Satellite images show Canadian wildfire smoke billowing over US – National & International News – WED 7Jun2023

Satellite images show Canadian wildfire smoke billowing over US.

Florida woman who fatally shot Black mother arrested.

NATIONAL NEWS

Satellite images show Canadian wildfire smoke billowing over US

Canada is currently fighting hundreds of wildfires whose smoke is severely impacting air quality in over a dozen US states. This morning, nearly 100 million people in 18 states as far South as Georgia received air quality alerts. 

The weather conditions that are carrying the smoke over the US will last for several more days and may get worse before it gets better. People living in the affected areas have been urged to stay indoors with their windows closed as much as possible. Many are choosing to don masks when venturing out. 

Today, New York City suffered some of the worst air quality of any city in the world. Several other cities in the affected corridor have awoken to deep orange skies a weather system carried a band of concentrated soot overhead. The East Coast has experienced orange skies before in recent years when smoke from out-of-control wildfires out West blew over them. Unusually, Canada’s worst wildfires right now are in the east in Quebec.

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Florida woman who fatally shot Black mother arrested

OCALA, FL – Susan Lorincz, 58, has been arrested on manslaughter and other charges in the shooting death of Ajike Owens, 35. Lorincz shot Owens through her closed front door when Owens came to confront Lorincz for assaulting one of Owens’ children. At least one of Owens’ four children was standing beside Owens when Lorincz shot her. 

This followed a years’-long feud between the two neighbors. Lorincz had repeatedly verbally accosted Owens’ children and other neighborhood children for playing on an empty lot near her house. Police had responded at least 6 times to the address over the running and heated dispute. Earlier on the day Lorincz shot Owens, Lorincz had confronted Owens’ children and had struck one of them with a pair of skates.

Anger over delay in arrest

Members of the local community were angry that local Sherriff Billy Woods had not arrested Lorincz sooner. Woods had tried to mollify his critics, saying he could not arrest Lorincz without proof that she had not shot Owens in self-defense.

Florida’s Stand Your Ground law has made it much harder to arrest people who fatally shoot someone in a confrontation. In 2017, Florida’s legislature made it even more difficult. Up until then, prosecutors could charge a shooter and force them to provide an affirmative defense that they were acting in self-defense. The change to the law has now shifted the burden onto police and prosecutors to prove the shooter was not acting in self-defense before an arrest.

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