Kamis, 08 Februari 2024

World's first year-long breach of key 1.5C warming limit - BBC

A firefighter sprays water during a wildfire on El Cable Hill near Bogota, Colombia, on Saturday, 27 January 2024Getty Images

For the first time, global warming has exceeded 1.5C across an entire year, according to the EU's climate service.

World leaders promised in 2015 to try to limit the long-term temperature rise to 1.5C, which is seen as crucial to help avoid the most damaging impacts.

This first year-long breach doesn't break that landmark "Paris agreement", but it does bring the world closer to doing so in the long-term.

Urgent action to cut carbon emissions can still slow warming, scientists say.

"This far exceeds anything that is acceptable," Prof Sir Bob Watson, a former chair of the UN's climate body, told the BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.

"Look what's happened this year with only 1.5C - we've seen floods, we've seen droughts, we've seen heatwaves and wildfires all over the world, and we're starting to see less agricultural productivity and some problems with water quality and quantity."

The period from February 2023 to January 2024 reached 1.52C of warming, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. The following graph shows how that compares with previous years.

Line graph showing rolling 365 day average of global air temperatures. For the first time on record, this has passed 1.5C for the year to date. Temperatures have increased since the 1940s, where warming was around 0.2C.

The latest climate warning comes amid news that the Labour Party is ditching its policy of spending £28bn a year on its green investment plan in a major U-turn. The Conservatives also pushed back on some key targets in September.

This means the UK's two main parties have scaled back the type of pledges that many climate scientists say are needed globally if the worst impacts of warming are to be avoided.

The world's sea surface is also at its highest ever recorded average temperature - yet another sign of the widespread nature of climate records. As the chart below shows, it's particularly notable given that ocean temperatures don't normally peak for another month or so.

Multiple line graph with average sea surface temperatures on every day of the year, from 1979 to 2024. Through the second half of 2023, temperatures were far above anything previously recorded, and this has continued into 2024. The new record was set on 3 February 2024 at 21.05C

Science groups differ slightly on precisely how much temperatures have increased, but all agree that the world is in by far its warmest period since modern records began - and likely for much longer.

Limiting long-term warming to 1.5C above "pre-industrial" levels - before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels - has become a key symbol of international efforts to tackle climate change.

A landmark UN report in 2018 said that the risks from climate change - such as intense heatwaves, rising sea-levels and loss of wildlife - were much higher at 2C of warming than at 1.5C.

Why has 1.5C been broken over the past year?

The long-term warming trend is unquestionably being driven by human activities - mainly from burning fossil fuels, which releases planet-warming gases like carbon dioxide. This is also responsible for the vast majority of the warmth over the past year.

In recent months, a natural climate-warming phenomenon known as El Niño has also given air temperatures an extra boost, although it would typically only do so by about 0.2C.

Global average air temperatures began exceeding 1.5C of warming on an almost daily basis in the second half of 2023, when El Niño began kicking in, and this has continued into 2024. This is shown where the red line is above the dashed line in the graph below.

Multiple line graph with average global air temperatures on every day of the year, from 1940 to 2024. Temperatures have exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels on almost every day since the middle of 2023, and this has continued into 2024.

An end to El Niño conditions is expected in a few months, which could allow global temperatures to temporarily stabilise, and then fall slightly, probably back below the 1.5C threshold.

But while human activities keep adding to the levels of warming gases in the atmosphere, temperatures will ultimately continue rising in the decades ahead.

Can we still limit global warming?

At the current rate of emissions, the Paris goal of limiting warming to 1.5C as a long-term average - rather than a single year - could be crossed within the next decade.

This would be a hugely symbolic milestone, but researchers say it wouldn't mark a cliff edge beyond which climate change will spin out of control.

The impacts of climate change would continue to accelerate, however with every little increase in warming - something that the extreme heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods over the past 12 months have given us a taste of.

An extra half a degree - the difference between 1.5C and 2C of global warming - also greatly increases the risks of passing "tipping points".

These are thresholds within the climate system which, if crossed, could lead to rapid and potentially irreversible changes.

For example, if the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets passed a tipping point, their potentially runaway collapse could cause catastrophic rises to global sea-levels over the centuries that followed.

But researchers are keen to emphasise that humans can still make a difference to the world's warming trajectory.

The world has made some progress, with green technologies like renewables and electric vehicles booming in many parts of the world.

This has meant some of the very worst case scenarios of 4C warming or more this century - thought possible a decade ago - are now considered much less likely, based on current policies and pledges.

And perhaps most encouragingly of all, it's still thought that the world will more or less stop warming once net zero carbon emissions are reached. Effectively halving emissions this decade is seen as particularly crucial.

"That means we can ultimately control how much warming the world experiences, based on our choices as a society, and as a planet," says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at US group Berkeley Earth.

"Doom is not inevitable."

Graphics by Erwan Rivault.

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2024-02-08 10:18:33Z
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Rabu, 07 Februari 2024

Gaza ceasefire: Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu rejects Hamas's proposed terms - BBC

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Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Hamas's proposed ceasefire terms - saying "total victory" in Gaza is possible within months.

He was speaking after Hamas laid out a series of demands in response to an Israel-backed ceasefire proposal.

Mr Netanyahu said negotiations with the group were "not going anywhere" and described their terms as "bizarre".

Talks are continuing to try to reach some sort of deal.

"There is no other solution but a complete and final victory," Mr Netanyahu told a news conference on Wednesday.

"If Hamas will survive in Gaza, it's only a question of time until the next massacre."

Israel was expected to take issue with Hamas's counter-offer, but this response is a categorical rebuke, and Israeli officials clearly see an effort by Hamas to end the war on its terms as utterly unacceptable.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told the Reuters news agency that Mr Netanyahu's remarks "are a form of political bravado", and show he intends to pursue the conflict in the region.

An Egyptian official source told the BBC that a new round of negotiations, mediated by Egypt and Qatar, is still expected to go ahead on Thursday in Cairo.

Egypt has called on all parties to show the necessary flexibility to reach a calm agreement, the source said.

And Mr Netanyahu's rejection of a "delusional" plan are in stark contrast to remarks from Qatar, which described Hamas's response as "positive".

Hamas put forward its counter-offer to a ceasefire proposal on Tuesday.

A draft of the Hamas document seen by Reuters news agency listed these terms:

  • Phase one: A 45-day pause in fighting during which all Israeli women hostages, males under 19, the elderly and sick would be exchanged for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails. Israeli forces would withdraw from populated areas of Gaza, and the reconstruction of hospitals and refugee camps would begin.
  • Phase two: Remaining male Israeli hostages would be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and Israeli forces leave Gaza completely.
  • Phase three: Both sides would exchange remains and bodies.

The proposed deal would also see deliveries of food and other aid to Gaza increase. By the end of the 135-day pause in fighting, Hamas said negotiations to end the war would have concluded.

Around 1,300 people were killed during the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October last year.

More than 27,700 Palestinians have been killed and at least 65,000 injured by the war launched by Israel in response, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israeli forces to push into Rafah

Mr Netanyahu also confirmed on Wednesday that Israeli forces have been ordered to prepare to operate in the southern Gaza city of Rafah - where tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled in order to escape the fighting.

Expanding the conflict into Rafah would "exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare" in the city, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned.

"We are afraid of the invasion of Rafah," one displaced person at the Rafah Crossing, near the border with Egypt, told BBC Arabic.

"We sleep in fear and sit with fear. There is no food, and the weather is cold."

Map of Gaza showing various parts of the strip including Gaza City and Rafah

The Israeli leader's comments are a blow to a sustained push by the US to reach a deal that its top diplomat, Antony Blinken, described as "the best path forward" - even though he cautioned there was "still a lot of work to be done".

During a news conference on Wednesday, Mr Blinken said there were "some clear non-starters" in Hamas' counter-proposal. But, he added: "We do think it creates space for an agreement to be reached, and we will work at that relentlessly till we get there."

Sharone Lifshitz, whose parents were among those kidnapped in southern Israel on 7 October and taken to Gaza, told the BBC's Newshour programme that Mr Netanyahu's rejection of the Hamas ceasefire terms was "almost certainly a death sentence to more hostages".

Ms Lifshitz's 85-year-old mother, Yocheved, was subsequently released but her father, Oded, remains in captivity.

"My own father is 83, he's frail, he cannot last longer," she said.

"I don't know if the prime minister thinks about him, or if he already accounts for him as somebody who would return in a coffin."

Mr Netanyahu's stance also highlights the continuing, fundamental mismatch between the US and Israel's plans for Gaza's future.

He is insisting on an entity where Israel maintains overall security control, and Gaza is run by local bodies with no connection to Hamas or any other group.

Washington's vision of the future includes a horizon with a Palestinian state.

The urgent question now is whether something can be salvaged to keep these talks going to achieve another exchange of hostages and prisoners, and a desperately needed humanitarian pause, to allow more aid into the Gaza Strip.

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2024-02-07 22:30:41Z
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Twin bombings at Pakistan political offices kill at least 28 on eve of national vote - The Telegraph

At least 28 people were killed on Wednesday by two separate bomb blasts outside the offices of election candidates in southwestern Pakistan, on the eve of a national vote marred by violence and allegations of poll rigging.

More than half a million security officers were deploying ahead of Thursday’s election, with authorities distributing ballot papers to more than 90,000 polling stations.

There have been multiple security incidents in the run-up to the vote, with at least two candidates shot dead and dozens more targeted in attacks across the country.

Jan Achakzai, the caretaker information minister for Balochistan province, where the blasts happened: “The aim of today’s blasts was to sabotage the election.”

“Despite today’s blasts, the election will take place tomorrow. People of Balochistan will come out tomorrow without any fear.”

Pakistan Army patrols a road in Peshawar on Wednesday
Pakistan Army patrols a road in Peshawar on Wednesday Credit: ABDUL MAJEED/AFP

A first improvised explosive device (IED) blast killed 12 people near the office of an independent candidate in Pishin District, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the city of Quetta and 100 kilometres from the Afghan border.

Achakzai and Quetta police said 25 people were also wounded.

A second IED also killed 12 people near the election office of a candidate for the Islamist Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) party in the city of Killa Saifullah – about 120 kilometres (75 miles) east – according to Achakzai.

A senior police official told AFP: “The incident took place in the main bazaar of the city area, where the election office of the JUI-F was targeted.”

Twenty five peoples were injured in the blast
Twenty five people were injured in the bomb blast in Quetta Credit: FATEH MUHAMMAD/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK

In July last year, 44 people were killed by a suicide bomber at a political gathering of the party in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday’s blasts, the resource-rich province – Pakistan’s least populous – is home to several militant groups fighting for a better share of its wealth, and has also been the target of attacks by the Islamic State group.

The election has been marred by allegations of pre-poll rigging following a crackdown on the party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, winner of the 2018 poll, but booted out of power by a national assembly vote of no confidence four years later.

A victim of the bomb blast in Quetta
A victim of the bomb blast in Quetta Credit: AFP

Campaigning officially ended on Tuesday night and voting is due to begin at 8am (0300 GMT) Thursday, closing at 5pm.

The figures are staggering in a country of 240 million people - the world’s fifth most populous - with around 128 million eligible to vote.

Nearly 18,000 candidates are standing for seats in the national and four provincial assemblies, with 266 seats directly contested in the former and an additional 70 reserved for women and minorities – and 749 places in the regional parliaments.

“We must ensure security measures at every level,” Sindh provincial police chief Rafat Mukhtar told a news briefing Wednesday in the port city of Karachi.

Residents comfort a man whose relatives were among the victims
Residents comfort a man whose relatives were among the victims Credit: JAMAL TARAQAI/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK

The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank, said there had been a “staggering” rise in militant attacks in the past year with an average of 54 per month – the most since 2015, when the army launched a massive crackdown on militant groups.

Whoever wins takes over a deeply divided country, observers say, with the economy in tatters.

Inflation is galloping at nearly 30 per cent, the rupee has been in free fall for three years and a balance-of-payments deficit has frozen imports, severely hampering industrial growth.

Pollsters have said the election has left the population at its most “discouraged” in years.

“The political atmosphere ahead of Pakistan’s first general election since 2018 is equally as glum as the economic one,” the polling agency Gallup said.

“Seven in 10 Pakistanis lack confidence in the honesty of their elections. While this ties previous highs, it nevertheless represents a significant regression in recent years.”

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2024-02-07 13:01:00Z
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Ukraine war: Russian air strikes claim three lives in Kyiv and Mykolaiv - BBC

Firefighters help a woman from a building damaged during a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine February 7, 2024Reuters

Russian missile strikes hit Kyiv and other cities on Wednesday morning, causing at least three deaths and 11 injuries, Ukrainian authorities reported.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said two people were killed in Kyiv and 10 others were wounded.

A man was also killed in the southern city of Mykolaiv, officials said.

The whole country was put under air alert and attacks were reported as far west as Lviv, near the Polish border.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a downed Russian missile damaged power lines and some households in the capital were without electricity.

Ukraine's commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi said Russia had fired 64 missiles and drones, of which 44 were intercepted. According to the Ukrainian air force, Russian cruise missiles were detected above the western regions of Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk.

In Mykolaiv, one person who was taken to hospital later died of his injuries, the city's mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said.

Others were treated at the scene after the attack, which damaged homes and disrupted gas and water supplies, he added.

Explosions were also heard in Kharkiv, with some damage to infrastructure reported by military authorities.

Ukraine has come under frequent air attack since Russia invaded on 24 February 2022. Russian forces regularly use different types of weapons in their attacks, including drones and missiles.

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2024-02-07 08:37:50Z
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Hamas responds to Israel plan with three-stage proposal to end Gaza war - The Guardian

Hamas has responded to a US-backed Israeli ceasefire plan for the war in Gaza with its own far-reaching proposal for a permanent end to the fighting.

It is a position Israel is almost certain to reject, but which mediators are viewing positively, as it appears the group is willing to engage in further negotiations.

Hamas put forward its three-stage plan late on Tuesday via Qatari and Egyptian mediators. Under the plan Palestinian militants would exchange Israeli hostages they captured on 7 October for 1,500 Palestinian prisoners, secure the reconstruction of Gaza, ensure the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and an exchange of bodies and remains, according to a draft document seen by Reuters.

Hamas’s counter-proposal envisions three phases of a truce, of 45 days each. It comes in response to a plan put forward by Israel two weeks ago which suggests a six-week cessation of hostilities and phased release of the estimated 130 Israelis still held hostage in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

In the Hamas plan, all Israeli women hostages, men under 19, the elderly and sick would be released during the first 45-day phase, in exchange for Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails. The remaining male hostages would be released during the second phase, and bodies exchanged in the third phase. By the end of the third phase, Hamas would expect the sides to have reached agreement on an end to the war.

The truce would also increase the flow of food and other aid to Gaza’s 2.3 million desperate civilians who are facing severe shortages of food, water and medicine.

Israel has not yet publicly commented on the details of the Hamas proposal, but several unnamed officials told local media that the demand to bring the war to a close was a “non-starter”. A senior Israeli official told the country’s Channel 12 News: “The meaning of Hamas’s answer is a refusal to deal.”

The US president, Joe Biden, also commented on Hamas’s counter-proposal, saying: “There’s been a response from Hamas, but it seems to be a little over the top … There’s continuing negotiations right now.”

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly said that the war will not end until there is total victory over Hamas. However, the unofficial Israeli position is likely to be more pragmatic.

The columnist Yoav Limor argued in the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom: “Hamas’s response is an opening position – a very high opening position, admittedly – but not one that entirely precludes the possibility of reaching a deal.

“Obviously, Israel will not agree to the sweeping conditions that Hamas has posed … That said, Israel is prepared to discuss the details, such as the duration of the ceasefire, the quantity of aid allowed into Gaza and, of course, the number and identity of the prisoners who are to be released in exchange for the hostages. Presumably, that is what will happen now.”

A major sticking point in talks so far is how many and which Palestinians will be released. In the week-long November truce 110 Israelis were freed in return for 240 Palestinians who were mostly women and children held for minor offences or in administrative detention. But the new list is also believed to include hardened militants serving life sentences.

Both sides are still keen to blame the other for a failure to reach a second ceasefire deal. Hamas has set conditions that Israel is highly unlikely to accept; Netanyahu, on the other hand, faces the potential collapse of his far-right coalition government if Israel agrees to any sort of truce.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, arrived in Israel overnight, part of his latest whistle-stop diplomatic tour of the region aimed at containing spiralling violence across the Middle East triggered by the war in Gaza.

Israel began its military offensive in the strip after Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostages in the devastating attack on Israel on 7 October last year.

At least 27,585 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli campaign, with thousands more feared buried under rubble, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. About 85% of the 2.3 million population have been displaced from their homes and more than half of the besieged Palestinian territory’s infrastructure destroyed, the UN says.

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2024-02-07 09:50:00Z
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Jennifer Crumbley trial: Michigan school shooter's mom faces up to 60 years in prison - The Independent

Moment Jennifer Crumbley found guilty of manslaughter

A Michigan jury found Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the Oxford High School shooter, guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter.

The jury reached its unanimous verdict after 10 hours of deliberation. Ms Crumbley sat in court, unemotionally, as the verdict was read.

She had pleaded not guilty. The 45-year-old’s husband, James Crumbley, is being tried separately in March.

In December, Ethan Crumbley was convicted of killing four of his classmates and injuring seven others on 30 November 2021.

The prosecution has accused her of neglecting her son’s “downward spiral” and making a gun accessible in their home.

The defence rested its case on Friday after the defendant took the stand. Ms Crumbley’s attorney delivered strange closing arguments, in which she compared herself to Ms Crumbley as “messy” working moms.

The prosecution argued that Ms Crumbley could have taken “tragically small” steps that could have prevented her son from shooting up his school. The prosecutors mentioned that the mother bought her son a gun days before the shooting, recognized that he was “acting depressed” and spent a lot of time alone.

The trial has been chock-full of revelations: an extramarital affair, a shocking admission, and a Taylor Swift reference.

She will be sentenced on 9 April.

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The school meeting hours before the massacre

Central to the case was the meeting between the Crumbley parents and school officials that took place mere hours before the shooting.

On the morning of 30 November 2021, a teacher had noticed a disturbing drawing by Ethan, prompting school administrators to call in his parents for a meeting and consult them about whether he should stay in school or be taken home.

The parents decided he should stay in school, where he killed four of his classmates hours later.

The defence underscored that school staff gave Crumbley a choice and didn’t force her to take her son home.

However, a videotaped interview with police in the aftermath of the attack was played in court, showing Crumbley admitting: “I really wish we took him home.”

In an attempt to cut into the defence’s description of Crumbley being a “hypervigilant” mom, the prosecution tried to draw attention to how much time and money the mother dedicated to her horses and to other distractions — including her affair with her former lover.

Brian Meloche, Crumbley’s long-time friend, testified that he and Crumbley had a six-month extramarital affair starting in the spring of 2021. Around this same time, Ethan’s mental health started to decline, the prosecution claimed. His grandmother passed away in April 2021 and his mother told a friend that he was “acting depressed”.

Beyond this affair, Crumbley’s digital footprint also showed that she was using the adultery website AdultFriendFinder.

Despite telling school staff that Ethan should remain in school since both she and her husband had to return to work that day, Mr Meloche testified that Crumbley had text him saying she was free to meet up with him.

Read the full story...

Kelly Rissman7 February 2024 08:00
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In photos: the Jennifer Crumbley trial

<p>Jennifer Crumbley arrives in court on Monday </p>

Jennifer Crumbley arrives in court on Monday

<p>Judge Cheryl Matthews gives the jury instructions on 5 February </p>

Judge Cheryl Matthews gives the jury instructions on 5 February

Kelly Rissman7 February 2024 06:00
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White House’s remarks on verdict

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House Press Secretary, said in a statement on Tuesday:

We saw the breaking news just not too long ago....without speaking specifically, on today’s verdict, we want to be really careful here. I can say that the President remains committed to stop tragedies like these happening in the first place. … Students who carry carry out K-12 school shootings are using firearms they obtain from home from a friend or family member. We know that to be true.

T”he importance of safe firearm storage cannot be overstated. And the administration will continue to use every tool at our disposal to implement these and other common sense gun safety measures to protect our children, our schools and our communities. Look, when it comes to when it comes to gun violence, the president has said this is an epidemic. It is the number one killer of our kids.

“We’ve done more than two dozen executive actions … He signed … bipartisan legislation to deal with gun violence, legislation that hasn’t passed in 30 years. So he takes this very seriously. We do not want to continue to see and our kids being the number one killer, it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be.”

Kelly Rissman7 February 2024 04:00
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ICYMI: Moment Jennifer Crumbley found guilty of manslaughter

Moment Jennifer Crumbley found guilty of manslaughter
Kelly Rissman7 February 2024 03:00
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Jennifer Crumbley’s bizarre defence

In closing arguments, Jennifer Crumbley’s attorney Shannon Smith acknowledged that she has a big personality, and asked the jurors not to project any negative feelings they may have toward her onto her client.

The lawyer detailed a series of snapshots into her own personal life as a “messy” working mother-of-four in an effort to relate to her client and suggest that she easily could have ended up in “Mrs Crumbley’s shoes”.

“I say ‘sorry’ a lot,” Ms Smith said, and referred to a TikTok video that apparently shows the attorney apologising throughout the trial.

The attorney told the court that she messes up a lot because “I’m human — and so is Mrs Crumbley”.

The defendant is “not a perfect person or a perfect parent,” she said, and neither is she.

Ms Smith said that as a working mother, she sometimes doesn’t have time to take a “true shower” but has to “just grab a handful of wipes and scrub off the best I can”.

“I realised I am Jennifer Crumbley,” Ms Smith said, outlining similarities between the two women.

“Calling your child an oopsie baby was designed to try to make her look bad with no context,” Ms Smith argued, adding that she calls her son an “oopsie baby” all the time.

Ms Smith said that she has called her child a “psycho” or a “nutcase,” just as Ms Crumbley called her son “weird” in texts to her friend.

Read the full story...

Kelly Rissman7 February 2024 02:00
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The prosecution’s successful argument, revisited

In opening statements, the prosecution argued that Jennifer Crumbley was well aware of her son’s “deteriorating mental health” and despite this, she and her husband bought him a gun and took him to a gun range.

“They weren’t in a car crash. They weren’t sick. They were murdered in an act of terror committed by Jennifer Crumbley’s 15-year-old son,” Oakland County assistant prosecutor Marc Keast said in opening statements.

“Jennifer Crumbley didn’t pull the trigger that day. But she’s responsible for their deaths,” he added.

Ethan Crumbley was in a “downward spiral” when the gun was purchased, and his mother knew that the prosecutor said. Still, “this gun was gifted”, he added.

“They didn’t do any number of tragically small and easy things that would have prevented all this from happening,” the attorney said of the parents, calling the tragedy “senseless”.

He also accused Ms Crumbley of trying to “downplay and downright lie” about her knowledge of what was going on with her son. Her “first instinct was to lie, second was to run”, he said.

This trial is about her “willful disregard of the danger that she knew of”, he said.

The defence, on the other hand, insisted that her son’s mental condition was “not on her radar”, emphasised her husband’s love of guns, placed blame on the school, and described her as a “hypervigilant” mother.

Kelly Rissman7 February 2024 01:00
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Jennifer Crumbley found guilty in historic trial

A Michigan jury has found Jennifer Crumbley guilty of manslaughter in the Oxford High School shooting, after she bought her teenage son a firearm and ignored multiple warning signs about his disturbing behaviour in the lead-up to the deadly attack.

Jurors reached the verdict on Tuesday morning after deliberating for more than 10 hours.

Crumbley, 45, had pleaded not guilty to four counts of involuntary manslaughter in the case, one for each of the four classmates – Madiyson Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Justin Shilling, 17; and Hana St. Juliana, 14 – murdered by her son.

Her son, Ethan Crumbley, was sentenced in December to life in prison without the possibility of parole after he shot and killed four of his classmates in the 30 November 2021 mass shooting.

The verdict handed down to the shooter’s mother is historic, as no parent has ever been charged, tried or convicted for their alleged role in a mass school shooting perpetrated by their child.

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Kelly Rissman7 February 2024 00:00
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What do involuntary manslaughter charges mean in Michigan?

In order to be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Michigan, the prosecution had to prove at least one of two theories to jurors beyond a reasonable doubt.

The first theory relies on gross negligence. This theory, as the Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald explained to the court, means that the defendant “caused death” by acting in a grossly negligent manner.

The second theory hinges on a failure to perform a legal duty. This theory means that the defendant had a legal duty to the victim, yet “willfully neglected or refused to perform” that duty – and that this “failure to perform it was grossly negligent to human life”. Ultimately, it means that a victim’s death was directly caused by the defendant’s failure to perform this legal duty.

Judge Cheryl Matthews defined the legal duty in this case when giving the jury their instructions.

“In Michigan, a parent has a legal duty to exercise reasonable care to control their minor child so as to prevent the minor child from intentionally harming others or prevent the minor child from conducting themselves in a way that creates an unreasonable risk of bodily harm to others,” she said.

If either or both of these two theories are proven, that is “sufficient to establish the crime of involuntary manslaughter,” the judge said.

“It’s not necessary that you all agree on which theory has been proven. As long as you all agree that the prosecutor has to prove at least one of those theories beyond a reasonable doubt.”

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Kelly Rissman6 February 2024 22:52
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Gun safety advocate weighs in on verdict

Kelly Rissman6 February 2024 22:30
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Nick Suplina, Senior Vice President for Law and Policy at Everytown for Gun Safety, issued a statement

“Today’s verdict underscores the important responsibility of parents and gun owners in preventing children from having unsupervised access to deadly weapons.

“Plain and simple, the deadly shooting at Oxford High School in 2021 should have — and could have — been prevented had the Crumbley’s not acquired a gun for their 15-year-old son. This decision is an important step forward in ensuring accountability and, hopefully, preventing future tragedies.”

Kelly Rissman6 February 2024 22:00

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2024-02-07 08:53:16Z
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Syria says Israel bombed targets in Homs area - BBC

DigitalGlobe via Getty Images imagery of the Shayrat Air Base outside of Homs, Syria. (Photo DigitalGlobe via Getty Images/Getty Images)Getty Images

The Syrian army says Israel has struck targets in Homs province, just north of Lebanon, killing or injuring a number of people.

Syrian air defences shot down Israeli missiles, Syrian state media say.

The attacks targeted Shuyrat air base and other sites near the city of Homs, a Syrian military source was reported as saying by Reuters news agency.

Since the Gaza war broke out in October, Israeli attacks on Iranian-backed militia targets have escalated.

A war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said four people had been killed in Tuesday evening's attacks.

Syrian state television showed ambulances rushing to the scene of an air strike where rubble from a building could be seen, Reuters reports, adding that it could not verify the location.

Two civilians are among the dead, the Syrian Observatory told AFP news agency.

Israel has carried out military strikes in Syria for years, against what it says are Iran-linked targets. However, it rarely comments on individual strikes.

Iranian forces have been present in Syria since the early stages of the Syrian civil war, where they helped support the government of President Bashar al-Assad against a widespread rebellion.

Last week, the US bombed what it said were Iran-linked targets in Syria and Iraq in response to the killing of three US service personnel in Jordan on 28 January.

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2024-02-07 00:28:55Z
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