A Virginia man who was killed in World War II has been accounted for, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced this week.
David Walker, 19, was assigned to the battleship USS California when it was torpedoed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Walker was one of 103 crewmen who died on the ship during the attack, the DPAA said. Remains from the ship were recovered by U.S. Navy personnel and interred in Hawaii cemeteries, including the the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, but it wasn’t until 2018 that the 25 men who were buried as “Unknowns” were exhumed.
The remains were analyzed with anthropological and dental analysis by the DPAA and mitochondrial DNA analysis by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System.
David Walker.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Now that Walker has been identified, a rosette will be placed next to his name on the Walls of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. He will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in September, the DPAA said.
According to Walker’s personnel file, he was from Norfolk, Virginia. There was no information available about surviving relatives, or when Walker entered the U.S. Navy. According to a news clipping shared by the DPAA, Walker enlisted in the U.S. Navy about one year before his death. Another news clipping said that he left high school early to enlist. According to one of the news clippings, Walker’s mother, identified as Edna Lee Ward, asked a local reporter to place Walker’s photo in the newspaper to announce his death at Pearl Harbor.
Kerry Breen
Kerry Breen is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News’ TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — A team of Chinese investigators arrived in Pakistan on Friday to join a probe into a suicide attack that killed five of its nationals earlier this week, officials said, as Pakistan continued its own investigations into the attack.
The slain Chinese engineers and workers were heading on Tuesday to the Dasu Dam, the biggest hydropower project in northwest Pakistan, when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into their vehicle.
A Pakistani driver was also killed in Tuesday’s attack in Shangla, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Beijing condemned the attack and asked Pakistan to conduct a detailed investigation and ensure protection of thousands of its nationals who work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
According to a government statement, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Friday briefed the Chinese investigators about Pakistan’s investigations into the attack.
Two days earlier, Pakistani officials shared with the Chinese embassy the preliminary findings of their investigation into the attack, for which so far no group has claimed responsibility.
Chinese working on CPEC-related projects have been targeted in Pakistan in recent years.
In July 2021, at least 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals, were killed when a suicide bomber detonated the explosives in his vehicle near a bus carrying Chinese and Pakistani engineers and laborers, prompting Chinese companies to suspend work for a time.
Posts repeatedly shared in Myanmar falsely claimed Muslims massacred “eight million Buddhists” in Indonesia in 1965, completely wiping out Buddhism in the archipelago. Multiple scholars told AFP the posts, which shared unrelated photos, misrepresented mass killings in Indonesia in the mid-1960s which they said targeted communists and not Buddhists. The latest government data showed there were around two million Buddhists in Muslim-majority Indonesia as of 2022.
“Why did Buddhism disappear in Indonesia?” said part of a lengthy Burmese-language post shared on Facebook on August 25, 2023.
It claimed to describe details from a “bloody morning” in 1965 when Muslims supposedly massacred millions of Buddhists in the archipelago.
“Over 30,000 girls were raped. Over 16,000 died of rape. Muslims took more than 100,000 Buddhist women as concubines. Buddhist children were enslaved at their houses. Over 8 million of Buddhists were killed just in one day.”
The post also included three black-and-white photos of a submerged Buddha statue and men tied with ropes.
Screenshot of the false post, taken March 26, 2024
The post appeared to be an example of anti-Muslim sentiment in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where sectarian violence had flared between Buddhist communities and the Rohingya Muslim minority.
The Southeast Asian nation faces charges of genocide at the UN’s top court after the military drove out about 750,000 Rohingya Muslim minority in a supposed crackdown on militants in 2017.
Posts similarly claiming Indonesia’s Muslims massacred millions of Buddhists have been shared more than 1,700 times on Facebook since at least 2022 here, here, here, here and here.
The claims are false, several scholars told AFP.
‘Total lie’
Upwards of half a million people were massacred across Indonesia between October 1965 and March 1966, in a bloody spectacle that ushered in the long rule of dictator Suharto.
The killings led to the collapse of the now-banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), once among the biggest in the world behind China and the Soviet Union.
But it was “impossible” for eight million Buddhists to have died then, said anthropologist Roberto Rizzo who specialises in research about the history of Buddhism in Indonesia (archived link).
“There weren’t so many Buddhists in Indonesia at any time in the country’s modern history,” he told AFP. Buddhists might have been killed but “definitely not in massive numbers”, he added.
Saskia E. Wieringa, chair of the International People’s Tribunal 1965, a people’s court set up by activists that held hearings on the violence, separately said the claims were “a total lie” (archived link).
The victims were targeted mainly “because they were considered to belong to a communist organisation”, she told AFP. “The rapes and murders of women were associated with their presumed political links, not with any religious aspect.”
Andi Achdian, a historian at the National University in Jakarta, separately said: “The victims were the communists or those who were accused of being communists, so religious affiliation was irrelevant” (archived link).
Buddhism has not completely disappeared from Indonesia contrary to the claim in the posts.
According to statistics from the archipelago’s Ministry of Religious Affairs as of August 2022, around two million of its citizens are Buddhists, comprising 0.73% of the population (archived link).
Misused pictures
Moreover, reverse image and keyword searches on Google found the pictures shared in the posts were shared in a false context.
The picture of the Buddha statue was taken in Taiwan after a typhoon, according to the Associated Press (AP) news agency which originally published it in August 2019 (archived link).
“A statue of Buddha’s head is seen submerged in flood water and debris from Typhoon Morakot at a temple in Kaohsiung County, southern Taiwan Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009,” reads the caption to the picture.
Typhoon Morakot slammed central and southern Taiwan in mid-August 2009, killing hundreds of people (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the Buddha statue picture in the false post (left) and the photo from AP (right):
Screenshot comparison of the photo in the false post (left) and the original photo from AP (right)
The other two pictures appearing to show men who were tied up were previously published on the website of the Dutch National Archives here and here (archived links here and here).
The national archives agency indicated both pictures predated the 1960s killings. Captions said they were part of a series taken during a communist uprising in Madiun in east Java in September 1948 (archived link).
The pictures in the false post (left) were flipped horizontally as shown in the screenshot comparison below with the original photographs from the Dutch National Archives (right):
Screenshot comparisons of the detained men pictures in the false post (left) and the original photos from the Dutch National Archives (right)
A Pennsylvania man attacked and killed his neighbor this week using a knife and a chain saw while wearing a mask and costume like the one from the movie “Scream,” officials said.
The man then returned home and watched a movie until police came, according to a criminal complaint from the Pennsylvania State Police.
Police said Zak Moyer, 30, surrendered after the attack and was taken into custody without incident. He has been charged with criminal homicide and is being held at the Carbon County Correctional Facility.
Lehighton Borough police and later state police responded to an active assault incident Monday in Carbon County, in which a man attacked another man using a knife and a chain saw.
Officials found Edward Whitehead Jr., 59, who lived at the home, had been “struck” in the head with the weapons by a man who was “wearing a mask and a black costume-like garment, consistent with the ‘Scream’ movie character,” according to the criminal complaint.
Whitehead was taken to the hospital, where he died from his injuries, state police said. He had cuts on his right arm and on the right side of his head above his eyebrow, wounds on his hands that were “consistent with defensive wounds,” and “a large bleeding wound to the right side of the head,” the complaint said.
Security video showed the suspect leaving Whitehead’s home through the back door and entering the rear door of a home next door, where neighbors said Moyer lived, the complaint said.
Police established a perimeter around Moyer’s home and communicated with him through a notebook, the complaint said.
Moyer’s sister told police Monday that her brother told her a week ago that he wanted to kill Whitehead, according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, Moyer told police that he had gone to the family’s house Monday with a knife and a chain saw while wearing the “Scream” costume to scare them. Asked about the costume and the weapons, police said, Moyer admitted he had planned to kill Whitehead.
Moyer also admitted to stabbing Whitehead in the head, returning to his home to watch a movie until police arrived, and hiding the chain saw in the attic and the knife in his desk drawer, according to the criminal complaint.
Police said in a news release that the investigation is active and there is no threat to the surrounding community.
Man charged with murder for Illinois stabbing rampage that killed 4 – CBS News
Watch CBS News
A 22-year-old man has been charged with murder for a stabbing rampage that killed four and left seven others injured in Rockford, Illinois. Sabrina Franza has the latest.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Forty-five people have died in South Africa after the bus they were in plunged some 50m (165ft) off a bridge into a ravine, authorities say.
An eight-year-old girl, the only survivor, was taken to hospital with serious injuries.
The bus crashed through a barrier and caught fire when it hit the ground in the north-eastern Limpopo province.
The passengers were pilgrims travelling from Botswana’s capital Gaborone to an Easter service in the town of Moria.
The vehicle lost control and went off a bridge on the Mmamatlakala mountain pass between Mokopane and Marken, around 300km (190 miles) north of Johannesburg, according to South African public broadcaster SABC.
Rescue operations went on late into Thursday evening, with some of those killed reportedly hard to reach amid the debris.
Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga, who went to the scene of the incident, extended her “heartfelt condolences to the families affected by the tragic bus crash”.
She said the South African government would help repatriate the bodies and hold a full inquiry into the cause of the crash.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with you during this difficult time,” she added. “We continue to urge responsible driving at all times with heightened alertness as more people are on our roads this Easter weekend.”
South Africa has a poor road safety record.
In an Easter message released earlier in the day, President Cyril Ramaphosa urged citizens to “do our best to make this a safe Easter”.
It should “not be a time where we sit back and wait to see statistics on tragedy or injuries on our roads”, he added.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s top investigative body said Thursday that another suspect has been detained as an accomplice in the attack by gunmen on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed 143 people.
A statement from the Investigative Committee said the latest person detained was involved in financing Friday’s attack on the Crocus City concert hall in which gunmen shot people who were waiting for a show by a popular rock band and then set the building on fire. It did not give further details of the suspect’s identity or alleged actions.
Officials previously said that 11 suspects had been arrested, including four who allegedly carried out the attack. Those four, identified as Tajik nationals, appeared in a Moscow court on Sunday on terrorism charges and showed signs of severe beatings. One appeared to be barely conscious during the hearing.
A faction of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the massacre. But Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin have persistently claimed, without presenting evidence, that Ukraine and the West had a role in the attack.
The Investigative Committee statement said it has “confirmed data that the perpetrators of the terrorist attack received significant amounts of money and cryptocurrency from Ukraine, which were used in preparing the crime.”
Ukraine denies involvement and its officials claim that Moscow is pushing the allegation as a pretext to intensify its fighting in Ukraine.
Health officials said Thursday that about 70 people remain hospitalized from injuries in the attack, many of them in severe condition.
Slovakia’s government on Wednesday said the bear that attacked five people in the country earlier this month was shot dead, as Bratislava drafted plans to ease bear cull restrictions. But opposition politicians said that a much smaller bear that had nothing to do with the rampage was actually killed.
The bear attack that left five people, including a 10-year-old girl, injured occurred in the center of Liptovsky Mikulas, a town nestled in the foothills of the Tatra mountains near popular ski resorts, the BBC reported.
“A bear that injured five in Liptovsky Mikulas was successfully shot dead yesterday… A biometrics drone was used to identify it,” the environment minister Tomas Taraba said on social media on Wednesday.
Bear attacks have been on the rise in the Central European country, with 20 such incidents last year, up from only eight in 2021, according to data from the environment ministry.
This month, a woman from Belarus died following a separate bear attack in the Demanovska Dolina valley area in Liptovsky Mikulas district, falling to her death from a cliff after being chased by the animal.
On Wednesday, the government in Bratislava approved a draft law to address the bear attacks in urban areas.
The proposal stipulates the creation of a 500-metre safety zone in the vicinity of towns and villages.
Any bear entering this zone could be shot, Taraba told journalists.
“Not only members of the special bear response team will be able to shoot, but also hunters, police officers, and, in national parks, also their administrators,” Taraba said.
The Slovak populist government earlier this month published guidelines on the protective shooting of brown bears, prompting backlash from environmental groups and the opposition.
Opposition politicians also claimed authorities had shot the wrong bear, accusing the government of using the issue ahead of the presidential election on 6 April, the BBC reported.
“According to documents written by the bear intervention team that we found, a 67-kilogram female bear was caught and killed,” Progressive Slovakia opposition party member Michal Wiezik said. “It is not necessary to use high-end biometrics to make it clear that such a shooting cannot be in any way related to the 100-kilogram male they were looking for.”
“I’m certain it’s not the same bear. It’s obvious,” Wiezik told the BBC.
On Monday, the Slovak environment minister, together with his Romanian and Finnish counterparts, appealed to Brussels for an EU-wide solution to the issue of bears threatening people, according to the local TASR news agency.
Remembering the 6 killed in Baltimore bridge collapse – CBS News
Watch CBS News
Six construction workers who were filling potholes on the Key Bridge when it collapsed are presumed dead. Nicole Sganga spoke with a local Baltimore pastor who knew some of the victims.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A state parole board member resigned Monday after recommending the release of a man who a day later attacked a pregnant Chicago woman with a knife and fatally stabbed her 11-year-old son while he tried to protect her, according to authorities.
The Illinois Prisoner Review Board’s handling of the case prompted Gov. J.B. Pritzker to order that procedures for dealing with situations involving domestic violence be revamped.
Pritzker announced that LeAnn Miller, 63, of Junction submitted her resignation. Miller had prepared a report recommending Crosetti Brand’s release from prison.
The 37-year-old felon had repeatedly violated orders of protection and threatened Laterria Smith of Chicago, police said. On March 13, investigators said that Brand went to Smith’s apartment armed with a knife and assaulted her. When her son, Jayden Perkins, intervened, Brand stabbed him to death, police said.
Smith, 33, remains hospitalized in critical condition but doctors expect her and her unborn child to live. Her 6-year-old son was present during the attack but was uninjured.
A message seeking comment was left at a number associated with Miller’s home and with the Prisoner Review Board. Pritzker said in a news release that she made “the correct decision in stepping down.” The Democratic governor’s spokesperson, Alex Gough, said he was unaware of Pritzker requesting her resignation.
“It is clear that evidence in this case was not given the careful consideration that victims of domestic violence deserve and I am committed to ensuring additional safeguards and training are in place to prevent tragedies like this from happening again,” Pritzker said in a statement.
Following board procedure, two other board members, Ken Tupy and Krystal Tison, concurred with Miller’s draft order, according to a copy of the order provided by the Prisoner Review Board in response to a public records request from The Associated Press. A phone message was left for Tupy. A number for Tison could not immediately be located.
Pritzker ordered the Prisoner Review Board to “engage experts and advocates to design and implement expanded training” in domestic violence cases for the 15-member board. The board and the Department of Corrections will also review procedures for sharing information on cases involving domestic violence. Pritzker said the case might also raise issues which require legislation to broaden officials’ legal authority in such instances.
Brand, who police say had a relationship with Smith 15 years ago, is charged in Cook County with first-degree murder and a half-dozen other violent felonies related to the attack. He had served half of a 16-year sentence for attacking another ex-partner in 2015 when he was paroled in October.
Brand was shipped back to prison in February after being accused of repeatedly contacting Smith, who has an order of protection against him. He turned himself in after Smith reported he was at the door to her apartment on Feb. 1, repeatedly ringing the bell and pulling on the handle.
But when Brand appeared before the Prisoner Review Board on Feb. 26, he denied going to her apartment and his lawyer provided evidence that his electronic monitoring bracelet did not indicate violations of his movement restrictions, according to a copy of the board’s order. He answered other reported parole violations by saying he sometimes worked late hours at a Red Lobster restaurant.
The board determined there wasn’t enough evidence to verify Smith’s claims, although she was not called to testify.
