After Hours: My Sister's House 24th Anniversary Gala
My Sister's House is a nonprofit that serves survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking in the Sacramento region, with a special focus on Asian and Pacific Islander women and children.
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UPI
2 days ago
- UPI
Japan executes 'Twitter Killer' who murdered nine people in 2017
June 27 (UPI) -- Japan executed a 34-year-old death row inmate known as the "Twitter Killer," who was convicted of killing nine people at his apartment south of Tokyo in 2017, marking the first person to be put to death in the country in nearly three years. Takahiro Shiraishi was executed at the Tokyo Detention House, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. The method of execution was hanging. "I ordered the execution after careful and deliberate consideration," Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki told reporters during a press conference following the execution, the Kyodo News agency reported. Shiraishi was sentenced to death in December 2020. He was convicted of luring his victims to his apartment, where he killed nine people, eight females and one male. He was arrested in October 2017 after several dismembered bodies were found in his apartment by police investigating the disappearance of a local woman. Authorities said Shiraishi and his victim met after she expressed suicidal thoughts online. He told investigators that he targeted those who expressed suicidal ideation on social media, including Twitter, earning him the moniker "Twitter Killer." He would lure them to his apartment under the pretense that they would die together in a pact, but instead, he killed them and dismembered their bodies. Nine heads and hundreds of bones were discovered by police during a search of his apartment. Shiraishi is the first person to be executed in the Asian nation since July 2022, when Tomohiro Kato had his sentence carried out for killing seven people during a Tokyo stabbing spree in 2008. Amnesty International Japan protested Shiraishi's execution on Thursday, pointing to October's acquittal of Iwao Hakamad -- who had been sentenced to death in 1980 -- which highlighted "the deep flaws in the death penalty system" an sparked renewed debate in the country about the controversial practice. It also referenced U.N. special rapporteurs who called on the Japanese government in November to consider declaring a moratorium on executions as issues with its current system of carrying out capital punishment violates international law, including the practice of notifying death row only on the morning they are to be executed. "That Japan proceeded with this execution amid such intense domestic and international scrutiny suggests that the government has not recognized the death sentence imposed on Mr. Hakamada -- who was driven to mental collapse by decades on death row for a crime he did not commit -- as a grave institutional and systemic failure," Amnesty International Japan said in a statement. Of the Group of Seven nations, only the United States and Japan have the death penalty. So far this year, the United States has executed 25 death row inmates.
UPI
2 days ago
- UPI
U.S. to bar entry to those linked to sanctioned global drug traffickers
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday unveiled a new policy to bar those affiliated with sanctioned global drug traffickers entry to the United States. Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo June 26 (UPI) -- The U.S. State Department on Thursday unveiled a new visa restriction policy, targeting family members and close personal and business associates of those sanctioned on accusations of being involved in drug trafficking. "This will not only prevent them from entering the United States, but it will serve as a deterrent for continued illicit activities," Thomas Pigott, State Department principal deputy spokesperson, said Thursday during a regular press briefing. "We will continue to use all necessary tools to deter and dismantle the flow of fentanyl and other deadly drugs from entering our country." Drug trafficking has been central to President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration, as he vowed during his election campaign to increase border security and carry out mass deportations. Trump, on Feb. 1, issued an executive order related to fentanyl originating as precursor chemicals in China making their way into the United States via Mexico, and imposed a 10% tariff on all imports from the Asian nation to force Beijing to do more to stem the flow of the deadly synthetic opioid. In March, he doubled the tariffs to 20% . Despite removing most of the punitive economic measures Trump placed on China following his return to the White House in January, those tariffs remain in place. Last month, Trump also confirmed to reporters aboard Air Force One that he offered to send U.S. military forces into Mexico to fight the drug cartels. "They are horrible people that have been killing people left and right, that have made a fortune on selling drugs and destroying our people," Trump said in the gaggle. "We lost 300,000 people last year to fentanyl and drugs. They're bad news." "If Mexico wanted help with the cartels, we would be honored to go in and do it." According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 80,391 drug overdose deaths last year, a drop of 27% from 2023. Of those deaths, 48,422 were linked to fentanyl. The visa restrictions unveiled by Secretary of State Marco Rubio affect those connected to individuals blacklisted under Executive Order 14059, imposing Sanctions on Foreign Persons Involved in the Global Illicit Drug Trade, which then-President Joe Biden issued in December, 2021. "The U.S. Department of State will use all necessary tools to deter and dismantle the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs from entering the United States and harming U.S. citizens," Rubio said in a statement.
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
Asian American leaders urge their communities to stand by Latinos, denounce ICE raids
As federal immigration raids continue to upend life in Los Angeles, Asian American leaders are rallying their communities to raise their voices in support of Latinos, who have been the primary targets of the enforcement sweeps, warning that neighborhoods frequented by Asian immigrants could be next. Organizers say many Asian immigrants have already been affected by the Trump administration's crackdown on immigrants working in the country without documentation. Dozens of Southeast Asian immigrants in Los Angeles and Orange counties whose deportation orders had been on indefinite hold have been detained after showing up for routine check-ins at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices, according to immigration attorneys and advocacy groups. In recent months, a number of Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese immigrants whose deportation orders had been stayed — in some cases for decades — have been told that those orders will now be enforced. The Asian immigrants being targeted are generally people who were convicted of a crime after arriving in the U.S., making them eligible for deportation after their release from jail or prison. In most cases, ICE never followed through because the immigrants had lived in the U.S. long enough that their home countries no longer recognized them as citizens. 'Our community is much more silent, but we are being detained in really high numbers,' said Connie Chung Joe, chief executive of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California. 'There's such a stigma and fear that, unlike the Latinx community that wants to fight and speak out about the injustices, our community's first reaction is to go down and get more and more hidden.' On Thursday, more than a half dozen leaders representing Thai, Japanese and South Asian communities held a news conference in Little Tokyo urging community members to stand together and denounce the federal action as an overreach. President Trump came into office in January vowing to target violent criminals for deportation. But amid pressure to raise deportation numbers, administration officials in recent months have shifted their focus to farmworkers, landscapers, street vendors and other day laborers, many of whom have been working in the country for decades. While an estimated 79% of undocumented residents in L.A. County are natives of Mexico and Central America, Asian immigrants make up the second-largest group, constituting 16% of people in the county without legal authorization, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Across the U.S., Indians make up the third-largest group of undocumented residents, behind Mexicans and Salvadorans. According to the Pew Research Center, the L.A. metropolitan area is home to the largest populations of Cambodians, Koreans, Indonesians, Filipinos, Thai and Vietnamese people in the U.S. So far, the highest profile raids in Southern California have centered on Latino neighborhoods, targeting car washes, restaurants, home improvement stores, churches and other locales where undocumented residents gather and work. But Asian businesses have not been immune. A raid outside a Home Depot in Hollywood happened across the street from Thai Town, where organizers have seen ICE agents patrolling the streets. In late May, Dept. of Homeland Security agents raided a Los Angeles-area nightclub, arresting 36 people they said were Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants in the country without authorization. In Little Bangladesh, immigration agents recently detained 16 people outside a grocery store, according to Manjusha P. Kulkarni, executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance, a coalition of more than 50 community-based organizations. 'They will come for us even more in the coming days and weeks,' Kulkarni said. 'So we are only protected when we're in solidarity with our fellow Angelenos.' From June 1 to 10, at the start of the federal sweeps, ICE data shows that 722 people were arrested in the Los Angeles region. The figures were obtained by the Deportation Data Project, a repository of enforcement data at UC Berkeley Law. A Times analysis found that 69% of those arrested during that period had no criminal convictions. Nearly 48% were Mexican, 16% were from Guatemala and 8% from El Salvador. Forty-seven of the 722 individuals detained — or about 6% — were from Asian countries. 'We know the fear is widespread and it is deep,' said Assemblymember Mike Fong, a Democrat whose district takes in Monterey Park and West San Gabriel Valley, areas with large Asian immigrant populations. Los Angeles City Council members Nithya Raman and Ysabel Jurado spoke of the repercussions the raids were having on immigrant communities. Raman is Indian American, and Jurado is Filipino American. Jurado said undocumented Filipinos make up a sizeable portion of the region's caregivers, tending to both elderly people and young children. 'Their work reflects the deepest values of our communities: compassion, service and interdependence,' Jurado said. 'Their labor is essential, and their humanity must be honored.' Jurado and Raman called on the federal government to end the raids. 'This is such an important moment to speak out and to ensure that the Latino community does not feel alone,' Raman said. 'I also want to make it clear to every single person who is Asian American, these aren't just raids on others. They're raids on us.' Staff writer Rachel Uranga contributed to this report. This article is part of The Times' equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California's economic divide.
