On This Day, March 28: Sumatra quake kills hundreds
In 1881, P.T. Barnum and James A. Bailey merged their circuses to form The Greatest Show on Earth. The circus later merged with the Ringling Bros. to form Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which closed for five years beginning in 2017.
In 1939, Madrid surrendered to the nationalist forces of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
In 1968, the counterculture musical Hair opened on Broadway.
In 1969, Dwight D. Eisenhower, World War II hero and 34th president of the United States, died in Washington at age 78.
In 1979, a failure in the cooling system at the nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania caused a near meltdown. It was the worst accident at a U.S. civilian nuclear facility.
In 1984, Bob Irsay moved the Baltimore Colts NFL team to Indianapolis without any announcement. Less than a month later, two longtime fans of the team sued the owner for severe emotional distress.
In 1991, just days before the 10th anniversary of an attempt on his life, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan endorsed a seven-day waiting period for handgun purchases, reversing his earlier opposition.
In 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin survived an impeachment vote by the Congress of People's Deputies.
In 1996, the U.S. Congress approved the presidential line-item veto.
In 2005, an 8.6-magnitude earthquake jolted the western coast of Sumatra, killing about 1,000 people and destroying hundreds of buildings.
In 2006, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, with ties to several members of Congress, was sentenced to six years in prison after a conviction on fraud charges. He was released from prison in 2010.
In 2009, the space shuttle Discovery landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a 13-day mission to the International Space Station during which the ISS was brought up to full power with the installation of its fourth set of solar wings.
In 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama visited Afghanistan for the first time since taking office, an unannounced trip to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and address U.S. troops.
In 2018, 68 people died after a fire broke out during a riot at a police station in Valencia, Venezuela. Prisoners there set fire to a mattress in an attempt to escape.
In 2024, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison after he was found guilty on fraud charges related to the downfall of the failed cryptocurrency exchange.
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San Francisco Chronicle
20 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Concerns grow for 3 OSCE workers jailed since shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine
VIENNA (AP) — It was late at night when they came for Dmytro Shabanov, a security assistant in eastern Ukraine at the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. His seizure from his home in the Luhansk region in April 2022 — weeks after Moscow's full-scale invasion — was part of a coordinated operation by pro-Russian forces who detained him and two other Ukrainian OSCE workers. Maksym Petrov, an interpreter, also was seized in the Luhansk region, while Vadym Golda, another security assistant, was detained in neighboring Donetsk. More than three years later, the three Ukrainian civilians who had worked with the international group's ceasefire monitoring efforts in the eastern regions remain behind bars. They have not been part of recent large-scale prisoner exchanges with Russia. Their detention has raised alarm among OSCE officials, Western nations and human rights advocates, who demand their immediate release while expressing concern about their health and prison conditions amid allegations of torture. The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian mission to the OSCE did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on those allegations or on OSCE personnel having immunity from prosecution as international civil servants. Rapidly unfolding events in 2022 'He was taken from his home after the curfew took effect,' said Margaryta Shabanova, Shabanov's wife, who lives in Kyiv. 'I had a last call with him around 20 minutes before it happened.' After his arrest, Shabanov disappeared for three months, held incommunicado by Russian separatists and interrogated in a Luhansk prison until he was forced to sign a confession. That fateful night turned Shabanova's life upside down. 'Every morning, I wake up hoping that today will be different -- that today I will hear that my Dima is free,' she said. 'Painfully, days stretch on, and nothing changes. The waiting, the not knowing, the endless hope slowly turning into quiet despair.' Fighting back tears, Shabanova describes life without her husband. 'The silence at the dinner table, the birthdays and holidays have been missed for over three years. People say to me that I am strong, but they don't see the moments I collapse behind closed doors,' she said. The Vienna-based OSCE monitors ceasefires, observes elections, and promotes democracy and arms control, and Shabanov 'really liked his job' at the international organization, said his wife, especially working with the foreign staff. She said her husband believed that 'international service could protect lives and make the world a little more just.' The OSCE had operated a ceasefire monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists had been fighting Ukrainian government troops since 2014, with about 14,000 killed even before the full-scale invasion. The monitors watched for truce violations, facilitated dialogue and brokered local halts in fighting to enable repairs to critical civilian infrastructure. But on March 31, 2022, Russia blocked the extension of the OSCE mission, and separatist leaders declared it illegal the following month. It remains unclear whether the three detained OSCE staffers had tried to flee eastern Ukraine. Locally recruited Ukrainians like Shabanov, Petrov and Golda worked in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions to help shut down the OSCE mission. They cleared offices, safeguarded OSCE assets, including armored vehicles, drones and cameras, and oversaw evacuations of their international colleagues. That operation was completed by October 2022. Convictions and prison sentences The three men were arrested despite carrying documents confirming their immunity, the OSCE said. Shabanov and Petrov were convicted of treason by a Russian-controlled court in Luhansk in September 2022 and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Golda, 57, was convicted of espionage by a court in Donetsk, also under Moscow's control, in July 2024 and sentenced to 14 years. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in November 2022 it believed the activities of the OSCE monitors 'were often not only biased but also illegal.' Without identifying the three Ukrainian OSCE staff by name, the ministry alleged that local residents were recruited by the West to collect information for the Ukrainian military and 'several' were detained. The OSCE condemned the sentences and called for the immediate release of the three men, asserting they were performing their official duties as mandated by all of its 57 member states, including Russia. Seven months after the invasion, Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, despite not fully controlling them. On March 27, 2025, Russia transferred Shabanov from a detention facility in the Luhansk region to a high-security penal colony in Russia's Omsk region in Siberia, according to Ievgeniia Kapalkina, a lawyer with the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group who represents the Shabanov and Petrov families. Petrov remains at risk of being moved to Russia, she said. Penal colonies in Siberia are known for harsh conditions, where 'prisoners often lose all contact with the outside world, effectively 'disappearing' within Russia's penal system,' the legal group said in March. "Given their existing health issues, the lack of proper medical care in remote regions could prove fatal,' it added. Allegations of beatings, psychological pressure Ukrainian human rights activist Maksym Butkevych, who was in the same Luhansk penal colony with Shabanov and Petrov from March 2024 until being released in October 2024, said both men were tortured during interrogation. Shabanov was 'beaten several times during the interrogations until he lost consciousness and was subjected to extreme psychological pressure,' he said. Butkevych said Shabanov, 38, has problems with his back and legs. "He had to lie down at least for couple of hours every day due to pain,' he added. Petrov, 45, has 'a lot of health issues,' Butkevych said, including allergies worsened by his captivity, "specifically the interrogation period.' Kapalkina said both men were 'subjected to repeated unlawful interrogations during which they suffered severe physical and physiological abuse' and eventually 'signed confessions under coercion.' The allegations of torture could not be independently verified by the AP. Bargaining chips for Russia? Butkevych suggested the three imprisoned OSCE workers, who are not prisoners of war, are likely 'bargaining chips' for Moscow, to be 'exchanged for someone or something significantly important for Russia.' Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, the current chairperson of the OSCE, said in a statement to AP that imprisoning civilian officials of an international organization "is completely unacceptable." "Securing their release is a top priority for the Finnish OSCE Chairpersonship,' she said. OSCE Secretary General Feridun H. Sinirlioğlu is 'very closely and personally engaged on this matter,' a spokesperson said, noting he traveled to Moscow in March and raised the issue with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Yurii Vitrenko, Ukraine's ambassador to International Organizations in Vienna, called for the unconditional release of the three, saying they should 'never have been illegally detained' by Russia, should 'never have been put on a fake trial,' and should 'never have been handed illegal sentences." Vitrenko suggested that other states with more influence with Russia should exert more pressure to help secure their release. He did not identify those countries. Shabanova said she regularly asks 'those who have the power' to take action. 'Do not look away,' she said, adding that the OSCE and the international community must ask themselves why their actions have not led to the release of her husband. Her only wish, she said, is "to see my Dima walk through the door, just to hold his hand again, to look into his eyes and say, 'You are home now. It's over.''
UPI
21 minutes ago
- UPI
U.S. sanctions massive Iranian oil shipping network
The Treasury under Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday issued dozens of sanctions targeting a massive Iranian shipping network. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI | License Photo July 31 (UPI) -- The United States on Wednesday sanctioned dozens of individuals, entities and vessels accused of being an Iranian oil and petroleum shipping network, as the Trump administration continues with its so-called maximum pressure campaign targeting Tehran. The 50 people and entities and 50 vessels blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury, along with 20 entities and 10 vessels sanctioned by the State Department on Wednesday, represent the largest punitive package against Iran since 2018, when President Donald Trump first imposed mass sanctions against Iran during his first term. In 2018, Trump pulled the United States from a landmark multinational Obama-era accord aimed at preventing Tehran from securing a nuclear weapon, and slapped sanctions on the country as part of his maximum pressure campaign that failed to bring Iran to the negotiating table on a new deal. Instead, Iran escalated its nuclear program to the point that the State Department remarked in 2022 that it would need as little as a week to produce enough weapons-grade highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. Trump reinstated his maximum pressure campaign on Iran in February and has been targeting its ability to generate revenue since. He also attacked three Iranian nuclear sites last month, amid Israel's war against Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza. The sanctions unveiled Wednesday target the vast shipping network of 49-year-old Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani that the United States accuses of laundering billions in profit from the sales of Iranian and Russian crude oil and other petroleum products to buyers mostly in China. Hossein is the son of Ali Shamkhani, a top political advisor to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and who was sanctioned by the United States in 2020. "The Shamkhani family's shipping empire highlights how the Iranian regime elites leverage their positions to accrue massive wealth and fund the regime's dangerous behavior," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. "These actions put America first by targeting regime elites that profit while Tehran threatens the safety of the United States." Bessent added on X that with Wednesday's sanctions, the United States has sanctioned more than 500 Iranian and Iran-linked targets this year. The announcement of sanctions comes a day after Iran's foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, threatened to retaliate against any new threats to its nuclear program. "If aggression is repeated, we will not hesitate to react in a more decisive manner and in a way that will be IMPOSSIBLE to cover up," he said on X on Monday. Trump claimed his strikes "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program, while others have questioned the severity of the damage.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Triumphant in trade talks, Trump and his tariffs still face a challenge in federal court
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has been getting his way on trade, strong-arming the European Union, Japan and other partners to accept once unthinkably high taxes on their exports to the United States. But his radical overhaul of American trade policy, in which he's bypassed Congress to slam big tariffs on most of the world's economies, has not gone unchallenged. He's facing at least seven lawsuits charging that he's overstepped his authority. The plaintiffs want his biggest, boldest tariffs thrown out. And they won Round One. In May, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade, a specialized federal court in New York, ruled that Trump exceeded his powers when he declared a national emergency to plaster taxes — tariffs — on imports from almost every country in the world. In reaching its decision, the court combined two challenges — one by five businesses and one by 12 U.S. states — into a single case. Now it goes on to Round Two. On Thursday, the 11 judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, which typically specializes in patent law, are scheduled to hear oral arguments from the Trump administration and from the states and businesses that want his sweeping import taxes struck down. That court earlier allowed the federal government to continue collecting Trump's tariffs as the case works its way through the judicial system. The issues are so weighty — involving the president's power to bypass Congress and impose taxes with huge economic consequences in the United States and abroad — that the case is widely expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, regardless of what the appeals court decides. Trump is an unabashed fan of tariffs. He sees the import taxes as an all-purpose economic tool that can bring manufacturing back to the United States, protect American industries, raise revenue to pay for the massive tax cuts in his 'One Big Beautiful Bill,'' pressure countries into bending to his will, even end wars. The U.S. Constitution gives the power to impose taxes — including tariffs — to Congress. But lawmakers have gradually relinquished power over trade policy to the White House. And Trump has made the most of the power vacuum, raising the average U.S. tariff to more than 18%, highest since 1934, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University. At issue in the pending court case is Trump's use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose sweeping tariffs without seeking congressional approval or conducting investigations first. Instead, he asserted the authority to declare a national emergency that justified his import taxes. In February, he cited the illegal flow of drugs and immigrants across the U.S. border to slap tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico. Then on April 2 — 'Liberation Day,'' Trump called it — he invoked IEEPA to announce 'reciprocal'' tariffs of up to 50% on countries with which the United States ran trade deficits and a 10% 'baseline'' tariff on almost everybody else. The emergency he cited was America's long-running trade deficit. Trump later suspended the reciprocal tariffs, but they remain a threat: They could be imposed again Friday on countries that do not pre-empt them by reaching trade agreements with the United States or that receive letters from Trump setting their tariff rates himself. The plaintiffs argue that the emergency power laws does not authorize the use of tariffs. They also note that the trade deficit hardly meets the definition of an 'unusual and extraordinary'' threat that would justify declaring an emergency under the law. The United States, after all, has run trade deficits — in which it buys more from foreign countries than it sells them — for 49 straight years and in good times and bad. The Trump administration argues that courts approved President Richard Nixon's emergency use of tariffs in a 1971 economic crisis. The Nixon administration successfully cited its authority under the 1917 Trading With Enemy Act, which preceded and supplied some of the legal language used in IEEPA. In May, the trade court rejected the argument, ruling that Trump's Liberation Day tariffs 'exceed any authority granted to the President'' under the emergency powers law. 'The president doesn't get to use open-ended grants of authority to do what he wants,'' said Reilly Stephens, senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian legal group that is representing businesses suing the Trump administration over the tariffs. In the case of the drug trafficking and immigration tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico, the trade court ruled that the levies did not meet IEEPA's requirement that they 'deal with'' the problem they were supposed to address. The court challenge does not cover other Trump tariffs, including levies on foreign steel, aluminum and autos that the president imposed after Commerce Department investigations concluded that those imports were threats to U.S. national security. Nor does it include tariffs that Trump imposed on China in his first term — and President Joe Biden kept — after a government investigation concluded that the Chinese used unfair practices to give their own technology firms an edge over rivals from the United States and other Western countries. Paul Wiseman, The Associated Press Sign in to access your portfolio
