The suspect accused of gunning down two Israeli embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington was charged Thursday with murder, as international tensions over anti-Semitism erupted over the attack.Elias Rodriguez, 31, shouted “Free Palestine” as he was taken away by police after the shooting late Wednesday outside the Capital Jewish Museum, prosecutors said in a court document. “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza,” he told the officers.The Chicago man made an initial court appearance Thursday after being charged with two counts of first-degree murder and murder of foreign officials. If convicted, he could receive the death penalty.Authorities were investigating the shooting “as an act of terrorism and as a hate crime,” Jeanine Pirro, interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, told reporters.”I suspect as we go forward… that there will be more charges added,” she said, noting that a preliminary hearing was set for June 18.The shooting triggered international outrage and finger-pointing as Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar blamed European criticism of his country’s stepped-up Gaza offensive, claiming “a direct line connecting anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli incitement to this murder.””This incitement is also done by leaders and officials of many countries and international organizations, especially from Europe,” he said.French foreign ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine called the accusation “completely outrageous and completely unjustified.”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited “the terrible price of anti-Semitism” and decried “wild incitement against the State of Israel.”Soon after the shooting, President Donald Trump — who spoke with Netanyahu on Thursday — posted on social media that the attack was clearly anti-Semitic.The killings took place outside the Capital Jewish Museum, located a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the White House, following a social event hosted by the American Jewish Committee for young Jewish professionals and the Washington diplomatic community.Israel identified the victims as Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, a US employee of the embassy, and said they were a couple planning to marry.- ‘Mass murderers’ -The attack came days after the museum was awarded a grant to boost security, as anti-Semitism surges worldwide in the wake of Israel’s devastating invasion of Gaza, prompted by the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas.Tensions have risen in the United States and many other countries over the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, with pro-Palestinian activists decrying what they say is the intolerable human cost of the military offensive.Britain and France — who have stepped up their criticism of Israel’s actions — were among those condemning the shooting, as well as Germany and the United Arab Emirates.But Netanyahu on Thursday accused France, Britain and Canada of emboldening militants, saying “they want Israel to stand down and accept that Hamas’s army of mass murderers will survive, rebuild and repeat the October 7 massacre.”- ‘Anti-Semitism, I feel it every day’ – Police said Rodriguez was seen pacing outside the museum before the shooting around 9:00 pm (0100 GMT Thursday).According to court documents, Rodriguez approached his victims, who were facing away from him, and fired 21 rounds. He shot multiple times at the couple after they were already on the ground and fired at Milgram as she tried to crawl away.Witnesses said security personnel at first mistook the gunman for a victim of the shooting and allowed him into the museum, where he was initially comforted by bystanders.”They sat him down. ‘Are you OK? Were you shot? What happened?’ And he’s like ‘Somebody call the cops’,” Yoni Kalin, who was in the museum, told US media.Lischinsky was a researcher at the Israeli embassy, while Milgrim worked for its public diplomacy department, according to their LinkedIn profiles.On Thursday, mourners gathered at the museum in Washington to sing and pray.”Obviously the war is awful,” mourner Gil Livni told AFP. “(But) anti-Semitism, I feel it every day… people that I thought were my friends showing that they are anti-Semitic. It’s become the norm.”Hadar Susskind, president and CEO of New Jewish Narrative, described the moment as “unbelievably painful … this cannot be the answer.” bur-st-sms-nl/des

Outrage over George Floyd’s killing by police catapulted Black Lives Matter into one of the largest protest movements in US history, with angry crowds chanting the slogan at rallies from Los Angeles to Washington.But five years on, the protesters are gone and an iconic monument outside the White House has been erased, leaving many to wonder if the movement blew its chance for historic change by failing to win over the American public.”It’s very easy to wear the T-shirt, utter the slogan, but then you looked at what they were asking for,” Yohuru Williams, who runs the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St Thomas, told AFP.Despite widespread revulsion at racism and police brutality in the wake of Floyd’s May 2020 death, many turned away when BLM activists broadened their message to calling for the defunding of law enforcement.National support for the Black Lives Matter movement is now 52 percent, according to Pew Research, down 15 percentage points since June 2020, a month after police officer Derek Chauvin killed Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis.Initially, Floyd’s death was hailed as a catalyst for a national reckoning similar to the 1960s civil rights movement.Protests, some turning into riots, spread across the country — right up to the gates of the White House, where Donald Trump was serving his first term.Pent-up energy from Covid lockdowns fed the anger, which coalesced around BLM, until then a loose organization founded in 2013 to protest racially motivated violence.Activists soon widened their focus to systemic racism, with monuments of slave owners removed and some companies investing in diversity initiatives to support ethnic minorities.- Missed opportunity -Despite the ambition, Williams said that BLM has achieved “very little.””The moral clarity of 2020 has not translated into enough political courage,” Phillip Solomon, a professor of African-American Studies and Psychology at Yale University, told AFP.The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which proposed law enforcement reforms, including nationwide bans on dangerous chokeholds during arrests, has failed to pass US lawmakers.Solomon said Floyd’s killing –- he called it a “lynching” -– opened an opportunity for change that was missed and is now facing a backlash.The election of Trump to a second term — despite his racially charged rhetoric and heavy support from far-right figures –- reflects deep-rooted tensions, he said.”I think this moment is a microcosm of America,” Solomon added.Race inequality has long sparked protests in the United States, where segregation only legally ended in the 1960s after a relentless campaign of marches and civil disobedience.Floyd’s death came in the context of dozens of other high-profile instances of police brutality against Black people –- something that smartphones and social media can now rapidly document and share.- ‘Reversed with a vengeance’ -There have been police reforms in some states primarily focused on limiting the amount of force officers can use, as well as local programs to send unarmed responders instead of police to selected callouts.However, many say these measures are insufficient.Medaria Arradondo -– serving as the first Black police chief of Minneapolis when Floyd died -– told AFP he was worried about the “grave consequences” of failing to enact more reforms.”I hope and pray that we as a nation are not sleepwalking our way into the next critical crisis,” he said.Civil rights group the National Urban League this month published a report warning that marginalized communities have been “pushed deeper into survival mode” after Floyd’s death.League president Marc Morial said at a conference that steps to address racial injustices have “been reversed with a vengeance.”Trump’s Justice Department has axed all outstanding civil rights investigations from the outgoing Joe Biden administration, ended police accountability agreements, and cracked down on diversity hiring. Some of Trump’s more extreme supporters have gone as far as calling for Chauvin to be pardoned.But Arradondo said he remains optimistic. “History has shown we make incremental change,” he said, “We’re going to have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but I believe we will get there.”

Before they were killed by a gunman outside a Washington Jewish museum, Yaron Lischinsky had planned to make a formal proposal of marriage to Sarah Milgrim in Jerusalem next week.As their deaths late Wednesday intensify the international spotlight on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, here is what we know about the two Israeli embassy staffers shot dead after attending a networking event for young professionals.- Yaron Lischinsky -The 30-year-old had worked as a researcher at the Israeli embassy in Washington since 2022. He was born in Nuremburg, Germany and moved to Israel at the age of 16 and had dual nationality.Lischinsky studied at Reichman University in Tel Aviv and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador in Berlin, described Lischinsky as a “brilliant” and “curious” student when he taught him at Reichman. Nissim Otmazgin, a humanities professor at Hebrew University, said the slain man had dreamed of becoming a diplomat.Lischinsky spoke fluent German, according to the German-Israeli Friendship Society. Volker Beck, the society president, said Lischinsky’s “interest in German-Israeli relations and ways to achieve peaceful coexistence in the Middle East brightened the environment around him.” He met Sarah Milgrim when she started working at the Israeli mission. According to Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Lischinsky had bought a ring. The couple planned to fly to Jerusalem on Sunday to meet his family and Lischinsky was to propose there next week.  – Sarah Milgrim -The LinkedIn photo of 26-year-old Sarah Milgrim showed a smiling woman with curly red hair standing between Israeli and US flags. She had worked in the public diplomacy section at the embassy in Washington since 2023.Milgrim was a leading choir member at her school near Kansas City and earned a degree in environmental science from the University of Kansas. She also attended a American University in Washington and a UN University for Peace program. She had a master’s degree in international studies and sustainable global development, according to her father Robert.The Milgrim family were not aware of the upcoming proposal. Her father said the Israeli ambassador told them about it when he telephoned Wednesday night to inform them of the young couple’s death.Milgrim’s mother Nancy told The New York Times she had been planning to fly to Washington on Sunday to look after her daughter’s dog.She had seen alerts on her phone about the shooting in Washington, and tracked her daughter to the Capital Jewish Museum before the ambassador’s call. “I pretty much already knew,” the father told The New York Times.After university Milgrim spent a year in Israel working with the Tech2Peace group aimed at bringing together young Israelis and Palestinians for seminars on peacemaking and tech training.On LinkedIn, she said she had carried out a study “on the role of friendships in the Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding process.””She was doing what she loved, she was doing good,” her father told US media.

Several people were killed when a small plane crashed in a California neighborhood before dawn Thursday, destroying a home and setting more than a dozen cars on fire.At least 10 houses were hit by debris and vehicles on both sides of a street went up in flames when the Cessna 550 slammed into the ground, spewing burning jet fuel in a part of San Diego that is home to military families.San Diego Fire Department Assistant Chief Dan Eddy told reporters one house had been badly damaged, but that no one on the ground had been seriously hurt.”When (the plane) hit the street, as the jet fuel went down, it took out every single car that was on both sides of the street,” he said.The plane had six people aboard, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration.One of the dead was identified as Dave Shapiro, a music agent who founded San Diego-based Sound Talent Group (STG).The company said two other members of staff who were aboard the plane had also died.”We are devastated by the loss of our co-founder, colleagues and friends,” an STG spokesperson told US media.The San Diego Police Department said Thursday afternoon that at least two people had died, but first responders at the scene said the plane had been totally destroyed and they expected the toll to rise.- ‘Engulfed in flames’ -Yasmine Sierra told AFP how she had helped her neighbors escape their burning house in the middle of the night after being awakened by what she initially thought was an earthquake.”It looked like all the homes were on fire because I could see the smoke and the flames, it looked like the trees were on fire,” she said.Moments later she heard screams from her neighbors who were trapped in their back garden.”Me and my son grabbed the ladder, we jumped on our trampoline, and we tried to bounce as much as we possibly could, to throw that ladder over so that they can climb onto the ladder into our backyard,” said Sierra, 35.A woman, two children and two small dogs climbed to safety over the ladder.”She was very distraught when she came over. I brought her to the front of the house, and I told her that, you know, we needed to leave.”Jeremy Serna, 31, who is in the Navy, said he and his wife had been awoken by a loud bang.”We looked outside, and the sky was orange. And then I came running outside to see what it was, and everything was on fire over here,” he told AFP.”I saw the corner house was just engulfed in flames. And then came back over here and told my wife, hey, we have to get out of here.”- Thick fog -Investigators were combing the scene Thursday, picking through the scattered debris of the plane, which appeared to have broken into hundreds of pieces.Bits of fiberglass were scattered among the twisted and charred remains of cars, and the smell of fuel hung in the air.The accident happened in thick fog when the plane, which had come via Kansas, was nearing the Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport.It was not immediately clear what had happened, but the fire department’s Eddy said a nearby power line appeared to have been clipped.The plane went down around 3:45 am (1045 GMT), according to the Federal Aviation Administration, striking the Murphy Canyon neighborhood.The residential area is largely military housing. San Diego is home to US Navy facilities, Marine Corps bases and Coast Guard stations.The accident came at a time of heightened tension in the skies above America.Air traffic control outages have struck the busy Newark airport on the East Coast at least twice in recent weeks, and in January there was a mid-air collision over Washington between a passenger plane and a military helicopter.This month two people died when their small plane crashed into a residential neighborhood northwest of Los Angeles.

A US court on Thursday ordered a former Mexican security chief convicted of drug trafficking and his wife to pay more than $2.4 billion to their country, Mexico’s government said.Mexico sued Genaro Garcia Luna, who is imprisoned in the United States, for alleged corruption and money laundering involving dozens of public contracts.The ruling is the latest twist in the saga of the former high-flying minister who earned himself the nickname of “supercop” but instead aided and abetted drug traffickers.The money awarded by a Florida court is three times the amount that the Mexican government had originally sought, a government statement said. It said Garcia Luna was ordered to pay nearly $749 million and his wife Linda Cristina Pereyra is to pay a staggering $1.74 billion.”The judgment is consistent with seven guilty verdicts previously issued and enforced against Garcia Luna, his wife, and his five companies as a result of their failure to appear at trial,” the statement added.It said that nearly $3 million had already been recovered from assets, including a company owned by the couple, as well as real estate.Garcia Luna, 56, was convicted by a US court in 2023 of taking millions of dollars in bribes to allow the Sinaloa Cartel to smuggle tons of cocaine.A New York judge sentenced him to more than 38 years in prison and a $2 million fine.Garcia Luna, who held high-ranking security positions in his country from 2001 until 2012, was the highest-ranking Mexican government figure ever to face trial in the United States.He served as chief of the Mexican equivalent of the FBI from 2001 until 2006, when he was elevated to secretary of public security, essentially running the federal police force and most counter-drug operations.Garcia Luna is considered an architect of the US-backed war on drugs launched in 2006 by Mexico’s then president Felipe Calderon.In 2012, after retiring from public service, he moved to the United States and used his extensive contacts to win lucrative contracts with the Mexican government.He was arrested in December 2019 in Dallas, Texas.The Mexican government accused a business conglomerate belonging to Garcia Luna’s family of obtaining 30 public contracts and obtaining funds totaling more than $745 million.Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit alleged that the money was transferred abroad through the use of tax havens and the acquisition of property and other assets in Florida.