Burkina Faso forces killed at least 100 civilians in a March attack, Human Rights Watch says
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — At least 100 civilians were killed by Burkina Faso government forces in March near the western town of Solenzo, Human Rights Watch said Monday.
According to victim testimony and videos shared on social media gathered by the rights group, the attackers were Burkina Faso special forces and members of a pro-government militia, the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland. The victims were all ethnic Fulani, a pastoralist community that is widespread across the region, which the government has long accused of supporting Muslim militants.
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Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
A truck driver is convicted in the fatal shooting of an Amish woman in her Pennsylvania home
MEADVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A jury convicted a 53-year-old truck driver Thursday of shooting to death a pregnant Amish woman inside her rural Pennsylvania home early last year. Shawn Christopher Cranston was charged a few weeks after Rebekah Byler, 23, was found dead in the living room of her rural Spartansburg home. Cranston was convicted in Crawford County of first-degree murder, second-degree murder of an unborn child and related offenses. He is scheduled for sentencing in late July. 'It is hard to fathom conduct more heinous than brutally killing a young expectant mother and her unborn child in her home,' Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said in an emailed release. 'Our homes are supposed to be our safe haven — this defendant violated the sanctity of home to commit these truly evil acts.' A message seeking comment was left for Cranston's lawyer, Louis W. Emmi. Police have said Byler's children, a 2-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy, were in the home when their mother suffered sharp wounds to her neck and was shot in the head. The boy told investigators a man wearing sneakers had killed his mother. The children were not physically harmed. Members of the area's substantial Amish community attended the trial this week. Investigators have said they began to focus on Cranston within a day of the killing and took several items during a search of his home in Corry, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from Spartansburg. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. Byler's husband, Andy Byler, said during an earlier court proceeding that the children told him about the crime when he returned home from looking at possible roofing jobs. She had been doing laundry when he left earlier that day. 'I didn't really believe it,' Andy Byler testified last year. 'I walked in and saw her cap laying inside the door.'
Toronto Sun
an hour ago
- Toronto Sun
Prosecutors say Republican South Carolina lawmaker used 'joebidennnn69' to send child sex material
Published Jun 12, 2025 • 3 minute read South Carolina Rep. RJ May, R-West Columbia, speaks in favor of an education voucher bill on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, in Columbia, S.C. Photo by Jeffrey Collins, File / AP Photo COLUMBIA, S.C. — A Republican member of the South Carolina House who prosecutors say used the screen name 'joebidennnn69' has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of distributing sexual abuse material involving children. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account RJ May was arrested at his Lexington County home after a lengthy investigation and was ordered Thursday by a federal judge to remain jailed until his trial. The three-term Republican is accused of using 'joebidennnn69' to exchange 220 different files of toddlers and young children involved in sex acts on the Kik social media network for about five days in spring 2024, according to court documents that graphically detailed the videos. Each charge carries a five-to-20 year prison sentence upon conviction and prosecutors suggested May could spend over a decade in prison if found guilty. The files were uploaded and downloaded using May's home Wi-Fi network and his cellphone, prosecutors said. Some were hidden by the use of a private network but others were directly linked to his internet addresses. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. May says someone else could have used his Wi-Fi At his arraignment, May's lawyer suggested someone could have used the Wi-Fi password that was shown on a board behind a photo May's wife may have posted online. Attorney Dayne Phillips also suggested investigators didn't link each Kik message directly to May. Prosecutors asked that May not be given bail because he lives at home with his wife and young children, and some of the files he is accused of sharing feature children of about the same age as his. May investigated for paid sex in Colombia Prosecutors said they also investigated whether May used a fake name to travel to Colombia three times after finding videos on his laptop of him allegedly having sex with three women. An agent from the Department of Homeland Security testified the women appeared to be underage and were paid. U.S. agents have not been able to locate the women. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Prosecutors said May created a Facebook account with his fake name and his internet history showed him switching between his real account and the fake one and even searching his primary opponent from the fake login. Phillips, May's lawyer, told the courtroom that no sexual images of toddlers or young children were found directly on his laptop or cellphone. After spending the night at the Lexington County jail. May appeared in court Thursday in shorts and a T-shirt with his wrists and ankles in cuffs. After being ordered to stay in jail, he appeared to blow a kiss at his wife, who was at the hearing. May's political rise to the state House After May's election in 2020, he helped create the Freedom Caucus, a group of the House's most conservative members who say mainstream House Republicans aren't the true conservative heart of the GOP. He also helped the campaigns of Republicans running against GOP House incumbents. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'We as legislators have an obligation to insure that our children have no harm done to them,' May said in January 2024 on the House floor during a debate on transgender care for minors. His son charmed the House in April 2021 when May brought him to visit for his third birthday and the boy practiced his parade wave around the chamber. The Freedom Caucus released a statement Wednesday night saying they kicked May out of their group after his arrest. May spent a quiet 2025 House session Many of his onetime friends have distanced themselves from May as rumours of the investigation spread through the Statehouse. During the current session he could largely be seen at his corner desk in the back of the 124-seat chamber, mixing with very few colleagues. The House Speaker suspended May from his seat after the indictment. May's lawyer suggested he could have been framed and asked the Homeland Security agent if she knew that May had a lot of political enemies. 'There are a fair amount of people who don't like me either, Mr. Phillips,' agent Britton Lorenen replied. World Toronto Blue Jays World Toronto & GTA Celebrity
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
House passes bill to to combat fentanyl trafficking, sending it to Trump's desk
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation Thursday that would solidify federal policies cracking down on the synthetic opioid fentanyl and its analogs in a bid by lawmakers to combat the nation's opioid epidemic. The HALT Fentanyl Act makes permanent a 2018 emergency rule that classifies knockoffs of fentanyl as Schedule I controlled substances, which results in harsher sentences for possession of the drug. The bill passed the House 321-104 and now heads to President Donald Trump for his signature. The legislation, which applies to what are known as known as 'fentanyl-related substances,' garnered support from nearly every Republican and many Democrats despite concerns that the bill does not address the root issues at hand and will add to problems in the criminal justice system. Senate Majority Leader John Thune hailed passage of the bill and promised more legislative action to come. 'I don't need to tell anybody about the horrible impact of drug overdoses in this country, many of them caused by fentanyl,' Thune said on the Senate floor. 'In the coming weeks, we'll be taking up legislation to address another aspect of the fight: securing our borders,' a nod to Republicans' tax package, which includes billions of dollars in additional immigration enforcement and border security funding. Proponents of the legislation argue that the bill will make it easier to stop drug traffickers by making the federal emergency rules permanent. Opponents say the framework does little to stem the epidemic and warn it will make it harder to conduct important research. Congress has regularly renewed the emergency rules since 2018, meaning there is no immediate change to federal policy. The bill does not include increased funding for law enforcement to conduct anti-drug trafficking efforts, nor funding for public health efforts meant to reduce fentanyl addiction and deaths. The bill's supporters say that the reclassification will give anti-trafficking efforts clearer standards to operate under as law enforcement combats the trade. Federal, state and local law enforcement have sought to break up the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. by targeting Mexican drug cartels and local gangs. The Trump administration has declared stemming the flow of fentanyl precursors from China a priority in trade talks with Beijing, an effort that follows a spate of initiatives by the Biden administration to reduce the importation of such substances into the U.S. from China and other illegal supply chains. 'A loophole that the cartels have tried to use to drive their illicit fentanyl into our country is by changing one part of the fentanyl chemical structure to create fentanyl analogs,' said GOP Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith, one of the bill's co-sponsors, during Wednesday's debate on the House floor. 'The cartels did this in an attempt to evade our criminal laws,' said Griffith, who argued that the bill would help prevent further fentanyl deaths and increase the potential for research into the drug and related substances. And lawmakers appealed to the human cost of fentanyl smuggling. 'We must give our law enforcement the tools to combat this problem. This bill does exactly that,' said GOP California Rep. Jay Obernolte, a co-sponsor of the bill. Obernolte recounted the stories of families impacted by fentanyl overdoses in his district and noted that more than 100,000 Americans died of an overdose last year, mostly from fentanyl. The bill 'gives our law enforcement agencies the tools that they need to begin dealing with this problem,' Obernolte said. Democratic New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone said during debate that he opposed the bill because it uniformly criminalizes fentanyl related substances. Pallone said it will impede potential research into their benefits rather than provide an 'offramp to substances found to have potential medical applications.' Pallone also chided Republicans for saying they aimed to tackle the opioid epidemic while supporting the Trump administration's cuts to federal agencies tasked with research and public health policy. 'This Republican bill would also exacerbate inequities in our criminal justice system because drugs placed on Schedule I include mandatory minimum sentencing,' Pallone said. 'The bill is essentially recycling an incarceration first response to what I consider mainly a public health challenge.' Schedule I drugs are substances considered by the Drug Enforcement Agency to have 'no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.' Possession of a Schedule I drug is considered a felony and can be prosecuted as drug smuggling. Drugs currently classified as Schedule I include heroin, marijuana and methaqualone. Fentanyl itself is classified as a Schedule II drug, which the DEA designates as having 'a high potential for abuse.' Schedule II substances include cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone and Adderall.
