talk to him,” Guardian correspondent Pjotr Sauer, a close friend, told AFP. “But he was accredited by the foreign ministry. I don’t think any of us could see the Russians going as far as charging him with this fake espionage.”
Speaking to CBS News’ Leslie Stahl last week, the reporter’s sister Danielle said the family back in the U.S. was still worried, despite Gershkovich’s repeated assurances to them of his accreditation, which he thought would keep him safe, as it always had.
But as Stahl reported, what used to be unprecedented in Russia has become almost routine under Putin. Gershkovich is only the most recent American to inadvertently become a pawn on Putin’s geopolitical chessboard against the West.
Whelan, a U.S. Marine veteran, has been jailed in Russia for five years. Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina was arrested in January, accused of treason for helping Ukraine. And basketball star Brittney Griner, imprisoned for nine months on drug charges, was finally freed in an exchange for a notorious arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death.”
A Utah grief author charged with spiking her husband’s drink with a fatal dose of fentanyl faces an additional charge of attempted murder after authorities said she allegedly drugged him with a Valentine’s Day sandwich in an attempt to kill him.
Kouri Richins was arrested last year on charges that included aggravated murder after authorities said she killed her husband, Eric Richins, at their home in Kamas, about 40 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, on March 4, 2022.
Eric Richins, 39, was found unresponsive in the home after having a drink to celebrate his wife’s business deal. A medical examiner said he had five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system and that it was “illicit” and not medical grade.
Kouri and Eric Richins. via Facebook
Charging documents filed Monday allege that was not the first time Kouri Richins slipped her husband drugs. On Valentine’s Day 2022, authorities said Eric Richins nearly died after his wife brought him a sandwich.
The documents state that Eric Richins texted his wife and said he was not feeling good and that if he did not feel better soon he was going to the hospital. His wife, who was not home at the time, told him he should take a nap, according to the documents.
That afternoon Eric Richins reached out to two of his close friends and said his wife had left him his favorite sandwich from a local diner with a note, according to the documents.
He told one friend, “you almost lost me” and described breaking out in hives after taking a bite from the sandwich. He said he had to use his son’s EpiPen and take Benadryl, prosecutors said in the documents.
“Eric Richins told Witness 1 that he had almost died,” the charging documents state. “Witness 1 could hear the fear in Eric Richins’ voice and tell that Eric Richins was scared.”
Eric Richins told the other friend he thought his wife had tried to poison him, prosecutors allege.
The documents state that opioids, including fentanyl, can cause allergic and pseudoallergic reactions, including hives. It also notes that Eric Richins did not have any food allergies.
Prosecutors said in the charging documents that Kouri Richins purchased illicit fentanyl before the Valentine’s Day meal in 2022 and again before his death.
Kouri Richins was also charged Monday with two counts of mortgage fraud, two counts of insurance fraud and three counts of forgery. Prosecutors allege that she was in financial distress at the time of her husband’s death and forged loan applications and fraudulently claimed insurance benefits after he died.
An attorney for her did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment on Wednesday. Kouri Richins previously denied the allegations against her and is in custody awaiting trial.
Trump’s Truth Social soars in first day of trading on Nasdaq – CBS News
Watch CBS News
Former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social began trading under the ticker “DJT” on Tuesday, putting the real estate tycoon — and his initials — at the helm of a publicly traded company once again. CBS News’ Lilia Luciano has more.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.
In today’s edition, White House reporter Katherine Doyle reports from a New York courtroom on Donald Trump’s whirlwind day on the legal front. Plus, chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell breaks down the fresh tensions between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu.
The key takeaways from Trump’s day in court
By Katherine Doyle
Monday was a bit of a roller coaster for Donald Trump on the legal front.
Trump’s defense team failed to persuade Judge Juan Merchan to add more time to the clock before the start of the trial in Trump’s New York hush money case, with the former president shaking his head in apparent frustration during the hearing as the judge set a date next month for the start of jury selection.
Do you have a news tip? Let us know
But in another court on Monday, Trump earned a major reprieve for the bond he was supposed to deliver as part of the civil case he lost.
Here are the key takeaways from Trump’s day in court:
Trump’s delay efforts fall short: Trump had successfully moved back the start of the hush money case, which was originally set for Monday. But his efforts to delay the trial even further were thwarted, with Merchan scheduling it to begin on April 15.
Trump didn’t have to be in the courtroom Monday. When the historic trial begins in three weeks, though, he will be required to attend each day, which could hamper his campaign activity.
Trump didn’t hide his true feelings: Before entering the courtroom, he called the case “a witch hunt” and “a hoax.” He furrowed his brow. He watched the judge press his defense counsel as he argued for more time to review discovery documents. And he grew increasingly frustrated as the defense failed to persuade the judge that more time was needed.
Wearing a navy suit and red tie, Trump sat between his attorneys, his eyes bloodshot. As Merchan spoke, Trump leaned back from the defense table and narrowed his gaze. Exiting the courtroom at the start of a 45-minute recess, Trump scowled and furrowed his brow again.
Trump scores a win in another case: Outside of Merchan’s courtroom, though, Trump notched a victory.
A state appeals court ruled that he and his co-defendants in a New York civil fraud case could post a lower bond, slashing the judgment from $464 million to $175 million and delaying any possible move by Attorney General Letitia James to seize his assets. They have 10 days to post the bond.
Read more here →
A fresh split emerges between Biden and Netanyahu
Analysis by Andrea Mitchell
Tensions erupted again Monday between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the U.S. — for the first time — allowed a U.N. resolution that Israel had opposed calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza to pass.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. abstained because the resolution did not condemn Hamas for its Oct. 7 massacre, but did not veto it since the U.S. agrees with the resolution’s call for an extended cease-fire and hostage release. Netanyahu was furious that the U.S. did not use its veto to block the resolution, Israeli sources tell NBC News, and he immediately canceled a planned White House visit this week by his closest adviser, Ron Dermer.
The breach over the resolution came as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and a team were already at the Pentagon. Their trip, along with Dermer’s, had been arranged at the behest of Biden in a call with Netanyahu last week, their first in more than a month. Senior officials told NBC News that Biden wanted to repair damage caused days earlier when he had praised Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s speech excoriating Netanyahu’s conduct of the war and calling for new Israeli elections.
Hoping to smooth over their differences, senior officials told NBC News that Biden told Netanyahu he disagreed with Schumer’s call for elections, but still urged him not to invade Rafah, suggesting he send a delegation to Washington to hear alternatives. But the U.S. failure to block the U.N. resolution prompted Netanyahu to cancel Dermer’s trip, despite another member of his war Cabinet, opposition minister Benny Gantz, saying that direct dialogue is so important that Netanyahu himself should come to the U.S.
Biden’s disagreements with Netanyahu and his right-wing Cabinet have also caused the U.S. to sanction Jewish settlers in the West Bank after Israel failed to prevent violent attacks on Palestinian residents. All this has forced Biden to walk a deeply personal and politically charged tightrope between his long-held emotional commitment to Israel — causing him to reject canceling or conditioning arms sales — with his abhorrence of the civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Those conflicting convictions have put Biden in a nearly impossible choice between progressive Democrats furious over the devastation in Gaza and a larger group of voters who fully support Israel at all costs as he enters the heat of his re-election campaign.
🗞️ Today’s top stories
💰 Money trees: Trump’s media company is set to make its debut on the stock market Tuesday, a development that could generate a windfall for the cash-strapped former president. Trump also said that he “might” spend his own money on his campaign, which he hasn’t done since 2016. Read more →
⚖️ On the docket: The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Tuesday in a case challenging the abortion pill mifepristone. The justices’ decision in the case could have significant effects on the pharmaceutical industry and spark challenges to scores of other drugs. Read more →
👀 Watch this space: The Washington Post dives into Tuesday’s special legislative election in Alabama, which will test the electoral power of reproductive health, specifically in-vitro fertilization, after the state’s high court ruled that frozen embryos are considered children. Read more →
😡 Now we got bad blood: The ongoing feud between former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., escalated over the weekend, as McCarthy accused Gaetz of ousting him because he would not intervene in an Ethics Committee probe of the Florida congressman. Read more →
🔥 Getting heated in Florida: Florida Democrats on Sunday ousted the chair of the Miami-Dade County Party amid GOP gains in South Florida in recent elections. Read more → 🌹
Garden State drama: New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy announced Sunday she is ending her Senate bid, paving the way for Rep. Andy Kim to secure the Democratic nomination as he continues to battle the party machine in court. Read more →
That’s all from The Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com
And if you’re a fan, please share with everyone and anyone. They can sign up here.
Russia on Sunday observed a national day of mourning in the aftermath of an attack at a suburban Moscow concerthall left more than 130 people dead.
Family and friends of those missing were still waiting for news of their loved ones two days after the massacre, which also left some 150 people injured. The death toll, initially placed at around 40, had risen to 137 as of Sunday, intelligence officials said.
To mark the day of mourning, events at cultural institutions were canceled, flags were lowered to half-staff and television entertainment and advertising were suspended, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. A steady stream of people added to a makeshift memorial near the burnt-out concert hall, creating a huge mound of flowers.
“People came to a concert, some people came to relax with their families, and any one of us could have been in that situation. And I want to express my condolences to all the families that were affected here and I want to pay tribute to these people,” Andrey Kondakov, one of the mourners who came to lay flowers at the memorial, told The Associated Press.
“It is a tragedy that has affected our entire country,” kindergarten employee Marina Korshunova said. “It just doesn’t even make sense that small children were affected by this event.” Three children were among the dead.
The attack, which has been claimed by an affiliate of the Islamic State group, is the deadliest on Russian soil in years.
“The shots were constant,” eyewitness Dave Primov told CBS News. “People panicked and started to run. Some fell down and were trampled on.”
As rescuers continue to search the damaged building and the death toll rises as more bodies are found, some families still don’t know if relatives who went to the event targeted by gunmen on Friday are alive. Moscow’s Department of Health said Sunday it has begun identifying the bodies of those killed via DNA testing, which will need at least two weeks.
Igor Pogadaev was desperately seeking any details of his wife’s whereabouts after she went to the concert and stopped responding to his messages.
Death toll rises in Russia terror attack
01:24
He hasn’t seen a message from Yana Pogadaeva since she sent her husband two photos from the Crocus City Hall music venue.
After Pogadaev saw the reports of gunmen opening fire on concertgoers, he rushed to the site, but couldn’t find her in the numerous ambulances or among the hundreds of people who had made their way out of the venue.
“I went around, searched, I asked everyone, I showed photographs. No one saw anything, no one could say anything,” Pogadaev told the AP in a video message.
He watched flames bursting out of the building as he made frantic calls to a hotline for relatives of the victims, but received no information.
As the death toll mounted on Saturday, Pogodaev scoured hospitals in the Russian capital and the Moscow region, looking for information on newly admitted patients.
But his wife wasn’t among the 154 reported injured, nor on the list of 50 victims authorities have already identified, he said.
Refusing to believe that his wife could be one of the 137 people who died in the attack, Pogadaev still hasn’t gone home.
“I couldn’t be alone anymore, it’s very difficult, so I drove to my friend’s,” he said. “Now at least I’ll be with someone.”
The Moscow Region’s Emergency Situations Ministry posted a video Sunday showing equipment dismantling the damaged music venue to give rescuers access.
Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin appears to be trying to tie Ukraine to the attack, something its government firmly denies.
A United States intelligence official told CBS News that the U.S. has intelligence confirming that the Islamic State was responsible, and they do not have reason to doubt those claims. The U.S. Embassy in Russia had also previously advised Americans to stay away from concert venues because of the potential threat of a terrorist attack. The U.S. intelligence official confirmed to CBS News that the U.S. provided intelligence to Russia regarding the potential for an attack, under the intelligence community’s Duty to Warn requirement.
“ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
Russian authorities arrested four suspected attackers on Saturday, Putin said in a nighttime address to the nation, among 11 people detained on suspicion of involvement in the attack. He said that they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine.
Though no court hearing has been officially announced, there was a heavy police presence around Moscow’s Basmanny District Court on Sunday. Police tried to drive journalists away from the court.
Eleven people arrested after deadly attack at concert hall in Russia
02:32
Putin called the attack “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and said Russian authorities captured the four suspects as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a “window” prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.
Russian media broadcast videos that apparently showed the detention and interrogation of the suspects, including one who told the cameras he was approached by an unidentified assistant to an Islamic preacher via a messaging app and paid to take part in the raid.
Kyiv strongly denied any involvement, and the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility.
Putin didn’t mention ISIS in his speech to the nation, and Kyiv accused him and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault to stoke fervor for Russia’s fight in Ukraine, which recently entered its third year.
The raid was a major embarrassment for the Russian leader and happened just days after he cemented his grip on the country for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since the Soviet times.
Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities, who have relentlessly suppressed any opposition activities and muzzled independent media, failed to prevent the attack despite the U.S. warnings.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the U.S. condemned the attack and said that the Islamic State group is a “common terrorist enemy that must be defeated everywhere.”
Emergency services are at the scene following a deadly terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall in Moscow, Russa, on March 23, 2024. The assault on a popular concert hall marks the deadliest act of terrorism in the Russian capital in more than a decade.
Vlad Karkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
ISIS, which fought against Russia during its intervention in the Syrian civil war, has long targeted Russia. In a statement posted by the group’s Aamaq news agency, the ISIS Afghanistan affiliate said that it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk.
The group issued a new statement Saturday on Aamaq, saying the attack was carried out by four men who used automatic rifles, a pistol, knives and firebombs. It said the assailants fired at the crowd and used knives to kill some concertgoers, casting the raid as part of the Islamic State group’s ongoing war with countries that it says are fighting against Islam.
In October 2015, a bomb planted by ISIS downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacationers returning from Egypt.
The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, also has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
Russia observing national day of mourning after concert hall attack – CBS News
Watch CBS News
Russia is observing a national day of mourning on Sunday after more than 130 people were killed in a terrorist attack at a concert venue in Moscow, ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed it was linked to Ukraine — which has been denied by the U.S. and Ukraine. Debora Patta has the latest.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
NEW DELHI (AP) — Hundreds of protesters in India’s capital took to the streets for a second day Saturday, demanding the immediate release of one of the top rivals of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as the country gears up for a national election next month.
Arvind Kejriwal, New Delhi’s top elected official and one of the country’s most consequential politicians of the past decade, was arrested by the federal Enforcement Directorate Thursday night. The agency, controlled by Modi’s government, accused his party and ministers of accepting 1 billion rupees ($12 million) in bribes from liquor contractors nearly two years ago.
His Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man’s Party, denied the accusations and said Friday Kejriwal would remain Delhi’s chief minister as it took the matter to court.
Kejriwal was taken into custody for seven days following a court order on Friday.
Kejriwal’s wife, Sunita, had a message Saturday she said was from her detained husband. Posted on the AAP party X account, the message relayed Kerijwal as saying he wasn’t surprised by the arrest for he has “struggled a lot” and warning against “several forces within and outside India that are weakening the country.”
Chanting: “Kejriwal is Modi’s doom” and “Dictatorship won’t be tolerated,” protesters accused Modi on Saturday of governing the country under a state of emergency — a claim the opposition has long professed — and using federal law enforcement agencies to stifle opposition parties before the election.
APP leader and chief minister of neighboring Punjab state, Bhagwant Mann, joined the protest alongside some cabinet ministers.
“(Kejriwal’a arrest) is a murder of democracy,” Balbir Singh, Punjab’s health minister told The Associated Press. “For opposition leaders, jail is the rule and bail is the exception,” he added. Singh also accused Modi’s ruling party to “have turned the rule of law upside down.”
Lily Tiga, a protester said when “a person who does good, fights for truth, fights for the downtrodden and poor is arrested, it’s not only unfortunate, it is a time to mourn for this country.”
Some demonstrators tried to move the protest to the main street in central Delhi. But police, some in riot gear, blocked them and detained at least three dozen protesters.
On Friday, hundreds of AAP supporters and some senior party leaders clashed with the police, who whisked a number of them away in buses.
In the lead-up to the general election , starting April 19, India’s opposition parties have accused the government of misusing its power to harass and weaken its political opponents, pointing to a spree of raids, arrests and corruption investigations against key opposition figures. Meanwhile, some probes against erstwhile opposition leaders who later defected to Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have been dropped.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, denies targeting the opposition and says law enforcement agencies act independently.
Kejriwal’s AAP is part of a broad alliance of opposition parties called INDIA, the main challenger to Modi’s BJP in the coming election.
His arrest is another setback for the bloc, and came after the country’s main opposition Congress party accused the government Thursday of freezing its bank accounts in a tax dispute to cripple it. This has led to a rare show of strength by the opposition figures who slammed the move as undemocratic and accused Modi’s party of misusing the agency to undermine them.
In 2023, the agency arrested Kejriwal’s deputy, Manish Sisodia, and AAP lawmaker Sanjay Singh as part of the same case. Both remain in jail.
Russia was observing a national day of mourning on Sunday after a massacre in a Moscow concert hall killed more than 130 people, the deadliest attack in Europe to have been claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to punish those behind the “barbaric terrorist attack”, saying four gunmen trying to flee to Ukraine had been arrested.
Kyiv has strongly denied any connection, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accusing Putin of trying to shift the blame onto them.
“The whole country is in mourning with those who lost their loved ones in this inhumane tragedy,” public television channel Russia 24 said on Sunday morning.
Putin, in his only public remarks on the attack, made no reference to IS’s claims of responsibility.
At least 133 people were killed when camouflaged gunmen stormed the Crocus City Hall, in Moscow’s northern suburb of Krasnogorsk, and then set fire to the building on Friday evening.
– ‘Machine guns, knives, firebombs’ –
The Islamic State group on Saturday wrote on Telegram that the attack was “carried out by four IS fighters armed with machine guns, a pistol, knives and firebombs,” as part of “the raging war” with “countries fighting Islam”.
A video lasting about a minute and half apparently shot by the gunmen has been posted on social media accounts typically used by IS, according to the SITE intelligence group.
The video appears to have been filmed from the lobby of the concert venue and shows several individuals with blurred faces and garbled voices, firing assault rifles with inert bodies strewn on the floor and a fire starting in the background.
The attack was the deadliest in Russia since the Beslan school siege in 2004.
Russian officials expect the death toll to rise further, with 110 still in hospital.
Rescue workers were still pulling bodies from the burnt-out building on Sunday as the nation mourned.
The emergency situations ministry has so far named 29 of the victims, the blaze having complicated the process of identification.
The ministry on Sunday posted a video of heavy equipment arriving at the venue to dismantle damaged structures and clear debris.
– ‘Morally crushed’ –
On the streets of the capital on Sunday, there was shock and grief.
“It is a tragedy. I was morally crushed,” Ruslana Baranovskaya, 35, told AFP.
“People don’t smile … everybody feels the loss,” said 73-year-old Valentina Karenina, a pensioner, standing on a street off Red Square, next to the Kremlin in the centre of Moscow.
Museums, theatres and cinemas around the country closed, and billboards were replaced with memorial posters.
Mourners continued to stream to the concert hall in northwest Moscow to lay flowers at a tribute to the victims.
More than 5,000 people donated blood following the attack, officials said, with many standing in long queues outside clinics.
Putin on Saturday had vowed “retribution and oblivion” to the “terrorists, murderers and non-humans” who carried out the “barbaric, terrorist attack.”
Several of his allies have called for the country to lift a moratorium on the death penalty — demands that have sparked concern among Kremlin critics.
Russia says it has arrested 11 in connection with the attack, including all four assailants. It has not named the shooters, but said they were all foreign nationals.
– Putin points to Ukraine –
Putin has pointed to a Ukraine connection and has not publicly addressed IS’s claim of responsibility in the 36 hours since the attack.
“They tried to escape and were travelling towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” Putin said of the four attackers in a televised address to the nation on Saturday — his only public comments so far.
Ukraine’s Zelensky, in his own evening address Saturday, dismissed the suggestion that Kyiv had been involved.
“Putin and the other scum are just trying to blame it on someone else,” he said.
In Moscow, some doubted his claims that Ukraine was involved.
“I’m not inclined to the version about Ukraine’s involvement … this (attack) is more like those committed by Islamist extremists,” said Vomik Aliyev, a 22-year-old Muslim who often went to the concert hall.
– Site search to continue –
Russia’s Investigative Committee said the death toll had reached 133 and the governor of the Moscow region said rescuers would continue to scour the site for “several days.”
Health authorities said Sunday that 110 people were still in hospital, with more than 40 in a “critical” or “extremely critical” condition.
IS had first claimed responsibility for the attack on Friday night, before repeating its claim again on Saturday and then publishing a graphic video of the gunmen carrying out the attack.
After walking through the theatre shooting spectators, they set fire to the building, Russian investigators said, trapping many inside who died from smoke inhalation.
Asked about one Trump case coming before the court regarding the former president’s claim that he should be immune from criminal prosecution for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Breyer said he wouldn’t comment and didn’t have enough information to form an opinion.
“My goodness, you can make mistakes just by saying what your initial opinion is. And my goodness, how often it really occurs,” Breyer said, adding: “I’m not just trying to get out of the question, because I can get out of the question by just saying I’m not going to answer the question.”
Still, Breyer, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton and served on the court from 1994 to 2022, isn’t a stranger to evaluating cases in the middle of presidential election years that could have major consequences for the outcome of the election.
In 2000, Breyer weighed the Bush v. Gore case and agreed with a 7-2 majority decision that the method for recounting ballots in Florida’s presidential election was unconstitutional. But he dissented from a majority opinion that found Florida didn’t have time to conduct a constitutional recount.
“They shouldn’t have taken [the case] up,” Breyer told Welker. “That’s what I thought about Bush v. Gore.”
He added, “I said, ‘They shouldn’t have taken up the opinion. And now, having taken it up, I think they should decide it the other way.’ That was my view, all right? But it was a view reached after a considerable amount of work.”
Breyer spoke to NBC News’ “Meet the Press” ahead of the release of his book “Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism,” in which he lays out his case against an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.
“It’s very attractive,” Breyer said, describing textualism as “simple.”
“All you have to do is read this. Fabulous. You’ve got the answer. Yeah, just read it, and it’s simple,” he said.
“You say, ‘Sounds good, sounds good.’ But it doesn’t work very well, in my opinion. And that’s why I’ve spent a year and a half trying to explain why,” Breyer added.
