Group Decries High Cost Of Justice In Nigeria

LAGOS (PM NEWS/NAN) -- Justice Initiative for the Disadvantaged and Oppressed Persons (JIDOP), on Sunday, said many Nigerians lacked access to justice, due to high cost of litigation and slow judicial processes.

Mr Lawman Nzenwa, Convener of JIDOP, said this while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the official unveiling of the group’s logo in Lagos.

“Our justice system has failed Nigerians. It is expensive and time consuming and people are beginning to lose faith in it.

“So, we are now advocating for emphasis on Alternative Dispute Resolution.

“I am talking about mediation and arbitration, where people can still come up and air their grievances.

“Both parties will be able sit together to find an amicable resolution to the issue.

“The way it is now, what we get is judgment not justice because of the delay in the process.”

Nzenwa said JIDOP was established to assist ordinary Nigerians, who had no access to justice and were being oppressed by wealthy individuals and institutions.

He noted that some persons had been in detention for years awaiting trial, stressing that the group would be looking into such cases and others that would give hope to the downtrodden.

Nzenwa also urged the Federal Government to obey the rule of law, by releasing people in detention who had been granted bail by the courts.

He said the continued detention of people, who had been granted bail by some courts was not good for the country’s image, adding that when prominent individuals were also being held in disobedience to the courts, it affected the people’s confidence in the judicial system.

D-Day's 24 Hours Changed 20th Century, And Europe, Forever

In this undated photo provided by the Charles Shay Family Archive, Charles Norman Shay, front center, poses with members of his family in Indian Island, Maine. Shay, a D-Day veteran, was a medic who on June 6, 1944, landed on Omaha Beach, where he helped drag wounded soldiers out of the rising tide, saving them from drowning. (Charles Shay Family Archive via AP)

BY RAF CASERT

ON OMAHA BEACH, FRANCE (AP) — All at once, Charles Shay tried to stanch the bleeding from a ripped-open stomach, dull the pain with morphine and soothe the mind of a dying fellow American army medic. It was a tall order for a 19-year-old who had just set foot on the European mainland for the first time.

But nothing could have prepared him for what happened on June 6, 1944, on five cold, forbidding beaches in northern France. It was D-Day, one of the most significant 24-hour periods of the 20th century, the horrifying tipping point in World War II that defined the future of Europe.

That morning, Shay could not yet fathom what the event would ultimately mean. He was more concerned with the bleeding soldiers, body parts and corpses strewn around him, and the machine-gun fire and shells that filled the air.

“You have to realize my vision of the beach was very small. I could only experience what I could see,” he told The Associated Press, speaking from the now-glimmering Omaha Beach, where he landed 75 years ago.

International leaders will gather again this week to honor the dwindling number of D-Day veterans. U.S. President Donald Trump is set to join a commemoration Wednesday on the southern English coast in Portsmouth before traveling to Normandy and the U.S. cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, which stands on a bluff overlooking the English Channel where some 160,000 made the perilous D-Day crossing.

There, Shay plans to be among the crowd Thursday to welcome Trump as he pays homage to 9,388 dead Americans, most of whom lost their lives on D-Day or in the aftermath of the Normandy offensive.

After World War II, Shay continued to witness history — fighting the Chinese during the Korean War, participating in U.S. atomic tests in the Marshall Islands and later working at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. With all the wisdom gathered in his 94 years, he knows another war can never be discounted.

“Some men cannot get enough of power,” Shay said. “And it still continues today.”

These days, crimson wild roses bloom where blood seeped into the Normandy dunes, and American flags whip in the westerly winds, many flown by locals still grateful to the U.S. soldiers who liberated the first French soil from four years of Nazi occupation.

Omaha and adjacent Utah Beach were America’s to take, but similar acts of sacrifice and heroism happened on three other beachheads to the east where Britain and Canadian troops sought to break Hitler’s stranglehold on the continent. In all, the invasion covered 80 kilometers (50 miles) of French shoreline.

Shay survived, but he did not talk about the experience for well over half a century.

“So many dead. So many young men, young boys, killed on the spot,” he said. “It was difficult to see and absorb.”

‘DIDN’T KNOW WHAT I WAS GETTING INTO’

When Shay, a Penobscot native American from Indian Island, Maine, was born in 1924, the world was only starting to recover from World War I, which had been a coming-of-age moment for the United States. U.S. intervention proved decisive in beating Germany and heralded the century ahead.

Shay was barely 5 when the Great Depression hit. As a child, nicknamed Little Muskrat, he and his family performed in ceremonial native garb and sold traditional goods.

“My aunt employed me as a young Indian dancer,” he said. Times were tough.

Across the ocean, Germany also faced economic misery that, together with lingering bitterness over its defeat in the war, paved the way for Adolf Hitler’s rise.

When containment failed, war in Europe erupted again in 1939, and Hitler’s Nazis swarmed over much of the continent. They took Paris and were quickly at the Normandy coastline. Britain, across the English Channel, remained out of reach.

The United States, which had slumbered into isolationism after its victory in 1918, entered World War II after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Germany declared war on the U.S. in support of its ally.

The rumble of war was quickly closing on Shay. He was trained to be a machinist but could not get a job because he was expected to be drafted into the Army.

So before he knew what life was really about, Shay found himself in a hammock in the hold of the RMS Queen Elizabeth. He was sailing from New York to England, his final destination unknown.

“I never had a sense of fear because I didn’t know what I was getting in to,” Shay said.

In this June 6, 1944, file photo, U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, left, gives the order of the day to paratroopers in England prior to boarding their planes to participate in the first assault of the Normandy invasion. A dwindling number of D-Day veterans will be on hand in Normandy in June 2019, when international leaders gather to honor them on the invasion’s 75th anniversary. (U.S. Army Signal Corps via AP)

To ease pressure on his homeland, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had increasingly leaned on the United States and Britain to open a second front on Germany. In November 1943, he was promised as much for the upcoming spring. Soon, Shay found himself training for the biggest amphibious operation in history.

The Germans knew an invasion was coming but had no idea when or where, and the most likely options were 400 kilometers (250 miles) apart. Hitler prepared an Atlantic Wall of defenses.

England and Normandy’s notoriously fickle weather thwarted possible attacks as April passed into May and June. Then, finally, it was time for Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to distribute the orders that he had honed for months.

“The eyes of the world are upon you,” he told his men. “You will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny.” The death toll was sure to be enormous.

On the two American beachheads, the United States suffered 2,501 killed in action on June 6, 1944. In all, an estimated 4,414 men died on that single day, according to the latest figures.

“However, it was absolutely necessary,” said Scott Desjardins, the superintendent of the American cemetery off Omaha Beach.

‘NOT TOO WORRIED’ UNTIL THE RAMPS WENT DOWN

Few soldiers in the first wave fully realized the risks.

That night before D-Day, the men of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division, aka the Big Red One, had more immediate problems — sea sickness, finger-numbing cold and a dangerous descent into landing crafts using rope nets slung over the side of transports that were rolling in heavy seas.

“If you landed in the water between the boat and the troop transport ship, you were dead,” Shay remembered.

The roar of planes dropping paratroopers and the boom of bombs trying to blunt the German defenses told them the fateful hour was near.

Shay can still recount that day as if it just happened.

It started at dawn when a Navy man shouted, “I am dropping the ramp.” But they were nowhere near close enough to the beach.

“I wasn’t too worried about it — until the ramps went down,” Shay recalled.

He landed in water up to his chest. Many soldiers who were overloaded with equipment “sank immediately and a lot of men drowned,” he said.

Those who stayed afloat had to face withering German gunfire. Many of the men standing in front “were hit immediately and killed on the spot,” he said.

The Germans had built a barricade of metal tripods to stave off the landings. Shay moved from one tripod to another in the water. Once on dry land, he sought cover behind the “high portions” of the beach and started treating the wounded.

“While I was doing that, I happened to look back out to the water, to the ocean,” he said. There, he saw many wounded men who were lying on the beach as the tide began rising. Without help, they would drown.

“So I dropped what I was doing, and I returned to the water,” Shay said. Germans were still shooting at any American who moved under their protected Widerstandsnest 62, a bunker that still stands above Omaha Beach.

With bullets hitting the sand, he started pulling men — he doesn’t know how many — out of the water. Many of the soldiers were much bigger and heavier than he was.

“In such a situation, the adrenaline starts to flow,” Shay said. “It gives you strength that you did not know that you had.” He received the Silver Star for his bravery.

“I have always said that my mother’s prayers protected me,” he said, the medal sparkling in the afternoon sun.

‘SURROUNDED BY DEAD PEOPLE’

When the shooting on the beach slowed, he found fellow F Company medic Edward Morozewicz, who had “an open stomach.” Shay administered morphine and applied bandages. It was to no avail.

“I stayed with him until he died. I tried to converse with him a little bit. I tried to comfort him,” he said.

He left the bloodied beach late that afternoon, completely separated from his company, which had lost all officers and many non-commissioned officers.

Wandering around in a daze of fatigue, “I fell down in a field someplace and I went to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I saw that I was surrounded by dead people — American and German.”

From that moment on, the war moved inexorably in the Allies’ favor. D-Day was also the starting gun in a race with the Soviets to control as much territory as possible by the time Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945.

The competition between the Allies and the Soviets effectively set the stage for the Cold War lines that defined Europe for the next five decades and possibly right up to this day.

“This was democracy’s beachhead,” former President Barack Obama said in 2014. “And our victory in that war decided not just a century, but shaped the security and well-being of all posterity.”

Such words would have been lost on Shay as he advanced into Germany, living from day to day. He was briefly taken prisoner after crossing the Rhine, but was soon liberated by U.S. troops and heading home.

All these decades later, he is back at the same shores, walking across the immaculate lawns covered with white gravestones and pondering the sacrifice.

“Oh, yes. Definitely it was worth it,” he said. “It was a rogue regime that was trying to take over the world, and the people had to be stopped.”

Associated Press photographer Virginia Mayo and video journalist Mark Carlson contributed to this report.

Follow all the AP’s coverage of D-Day at https://apnews.com/WorldWarII

Nigeria Is Under Attack

Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie

BY ANTHONY CARDINAL OKOGIE

On a Monday in September 2015, former finance minister, Chief Olu Falae was on his farm in Ilado near Akure when some armed men came looking for him. At gunpoint, they abducted him and held him until the following Thursday. At the age of 77, he was made to walk several kilometres. He was made to sleep in the rain. According to his own account published in some national dailies, every half an hour, his armed abductors threatened: “Baba, we are going to kill you. If you don’t give us money we are going to kill you.”

By 2018, herdsmen were wreaking havoc in the states of the middle belt of Nigeria. Then, a retired Chief of Army Staff, a veteran of military intervention in Nigerian politics, General Theophilus Danjuma, warned that there was ethnic cleansing in the middle belt. Having lost confidence in the government’s willingness or ability to deal with the situation, General Danjuma called on the people of the middle belt to take responsibility for their own security. The reaction of aides to the President of the Federal Republic was to insult him and call him names he did not deserve to bear.

Recently, former President Obasanjo added his voice to those of Chief Falae, Gen. Danjuma and many others, voices warning us of heightened insecurity in our country. President Obasanjo spoke of “Fulanisation and Islamisation”. But in what has become a typical reaction from aides to President Buhari, President Obasanjo’s concerns were not addressed. What he received were gratuitous insults from President Buhari’s aides. Nonetheless, it is highly significant that one of President Obasanjo’s most virulent critiques, Professor Wole Soyinka, urged the federal government to address the issues he raised.

The issue is neither the character nor the political affiliation of those who are speaking. The issue is insecurity and the government’s inability or unwillingness to address the issue. Nigeria in her vastness is within the firm grips of kidnappers, armed robbers, herdsmen, bandits and insurgents.

Government officials tell us that Boko Haram has been “technically defeated”. But there is a wide abyss between government propaganda and the experience of the citizen. Despite government propaganda, Boko Haram, with frequent and convincing repetition, demonstrates that it has more firepower than the Nigerian military. Our highways are unsafe. A major highway like the Abuja-Kaduna Road has become a theatre of operation for kidnappers. The northwestern states of Zamfara and Katsina have become utterly unsafe. They have been taken over by armed bandits. Yet, all that presidential aides have to offer concerned Nigerians is insolence.

Shortly after Chief Falae’s abduction, Nigerians woke up to hear of clandestine and illegal importation of arms into Nigeria. There were reports that arrests were made. But Nigerians no longer hear of any judicial process to which these importers are being subjected. The matter appears to have died. Little wonder we now live in a Nigeria saturated with ammunition.

How on earth can we claim to be living in a democratic polity when presidential aides forget or ignore the fact that the President was put in office by the votes of the people? For if they knew the principles of democracy, they would not be disrespectful to Nigerians who happen to hold views divergent from those of government on how affairs of state are to be handled. One would have thought that, by now, four years since 2015, presidential aides would have grasped the difference between insolence and competence.

One does not need to hold any brief for former President Obasanjo to know that his concerns on this matter are genuine. One only needs to read carefully the text of his intervention. One need not be his friend or political ally to observe that there are one-sided actions on the part of the government in matters of security. Well-meaning Nigerians express concerns that herdsmen are treated with kid gloves and allowed to get away with murder while some other agitators are called terrorists, proscribed and gunned down. A “technically defeated” Boko Haram continue to hold Leah Sharibu in captivity while the federal government secured the release of her Muslim schoolmates and the release of Zainab Aliyu and Ibrahim Abubakar from death row in Saudi Arabia.

Obasanjo is pointing to an open secret, and that is: there is a synergy between Boko Haram, herdsmen and ISIS. This synergy, leading to a gradual implementation of the Islamisation agenda of ISIS, is what is being referred to as “Fulanisation and Islamisation”. It is about the imposition by ISIS of its own version of Islam. Whoever opposes it, be that person Christian or Muslim or Fulani, is eliminated.

The security situation in Nigeria has become worse than deplorable. Nigeria is being attacked. Is this how we all will be watching while our country becomes more inhabitable than it has ever been in her history? Is there leadership in this country? If so, what type of leadership do we have?

It is the responsibility of the president and his aides to address the situation in ways that are manifestly even-handed. There are fears that some people have taken over this country. We are held hostage on our land. This country is in the hands of invaders, bandits, herdsmen and kidnappers. Nigeria is under attack. Will the President and Commander in Chief show leadership?

Anthony Cardinal Okogie, Archbishop Emeritus of Lagos.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN NIGERIA

Wide Range Of Emotions On Impeachment Underscores Challenge

U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Cascade Township, top right, holds a town hall meeting at Grand Rapids Christian High School's DeVos Center for Arts and Worship on Tuesday, May 28, 2019. The congressman came under scrutiny May 18 when he posted a series of Tweets to outline his support for impeachment proceedings. As such, he is the only Republican congress member to do so. The following days brought an announcement from the wealthy DeVos family about no longer supporting him financially. (Cory Morse/The Grand Rapids Press via AP)

BY LISA MASCARO, MARC LEVY, ADRIAN SAINZ & AMY TAXIN

YORKTOWN, VA. (AP) — In suburban Philadelphia, it took a little more than eight minutes into the question-and-answer session at freshman Rep. Madeleine Dean’s town hall before someone asked about impeachment.

The topic was broached in Southern California as Rep. Katie Porter fielded other questions on health care, homelessness, border security and the minimum wage.

In military heavy Yorktown, along coastal Virginia, another newly elected Democrat, Rep. Elaine Luria, never got asked about it at all.

Since House Democrats swept to power last November, the seams of their big tent majority are being stretched over the difficult issues surrounding whether to start impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

For those lawmakers and others, the town hall sessions in their districts revealed how much or how little impeachment is on voters’ minds. Lawmakers were at home the same week that special counsel Robert Mueller delivered his first and potentially last public statement on the matter.

The differing opinions expressed to lawmakers offer a snapshot of the challenges facing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the many conversations to come.

“I actually wondered whether anybody would bring it up,” Dean told the crowd of about 150 in a Montgomery County Community College auditorium.

It was Wednesday, the night after Mueller’s rare public remarks. Dean drew applause and whistles and hoots of support as she laced into Trump, calling him “the most indecent president of our lifetime.”

Dean serves on the House Judiciary Committee, which is steeped in the impeachment debate, and she is among those calling for an impeachment inquiry. But the new congresswoman also acknowledged that in other conversations with voters around the district recently, they did not raise the subject.

The night before Mueller’s spoke at the Justice Department, Luria said she, too, was only asked about impeachment at one of her three stops Tuesday, during a visit with seniors at a retirement community.

The former Naval officer, who is also new to Congress, said it came up as more of a question, asking what she makes of it all.

“I talked about how I think Congress has an important duty, oversight, and we have a big responsibility to get to the bottom of the facts,” she recalled in an interview later that evening after the town hall in Yorktown.

Luria said she also brought the question back to the seniors for their advice. “I wasn’t alive when Watergate happened ... I understand it was very divisive as a country,” she recalled telling them, “and kind of asked them, ‘How do you feel about it?’”

The seniors nodded in agreement, she said, responding, “Yes, it’s something that would be very divisive.”

These are the considerations Pelosi is taking into account as she considers the House’s next moves. Despite increasingly vocal voices among her colleagues for the start of an impeachment inquiry, Pelosi has made it clear she’s in no rush to impeach. Such proceedings would start in the House before the case would shift to the Senate for a trial.

Pelosi prefers a more measured approach, saying she wants to have the country’s support, whatever the House’s ultimate decision.

Democrats last year won the majority in so many districts that had voted for Trump in 2016, basing their campaigns on promises of lowering health care costs, creating jobs with infrastructure investment and cleaning up the government. So Pelosi is wary of taking on an impeachment inquiry that would overpower that agenda.

Pelosi worries impeachment would split the country. She remembers how the proceedings against President Bill Clinton helped propel Democrats, and warns it could help Trump’s re-election in 2020.

But that might not be enough for some voters.

About 15 people waited at a library in Memphis to meet with Rep. Steve Cohen, a Democrat who was one of the earliest House proponents of impeachment

One constituent, Lloyd Brown, 62, told The Associated Press that he is watching the impeachment process closely.

“I do think that Congress should proceed with impeachment hearings, because I believe that will bring out some of the facts that haven’t become public yet,” Brown said.

Cohen, also a member of the House Judiciary Committee, discussed the possibility of impeachment, expressing his hope that Mueller will testify before the House. The congressman said that even if Trump is impeached, he does not think that the president will be convicted in the Republican-controlled Senate.

“But I do think he should have his day of reckoning,” Cohen said, adding later that Trump “makes Richard Nixon look honest.”

At a town hall in western Michigan on Tuesday, a woman told Rep. Justin Amash, the only Republican to accuse Trump of impeachable conduct, that she has been calling Pelosi’s office nearly every day because “we need to change her mind” about an impeachment inquiry.

Amash agreed it’s time to start an inquiry. But Amash, who has drawn criticism from his party, said Pelosi’s “sort of playing it both ways.”

On Thursday, about 100 people packed into a small room at a library in Tustin, California, as Porter spoke briefly then drew from random questions attendants had written down on cards.

They covered various topics including one about what should happen to those who refuse to appear for testimony before a congressional committee, leading Porter to briefly address the issue of impeachment.

The new congresswoman from what had been a Republican-held district told the crowd her goal is to do her job, not stoke a crisis. But she said the refusal to comply with the subpoenas was a turning point, in her view.

“You didn’t hear me ever talk about impeachment. It’s not why I went to Washington,” she said. “But I will not shirk my duty if the time comes, and the time is nigh.”

After the event, Barbara Colter, 66, said the last time she saw Porter speak the congresswoman didn’t seem to want to move in that direction. But her comments on Thursday made Colter think that’s changed. And she agrees.

“After yesterday, I think that we need to move in that direction,” Colter said.

Mascaro reported from Yorktown, Virginia, Levy from Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, Sainz from Memphis, Tennessee, and Taxin from Tustin, California. Associated Press writer David Eggert contributed from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

China Warns Canada Of 'Consequences' Of Helping US

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence wait for the Canadian Council for the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement meeting to begin on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Thursday, May 30, 2019. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING (AP) — China warned Canada that it needs to be aware of the consequences of aiding the U.S. in an extradition case involving Chinese tech giant Huawei that is believed to have sparked the detentions of two Canadians in China.

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang’s comments came after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

Both were arrested on Dec. 10 after Canada detained a Huawei executive wanted by the United States on fraud charges. While China has denied they were taken in retaliation, it has repeatedly implied that there is a strong connection between the cases.

Korvig, a former diplomat and Asia expert at the International Crisis Group, and Spavor, a businessman, have been accused of colluding to steal state secrets. Canada has repeatedly urged their immediate release, calling their detentions arbitrary. Neither has been permitted access to lawyers or family members.

“We hope that the Canadian side can have a clear understanding of the consequences of endangering itself for the gains of the U.S. and take immediate actions to correct its mistakes so as to spare itself the suffering from growing damage,” Geng said at a daily news briefing.

Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the company’s founder, is accused of lying to banks about the company’s dealings with Iran in violation of U.S. trade sanctions. Her attorney has argued that comments by U.S. President Donald Trump suggest the case against her is politically motivated.

Washington has pressured other countries to limit the use of Huawei’s technology, warning they could be opening themselves up to surveillance and theft of information.

China and the U.S. are currently embroiled in a trade dispute that is weighing heavily on global financial markets.

Another Canadian held in China, Robert Schellenberg, was re-sentenced to death in a drug case following Meng’s detention. His case is currently under appeal.

In their joint statement, Pence and Trudeau said: “The United States and Canada stand together to firmly reject the wrongful detention of two Canadian citizens, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and call for their immediate release. China’s actions are damaging its international reputation and a deep concern for all countries that uphold the rule of law.”

“Canada and the United States welcome constructive, results-oriented engagement with China that concretely demonstrates respect for the rule of law, human rights, and fair and reciprocal trade,” the statement said.

Some Of The Most Recent Deadly US Mass Shootings

Police work the scene where eleven people were killed during a mass shooting at the Virginia Beach city public works building, Friday, May 31, 2019 in Virginia Beach, Va. A longtime, disgruntled city employee opened fire at a municipal building in Virginia Beach on Friday, killing 11 people before police fatally shot him, authorities said. Six other people were wounded in the shooting, including a police officer whose bulletproof vest saved his life, said Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera. (L. Todd Spencer/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A longtime city worker opened fire Friday in a building that houses Virginia Beach government offices, killing 12 people and wounding six others.

A list of some of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States in the last two years:

— Feb. 15, 2019: Gary Martin killed five co-workers at a manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois, during a disciplinary meeting where he was fired. He wounded one other employee and five of the first police officers to arrive at the suburban Chicago plant before he was killed during a shootout police.

— Nov. 7, 2018: Ian David Long killed 12 people at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, California, before taking his own life. Long was a Marine combat veteran of the war in Afghanistan.

— Oct. 27, 2018: Robert Bowers is accused of opening fire at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during Shabbat morning services, killing 11 and injuring others. It’s the deadliest attack on Jews in the U.S. in history.

— June 28, 2018: Jarrod Ramos shot through the windows of the Capital Gazette offices in Annapolis, Maryland, before turning the weapon on employees there, killing five at The Capital newspaper. Authorities say Ramos had sent threatening letters to the newspaper prior to the attack.

— May 18, 2018: Dimitrios Pagourtzis began shooting during an art class at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas. The 17-year-old killed eight students and two teachers and 13 others were wounded. Explosive were found at the school and off campus.

— Feb. 14, 2018: Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It surpassed Columbine High School as the deadliest shooting at a high school in U.S. history.

— Nov. 5, 2017: Devin Patrick Kelley, who had been discharged from the Air Force after a conviction for domestic violence, used an AR-style firearm to shoot up a congregation at a small church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing more than two dozen.

— Oct. 1, 2017: Stephen Paddock opened fire on an outdoor music festival on the Las Vegas Strip from the 32nd floor of a hotel-casino, killing 58 people and wounding more than 500. SWAT teams with explosives then stormed his room and found he had killed himself.

Poll: Majority Oppose Trump Impeachment, But Most Democrats Support It

President Donald Trump. Getty Images

BY JONATHAN EASLEY

THE HILL

A majority of voters oppose impeaching and removing President Trump but a strong majority of Democrats are in favor of doing so, according to the latest Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey.

The survey found that a plurality of voters, 43 percent, favor no action against the president, including 44 percent of independents.

Thirty-seven percent support impeaching and removing the president. Sixty percent of Democrats say the president should be impeached and removed, but only 36 percent of independents are in favor. Twenty percent of voters say Trump should be censured by Congress.

The new poll, which was conducted after special counsel Robert Mueller's statement on Wednesday, has several other warning signs for Democrats agitating to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump.

Sixty-eight percent of voters said Democrats in Congress should accept Mueller's finding that there was no criminal conspiracy and 65 percent said Democrats should accept Attorney General William Barr's conclusion that the president did not obstruct justice.

Sixty-three percent of voters said the investigations into Trump are hurting the country. Fifty-eight percent of voters said it's time for Congress to turn the page on the Russia investigations.

That could be a tough sell for the Democratic base, as a plurality of Democrats, 25 percent, said impeaching Trump should be the top priority for the Democratic majority in the House, followed by 18 percent who said the party should focus on shoring up ObamaCare and 14 percent who said Democrats should prioritize stimulating the economy.

"The public is growing unusually weary of investigations into President Trump and any effort to mount significant new investigations carries a significant risk of blowback for the Democrats," said Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey.

Mueller reignited the impeachment debate this week with his surprise appearance at the Justice Department, where he said charging Trump with a crime was "not an option" and seemed to push the matter to Congress.

But Mueller, who did not come to a conclusion in his report about whether the president had committed a crime by seeking to obstruct justice, refused to exonerate the president on the obstruction front..

"If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so," Mueller said.

Trump lashed out at Mueller and House Democrats, calling the special counsel "highly conflicted" and describing impeachment as "a dirty, filthy, disgusting word."

On the question of collusion, 47 percent in the poll agreed that Mueller did not find evidence of a criminal conspiracy, compared to 35 percent who said he did find evidence of wrongdoing.

But the public is split on the question of obstruction, with 42 percent saying Mueller found evidence and 41 percent saying he didn't.

Meanwhile, Barr continues to face blowback for his claim that the FBI and CIA "spied" on the Trump campaign. Critics say that's a loaded term and that there was sufficient justification for intelligence agencies to use undercover operatives and other surveillance methods to track some Trump campaign officials.

The public is split 50-50 on the question of whether there was "spying," but 52 percent said the surveillance was fair and legal.

Fifty-three percent of voters said bias played a role in the FBI opening an investigation into Trump and 52 percent said the investigation was an effort to undermine the president.

"America is split on whether their was 'spying' on the Trump campaign but a slight majority says the investigation of Trump was an effort to undermine of block him," said Penn.

The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll online survey of 1,295 registered voters was conducted from May 29 to May 30.

The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll is a collaboration of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll. The Hill will be working with Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll throughout 2019.

Full poll results will be posted online later this week. The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey is an online sample drawn from the Harris Panel and weighted to reflect known demographics. As a representative online sample, it does not report a probability confidence interval.

Companies Report Progress On Blood Tests To Detect Cancer

In this Tuesday, April 28, 2015 file photo, a patient has her blood drawn at a hospital in Philadelphia to monitor her cancer treatment. Companies are trying to develop blood tests that can look for signs of many types of cancer at once. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma, File)

BY MARILYNN MARCHIONNE

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A California company says its experimental blood test was able to detect many types of cancer at an early stage and gave very few false alarms in a study that included people with and without the disease.

Grail Inc. gave results in a news release on Friday and will report them Saturday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago. They have not been published in a journal or reviewed by other scientists.

Many companies are trying to develop early detection “liquid biopsy” tests that capture bits of DNA that cancer cells shed into blood.

On Thursday, Johns Hopkins University scientists launched a company called Thrive Earlier Detection Corp. to develop its CancerSEEK test, which yielded results similar to Grail’s more than a year ago.

Grail is closely watched because of the extraordinary investment it’s attracted — more than $1 billion from Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and other celebrities.

The new results included 2,300 people, 60% with cancer and 40% not known to have it. The test detected 55% of known cancers and gave false alarms for 1%. The detection rate was better — 76% — for a dozen cancers that collectively account for nearly two thirds of cancer deaths in the U.S., including lung, pancreatic, esophageal and ovarian.

The test found only about a third of cancers at the very earliest stage but as many as 84% that had started to spread but not widely.

It also suggested where the cancer may be in 94% of cases and was right about that 90% of the time.

That’s the most encouraging part because you don’t want to tell people they may have cancer and then need to do a lot of other tests to figure out where, said Dr. Richard Schilsky, chief medical officer of the oncology society.

“They still have a long way to go” to prove the test’s worth as a screening tool, but these results are encouraging, he said.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, interim chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, called the low rate of false alarms “remarkable.”

“I have little doubt that in the next several years we’re going to have what is probably a true early detection test” but the technology still needs to improve and to be tried in large groups of people without known cancers where the detection rate may not be as good, he said.

The biggest question, he said, is “will it make a difference in outcomes” such as whether it helps people live longer, the ultimate measure of a screening test’s worth.

Grail’s test has not been compared to mammography, colonoscopy or other screening tools and is not intended to replace them, said the company’s chief scientific officer, Dr. Alex Aravanis. Many deadly cancers that the Grail test detected have no screening tests now, he noted.

It’s not clear what evidence the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would require to consider for approval. Sometimes tests can be sold through looser lab accreditation pathways rather than by seeking FDA approval.

Grail and Thrive already have larger studies underway.

“We’re not going to diagnose every cancer,” but may not need to because so many are not found now until it’s too late for effective treatment, said Dr. Minetta Liu, a Mayo Clinic cancer specialist who is presenting Grail’s results at the cancer conference.

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at @MMarchioneAP

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Mexico Pushes Dialogue On Trump Tariff Threats

A sign displays exchange rates on a storefront window in Mexico City, Mexico, Friday, May 31, 2019, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to impose a 5% tariff — that could increase incrementally to 25% — on all Mexican imports. The economic impact for Mexico was swift. The peso dropped more than 3% against the U.S. dollar by Friday morning. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)

BY CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN; PETER ORSI

MEXICO CITY (AP) — President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Friday that Mexico won’t panic over U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of coercive tariffs — measures that economists say could have dramatic consequences for both nations and potentially spur a full-blown trade war.

Trump set a June 10 deadline for Mexico to do more to slow immigration through its territory or else all of its exports — from avacados and automobiles to machinery and household appliances — stand to be hit with 5% duties. And he threatened to possibly increase the tariffs incrementally, up to 25% in the subsequent months.

Tomato exporters in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, avocado growers in Michoacan and electronics factories in Tamaulipas, across the border from Texas, would all feel the pinch. So would U.S. companies and American consumers, to whom they would pass on the increased cost of doing business.

The threat also throws into question the future of the USMCA trade deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, hammered out in months of contentious negotiations as a replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement, one of the Trump administration’s most touted achievements.

“It would really have a terrible impact on our producers and our exporters,” said Kenneth Smith Ramos, who led then-President Enrique Peña Nieto’s delegation to USMCA talks and is now an international trade consultant at Mexico City-based AGON.

“And it would hurt U.S. producers as well because they rely a lot on Mexican inputs for their production,” he added. “So it would reduce their competitiveness and force them to raise prices, which would ultimately of course hit consumers.”

The economic impact for Mexico was swift, with the peso dropping more than 3% against the U.S. dollar Friday morning. U.S. stocks likewise tumbled on Wall Street.

Initial macroeconomic projections from economists were are also chilling.

Analyst Alfredo Coutiño of Moody’s Analytics said Mexican exports to the U.S. totaled $358 billion last year, or 80% of all goods the country sold overseas. Over the course of a year, he said, a 5% tariff would represent about $18 billion in damage or 1.5% of Mexico’s GDP, while a 25% tariff would amount to $90 billion or 7.3% of GDP.

Banco Base estimated that a 5% tariff could knock 2.85 percentage points off growth of Mexico’s exports, but said a weaker peso would help compensate.

Such tariffs would “likely push Mexico into a recession,” as well as disrupt regional supply chains and hurt investor confidence, Oxford Economics economist Gregory Daco wrote in a report.

Coutiño said Mexico could impose retaliatory penalties, sparking a tariff war.

A second, “less aggressive but potentially more effective” option would be to allow the peso to depreciate to the point where the tariffs would be neutralized, he added.

López Obrador was betting on dialogue, seemingly convinced that Trump just needed to be informed of all that Mexico has been doing to slow illegal migration. To that end, he sent Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard to Washington.

“We are carrying out our responsibility in immigration policy,” López Obrador said, while making no promises of new action to stem the flow of mostly Central American immigrants transiting Mexico to reach the U.S. border.

Mexico already has implemented policies and actions that seem aimed to discourage irregular migration and make it more difficult.

Last month, it raided the latest migrant caravan in the southern state of Chiapas, arresting hundreds and effectively breaking it up. There have been no significant caravans since then, with many migrants saying they now fear to travel in large groups.

Mexico also has deported thousands of migrants and frustrated thousands more who wait endlessly for permits that would allow them to travel legally through Mexico.

“We have to help so that they don’t enter the United States illegally, but we also have to do it respecting human rights,” said López Obrador, who espouses a longer-term, holistic approach focused on improving security, development and economic opportunity in places where migrants originate. “Nothing authoritarian. They’re human beings.”

López Obrador has lobbied the U.S. and other countries to support a Marshall Plan-like program for southern Mexico and the Northern Triangle region of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

But his medium- and long-term immigration solutions appear to be colliding with the political benefits for Trump of rallying his conservative base during an election cycle.

Trump resumed his Twitter complaints about the United States’ southern neighbor, saying that “Mexico has taken advantage of the United States for decades. Because of the Dems, our Immigration Laws are BAD. Mexico makes a FORTUNE from the U.S., have for decades, they can easily fix this problem. Time for them to finally do what must be done.”

Mexico can continue to make it more difficult for migrants to cross the country to the U.S. border, although the smugglers who have long plied those routes would likely benefit by being able to charge more. Mexico sealing its porous southern border with Guatemala is probably impossible because it lacks sufficient infrastructure to completely patrol a frontier that includes a river passing through dense jungle.

Trump’s threat came the same day Mexico announced it would begin the process of ratifying the USMCA and less than two weeks after it successfully negotiated the lifting of U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs that had been a roadblock to final approval for the trade deal.

Asked why Mexico would not just skip dialogue and file a complaint with an international trade body, López Obrador said it was not just a legal question: “We want to have a good relationship with the United States government.”

Smith Ramos, the former Mexican trade negotiator, argued there’s “no legal justification that the U.S. can use whatsoever to justify an increase in tariffs,” adding that “it’s likely that Mexico would have the same response in terms of immediate retaliation as we did in the administration previously on steel and aluminum.”

He called it a potential setback for the USMCA, while cautioning that it remains to be seen whether the threatened tariffs will end up going into effect or in what fashion.

“You saw yesterday the good news of the process of ratification sort of kicking off in Mexico, and then by the evening, it was all back to square one and even negative,” Smith Ramos said. “I mean it was just crazy.”

‘Joy’ Review: In Austria, A Nigerian Woman Finds A Life Without Hope

BY BEN KENINGSBERG

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Although Netflix has a reputation as an escapist clearinghouse, the streaming service isn’t averse to the occasional tough sit. The Austrian film “Joy” — the title refers both to the main character’s name and the precise opposite of the film’s mood — follows a Nigerian woman (JoyAnwulika Alphonsus) who is trafficked illegally to Austria, where she works as a prostitute and sends money home.

The film opens with a girl participating in a ceremony with a Juju priest who, we later learn, is essentially ensnaring her — making her think that disobedience in Europe will bring bad luck. In the first of several intelligently uninflected leaps in time or geography, the director, Sudabeh Mortezai, jumps from this scene in Nigeria to a title card and then to Austria. By now, Joy, who has undergone such a ritual, is an experienced streetwalker overseeing a newcomer, Precious (Precious Mariam Sanusi).

The cycle is difficult to break: Joy and Precious’s madam (Angela Ekeleme Pius), who collects their debts over a period of years, pits her stable of women against one another (if Joy loses Precious while watching her, Joy assumes Precious’s financial obligations). And because testifying carries no guarantee of a visa, Joy has little incentive to blow the whistle in court.

In such dire circumstances — Joy and Precious are each sexually assaulted during the film — is there room for kindness? Mortezai, who is said to have based her film on extensive research into and collaboration with women who knew this world, poses that question but, to her credit, doesn’t settle on an answer. The sisterhood among the madam’s prostitutes easily devolves into betrayal or indifference. Matching content with form, the movie is tight and merciless, even if parts play like a tract.

Joy

Rated TV-MA. In English and German, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes.

Joy
DirectorSudabeh Mortezai
WriterSudabeh Mortezai
StarsAnwulika Alphonsus, Mariam Sanusi, Angela Ekeleme
Running Time1h 39m
GenreDrama

Image: Joy Anwulika Alphonsus, left, in “Joy,” directed by Sudabeh Mortezai.CreditCreditNetflix

17 Years Later, Angola's Jonas Savimbi Gets Public Funeral

LUANDA, ANGOLA (IOL) --  - In what is being billed as a rare moment of national unity, the historic leader of Angola's rebel UNITA movement, Jonas Savimbi, will get a public funeral on Saturday, 17 years after he was killed in a shootout with government soldiers that spelt an end to a long civil war.

"For 17 years, we have waited," said Isaias Samakuva, today's leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which has been transformed from a US-backed armed force into the main opposition political party.

UNITA's official spokesman Alcides Sakala Simoes declared the funeral would be "an important moment... in the building of national reconciliation".

The former Portuguese colony became a Cold War battleground after independence in 1975, once the Marxist-Leninist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) seized control.

The United States lined up behind Savimbi's UNITA and the Soviet Union and its allies backed the MPLA. Cuba deployed a large military force to counter troops from South Africa and Zaire.

At least half a million people died in the conflict for the vast, oil-rich southern African nation, which played out over more than a quarter of a century.

Early in 2002, a contingent of soldiers pursued the 67-year-old Savimbi across the vast province of Moxico in central eastern Angola.

On February 22, his pursuers caught up with him. He fought back but, riddled with more than a dozen bullets, soon died.

His body was rushed to the provincial capital Luena and buried in the main cemetery, with a cross of iron on the mound of red soil and the name "SAVIMBI Jonas" etched into the trunk of an acacia tree.

Many Angolans were reluctant to believe that the charismatic and controversial "Black Cockerel" was truly dead after many fake reports, but televised photos were compelling.

Rival sides swiftly moved towards a ceasefire in a conflict that had lasted 27 years.

This year, after long talks, the government agreed with UNITA and the Savimbi family to hold a funeral this Saturday in the village of Lopitanga, central Angola, where Savimbi's father is buried.

DNA tests confirmed the identity of the remains, dispelling rumours that the body had been swapped or destroyed.

The deal was unlocked after President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Savimbi's sworn enemy, stepped down in 2017 and was replaced by his defence minister, Joao Lourenco - a succession that led to a mood of change.

Alleluia Savimbi, one of Savimbi's 30 children, notably saluted Lourenco's "political gesture" in allowing the funeral to go ahead.

"This is a further step towards reconciliation and was overdue," Alex Vines of the London-based think tank Chatham House told AFP.

"For all his faults, Jonas Savimbi was supported by a significant part of the Angolan population and his party UNITA is still a significant political force in Angola today.

"Seventeen years on - it was time further to heal the scars of past conflict and under a new head of state, Joao Lourenco, allowing this to happen is easier."

But the harmony has been ruffled by confusion over the handover of his remains to the family, which was scheduled for Tuesday.

The government said the family and UNITA delegation did not show up as arranged in Luena. But the family delegation was waiting in Kuito, around 400 kilometres, where they said the handover had been set.

UNITA accused the government of "trying to humiliate" it while the government hit back, warning UNITA against making "political use of the situation".

The dispute reflects how Savimbi, the son of a preacher, remains a contested figure all these years later.

Typically dressed in a green combat uniform, with a walking stick in his hand and a revolver on his hip, he led an army of more than 30,000 troops.

Backed for many years by apartheid South Africa, his force were accused of atrocities and he himself was described as having carried out summary executions and the public burning of women who had refused his sexual advances.

"This was a very intelligent, very charismatic man," said Fred Bridgland, a former British journalist who met Savimbi and wrote a biography of him.

"He had a paranoid murder instinct quite early on, on a small scale. But as time went on, and he murdered one person after another, he had to start murdering on a huge scale.

"Many of the leaders of UNITA in Luanda regard him as a hero, but there are equally as many people who lost their relatives who hate the man. There will be a lot of very very angry people."

SOURCE: IOL