Maryland woman kills three people and herself in warehouse gun rampage

Agencies
September 21, 2018

Sept 21: A woman armed with a handgun opened fire on Thursday on co-workers at a Marylanddistribution centre for the Rite Aid drugstore chain, killing three people and wounding three others before taking her own life, the Harford County sheriff said.

The shooting unfolded shortly after the suspect, a temporary employee there, reported for work around 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) at the warehouse in Perryman, Maryland, about 34 miles (55 km) northeast of Baltimore, Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said at a news conference.

The sheriff said investigators had not yet determined a motive, but a law enforcement source told Reuters the shooting was believed to have been sparked by a work-related grievance.

The sheriff's office later identified the killer as Snochia Moseley, 26, a resident of Baltimore County. The fact that the assailant was a woman was unusual given that the overwhelming majority of mass shootings in the United States are committed by men.

Gahler said Thursday's gun violence began outside the warehouse and then moved inside, but investigators were still piecing together the precise sequence of events.

He said seven people were hit by gunfire and that four, including the woman who opened fire, were killed. The three others were expected to survive, according to the sheriff.

He said the suspect, who was armed with a 9mm Glock pistol and two or three magazines of ammunition, shot herself in the head, and that no shots were fired by law enforcement.

Investigators believe all the victims were fellow Rite Aid employees, but it was not immediately clear whether any were specifically targeted by the suspect, Gahler said.

The Rite Aid centre, part of a larger warehouse in an industrial park, has nearly 1,000 employees, company spokesman Pete Strella said. The facility packages pharmaceuticals and other products for delivery to more than 2,500 stores.

Police spent several hours searching the 210,000-square-foot (19,510-square-metre) building for possible additional victims, the sheriff's office said.

"Our prayers are with all those impacted, including our first responders," Governor Larry Hogan wrote on Twitter. "The State stands ready to offer any support."

Agents from the Baltimore offices of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI also responded, the agencies said.

The shooting occurred a day after a man shot and wounded four people, including a police officer, at a Pennsylvania court building before he was killed by police, according to Pennsylvania State Police.

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News Network
April 16,2020

Brussels/Amsterdam, Apr 16: As the novel coronavirus continues to wreak havoc in the western world since its outbreak in Wuhan last December, researchers believe that the Chinese leadership is trying to absolve President Xi Jinping by using a section of the western media to influence public opinion globally.

"There are clear indications that China is conducting activities in a persistent and systematic manner to influence public opinion-making, academia, think tanks and political decision-making among the member states of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in general and western capital cities in particular," Siegfried O Wolf, Director of Research at Brussels-based think tank South Asia Democratic Front, said.

Some western media say some Chinese officials were secretly aware that they were facing a pandemic from the new coronavirus but allowed Wuhan to host a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people and millions began their annual trip home for the Lunar New Year celebrations.

The pandemic has since then affected 210 countries and territories around the world. Over 2 million people have been declared positive in which over 134,000 lost their lives.

"The frequency and extra-ordinary large scale of Chinese sponsored events in European political hubs, like in Brussels, and the subsequent media coverage can be seen as evidence for Beijing's public diplomacy efforts. However, the rising skepticism within the EU regarding Xi Jinping's development projects and the emerging questioning of Chinese sources funding Free Universities, like the one in Berlin, shows that this strategy produced mixed results so far," Wolf said.

He added, "However, one must also state that these efforts helped China to gain certain leverage among many non-Chinese media, western as well as non-western ones. Today, we can observe that China's political leadership tries to instrumentalise this influence for a major image campaign to distract from the fact that it carries the initial responsibility for the dramatic spread of COVID-19 by holding back key information."

Wolf also said that the current internal dynamics in China, like the shirking of responsibilities by the local authorities, are most-likely part of a twofold strategy. Firstly, there is the strategic component - namely, to reaffirm to the general public that the Communist Party of China is still in full control of the situation. The second strategic pillar is one of 'whitewashing'.

"Concretely, Beijing's obvious aim is to distract the domestic and international attention from the real, but hidden causes of the Coronavirus outbreak and its potential reputational and political consequences for Xi Jinping and his BRI," he stated.

Yoana Barakova, a Research Analyst at European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS), an Amsterdam-based think-tank, said, "The death of Dr. Li Wenliang, one of the very few medical professionals who tried to warn the world in December 2019 about the looming threat, sparked widespread condemnation around the international community in early February. Yet, little did he know that his legacy would continue much later after his demise, with the emboldened Chinese government trying to cover up its missteps through hardcore censorship after being exposed for undermining and underestimating the initial danger."

The researchers believe that the deterioration in press freedom under Jinping's regime has become more evident in recent days, with local authorities trying to control the state narrative by cosmetically placing media's focus on government's superficial attempts to tackle the crisis.

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News Network
July 5,2020

Washington, Jul 5: US President Donald Trump on Saturday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his wishes on America's 244th Independence Day.

On Saturday, PM Modi tweeted: "I congratulate @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and the people of the USA on the 244th Independence Day of the USA. As the world's largest democracies, we cherish freedom and human enterprise that this day celebrates. @WhiteHouse"

While replying to PM Modi's wishes, Mr Trump tweeted: "Thank you my friend. America loves India!"

The US President also attended the July 4 American Independence Day celebrations in South Dakota.

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News Network
March 25,2020

Hubei, Mar 25: As a bus departed from its terminus at Hankou Railway Station at 5:25 am Wednesday morning, Wuhan started to resume bus service after nine weeks of lockdown.

Apart from a driver, a safety supervisor was also on each bus, whose duty was to make sure all passengers are healthy.
"For those who do not use smartphones, they should bring with them a health certificate issued by the health authorities," said Zhou Jingjing, a safety supervisor aboard bus No. 511 departing from the Wuchang Railway Station complex.
The once hardest-hit city in central China's Hubei Province during the COVID-19 outbreak took unprecedented traffic restrictions on Jan 23. All of its public transport and all outbound flights and trains had been suspended in an attempt to contain the virus within the region.

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