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Protester shot and killed at 'No Kings' rally in Utah, say police
AP Salt Lake City (US)
A man believed to be part of a peacekeeping team for the "No Kings" protest in Salt Lake City shot at a person who was brandishing a rifle at demonstrators, striking both the rifleman and a bystander who later died at the hospital, authorities said on Sunday.
Police took the alleged rifleman, Arturo Gamboa, 24, into custody on Saturday evening on a murder charge, Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd said at a Sunday news conference. The bystander was Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, 39.
Detectives do not yet know why Gamboa pulled out a rifle or ran from the peacekeepers, but they accused him of creating the dangerous situation that led to Ah Loo's death. The Associated Press did not immediately find an attorney listed for Gamboa or contact information for his family in public records.
Redd said the man who dressed in a neon green vest and was believed to be part of the peacekeeping team fired three shots from a handgun at Gamboa, inflicting a relatively minor injury but fatally shooting Ah Loo.
The gunshots sent hundreds of protesters running, some hiding behind barriers and fleeing into parking garages and nearby businesses, police said in a statement. "That is a gun. Come on, come on, get out," someone can be heard saying in a video posted to social media that appears to show the events.
"No Kings" protests swept across the country on Saturday, and organisers said millions rallied against what they described as President Donald Trump's authoritarian excesses.
Confrontations were largely isolated. They included a driver of an SUV who authorities said struck a woman who was participating in a "No Kings" demonstration and sped away in Riverside, California, east of Los Angeles. The woman had "significant injuries" but was stable, police said, adding that they were still searching for the driver.
Outside the Arizona statehouse, a social media video showed protesters jeering at and then skirmishing with a masked man on Saturday, who eventually pulled out a handgun, causing the crowd to scatter. Another video showed Arizona Department of Public Safety officers taking the man into custody.
The Utah chapter of the 50501 Movement, which helped organise the protests, said in a statement on Instagram that they condemned the rifleman in Salt Lake City, and thanked first responders and "our safety team" for the quick response.
The Utah chapter did not immediately respond to AP questions about the peacekeeping team. It was unclear who hired them, whether they were volunteers or what their training was prior to the event. Redd said that the peacekeepers' actions are also part of the investigation.
The shooter and another person in a neon vest allegedly saw Gamboa separate from the crowd of marchers in downtown Salt Lake City, move behind a wall and withdraw a rifle around 8 pm, Redd said.
When the two men in vests confronted Gamboa with their handguns drawn, witnesses said Gamboa raised his rifle into a firing position and ran toward the crowd, said Redd.
That is when one of the men dressed in the vests shot three rounds, hitting Gamboa and Ah Loo, said Redd. Gamboa, who police said did not have a criminal history, was wounded and treated before being booked into jail.
Police said they recovered an AR-15 style rifle, a gas mask and a backpack at the scene.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Business Standard
26 minutes ago
- Business Standard
How Russia reins in internet by blocking websites, isolating it from world
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They also are threatening to go after the popular WhatsApp platform while rolling out a new national messenger that's widely expected to be heavily monitored. President Vladimir Putin urged the government to stifle foreign internet services and ordered officials to assemble a list of platforms from unfriendly states that should be restricted. Experts and rights advocates told The Associated Press that the scale and effectiveness of the restrictions are alarming. Authorities seem more adept at it now, compared with previous, largely futile efforts to restrict online activities, and they're edging closer to isolating the internet in Russia. Human Rights Watch researcher Anastasiia Kruope describes Moscow's approach to reining in the internet as death by a thousand cuts." "Bit by bit, you're trying to come to a point where everything is controlled. Censorship after 2011-12 protests Kremlin efforts to control what Russians do, read or say online dates to 2011-12, when the internet was used to challenge authority. Independent media outlets bloomed, and anti-government demonstrations that were coordinated online erupted after disputed parliamentary elections and Putin's decision to run again for president. Russia began adopting regulations tightening internet controls. Some blocked websites; others required providers to store call records and messages, sharing it with security services if needed, and install equipment allowing authorities to control and cut off traffic. Companies like Google or Facebook were pressured to store user data on Russian servers, to no avail, and plans were announced for a sovereign internet that could be cut off from the rest of the world. Russia's popular Facebook-like social media platform VK, founded by Pavel Durov long before he launched the Telegram messenger, came under the control of Kremlin-friendly companies. Russia tried to block Telegram between 2018-20 but failed. Prosecutions for social media posts and comments became common, showing that authorities were closely watching the online space. Still, experts had dismissed Kremlin efforts to rein in the internet as futile, arguing Russia was far from building something akin to China's Great Firewall, which Beijing uses to block foreign websites. Ukraine invasion triggers crackdown After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the government blocked major social media like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, as well as Signal and a few other messaging apps. VPNs also were targeted, making it harder to reach restricted websites. YouTube access was disrupted last summer in what experts called deliberate throttling by authorities. 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A huge number of global websites and platforms use those providers, he said, so cutting them off means those websites automatically become inaccessible in Russia too. Another concerning trend is the consolidation of Russia's internet providers and companies that manage IP addresses, according to a July 30 Human Rights Watch report. Last year, authorities raised the cost of obtaining an internet provider license from 7,500 rubles (about USD 90) to 1 million rubles (over USD 12,300), and state data shows that more than half of all IP addresses in Russia are managed by seven large companies, with Rostelecom, Russia's state telephone and internet giant, accounting for 25 per cent. The Kremlin is striving to control the internet space in Russia, and to censor things, to manipulate the traffic, said HRW's Kruope. Criminalising extremist' searches A new Russian law criminalised online searches for broadly defined extremist materials. That could include LGBTQ+ content, opposition groups, some songs by performers critical of the Kremlin and Navalny's memoir, which was designated as extremist last week. Right advocates say it's a step toward punishing consumers not just providers like in Belarus, where people are routinely fined or jailed for reading or following certain independent media outlets. Stanislav Seleznev, cyber security expert and lawyer with the Net Freedom rights group, doesn't expect ubiquitous prosecutions, since tracking individual online searches in a country of 146 million remains a tall order. But even a limited number of cases could scare many from restricted content, he said. Another major step could be blocking WhatsApp, which monitoring service Mediascope said had over 97 million monthly users in April. WhatsApp should prepare to leave the Russian market, said lawmaker Anton Gorelkin, and a new national messenger, MAX, developed by social media company VK, would take its place. Telegram, another popular messenger, probably won't be restricted, he said. MAX, promoted as a one-stop shop for messaging, online government services, making payments and more, was rolled out for beta tests but has yet to attract a wide following. Over 2 million people registered by July, the Tass news agency reported. Its terms and conditions say it will share user data with authorities upon request, and a new law stipulates its preinstallation in all smartphones sold in Russia. State institutions, officials and businesses are actively encouraged to move communications and blogs to MAX. Anastasia Zhyrmont of the Access Now internet freedom group said both Telegram and WhatsApp were disrupted in Russia in July in what could be a test of how potential blockages would affect internet infrastructure. It wouldn't be uncommon. In recent years, authorities regularly tested cutting off the internet from the rest of the world, sometimes resulting in outages in some regions. Darbinyan believes the only way to make people use MAX is to shut down, stifle every Western alternative. But again, habits ... do not change in a year or two. And these habits acquired over decades, when the internet was fast and free, he said. Government media and internet regulator Roskomnadzor uses more sophisticated methods, analyzing all web traffic and identifying what it can block or choke off, Darbinyan said. It's been helped by years of perfecting the technology, years of taking over and understanding the architecture of the internet and the players, as well as Western sanctions and companies leaving the Russian market since 2022, said Kruope of Human Rights Watch. Russia is not there yet in isolating its internet from the rest of the world, Darbinyan said, but Kremlin efforts are bringing it closer.
Economic Times
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What to do when the president acts like a 5-year-old?
Synopsis President Trump's decision to fire the Bureau of Labor Statistics chief over unfavorable data is likened to "flipping the board," undermining the independence of crucial economic reporting. This action threatens investor trust, market stability, and public faith in government institutions. The integrity of U.S. statistics is foundational, and political interference erodes democracy. AP Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One at Lehigh Valley International Airport. MOST CHILDREN LEARN AT SOME POINT THAT FLIPPING THE BOARD DOESN'T MAKE THEM THE WINNER. Imagine a group of 5-year-olds playing a board game. The rules are clear, the goal is fair, and one child edges ahead -- until, suddenly, another child starts losing. That's when the trouble begins. "He cheated!" the losing child yells. "I'm the winner anyway!" he declares. And then, like clockwork, he flips the board. In the world of kindergarten conflict resolution, we expect this kind of behavior. We chalk it up to development. We teach better sportsmanship. What do we do when the president of the United States behaves this way? On Friday, President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- the nation's workaday scorekeeper of employment, wages and productivity. Why? Because the data didn't make Mr. Trump look good. The statistics were inconvenient. So the president didn't just challenge the findings; he fired the statistician. That's not governing. That's board flipping. For over a century, the integrity of U.S. economic data has rested on a fragile but vital precept: independence. Agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis operate under the executive branch, but their mandates are to serve the truth, not the administration. Their job is to report what is, not what the White House wishes were true. Yes, legally, the president can fire the bureau's commissioner. The position is not protected by statute. But like many pillars of democracy -- free press, fair elections, impartial courts -- what protects the Bureau of Labor Statistics is not law but a common set of assumptions about how government should function. A basic idea that says: Presidents don't manipulate the scoreboard. Past presidents respected this boundary. Ronald Reagan didn't fire the head of the agency when it reported double-digit unemployment during his first term. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama took bad news from official statistics on the chin. Mr. Trump has charted a different course. This is not his first tangle with truth. He has questioned unemployment numbers and dismissed Covid fatality figures as inflated. Removing the Bureau of Labor Statistics chief because the numbers were off narrative is a new breach. It is not only attacking the game; it is removing the referee. This may sound like inside baseball, of importance mostly to labor economists. But it's not. The credibility of American statistics is foundational. It undergirds investor trust. It guides fiscal and monetary policy. It tells businesses when to hire, when to expand and when to hold. When those numbers are tainted or appear to be, the ripple effects are vast. Markets can lose faith in the data and in the country that produces it. Yes, the BLS made some retroactive changes to its May and June reports, sharply cutting its assessments of job growth. These kinds of revisions are routine as the BLS incorporates new data, even if these were particularly large. The job of counting is getting harder as the response rate to its surveys falls. But this isn't malfeasance. What about citizens? When a government fires the umpire, we all have reason to wonder: What game are we playing? One danger certainly is that a future Bureau of Labor Statistics head might feel political pressure to fudge a jobs report. The deeper risk is cynicism, the quiet corrosion of faith in institutions. If we can't believe the numbers, how do we believe anything? Most children learn that flipping the board doesn't make them the winner. It just means the game is over. In a democracy, the same lesson holds. We need our referees. We need our scorekeepers. And most of all, we need leaders who understand that losing the game fairly is far more honorable than winning by force. Why so? Because when presidents flip the board, it's not just a game that ends. It's the pieces of democracy that get scattered to the floor. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of
Economic Times
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Mr. Trump has demonstrated his economic ignorance in many other ways -- with potentially even greater adverse consequences. His most recent, and potentially most dangerous, transgression has been his harsh and wrongheaded criticism of the policies of the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome Powell. Mr. Trump insists that our interest rates are too high and should be as low as Europe's (2 percent versus our 4.5 percent). Yet when he pronounces our economy "the strongest in the world," as he regularly does, he is unconsciously citing one of the reasons for our higher interest rates: Robust economies need higher interest rates to restrain inflation. Indeed, Mr. Trump seems not to understand inflation. He repeatedly -- sometimes on multiple occasions in a single week -- pronounces that we have "no inflation." In fact, in the most recent 12 months, prices rose by 2.6 percent over the prior year, still modestly above the Fed's 2 percent target and perhaps accelerating. Another reason for our elevated interest rates is the massive budget deficits that we have been running, deficits that Mr. Trump made worse with the tax cuts he pursued in his first term and continues to push in his second. His signature domestic policy law will increase the deficit -- and therefore our borrowing needs -- by an estimated $3.4 trillion over the next decade. Mr. Powell's term is coming to an end next year, and the prospect of Mr. Trump picking his successor is downright scary. In his first term, Mr. Trump tried to appoint several individuals to the Federal Reserve Board who were so manifestly unqualified -- with views that were so wildly outside of any accepted principles of monetary policy -- that many Republicans refused to support them and they were forced to withdraw. Mr. Trump now clearly regrets his decision to appoint Mr. Powell in 2017. A more unbridled Trump 2.0 might try for a far less responsible candidate whose selection to the most important and powerful economic position in our government could easily upend financial markets and perhaps the entire economy. The president barely seems to comprehend supply and demand, which are among the most basic concepts in economics. He evangelizes for lower oil prices but simultaneously calls on the energy industry to "drill, baby, drill." Lower prices discourage drilling; the number of rigs in operation has been falling as oil prices have softened. In a similar vein, while he acknowledged that tariffs would raise the prices of imported cars, he argued that Americans could avoid tariffs by buying cars made in America. But it is well documented that when the price of an imported item goes up, domestic producers are then free to increase their own prices -- and often will. To be fair, the president occasionally shows glimmers of economic comprehension. With regard to the dollar, for example, he understands that the mantra of many Treasury secretaries that "a strong dollar is in the national interest" is more complicated than that simple sentence suggests. While a strong dollar has many advantages, a weak dollar makes our exports more competitive and restrains imports by making them more expensive (admittedly potentially creating inflationary pressures). "I know better than anybody what's good for the Market, and what's good for the U.S.A.," Mr. Trump proclaimed in a recent social media post. "People don't explain to me, I explain to them!" Perhaps he should consider flipping those two clauses.
