Sacramento: Police arrest one in shooting that killed 6, wounded 12 – National & International News – MON 4Apr2022

Sacramento: Police arrest one in deadly shooting. Student loan borrowers in limbo over looming deadline. Bodies in the streets after brutal civilian massacre near Kiev.

NATIONAL NEWS

Sacramento: Police arrest one in shooting that killed 6, wounded 12

Police in Sacramento, CA, have arrested one man in connection with a deadly shooting in the early hours of Sunday morning. At least two gunmen killed 6 people and wounded another 12 after an altercation broke out as the bars were closing. Police have arrested Dandre Martin, 26, and charged him with assault and illegal firearm possession. Martin’s exact role in the events isn’t yet clear. 

The shooting was the deadliest in the city’s history. Police said they recovered more than 100 shell casings from the scene. At least three buildings and three cars at the scene were hit with gunfire. The Sacramento County coroner has identified the 6 people who died as a result of the melee. They were three women and three men, ranging in age from 21 to 57 years.

Biden calls for gun reforms

Following the massacre in Sacramento, President Biden called on Congress to do more about gun violence. Specifically, he called for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and an end to gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.

Nearly a decade after a gunman killed more than 20 elementary school children at Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT, the victims’ families won a $73 million settlement from the gunmaker Remington. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that Remington’s marketing campaign for its AR-15 style rifle had irresponsibly targeted emotionally insecure men.

Cities across the country have seen a sharp rise in fatal shootings in the last two years. A couple of weeks ago, Miami, FL, instituted a curfew after a rash of spring break-related shootings injured 5 people. The same night as the shooting in Sacramento, a shooting outside a concert in Dallas, TX, killed one person and injured 11 others.

Millions of student loan borrowers in limbo over looming deadline

At the start of the pandemic, student loan borrowers received a reprieve from repaying their loans. The deadline for repayments to resume has since been extended five times. The current deadline for payments to resume is May 1, but there are signs that the Biden administration wants to pause payments once again.

Two weeks ago, the Department of Education sent a memo to servicers of federal student loans instructing them not to issue reminders to borrowers about the May 1 deadline. Servicers must send out 6 reminders before payments can resume.

However, there hasn’t yet been any formal announcement about whether or not payments will resume, leaving roughly 43 million borrowers uncertain about their budgets. Biden is under increasing pressure from fellow Democrats and advocates for loan forgiveness to extend the deadline amid rampant inflation. Democratic lawmakers have called on Biden to pause repayments until 2023, after the mid-term elections. There are also growing calls to forgive all outstanding loans, or at least a significant amount per borrower.

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Related: how loan servicers have screwed low-income borrowers (3-minute listen; opens in new tab).

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Ukraine: Bodies in the streets after brutal civilian massacre near Kiev

After Russian forces withdrew from the Kiev suburb of Bucha, Ukrainian soldiers and members of the press re-entered the city to find a brutal and systematic massacre of civilians had taken place. Hundreds of bodies lay in the streets or in hastily dug mass graves. Most wore civilian clothes and many had their hands bound behind their backs. Some, including children, bore signs of having been raped and tortured.

Locals who survived gave accounts to the press of a campaign of terror by occupying Russian soldiers. Some told of Russian soldiers raiding basements were civilians were sheltering. The soldiers confiscated phones, looking for anti-Russian messages or signs of espionage, then executed “offenders”. Soldiers also plundered apartments in search of valuables. 

Local civilian leaders were also rounded up. Those who refused to collaborate were executed.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky visited the area to witness the carnage for himself. He called the perpetrators “butchers” and accused them of genocide. Other Western leaders stated that the evidence indicates that the Russian occupiers committed dozens of war crimes.

The Kremlin has, unsurprisingly, rejected the allegations. Russian officials have variously claimed that the images are fake or that Ukrainian forces brutally tortured and killed their own people.

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