Family and colleagues mourn beloved Kyiv teacher killed in a Russian strike
Last week, she perished in a Russian strike on a nine-story building in the Svyatoshinsky district of the capital. The attack, which targeted multiple neighborhoods in Kyiv, claimed the lives of 31 people, including five children, making it the deadliest to hit the capital since the full-scale invasion.
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CTV News
a few seconds ago
- CTV News
Years after abuse reports, ex-coach at renowned U.S. gymnastics academy is arrested by FBI
IOWA CITY, Iowa — The U.S. gymnastics world was only just recovering from a devastating sexual abuse scandal when a promising young coach moved from Mississippi to Iowa to take a job in 2018 at an elite academy known for training Olympic champions. Liang 'Chow' Qiao, the owner of Chow's Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, thought highly enough of his new hire, Sean Gardner, to put him in charge of the club's premier junior event and to coach some of its most promising girls. But four years later, Gardner was gone from Chow's with little notice. USA Gymnastics, the organization rocked by the Larry Nassar sex-abuse crisis that led to the creation of the U.S. Center for SafeSport, had been informed by the watchdog group that Gardner was placed on its website's banned list and was suspended from all contact with gymnasts. The reason for Gardner's removal wasn't publicly disclosed. But court records obtained exclusively by The Associated Press show the coach was accused of sexually abusing at least three young gymnasts at Chow's and secretly recording others undressing in a gym bathroom at his prior job in Mississippi. Last week, more than three years after being suspended from coaching, the FBI arrested Gardner, 38, on a federal child pornography charge. But his disciplinary case has still not been resolved by SafeSport, which handles sex-abuse cases in Olympic sports. In cases like Gardner's, the public can be in the dark for years while SafeSport investigates and sanctions coaches. SafeSport requires that allegations be reported to police to ensure abusers don't run unchecked outside of sports, but critics say the system is a slow, murky process. 'From an outward operational view, it seems that if SafeSport is involved in any way, the situation turns glow-in-the-dark toxic,' said attorney Steve Silvey, a longtime SafeSport critic who has represented people in cases involving the centre. While acknowledging there can be delays as its investigations unfold, SafeSport defended its temporary suspensions in a statement as 'a unique and valuable intervention' when there are concerns of a risk to others. Nevertheless, in 2024, Gardner was able to land a job helping care for surgical patients at an Iowa hospital — two years after the abuse allegations against him were reported to SafeSport and the police. And it was not until late May that West Des Moines police executed a search warrant at his home, eventually leading to the recovery of a trove of photos and videos on his computer and cellphone of nude young girls, court records show. Authorities in Iowa sealed the court documents after the AP asked about the investigation earlier this month, before details of the federal charge were made public Friday. Gardner, Qiao and Gardner's former employer in Mississippi did not respond to AP requests for comment. 'The job that I've always wanted' Chow's Gymnastics is best known as the academy where U.S. gymnasts Shawn Johnson and Gabby Douglas trained before becoming gold medalists at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. Qiao opened the gym in 1998 after starring on the Chinese national team and moving to the United States to coach at the University of Iowa. The gym became a draw for top youth gymnasts, with some families moving to Iowa to train there. Gardner moved to Iowa in September 2018, jumping at the opportunity to coach under Qiao. 'This is the job that I've always wanted. Chow is really someone I have looked up to since I've been coaching,' Gardner told the ABC affiliate WOI-TV in 2019. 'And you can tell when you step foot in the gym, just even from coaching the girls, the culture that he's built. It's amazing. It's beautiful.' A year later, Gardner was promoted to director of Chow's Winter Classic, an annual meet that draws more than 1,000 gymnasts to Iowa. He also coached a junior Olympics team during his four-year tenure at Chow's. Several of his students earned college gymnastics scholarships, but Gardner said he had bigger goals. 'You want to leave a thumbprint on their life, so when they go off hopefully to school, to bigger and better things, that they remember Chow's as family,' he said in a 2020 interview with WOI-TV. Coach accused of sexual misconduct in Iowa and Mississippi Gardner is accused of abusing his position at Chow's and his former job at Jump'In Gymnastics in Mississippi to prey on girls under his tutelage, according to a nine-page FBI affidavit released Friday that summarizes the allegations against him. A girl reported to SafeSport in March 2022 that Gardner used 'inappropriate spotting techniques' in which he would put his hands between her legs and touch her vagina, the affidavit said. It said she alleged Gardner would ask girls if they were sexually active and call them 'idiots, sluts, and whores.' She said this behavior began after his hiring in 2018 and continued until she left the gym in 2020 and provided the names of six other potential victims. SafeSport suspended Gardner in July 2022 — four months after the girl's report — a provisional step it can take in severe cases with 'sufficient evidentiary support' as investigations proceed. A month after that, the centre received a report from another girl alleging additional 'sexual contact and physical abuse,' including that Gardner similarly fondled her during workouts, the FBI affidavit said. The girl said that he once dragged her across the carpet so hard that it burned her buttocks, the affidavit said. SafeSport shared the reports with West Des Moines police, in line with its policy requiring adults who interact with youth athletes to disclose potential criminal cases to law enforcement. While SafeSport's suspension took Gardner out of gymnastics, the criminal investigation quickly hit a roadblock. Police records show a detective told SafeSport to urge the alleged victims to file criminal complaints, but only one of their mothers contacted police in 2022. That woman said her daughter did not want to pursue criminal charges, and police suspended the investigation. Victims of abuse are often reluctant to cooperate with police, said Ken Lang, a retired detective and associate professor of criminal justice at Milligan University. 'In this case you have the prestige of this facility,' he said. 'Do they want to associate their name with that, in that way, when their aspirations were to succeed in gymnastics?' Police suspended the investigation, even as Gardner was on probation for his second offense of driving while intoxicated. A dormant case reopened, and a year later, an arrest The case stayed dormant until April 2024 when another former Chow's student came forward to the West Des Moines Police Department to report abuse allegations, according to a now-sealed affidavit signed by police detective Jeff Lyon. The AP is not identifying the student in line with its policy of not naming victims of alleged sexual abuse. The now 18-year-old told police she began taking lessons from Gardner when she was 11 or 12 in 2019, initially seeing him as a 'father figure' who tried to help her get through her parents' divorce. He told her she could tell him 'anything,' the affidavit said. When she moved in 2021, she told police, he gave her a hug and said she could text and follow him on Instagram and other social media sites, where he went by the nickname 'Coach Seanie,' because gym policy barring such contact no longer applied. According to a summary of her statement provided in Lyon's affidavit, she said Gardner fondled her during exercises, repeatedly touching her vagina; rubbed her back and butt and discussed his sex life; and made her do inappropriate stretches that exposed her privates. She told police she suspected he used his cellphone to film her in that position. Reached by the AP, the teen's mother declined comment. The mother told police she was interested in a monetary settlement with Chow's because the gym 'had been made aware of the complaints and they did nothing to stop them,' according to Lyon's affidavit. The gym didn't return AP messages seeking comment. It took 16 months after the teen's 2024 report for the FBI to arrest Gardner, who made an initial court appearance in Des Moines on Friday on a charge of producing visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, which can carry up to 30 years in prison. A public defender assigned to represent him didn't return AP messages seeking comment. Gardner is being detained at the Polk County Jail in Des Moines and will be transported to Mississippi to face the charge there, a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service said. It's unclear why the case took so long to investigate and also when the FBI, which had to pay $138 million to Nassar's victims for botching that investigation, got involved in the case. Among evidence seized by investigators in late May were a cellphone, laptop and a desktop computer along with handwritten notes between Gardner and his former pupils, according to the sealed court documents. They found images of girls, approximately 6 to 14 years in age, who were nude, using the toilet or changing into leotards, those documents show. Those images appear to have come from a hidden camera in a restroom. They also uncovered 50 video files and 400 photos, including some that appeared to be child pornography, according to the FBI affidavit. One video allegedly shows Gardner entering the bathroom and turning off the camera. Investigators also found images of an adult woman secretly filmed entering and exiting a bathtub, and identified her as Gardner's ex-girlfriend. That woman as well as the gym's owner, Candi Workman, told investigators the images appeared to come from Jump'In Gymnastics' facility in Purvis, Mississippi, which has since been closed. SafeSport's power has limits SafeSport has long touted that it can deliver sanctions in cases where criminal charges are not pursued as key to its mission. However, Gardner's ability to land a job in health care illustrates the limits of that power: It can ban people from sports but that sanction is not guaranteed to reach the general public. While not commenting about Gardner's case directly, SafeSport said in a statement provided to the AP that a number of issues factor into why cases can take so long to close, including the 8,000 reports it receives a year with only around 30 full-time investigators. It has revamped some procedures, it said, in an attempt to become more efficient. 'While the Centre is able and often does cooperate in law enforcement investigations,' it said, 'law enforcement is not required to share information, updates, or even confirm an investigation is ongoing.' USA Gymnastics President Li Li Leung called SafeSport's task 'really tough, difficult to navigate.' 'I would like to see more consistency with their outcomes and sanctions,' Leung said. 'I would like to see more standardization on things. I would like to see more communication, more transparency from their side.' A case that lingers, even after the SafeSport ban As the investigation proceeded, Gardner said on his Facebook page he landed a new job in May 2024 as a surgical technologist at MercyOne West Des Moines Medical Center. It's a role that calls for positioning patients on the operating room table, and assisting with procedures and post-surgery care. Asked about Gardner's employment, hospital spokesman Todd Mizener told the AP: 'The only information I can provide is that he is no longer' at the hospital. Meanwhile, the case lingers, leaving lives in limbo more than three years after the SafeSport Center and police first learned of it. 'SafeSport is now part of a larger problem rather than a solution, if it was ever a solution,' said attorney Silvey. 'The most fundamental professional task such as coordination with local or federal law enforcement gets botched on a daily basis, hundreds of times a year now.' ___ Pells reported from Denver. AP National Writer Will Graves contributed. Ryan J. Foley And Eddie Pells, The Associated Press
Winnipeg Free Press
30 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Gunmen kill at least 13 people in a mosque shooting in northwestern Nigeria
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Gunmen attacked a mosque in northwestern Nigeria on Tuesday morning, killing at least 13 people during morning prayers, local authorities said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the town of Unguwan Mantau, in the state of Katsina, but such attacks are common in Nigeria's northwestern and north-central regions where local herders and farmers often clash over limited access to land and water. The attacks have killed and injured scores — last month, an attack in north-central Nigeria killed 150 people. The prolonged conflict has become deadlier in recent years, with authorities and analysts warning that more herdsmen are taking up arms. The state's commissioner, Nasir Mu'azu, said the army and police have deployed in the area of Unguwan Mantau to prevent further attacks, adding that gunmen often hide among the crops out in farms during the rainy season to carry out assaults on communities. He added that the mosque attack was likely in retaliation for an action Unguwan Mantau townspeople who over the weekend ambushed and killed several of the gunmen in the area. Dozens of armed groups take also advantage of the limited security presence in Nigeria's mineral-rich regions, carrying out attacks on villages and along major roads. The farmers accuse the herders, mostly of Fulani origin, of grazing their livestock on their farms and destroying their produce. The herders insist that the lands are grazing routes that were first backed by law in 1965, five years after the country gained its independence. Separately from the conflict between farming and herding communities, Nigeria is battling to contain an insurgency against Boko Haram in the northeast, where some 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million displaced, according to the United Nations.
Winnipeg Free Press
30 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trump weaponization czar urged New York Attorney General James to resign over mortgage probe
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump's political weaponization czar sent a letter urging New York Attorney General Letitia James to resign from office 'as an act of good faith' four days after starting his mortgage fraud investigation of her. Then he showed up outside her house. Ed Martin, the director of the Justice Department's Weaponization Working Group, told James' lawyer on Aug. 12 the Democrat would best serve the 'good of the state and nation' by resigning and ending his probe into alleged paperwork discrepancies on her Brooklyn townhouse and a Virginia home. 'Her resignation from office would give the people of New York and America more peace than proceeding,' Martin wrote. 'I would take this as an act of good faith.' Then last Friday, Martin turned up outside James' Brooklyn townhouse in a 'Columbo'-esque trench coat, accompanied by an aide and New York Post journalists. He didn't meet with James or go inside the building. A Post writer saw him tell a neighbor: 'I'm just looking at houses, interesting houses. It's an important house.' James' lawyer Abbe Lowell shot back on Monday, telling Martin in a letter his blunt request for James' resignation defied Justice Department standards and codes of professional responsibility and legal ethics. The Justice Department 'has firm policies against using investigations and against using prosecutorial power for achieving political ends,' Lowell wrote. 'This is ever more the case when that demand is made to seek political revenge against a public official in the opposite party.' 'Let me be clear: that will not happen here,' Lowell added. Lowell also blasted Martin's visit to James' home as a 'truly bizarre, made-for-media stunt' and said it was 'outside the bounds' of Justice Department rules. He included an image from security camera footage showing Martin, in his trench coat, posing for a photo in front of James' townhouse. He said Martin looked as if he were on a 'visit to a tourist attraction.' The Associated Press obtained copies of both letters on Tuesday. A message seeking comment was left for Martin's spokesperson. James' office declined to comment. The letters were the latest salvos in a monthslong drama involving Trump's retribution campaign against James and others who've battled him in court and fought his policies. James has sued the Republican president and his administration dozens of times and last year won a $454 million judgment against Trump and his companies in a lawsuit alleging he lied about the value of his assets on financial statements given to banks. An appeals court has yet to rule on Trump's bid to overturn that verdict. Earlier this month, the AP reported, the Justice Department subpoenaed James for records related to the civil fraud lawsuit and a lawsuit she filed against the National Rifle Association. Martin's investigation stems from a letter Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi in April asking her to investigate and consider prosecuting James, alleging she had 'falsified bank documents and property records.' Pulte, whose agency regulates mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, cited 'media reports' claiming James had falsely listed a Virginia home as her principal residence, and he suggested she may have been trying to avoid higher interest rates that often apply to second homes. Records show James was listed as a co-borrower on a house her niece was buying in 2023. Lowell said records and correspondence easily disproved Pulte's allegation. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. While James signed a power-of-attorney form that, Lowell said, 'mistakenly stated the property to be Ms. James' principal residence,' she sent an email to her mortgage loan broker around the same time that made clear the property 'WILL NOT be my primary residence.' Pulte also accused James of lying in property records about the number of apartments in the Brooklyn townhouse she has owned since 2001. A certificate of occupancy issued to a previous owner authorized up to five units in the building, where James lives and has rented out apartments. Other city records show the townhouse has four units, a number James has listed in building permit applications and mortgage documents. On Aug. 8, Bondi appointed Martin, a former Republican political operative, to investigate. Martin, the current U.S. pardon attorney and former acting U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., is also investigating mortgage fraud allegations against Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. Schiff's lawyer called the allegations 'transparently false, stale, and long debunked.' Lowell said it appears the working group Martin leads 'is aptly named as it is 'weaponizing'' the Justice Department 'to carry out the President's and Attorney General's threats.'
