Ten dead including children in Austrian school shooting
The lone gunman opened fire in two classrooms before apparently killing himself in a school bathroom
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Khaleej Times
3 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
Former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein convicted of sex crime in New York retrial
A Manhattan jury found Harvey Weinstein guilty on a sex crimes charge on Wednesday in a retrial after a state appeals court last year overturned the former movie mogul's 2020 conviction. Weinstein, once one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood, was accused by prosecutors in the case of raping an aspiring actress and assaulting two other women. Weinstein, 73, pleaded not guilty and has denied assaulting anyone or having non-consensual sex. The jury found Weinstein guilty on one of the three counts he faced, which stemmed from his alleged assault of former production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006. The jury found Weinstein not guilty of a charge stemming from his alleged assault of Kaja Sokola in 2002 when she was a 16-year-old aspiring actress. The jury has not yet reached a verdict on the third count, which charges him with raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013. They will resume deliberations on that count on Thursday. In closing arguments on June 3, the prosecution told the 12 jurors that the evidence showed how Weinstein used his power and influence to trap and abuse women. The defence countered that the accusers lied on the witness stand out of spite after their consensual sexual encounters with the Oscar-winning producer failed to result in Hollywood stardom. Jurors reached their partial verdict on the fifth day of sometimes fractious deliberations. The retrial began on April 23. Weinstein has had a litany of health problems and attended the retrial in a wheelchair. A jury had in February 2020 found Weinstein guilty of raping Mann and sexually assaulting Haley. Sokola's allegation was not part of that case. The conviction was a milestone for the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by powerful men. But the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, threw out that conviction in April 2024. It said the trial judge erred by letting women testify that Weinstein had assaulted them, though their accusations were not the basis of the criminal charges. Though the 2020 conviction was thrown out, Weinstein has remained behind bars because of his 2022 rape conviction in California, which resulted in a 16-year prison sentence. He is appealing that verdict. More than 100 women, including famous actresses, have accused Weinstein of misconduct. The retrial was handled by prosecutors with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. They portrayed Weinstein as a serial predator who promised career advancement in Hollywood to women, only to then coax them into private settings where he attacked them. The defense rejected that characterization, saying Weinstein engaged in "mutually beneficial" relationships with his accusers, who ended up with auditions and other show business opportunities. Weinstein co-founded the Miramax studio, whose hit movies included "Shakespeare in Love" and "Pulp Fiction." His own eponymous film studio filed for bankruptcy in March 2018, five months after sexual misconduct accusations against him became widely publicised. Weinstein has experienced several health episodes while being held at New York City's Rikers Island jail, and in September was rushed to a hospital for emergency heart surgery.
Khaleej Times
11 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
'This isn't real': Teacher's narrow escape from Austria school shooter
A teacher told AFP Wednesday how he found himself in a corridor with the shooter who killed 10 people in an Austrian school as he fled his empty classroom. Religion teacher Paul G. Nitsche was working on his own with the door open on the upper floor of the Dreierschuetzengasse secondary school in Graz when the shooting started. "I heard this bang. And I blocked it out," the 51-year-old told reporters, whose students were elsewhere sitting their final year exams. It was only when he heard the sound of bullet casings hitting the floor of a corridor outside, that "something snapped inside me" and the realisation dawned, he said. "I jumped up and thought, that as a teacher alone in a classroom with a possible attacker, this is a very bad situation. "And I decided to run. "I ran out quickly through the corridor, which is only a few metres long, and then down the stairs." It was then that the evangelical pastor saw the shooter in the corridor of the floor below. The sight of him stopped him in his tracks "for a moment". 'You try to block everything out' "He was trying to shoot the door (of a classroom) open with his rifle. "He was busy.... and I didn't look around much either... I didn't hang around," Nitsche said. "And as I ran down the stairs, I thought to myself, 'This isn't real, this is a film.'" But when he got to the lower floor "I saw a student lying on the floor and a teacher was there, and I knew, 'Ah, this is serious.'" "As a human being, you really try (to understand what is happening), I know that from my crisis training, but (at the same time) you really try to block everything out," the pastor added. "I think the emergency services were there a minute or two later, thank God." What struck Nitsche was the eerie silence that had fallen over the school. "It was very quiet. Everyone was calm. There was total silence. No screaming, nothing. That's not what school is like. "And the emergency services arrived in normal police cars, four of them with bulletproof vests, and then they went in." Nitsche said it was hard to grasp the enormity of what had happened. What he experienced was just one part of "a mosaic with lots of pieces". He went back to help comfort students outside the school Wednesday. A city in shock A large black banner, "Graz stands together", was strung across a fence nearby as Austria's second city tried to come to terms with the tragedy. Small groups of students, most dressed in black and many of them crying, placed candles at the entrance of the closed school. Tuesday's shooting is an unprecedented case of deadly gun violence in the usually peaceful Alpine country. Police said the shooter, a 21-year-old former student at the school, killed himself in a toilet after leaving 10 dead or dying and wounding 12 others. Police found a "non-functional homemade bomb" during a search of his home. A goodbye letter addressed to the suspect's parents was also recovered, though it included no clues about his motive. Locals in Graz are struggling to express their shock. "You can see here how the whole city, probably the whole country is reeling," Michael Saad, a 22-year-old student, told AFP at a candlelight vigil late Tuesday. Saad was among hundreds gathered at the central square in Graz, many young people, placing candles at the feet of a monument in the square in a sombre atmosphere as people stood in silence. Many hugged with tears in their eyes, while others talked quietly in muffled voices.
Khaleej Times
18 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
Nighttime curfew in LA as Trump vows to 'liberate' city
A nighttime curfew was in force in Los Angeles on Tuesday as local officials sought to get a handle on protests that Donald Trump claimed were an invasion by a "foreign enemy." Looting and vandalism has scarred the heart of America's second biggest city as largely peaceful protests over immigration arrests turned ugly after dark. "I have declared a local emergency and issued a curfew for downtown Los Angeles to stop the vandalism, to stop the looting," Mayor Karen Bass told reporters. One square mile (2.5 square kilometres) of the city's more-than-500 square mile area will be off-limits until 6am (1300 GMT) for everyone apart from residents, journalists and emergency services, she added. Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels. One protester told AFP the arrest of migrants in a city with large foreign-born and Latino populations was the root of the unrest. "I think that obviously they're doing it for safety," she said of the curfew. "But I don't think that part of the problem is the peaceful protests. It's whatever else is happening on the other side that is inciting violence." Small-scale and largely peaceful protests — marred by eye-catching acts of violence — began Friday in Los Angeles as anger swelled over ramped up arrests by immigration authorities. At their largest, a few thousand people have taken to the streets, but smaller mobs have used the cover of darkness to set fires, daub graffiti and smash windows. Overnight Monday 23 businesses were looted, police said, adding that more than 500 people had been arrested over recent days. Protests have also sprung up in cities around the country, including New York, Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco. 'Provide protection' Trump has ordered 4,000 National Guard to Los Angeles, along with 700 active-duty Marines, in what he has claimed is a necessary escalation to take back control — despite the insistence of local law enforcement that they could handle matters. A military spokeswoman said the soldiers were expected to be on the streets later Tuesday or some time on Wednesday. Their mission will be to guard federal facilities and to accompany "federal officers in immigration enforcement operations in order to provide protection." Demonstrators told AFP the soldiers "should be respected" because they hadn't chosen to be in LA, but Lisa Orman blasted it as "ridiculous." "I was here for the Dodger parade," she said referring to the LA team's World Series victory. "It was 100 times bigger. So the idea that the Marines here, it's a big show. The president wants a big show." The Pentagon said the deployment would cost US taxpayers $134 million. Photographs issued by the Marine Corps showed men in combat fatigues using riot shields to practice crowd control techniques at the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach. 'Behaving like a tyrant' Two dozen miles (40 kilometers) north, the sprawling city of Los Angeles spent the day much as it usually does: tourists thronged Hollywood Boulevard, tens of thousands of children went to school and commuter traffic choked the streets. But at a military base in North Carolina, Trump was painting a much darker picture. "What you're witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and national sovereignty," he told troops at Fort Bragg. "This anarchy will not stand. We will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy." California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has clashed with the president before, said Trump's shock militarization of the city was the behavior of "a tyrant, not a president." "Sending trained warfighters onto the streets is unprecedented and threatens the very core of our democracy," he said. In a live-streamed address, Newsom called Trump a "president who wants to be bound by no law or constitution, perpetuating a unified assault on American tradition. "California may be first, but it clearly will not end here." In a filing to the US District Court in Northern California, Newsom asked for an injunction preventing the use of troops for policing. 'Incredibly rare' Trump's use of the military is an "incredibly rare" move for a US president, Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles and a former US Air Force lieutenant colonel, told AFP. US law largely prevents the use of the military as a policing force — absent the declaration of an insurrection, which Trump again mused about on Tuesday. Trump "is trying to use emergency declarations to justify bringing in first the National Guard and then mobilising Marines," said law professor Frank Bowman of the University of Missouri.
