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Myanmar coup anniversary: A world looks away from country’s descent into horror

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CNN
 — 

Content warning: This story contains descriptions of violence against children and images viewers may find disturbing.

Bhone Tayza had been impatient to start school. A broken arm had kept the 7-year-old home while the other kids began their lessons, but now that his cast was off, he couldn’t wait to join in.

His mother, Thida Win, was still worried. “Just stay home for today,” she recalls telling her son on his third day back at school last September – but he went anyway.

Hours later, the airstrike hit.

Thida Win was home, in the central Sagaing region of Myanmar, when army helicopters began firing “heavy weapons” including machine guns near her house, she said. She took cover until the shooting stopped, then sprinted to the nearby school, frantic. She finally found Bhone in a classroom, barely alive in a pool of blood, next to the bodies of other children.

“He asked me twice, ‘Mom, please just kill me,’” she said. “He was in so much pain.” Surrounded by armed soldiers of Myanmar’s military who had swarmed the school grounds, she pulled Bhone into her lap, praying and doing her best to comfort him until he died.

He was one of at least 13 victims, including seven children, in the September attack – and among the thousands killed nationwide since the military seized power in a coup on February 1, 2021.

The junta ousted democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was later sentenced to 33 years in jail during secretive trials; cracked down on anti-coup protests; arrested journalists and political prisoners; and executed several leading pro-democracy activists, drawing condemnation from the United Nations and rights groups.

Two years on, the Southeast Asian country is being rocked by violence and instability. The economy has collapsed, with shortages of food, fuel and other basic supplies.

Deep in the jungle, rebel groups have taken the fight to the military. Among their number are many teenagers and fresh graduates, whose lives and ambitions have been upended by a war with no end in sight.

For months after the coup, millions across Myanmar took part in protests, strikes and other forms of civil disobedience, unwilling to relinquish freedoms won only recently under democratic reforms that followed decades of brutal military rule.

They were met with a bloody crackdown that saw civilians shot in the street, abducted in nighttime raids and allegedly tortured in detention.

CNN has reached out to Myanmar’s military for comment. It has previously claimed in state media it is using the “least force” and is complying with “existing law and international norms.”

Since the coup, at least 2,900 people in Myanmar have been killed by junta troops and over 17,500 arrested, the majority of whom are still in detention, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

Though mass protests have faded, allegations of atrocities by military troops – including the school strike in the village of Let Yet Kone – continue to emerge.

Daw Aye Mar Swe, a teacher at the school, said she ushered students into classrooms as the military helicopters approached, shortly before the horror descended.

The airstrike hit the roof, sending debris falling all around them. The room filled with dark smoke – and then the soldiers arrived.

They began “shooting at the school for an hour nonstop … with the intention to kill us all,” she told CNN.

She shoved her students under beds for cover, but it was of little use. One young girl was shot in the back. As she tried in vain to stem the bleeding, she urged her crying students: “Say a prayer, as only God can save us now.”

When the shooting was over, the soldiers ordered everybody outside, she said. The students huddled together on the school grounds while the soldiers raided the rest of the village and made arrests, said Daw Aye Mar Swe. She recalled seeing Bhone Tayza among the wounded.

The National Unity Government (NUG), Myanmar’s shadow administration of ousted lawmakers, said 20 students and teachers were arrested after the airstrikes.

It’s not clear what happened to them. CNN could not independently verify details of the incident.

At the time, a spokesperson for the military said government forces entered the village of Let Yet Kone to clear rebel “terrorists” and accused the Kachin Independence Army, a rebel group, and the People’s Defence Force (PDF), an umbrella organization of armed guerrillas, of using children as “human shields.”

Thida Win and Daw Aye Mar Swe denied these claims. “There is no PDF here, or shooting (done by the PDF),” the teacher said. “(The military) shoot us without any purpose or research.”

For some bereaved parents, the agony of losing their children was compounded by being denied a proper goodbye.

After the strike, two residents, who declined to be identified due to fears for their security, said the military took the bodies away and buried them in another township several miles away.

Thida Win corroborated this account, saying she had cried and begged the soldiers to “let me bury my son on my own … but they took him away.” When she contacted a military commander the next day, he said Bhone had already been cremated. To this day, she has not collected his ashes, saying she would not sign any documents issued by the junta that killed her son.

“There are no words … my heart is broken into pieces,” she said.

In between these large-scale attacks, smaller battles are unfolding every day between the military and rebel groups that have sprouted up across the country, allying themselves with long-established ethnic militias.

Some of these groups effectively control parts of Myanmar out of the junta’s reach – and many are composed of young volunteers who left behind families and friends, for what they say is the future of their nation.

Shan Lay, 20, was a high school senior when the coup took place. Now, he spends his days on the front lines as a member of the MoeBye PDF Rescue Team, a small group of combat medics that treats and evacuates injured PDF fighters in eastern Myanmar.

It can be a dangerous job; Shan Lay recalled one instance when their vehicle was shot at and destroyed by military soldiers, forcing the team to jump from the car and run to safety.

Another member of the rescue team, Rosalin, a former nurse, described once hiding in what was supposed to be a secret clinic. The building had been surrounded by junta soldiers and aircraft were circling overhead, so the team waited for nightfall so they could escape in the dark. “I thought I was going to die, and I was ready to relinquish my life,” she said.

CNN is referring to Shan Lay and Rosalin by their “revolution names,” aliases many in the resistance movement adopt for their safety.

Videos of their daily operations, shared by the rescue team, reveal improvised tools and treacherous conditions. Often, they wear no helmets or protective gear, ducking gunfire in just flip flops, t-shirts, long pants and backpacks.

The clips show the group carrying injured fighters on rocky dirt paths, and providing medical care during bumpy rides on pickup trucks; sometimes they have nothing more than boiled water to sterilize wounds, Rosalin said.

When the fighting lulls, they treat injured civilians displaced from their homes and distribute food.

Their jobs are made more difficult by the remote terrain, choppy telecommunications, and unpredictable dangers. When they spoke to CNN over Zoom in January, they had hiked to a higher altitude for better phone service, and were running late after responding to a PDF fighter who had lost his foot after stepping on a land mine.

Rosalin said the junta left them no choice but to fight back after crushing their peaceful protests.

“We know we may have to give up our lives. But if we don’t fight like this, then we know we won’t get democracy, which is what we want,” she said. “As long as this dictatorship is present and we do not have democracy, this revolution will continue.”

Even those not on the front lines have found other ways to resist; there are underground hospitals and schools operating out of the junta’s view, and people have boycotted goods or services related to the junta.

“It’s a remarkable, remarkable show of courage and determination by people,” said Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.

However, despite the rebels’ best efforts, it’s a desperately uneven fight. And after two years of conflict, their funds and resources are dwindling.

“Before, we had our own homes and pots, we had our own rice, we had some of our money,” said Rosalin. “But we had to leave behind our homes and go live in the jungle.” Finding food and accommodation is challenging, she added.

Shan Lay said some people had sold their houses and land to buy weapons and bullets – but it’s still not enough, and a difficult road lies ahead.

The fighting “is more violent” now, he said. “(The junta) are using larger weapons than before.”

Resources are slim in other rebel bases too, with footage from Myanmar’s eastern Karenni state showing uniformed youth training in the mountains, making homemade ammunition in jungle workshops and storing the rounds in refrigerators.

The pictures are a far cry from the military’s powerful arsenal of tanks and warplanes.

The junta demonstrated its devastating firepower just weeks after the school attack with one of its deadliest airstrikes on record.

Crowds had gathered in the A Nang Pa region of Myanmar’s northern Kachin state to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), the political wing of the rebel Kachin Independence Army (KIA).

Though the event was organized by the KIO, it was aimed at the public, with artists, singers, religious figures and industry leaders invited, according to a businessman who attended. He described a day of festivities, with people bathing in a stream, playing golf and eating noodles under teak trees before watching a musical performance by a famous singer.

When the airstrike happened, “It was like the end of the world,” the businessman said. Footage of the moment of impact, shared with CNN by the KIO, show people sitting around tables facing the stage when there came a dazzling light and loud crash – followed by flashes of orange light, then darkness.

“I heard people crying, speaking and moaning,” said the businessman. “I was standing in a horrific scene.” Bodies appeared to be everywhere; he saw people trapped under debris and some who had lost limbs.

Videos of the aftermath show buildings reduced to rubble and body bags lined up on the ground.

CNN is not naming the businessman for his safety.

The strike killed up to 70 people, according to the KIO. CNN cannot independently verify the number.

When CNN requested comment from the junta regarding the attack, CNN’s email – and an official response – were published in the government-owned Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper. Military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it a necessary military operation targeting “a den where enemies and terrorists were hiding.” He also claimed the military had “never attacked civilians,” calling such reports “fake news.”

KIO leaders deny this. They say the venue was a day’s walk from the nearest KIA battalion, and though some KIO members were in uniform at the event, they were not carrying weapons or military equipment.

Andrews, the UN special rapporteur, also cast doubt on the junta’s claim of not striking civilians. “That statement is absurd,” he told CNN in January. “There is clear evidence we have of airstrikes on villages.”

As millions of civilians in Myanmar grapple with their grim post-coup reality, much of the world looks the other way.

“It has been two years of the devastation of the military junta and the military at war with its own people,” Andrews said. “We’ve seen 1.1 million people displaced, more than 28,000 homes destroyed, thousands of people have been killed.”

The economy is in freefall, with Myanmar’s GDP contracting 18% in 2021. While the World Bank forecasts a slight uptick to 3% growth in 2022, some experts say this is “wildly over-optimistic.”

About 40% of the population were living under the poverty line last year, “unwinding nearly a decade of progress on poverty reduction,” the World Bank said last July. Prices for basic goods like food and fuel have skyrocketed.

But little support has come from the outside. The European Parliament passed a motion in 2021 supporting the NUG as “the only legitimate representatives of the democratic wishes of the people of Myanmar,” and it remains one of the few places that has done so. But no military aid has followed.

Though the European Union and other governments have provided funding for humanitarian aid, relief remains limited. Groups such as the Red Cross say their operations on the ground have been hindered by fighting and financial challenges. In a December report, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said its response plan for Myanmar was “drastically underfunded,” amounting to $290 million out of the $826 million required.

The conflict “has been forgotten,” Andrews said, contrasting the international community’s muted response to Myanmar versus the rush to provide weapons, funding and other assistance to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

The Ukraine model could be applied to Myanmar, he added – not in terms of importing weapons, but in taking “coordinated actions such as economic sanctions that target the junta’s source of revenue, that target their weapons, that target the raw materials that they’re using to build weapons inside the country.”

Andrews pointed to signs that the junta is struggling too, which makes international aid all the more critical for turning the tide. There are reports the military controls less than half of the country and that its operations are suffering from financial difficulties, thanks in part to sanctions already in place, he said. But more is still needed.

“If (the conflict) remains in the shadows of international attention, then we are providing a death sentence to untold numbers of people,” Andrews warned.

Thida Win, the mother of Bhone Tayza, had a similar plea. She is still grieving the loss of a son she described as studious, intelligent and kind, for whom she “had so much hope.”

“I want to ask the world to support us so our children’s death will not be in vain,” she said. “Will you just look away from us? How many kids have to risk their lives?”

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US

New Mexico grand jury indicts failed GOP candidate accused of shooting at Democratic officials’ homes

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CNN
 — 

The failed GOP candidate accused of shooting at Democratic officials’ homes in Alburquerque, New Mexico, was indicted by a grand jury on 14 counts of shooting and firearms charges, the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s office announced in a statement Monday.

Solomon Peña is currently in jail awaiting trial after being accused of hiring and conspiring with four men to shoot at the homes of two state legislators and two county commissioners following his 2022 state House election loss, as a GOP candidate, in New Mexico.

Peña was charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit shooting at a dwelling or occupied building, two counts of conspiracy to commit shooting at a dwelling or occupied building and two counts of transportation or possession of a firearm or destructive device by certain persons, among other charges, the district attorney’s office said.

CNN has reached out to Peña’s attorney for comment.

After losing the November election 26% to 74% to the Democratic candidate and before the shootings, Peña showed up uninvited at the homes of a legislator and some county commissioners, claiming fraud had been committed in the vote, according to police.

According to Albuquerque police, Democratic officials whose homes were shot at included Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa, newly installed state House Speaker Javier Martinez, and State Sen. Linda Lopez, among others.

No one was injured in any of the shootings, which included at least one bullet flying through a child’s bedroom while she was inside, police have said.

A judge ruled last week that Peña must remain in jail as he awaits trial, saying Peña poses a threat to the targets of the shootings and their family members. Peña also has a history of felony convictions involving property crimes and the use of stolen vehicles, mirroring the tactics police say were used in the shootings in December and early January, the judge pointed out.

Peña provided the guns used in the shootings and suggested the use of stolen cars to avoid being identified and was present at the fourth and final shooting, an investigator said at last week’s detention hearing.

Albuquerque Police Detective Conrad Griego, citing a confidential witness, alleged that Peña had complained that at least one of the shootings occurred too late at night and bullets were fired too high into the house, decreasing the chances of hitting the target.

“He’s providing the firearms. He is helping other individuals come up with a plan,” including using stolen vehicles, Prosecutor Natalie Lyon said.

Pena’s attorney, Roberta Yurcic, argued that Peña was never found to be in possession of a firearm, and sought to cast doubt on the credibility of the confidential witness.

False and unfounded claims about election fraud have exploded nationwide in recent years and fueled anger and threats of violence against elected officials – even in local politics.

Peña lost his race to Democratic state Rep. Miguel Garcia 26% to 74% on November 8, 2022. A week later, he tweeted he “never conceded” the race and was researching his options.

According to Albuquerque police, Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa’s home was shot at multiple times on December 4, incoming state House Speaker Javier Martinez’s home was shot at on December 8, former Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley’s home was shot at on December 11 and state Sen. Linda Lopez’s home was shot at on January 3.

Peña’s arrest warrant affidavit identifies two of the alleged co-conspirators as Demetrio Trujillo and José Trujillo. According to a relative, Demetrio is José’s father.

“There is probable cause to believe that soon after this unsuccessful campaign, he (Peña) conspired with Demetrio, José, and two brothers, to commit these four shootings at elected local and state government officials’ homes,” Albuquerque police wrote in the affidavit. “Solomon provided firearms and cash payments and personally participated in at least one shooting.”

Albuquerque police said they were investigating whether Peña’s campaign was funded in part by cash from narcotics sales that were laundered into campaign contributions.

Police say José Trujillo, who donated $5,155 to Peña’s failed campaign and listed his occupation as “cashier,” was arrested on January 3 – the night of the last of four shootings – on an outstanding felony warrant.

A Bernalillo County sheriff’s deputy found him with more than $3,000 in cash, nearly 900 narcotics pills worth roughly $15,000 and two guns, one of which was ballistically matched to that day’s shooting, police said. He was stopped driving Peña’s car, said a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Attempts to reach attorneys for the Trujillos were not successful.

Peña previously served almost seven years in prison after a 2008 conviction for stealing a large volume of goods in a “smash and grab scheme,” CNN affiliate KOAT reported.

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World

Russia strikes Ukraine’s cities hours after Western countries pledge tanks to Kyiv

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CNN
 — 

Ukraine has urged the West to get military hardware into the hands of its troops as quickly as possible, as Russia fired missiles toward Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities just hours after Germany and the US announced their plans to provide modern tanks to the country.

Russia launched 55 missiles at Ukraine on Thursday morning, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Telegram. Shmyhal said the salvo was aimed at the country’s “energy facilities” and some power substations had been hit.

“The main targets were energy facilities to deprive Ukrainians of power and warmth,” Shmyhal said on Telegram. “The majority of missiles and drones were intercepted by our defenders. Unfortunately there were hits at substations. Nevertheless the situation in the power grid remains under control. Power engineers are doing everything to provide power supply.”

Emergency power outages were introduced in the Kyiv region after the attack.

One person died in the capital, and an air raid alert was in place across the whole country, according to the city’s mayor. The person who died was identified as a 55-year-old man, who was killed “due to the fall of missile fragments,” he head of the Kyiv city military administration, Serhiy Popko, added.

Popko accused Russia of using the Iranian-made attack drones it sent to Ukraine overnight to try and distract Ukrainian air defense units. Fifteen attack drones were fired over over the capital on Thursday, “aimed not only at hitting targets on the ground,” he said. “According to the new tactics of the aggressor, the drones constitute the first wave of a combined air attack for detecting and exhausting Ukrainian air defense.”

The fresh assault comes amid Russian rage at the West’s decision to provide Ukraine with high-tech tanks. Germany finally approved the transport of Leopard 2 tanks on Wednesday, joining the US in sending a batch of vehicles after weeks of geopolitical negotiations.

But a race to get those tanks onto the battlefield has now begun, and Thursday’s attack indicates Moscow will aim to damage Ukrainian resolve in the intervening period.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the West for further weapons supplies following the attack.”This evil, this Russian aggression can and should be stopped only with adequate weapons,” Zelensky told Ukrainians in his nightly address on Thursday. “Weapons on the battlefield. Weapons that protect our skies.”

Ukraine was able to shoot down most of the missiles, a feat Zelensky attributed to the Western-donated air defense systems.

“Today, thanks to the air defense systems provided to Ukraine and the professionalism of our warriors, we managed to shoot down most of the Russian missiles and Shaheds,” he said. “These are at least hundreds of lives saved and dozens of infrastructure facilities preserved.”

Germany is planning to deliver its 14 pledged Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine by the end of March “at the latest,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced Thursday. That will follow a period of training for Ukrainian soldiers.

”This is not too late,” Pistorius said.

The arrival of 31 American Abrams tanks is expected to take far longer, given the complexity of the systems and the logistics of getting a battalion across the Atlantic Ocean and into eastern Ukraine. In the meantime, the US will begin a “comprehensive training program” for the Ukrainians, which will require significant maintenance once they are deployed, according to the White House.

Kyiv will hope that Germany’s Leopards are incorporated into their operations before an anticipated Russian offensive in the spring begins.

Alongside Russia’s Thursday attack on Ukraine came another round of anger from the Kremlin over the supply of tanks. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Moscow sees the delivery of modern Western battle tanks to Ukraine as “direct involvement” in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

But NATO nations dismissed Russia’s ire, and shown a willingness to open up a possible new stage of the war with weapons that will allow Ukraine to take the fighting to Moscow’s forces, rather than focus on repelling Russian attacks.

Kyiv is also continuing to press for more Western stocks, including improved missile systems and modern fighter jets. “We have to unlock the supply of long-range missiles to Ukraine, it is important for us to expand our cooperation in artillery, we have to achieve the supply of aircraft to Ukraine,” Zelensky said on Wednesday, adding he had spoken with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg about the desire.

Zelensky referred to the request as “a dream,” but also “an important task for all of us,” indicating another lengthy period of international dialogue in which Ukraine will look to warm up the West to the entire of stepping up its military aid again.

The country’s defense minister meanwhile told CNN on Wednesday that Ukraine’s “wish list” for Western-supplied weapons includes fighter jets.

“I sent a wish list card to Santa Claus last year, and fighter jets also [were] including in this wish list,” Oleksii Reznikov told Christiane Amanpour.

But he said that his government’s first priority was air defense systems, to prevent Russia from carrying out air and missile strikes. “We have to close our sky, to defend our sky,” he said. “That’s priority number one. After that, we need to get more armed vehicles, tanks, artillery systems, UAVs, etc. etc. We have people, but we need weaponry.”

On the ground, Russian forces were “intensifying their pressure” on the eastern city of Bakhmut, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister said on Wednesday.

“The intensity of the battles is increasing,” Hanna Maliar said on Telegram. “The enemy is intensifying their pressure at the Bakhmut and Vuhledar directions. Heavy fighting continues.” That account tallies with two Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut, who said Wednesday that Russian forces were attempting to advance north and south of the city, with one telling CNN that the situation was “very alarming.”

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US

Monterey Park, California massacre: The gunman is dead, but the motive remains a mystery

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CNN
 — 

It’s still not clear why a 72-year-old man unleashed a hailstorm of bullets on revelers celebrating Lunar New Year – killing 10 people, wounding 10 others and shattering the majority-Asian American city of Monterey Park, California.

And with the gunman, Huu Can Tran, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the answer may never be known.

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But while mourners grieve unfathomable tragedy on what should have been the most auspicious day for many Asian Americans, authorities credit “heroes” for helping prevent even more carnage after yet another mass shooting in America.

Here’s the latest on the investigation into the Saturday night massacre:

• Tran fatally shot himself midday Sunday in the nearby city of Torrance as police closed in on his vehicle – a white van that matched one they were looking for – police said.

• Tran had gunned down 20 people at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park before driving to another dance hall in nearby Alhambra, where he brandished a semi-automatic weapon, investigators said.

• Two people at the Alhambra dance hall wrestled the weapon away from the gunman, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said. “The suspect went to the Alhambra location after he conducted the shooting (in Monterey Park), and he was disarmed by two community members who I consider to be heroes,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said. “They saved lives. This could’ve been much worse.”

• The weapon was a Cobray M11 9 mm semi-automatic weapon, a law enforcement official told CNN. It’s designed to take 30-round magazines that allow for rapid fire without having to frequently change magazines. The weapon was traced to the suspect, giving authorities his name and description.

• Investigators found “several pieces of evidence” in Tran’s white van linking him to the Monterey Park and Alhambra dance studios, the sheriff said, without giving further details. They also found a handgun, Luna said.

• Among those slain were two women – My Nhan, 65, and Lilan Li, 63 – the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said Monday. Nine of the 10 victims were in their 60s or 70s, and all – five men and five women – were over 50. Authorities are working to identify the others and notify loved ones.

• The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department got a search warrant for Tran’s home in the senior community about 80 miles east of Monterey Park – The Lakes at Hemet West – a Hemet Police spokesperson confirmed.

• The massacre in Monterey Park marks one of at least 36 mass shootings in the US so far this month.

When police arrived at the Monterey Park dance studio, “they came across a scene that none of them had been prepared for,” city police chief Scott Wiese said. The killer had inflicted “extensive” carnage before fleeing the scene.

A few miles away in Alhambra, Brandon Tsay was working the ticket office of the Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio, unaware of the massacre. Then, the same gunman entered the business his family had owned for three generations.

“From his body language, his facial expression, his eyes, he was looking for people,” Tsay told The New York Times.

“He was looking at me and looking around, not hiding that he was trying to do harm,” he said. “His eyes were menacing.”

The gunman pointed a semi-automatic weapon at Tsay – the first gun he had seen in real life – he told the Times.

“My heart sank,” he said, “I knew I was going to die.”

Tsay struggled with the man for about a minute and a half and eventually wrestled the gun from him when the man took his hand off it, he told the Times.

“That moment, it was primal instinct,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Once Tsay gained control of the gun, he told the Times, he pointed it back at the suspect and yelled for him to “get the hell out of here.”

Tran had once been a familiar face at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, where he gave informal dance lessons, three people who knew him told CNN. But it’s not clear how often he visited in recent years, if at all.

He even met his ex-wife there about two decades ago after he saw her at a dance, introduced himself and offered her free lessons, the ex-wife said.

Tran worked as a truck driver at times, his ex-wife said. He was an immigrant from China, according to a copy of his marriage license she showed to CNN.

The two married soon after they met, according to the ex-wife, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the case.

And Tran had a hot temper, his ex-wife and others said.

While he was never violent to her, the ex-wife said, Tran would get upset if she missed a step dancing because he felt it made him look bad.

Tran filed for divorce in late 2005, and a judge approved the divorce the following year, Los Angeles court records show.

Another longtime acquaintance of Tran also remembered him as a regular patron of the dance studio. The friend, who also asked not to be named, was close to Tran in the late 2000s and early 2010s, when he said Tran would come to the dance studio “almost every night” from his home in nearby San Gabriel.

At that time, Tran often complained that the instructors at the dance hall didn’t like him and said “evil things about him,” the friend recalled. He said Tran was “hostile to a lot of people there.”

More generally, Tran was easily irritated, complained a lot and didn’t seem to trust people, the friend said.

Tran’s friend was “totally shocked” when he heard about the shooting, he said, noting he hadn’t seen Tran in several years.

“I know lots of people, and if they go to Star studio, they frequent there,” the friend said. He said he was “worried maybe I know some of” the shooting victims.

Despite a surge of deadly attacks and harassment against Asian Americans throughout the pandemic, Saturday’s attack shocked many in Monterey Park – where about 65% of residents are of Asian descent and some 100,000 people from across Southern California typically turn out for Lunar New Year celebrations.

“I’ve lived here for 37 years, and I could never have imagined such a terrible thing happening,” Rep. Judy Chu, who represents Monterey Park in Congress, told CNN on Sunday.

“This is a tight-knit community and it has been very peaceful all these years. So that’s why it is even more shattering to have this happen.”

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Science

Trilobites armed with tridents could be the earliest known example of sexual combat

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CNN
 — 

From a deer’s elaborate branching antlers to the fiddler crab’s oversize claw, the animal kingdom is full of flashy features used in combat to help secure a mate.

A team of researchers announced last week that it has found the earliest known evidence of sexual combat in the form of a trident-headed trilobite that scuttled the seafloor 400 million years ago.

Trilobites were one of the earliest arthropods, the group of invertebrates containing insects, spiders, lobsters, crabs and other organisms with exoskeletons, segmented bodies and jointed limbs. These pill bug-like sea creatures first emerged 521 million years ago and died out 252 million years ago in the mass extinction that gave way to the dinosaurs.

There were over 22,000 species of trilobite, some reaching lengths of more than 2 feet, but the type that caught the eye of paleontologist Alan Gishlick was more modest in size, around 2 to 3 inches. He recalls seeing specimens of Walliserops at fossil trade shows and marveling at the trident-shaped protrusion branching off the trilobites’ heads.

“That’s the type of structure that has to have a function. You don’t put that much biological energy into something that doesn’t do something,” said Gishlick, an associate professor of paleontology at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

Researchers have proposed various uses for these forking protrusions, including defense, hunting and attracting mates.

In a paper published January 17 in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Gishlick and coauthor Richard Fortey delved into these hypotheses, ruling out the trident as a means of defense or a hunting tool based on how the trilobite would have been able to move it. The trident wouldn’t be of much use against predators attacking from above or behind, and while it could have been used to spear prey, the trilobite would then be stuck with its meal just out of reach.

What made the most sense to Gishlick and Fortey, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, was that Walliserops used the trident to fight among each other.

Their thinking was bolstered by an unusual specimen of Walliserops with a deformed trident bearing four prongs instead of the usual three. If the trident was a vital part of day-to-day survival, they reasoned, then the trilobite probably wouldn’t have lasted for long with a malformed one.

Bolstered with the evidence for Walliserops’ trident being used to win mates, the researchers turned to the closest analogue they could find in the modern world. “The structure reminds me a heck of a lot of beetle horns,” Gishlick said.

The researchers used a technique called landmark-based geometric morphometrics, which Gishlick described as a means of comparing complex shapes in a statistically robust way, to analyze the surface-level similarity of trilobite tridents and horns of rhinoceros beetles. They found that the trilobite tridents’ shape had a lot in common with the horns of beetles that flip their dueling partners in a “shoveling” motion, as opposed to other species whose horns are better for fencing or grasping.

Gishlick said he believes that, like in beetles, trilobites’ tridents were “sexual weapons” used by males sparring to win mates. “This is the earliest known structure that we can point to and say, ‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure that this is an animal weapon used in reproductive competition,’ ” he said.

Furthermore, Gishlick explained: “Generally, organisms that are involved in interspecific combat over mates are highly dimorphic” — varying in appearance from one sex to the other — “because only one does the competition, and generally in the animal world that’s the male.”

Growing features such as big combat-ready horns requires a lot of energy, and female animals already have to expend lots of it to produce eggs.

If the trilobites’ tridents are the first evidence of sexual weapons, then they could also be the earliest known evidence of sexual dimorphism. There’s one problem with this hypothesis, however: Scientists have no definitive means of telling which Walliserops are male and which are female, and no trident-less Walliserops have been discovered.

That might be due to bias by fossil collectors, who Gishlick said often prioritize bigger, flashier specimens, or because the females might be labeled as entirely different species. “This to me makes it very clear that you better be looking for females,” Gishlick said.

Erin McCullough, an assistant professor of biology at Clark University in Massachusetts, said she agrees with the researchers’ conclusion that the trilobite tridents were likely used for interspecies combat. However, she’s not sold on their argument that this was a trait only possessed by males.

“In general, if there’s going to be an extravagant trait that’s used for fighting for mates, usually, it’s the males that have the extravagant trait, but biology is fun because there’s always exceptions — female reindeer have antlers,” said McCullough, who was not involved with the study (but whose beetle analyses Gishlick and Fortey drew upon for their work).

“If they are arguing that these are male weapons that are used to gain access to females, it would have been a stronger story to me if they had evidence that the females don’t have weapons.”

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Gun allegedly used by 6-year-old to shoot teacher kept on top shelf of mother’s closet, attorney says

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CNN
 — 

The gun allegedly used by the first grader accused of shooting his teacher in Newport News, Virginia, was kept on the top shelf of his mother’s bedroom closet, James Ellenson, the attorney representing the child’s family, told CNN.

The gun had been secured by a trigger lock, the attorney told CNN in an email Sunday.

Ellenson has not yet specified how the 6-year-old was able to access the weapon.

This week, Newport News Police and ATF officials conducted their second round of searches at two homes belonging to the child’s family, Ellenson said.

No charges have been filed.

The gun was legally purchased by the child’s mother, who could face charges at the end of the investigation, according to Newport News Chief of Police Steve Drew. The child brought it to the school in his backpack, he said.

The teacher, 25-year-old Abby Zwerner, was released from the hospital last week. She was shot in the chest after the bullet passed through one of her hands, according to Drew.

On Thursday, the family of the boy released a statement, saying their child has an acute disability and they were praying for Zwerner, who “selflessly served our son and the children in the school.”

Richneck Elementary has been closed since the January 6 shooting, but students and parents have been invited back to the school Wednesday for a two-hour non-instructional activity period, according to a letter from a school administrator.

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Inside the US and German standoff over sending tanks to Ukraine

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Washington
CNN
 — 

The Biden administration is stuck in a standoff with Germany over whether to send tanks to Ukraine ahead of a key meeting of Western defense leaders in Germany on Friday.

In recent days, German officials have indicated they won’t send their Leopard tanks to Ukraine, or allow any other country with the German-made tanks in their inventory to do so, unless the US also agrees to send its M1 Abrams tanks to Kyiv – something the Pentagon has said for months it has no intention of doing given the logistical costs of maintaining them.

“They have us over a barrel,” a senior Biden administration official told CNN Thursday, adding that the Germans are demanding tanks for tanks, and not budging on considering any other offers the US has made to spur Berlin to send the Leopards.

The tank standoff comes amid a much larger debate between the US and its European allies over whether to send increasingly sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine, including longer-range missiles that would allow Ukraine to hit targets as far as 200 miles away.

The UK, Poland, Finland and the Baltic states have all been pushing for NATO members to provide heavier equipment to Kyiv amid what they believe is a key inflection point in the war. Both Ukraine and Russia appear to be gearing up for new offensives and there are signs that Moscow could be preparing an additional troop mobilization.

Last week, the British added pressure to their Western allies when they announced they would send 14 of their Challenger tanks to Ukraine. But Germany and the US were still opposed to the idea of sending their own tanks as of Wednesday.

Berlin then dragged the Biden administration deeper into the standoff, suggesting their delivery of tanks was contingent on the US doing the same.

“If America will decide that they will bring battle tanks to Ukraine, that will make it easier for Germany,” German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck told Bloomberg from Davos on Tuesday.

Asked on Wednesday at Davos about supplying tanks to Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a similar point, saying Germany was “Strategically interlocked together with our friends and partners” and that, “we are never doing something just by ourselves but together with others, especially the United States.”

A Western official explained that for Scholz, the tanks question “is a red, red, red line. German tanks [fighting] Russia again. Moral issue. Understandable, from the historical viewpoint. Still, speaking of moral burden, I wish Germans were nowadays more sympathetic with Poland. Let alone with Ukraine. Didn’t German tanks kill Ukrainians 80 years ago as well? Now they can defend them from Russian barbaric aggression.”

Ahead of a meeting on Thursday in Berlin between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his German counterpart, a senior US defense official said that the US is “very optimistic that we will make progress” on the tanks question.

But not everyone in the US government shares that optimism. A number of senior administration officials privately expressed frustration with German officials for making what the US believes is a false equivalency between the US and German tanks.

“It’s silly,” a senior administration official said of the German request for American tanks alongside German ones. “It’s as if they think they’re the same and they’re not. It doesn’t feel like they understand the difference.”

US officials familiar with the situation told CNN on Thursday that the tank question is still undecided ahead of Friday’s meeting, and that it would be surprising if Germany changed its mind, despite Austin’s private pressure campaign.

“I think if there was a concern about being alone in providing this capability, that shouldn’t be a concern but at the end of the day the German government is going to make a sovereign decision,” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said on Wednesday.

Pressure is mounting in some corners for the US to go ahead and send Abrams tanks simply as a way to get the Germans on board.

“Scholz wants to be in lockstep with the US,” Rep. Seth Moulton told CNN after discussing the matter with Scholz this week in Davos. “I think the US should give a few tanks if that is what is required for Germany. That is called leadership.”

On Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki suggested that Warsaw may simply ignore any limits Germany seeks to impose on Poland’s export of its supply of the German-made tanks.

“Consent is a secondary issue. Either we will get this consent or we ourselves will do what must be done,” Morawiecki said. “Germany is the least proactive country out of the group, to put it mildly. We will continue pressuring the chancellor.”

This all comes as the US on Thursday announced a new $2.5 billion Ukraine security package, including for the first time Stryker combat vehicles and more armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

But the package does not include M1 Abrams tanks, and it is unlikely that the US is going to provide them anytime soon because they are difficult and expensive to supply and maintain, US officials said.

“One of the things that Secretary Austin has been very focused on is that we should not be providing the Ukrainians systems they can’t repair, they can’t sustain, and that they over the long term can’t afford because it’s not helpful,” Kahl said on Wednesday. “And this isn’t about a news cycle or what’s symbolically valuable, it’s what will actually help Ukraine on the battlefield.”

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh poured more cold water on the German demand on Thursday, telling reporters that providing the Abrams tanks “doesn’t make sense.”

Singh painted Leopards as the better option for Ukraine.

“It’s a little bit easier to maintain, they can maneuver across large portions of territory before they need to refuel. The maintenance and the high cost that it would take to maintain an Abrams it’s just – it just doesn’t make sense to provide that to the Ukrainians [Abrams tanks] this moment.”

Western tanks would represent the most powerful direct offensive weapon provided to Ukraine so far, and if used properly, they could allow Ukraine to retake territory against Russian forces that have had time to dig defensive lines. The US has begun supplying refurbished Soviet-era T-72 tanks, but modern Western tanks are a generation ahead in terms of their ability to target enemy positions.

Ukrainian officials have said they will need around 300 of these modern tanks to beat back the Russians, and the European Council on Foreign Relations estimates that around 2,000 Leopard tanks are spread across Europe.

“We welcome the bold and very timely decision of the United Kingdom to transfer the first squadron of Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine,” Ukrainian Minister for Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in a joint statement on Thursday. “However, it is not sufficient to achieve operational goals.”

The Ukrainian ministers appealed to countries with the Leopard 2 tanks in their inventory, including Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey, and promised to “use these weapons responsibly and exclusively for the purposes of protecting the territorial integrity of Ukraine within internationally recognized borders.”

The debate amongst the allies about how far to go in arming Ukraine, particularly when it comes to long-range missiles, reflects a broader disagreement over the risks of escalation between NATO and Russia.

To date, the US has refused to send long-range missiles known as ATACMS to Ukraine out of concern that they could be used to attack targets inside Russia. But in keeping with London’s more forward-leaning attitude toward military support for Ukraine, some British officials have expressed an openness to supplying the longer-range systems, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

For now, the US is still opposed to the idea.

“On the ATACMS issue, I think we’re kind of at the, ‘agree to disagree’ position on that,” Kahl told reporters on Wednesday.

Taking note of the Brits’ more aggressive public posture, Ukrainian officials have asked the UK to take more of a leading role in Friday’s meeting, people familiar with their requests told CNN. They also want British officials to more aggressively brief allied foreign secretaries and defense ministers on what the Ukrainians believe are the operational realities of the war – and what they need to win it.

Those discussions are happening quietly, because the UK has traditionally not wanted to be seen as out of step with its allies. But there are signs that London is becoming more willing to break with the US publicly – most recently with its announcement that it will supply tanks to Ukraine.

Before visiting Washington this week, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also made the case in an op-ed that “now is the time to accelerate and go further and faster in giving Ukraine the support it needs.”

“This war has been dragging on for a long time already. And now is the time to bring it to a conclusion,” Cleverly added, in a conversation with CNN at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Wednesday.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also jumped into the fray on Wednesday, calling for the allies to supply “heavier” and more modern weaponry.

“The main message [at Ramstein] will be more support and more advanced support, heavier weapons, and more modern weapons,” Stoltenberg said, referring to the Contact Group meeting of NATO defense leaders at Ramstein Air Base on Friday. “Because this is a fight for our values, is a fight for democracy and we just have to prove that democracy wins over tyranny and oppression.”

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US

Alec Baldwin and armorer to be charged with involuntary manslaughter after fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on the set of ‘Rust’

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CNN
 — 

Actor Alec Baldwin, who fatally shot a cinematographer on the set of the Western movie “Rust” in 2021, and the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, will each be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, prosecutors said Thursday.

The family of Halyna Hutchins, who was the film’s director of photography, thanked prosecutors for their decision.

“It is a comfort to the family that, in New Mexico, no one is above the law,” the family said in a statement released by attorney Brian J. Panish.

Baldwin has maintained he was not aware the gun he fired during a rehearsal contained a live round. His attorney called the prosecutors’ decision “a terrible miscarriage of justice.”

“This decision distorts Halyna Hutchins’ tragic death and represents a terrible miscarriage of justice. Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun – or anywhere on the movie set,” attorney Luke Nikas said.

“He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We will fight these charges, and we will win.”

Live updates: Alec Baldwin to be charged in fatal ‘Rust’ shooting

An attorney for Gutierrez Reed said he believes jurors will find his client not guilty.

“We were expecting the charges but they’re absolutely wrong as to Hannah – we expect that she will be found not guilty by a jury and she did not commit manslaughter,” attorney Jason Bowles said in a statement Thursday.

“She has been emotional about the tragedy but has committed no crime.”

Baldwin and Gutierrez Reed each face two counts of involuntary manslaughter so that a jury can decide which specific count may be more appropriate, New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said.

If convicted, “they will only be sentenced to one count,” the prosecutor said.

In either case, a conviction is punishable by up to 18 months in jail and up to a $5,000 fine, prosecutors said.

But one count would involve a firearm enhancement, or added mandatory penalty, because a firearm was involved. In that case, the crime could be punishable by a mandatory five years in jail, prosecutors said.

The district attorney said she believed “Rust” had a “really fast and loose set,” citing “a lack of safety and safety standards” and “live rounds on set – they were mixed in with regular dummy rounds.”

“Nobody was checking those, or least they weren’t checking them consistently,” Carmack-Altwies said.

“And then they somehow got loaded into a gun, handed off to Alec Baldwin; he didn’t check it, he didn’t do any of the things that he was supposed to do to make sure that he was safe or that anyone around him was safe. And then he pointed the gun at Halyna Hutchins and he pulled the trigger.”

Hutchins was struck and killed by a live round of ammunition fired from a prop gun being held by Baldwin, who maintains he did not pull the gun’s trigger.

Director Joel Souza was also shot and injured. No charges will be filed against Souza in relation to the shooting.

In the summary of the postmortem investigation into Hutchins’ death – which was formally signed by the New Mexico chief medical investigator – the cause of death is listed as “gunshot wound of chest,” and the manner of death is listed as an “accident.”

“Review of available law enforcement reports showed no compelling demonstration that the firearm was intentionally loaded with live ammunition on set. Based on all available information, including the absence of obvious intent to cause harm or death, the manner of death is best classified as accident,” the report concluded.

An FBI forensics report said the weapon could not be fired during FBI testing of its normal functioning without pulling the trigger while the gun was cocked. The report also noted the gun eventually malfunctioned during testing after internal parts fractured, which caused the gun to go off in the cocked position without pulling the trigger.

The shooting has led to a whirlwind of finger-pointing and allegations of negligence from those involved.

In an interview with CNN in August, Baldwin placed responsibility for the tragedy on Gutierrez Reed, who served as the armorer and props assistant on the film, and assistant director Dave Halls, who handed him the gun.

Halls signed a plea agreement “for the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon,” the district attorney’s office announced in its statement Thursday. Prosecutors said the terms of that deal include six months of probation.

On Thursday, Halls’ attorney Lisa Tarraco released a statement in defense of her client, who does not face charges in connection with the tragedy.

“Absent no charges at all, this is the best outcome for Mr. Halls and the case,” Tarraco said. “He can now put this matter behind him and allow the focus of this tragedy to be on the shooting victims and changing the industry so this type of accident will never happen again. “

In November, Baldwin filed suit against Gutierrez Reed and Halls and other individuals associated with the film, according to a cross-complaint obtained by CNN.

Through their respective attorneys, both Gutierrez Reed and Halls maintained they were not at fault and accused Baldwin of deflecting blame onto others.

Gutierrez Reed also sued the movie’s gun and ammunition supplier and its founder – who deny wrongdoing – and alleged a cache of dummy ammunition was sold with live rounds mixed in.

In October, Hutchins’ family reached an undisclosed settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Baldwin and others involved in producing the film.

Matthew Hutchins, widower of Halyna Hutchins, described her death as a “terrible accident” in a statement at the time of the settlement. Production on “Rust” was to resume this month with Matthew Hutchins joining as an executive producer on the film as part of the agreement.

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Solomon Peña: Failed GOP candidate arrested on suspicion of orchestrating shootings at homes of Democrats in New Mexico, police say

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CNN
 — 

A Republican former candidate for New Mexico’s legislature who police say claimed election fraud after his defeat has been arrested on suspicion of orchestrating recent shootings that damaged homes of Democratic elected leaders in the state, police said.

Solomon Peña, who lost his 2022 run for state House District 14, was arrested Monday by Albuquerque police, accused of paying and conspiring with four men to shoot at the homes of two state legislators and two county commissioners, authorities said.

“It is believed he is the mastermind” behind the shootings that happened in December and early January, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said in a news conference.

CNN has reached out to Peña’s campaign website for comment and has been unable to identify his attorney.

Before the shootings, Peña in November – after losing the election – had approached one of the legislators and some county commissioners at their homes with paperwork that he said indicated fraud was involved in the elections, police said.

An investigation confirmed “these shootings were indeed politically motivated,” Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said Monday.

“At the end of the day, this was about a right-wing radical, an election denier who was arrested today and someone who did the worst imaginable thing you can do when you have a political disagreement, which is turn that to violence,” said Keller, a Democrat. “We know we don’t always agree with our elected officials, but that should never, ever lead to violence.”

The stewing of doubt about election veracity, principally among Republicans and usually without proof, has exploded nationwide since then-President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid and began propagating falsehoods the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The claims have stoked anger – and unapologetic threats of violence – against public officials down to the local level.

Peña will face charges related to four shootings: a December 4 incident at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa; a December 8 shooting at the home of incoming state House Speaker Javier Martinez; a December 11 shooting at the home of then-Bernalillo Commissioner Debbie O’Malley; and a January 3 shooting at the home of state Sen. Linda Lopez, police said in a news release.

In the latest shooting, police found evidence “Peña himself went on this shooting and actually pulled the trigger on at least one of the firearms that was used,” Albuquerque police Deputy Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock said. But an AR handgun he tried to use malfunctioned, and more than a dozen rounds were fired by another shooter from a separate handgun, a police news release reads.

The department is still investigating whether those suspected of carrying out the shootings were “even aware of who these targets were or if they were just conducting shootings,” Hartsock added.

“Nobody was injured in the shootings, which resulted in damage to four homes,” an Albuquerque police news release said.

Barboa, whose home investigators say was the site of the first shooting, is grateful for an arrest in the case, she told “CNN This Morning” on Tuesday.

“I’m relieved to hear that people won’t be targeted in this way by him any longer,” she said.

During the fall campaign, Peña’s opponent, Democratic state Rep. Miguel Garcia, sued to have Peña removed from the ballot, arguing Peña’s status as an ex-felon should prevent him from being able to run for public office in the state, CNN affiliate KOAT reported. Peña served nearly seven years in prison after a 2008 conviction for stealing a large volume of goods in a “smash and grab scheme,” the KOAT report said.

“You can’t hide from your own history,” Peña told the outlet in September. “I had nothing more than a desire to improve my lot in life.”

A district court judge ruled Peña was allowed to run in the election, according to KOAT. He lost his race to Garcia, 26% to 74%, yet a week later tweeted that he “never conceded” the race and was researching his options.

“After the election in November, Solomon Peña reached out and contracted someone for an amount of cash money to commit at least two of these shootings. The addresses of the shootings were communicated over phone,” Hartsock said Monday, citing the investigation. “Within hours, in one case, the shooting took place at the lawmaker’s home.”

Firearm evidence, surveillance video, cell phone and electronic records and witnesses in and around the conspiracy aided the investigation and helped officials connect five people to this conspiracy, Hartsock said.

Detectives served search warrants Monday at Peña’s apartment and the home of two men allegedly paid by Peña, police said in the news release, adding Peña did not speak with detectives.

Officers arrested Peña on suspicion of “helping orchestrate and participate in these four shootings, either at his request or he conducted them personally, himself,” Hartsock added.

Police last week announced they had a suspect in custody and had obtained a firearm connected to one of the shootings at the homes of elected officials. A car driven at one of the shooting scenes was registered to Peña, the department said.

Authorities had earlier said they were investigating two other reports of gunfire since December – near the campaign office of the state attorney general, and near a law office of a state senator. Detectives no longer believe those two incidents are connected to the other four, police said Monday.

O’Malley, the then-county commissioner whose home police say was shot at in December, is pleased an arrest has been made, she said.

“I am very relieved – and so is my family. I’m very appreciative of the work the police did,” O’Malley told CNN on Monday evening. O’Malley and her husband had been sleeping on December 11 when more than a dozen shots were fired at her home in Albuquerque, she said.

Barboa discovered the gunshots at her home after returning from Christmas shopping, she said.

“It was terrifying. My house had four shots through the front door and windows, where just hours before my grandbaby and I were playing in the living room,” Barboa said in a statement. “Processing this attack continues to be incredibly heavy, especially knowing that other women and people of color elected officials, with children and grandbabies, were targeted.”

Martinez, the incoming state House speaker whose home also was shot at, is grateful a suspect is in custody, he told CNN in a statement. “We have seen far too much political violence lately and all of these events are powerful reminders that stirring up fear, heightening tensions, and stoking hatred can have devastating consequences,” he said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Debbie O’Malley’s first name.



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World

How Ukraine became a laboratory for western weapons and battlefield innovation

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CNN
 — 

Last fall, as Ukraine won back large swaths of territory in a series of counterattacks, it pounded Russian forces with American-made artillery and rockets. Guiding some of that artillery was a homemade targeting system that Ukraine developed on the battlefield.

A piece of Ukrainian-made software has turned readily available tablet computers and smartphones into sophisticated targeting tools that are now used widely across the Ukrainian military.

The result is a mobile app that feeds satellite and other intelligence imagery into a real-time targeting algorithm that helps units near the front direct fire onto specific targets. And because it’s an app, not a piece of hardware, it’s easy to quickly update and upgrade, and available to a wide range of personnel.

US officials familiar with the tool say it has been highly effective at directing Ukrainian artillery fire onto Russian targets.

The targeting app is among dozens of examples of battlefield innovations that Ukraine has come up with over nearly a year of war, often finding cheap fixes to expensive problems.

Small, plastic drones, buzzing quietly overhead, drop grenades and other ordinance on Russian troops. 3D printers now make spare parts so soldiers can repair heavy equipment in the field. Technicians have converted ordinary pickup trucks into mobile missile launchers. Engineers have figured out how to strap sophisticated US missiles onto older Soviet fighter jets such as the MiG-29, helping keep the Ukrainian air force flying after nine months of war.

Ukraine has even developed its own anti-ship weapon, the Neptune, based off Soviet rocket designs that can target the Russian fleet from almost 200 miles away.

This kind of Ukrainian ingenuity has impressed US officials, who have praised Kyiv’s ability to “MacGyver” solutions to its battlefield needs that fill in important tactical gaps left by the larger, more sophisticated Western weaponry.

While US and other Western officials don’t always have perfect insight into exactly how Ukraine’s custom-made systems work – in large part because they are not on the ground – both officials and open-source analysts say Ukraine has become a veritable battle lab for cheap but effective solutions.

“Their innovation is just incredibly impressive,” said Seth Jones, director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has also offered the United States and its allies a rare opportunity to study how their own weapons systems perform under intense use – and what munitions both sides are using to score wins in this hotly fought modern war. US operations officers and other military officials have also tracked how successfully Russia has used cheap, expendable drones that explode on impact, provided by Iran, to decimate the Ukrainian power grid.

Ukraine is “absolutely a weapons lab in every sense because none of this equipment has ever actually been used in a war between two industrially developed nations,” said one source familiar with Western intelligence. “This is real-world battle testing.”

For the US military, the war in Ukraine has been an incredible source of data on the utility of its own systems.

Some high-profile systems given to the Ukrainians – such as the Switchblade 300 drone and a missile designed to target enemy radar systems – have turned out to be less effective on the battlefield than anticipated, according to a US military operations officer with knowledge of the battlefield, as well as a recent British think tank study.

But the lightweight American-made M142 multiple rocket launcher, or HIMARS, has been critical to Ukraine’s success – even as officials have learned valuable lessons about the rate of maintenance repair those systems have required under such heavy use.

How Ukraine has used its limited supply of HIMARS missiles to wreak havoc on Russian command and control, striking command posts, headquarters and supply depots, has been eye-opening, a defense official said, adding that military leaders would be studying this for years.

Another crucial piece of insight has been about the M777 howitzer, the powerful artillery that has been a critical part of Ukraine’s battlefield power. But the barrels of the howitzers lose their rifling if too many shells are fired in a short time frame, another defense official said, making the artillery less accurate and less effective.

The Ukrainians have also made tactical innovations that have impressed Western officials. During the early weeks of the war, Ukrainian commanders adapted their operations to employ small teams of dismounted infantry during the Russian advance on Kyiv. Armed with shoulder-mounted Stinger and Javelin rockets, Ukrainian troops were able to sneak up on Russian tanks without infantry on their flanks.

The US has also closely studied the conflict for larger lessons on how a war between two modern nations might be waged in the 21st century.

The operations officer said that one lesson the US may take from this conflict is that towed artillery – like the M777 howitzer system – may be a thing of the past. Those systems are harder to move quickly to avoid return fire – and in a world of ubiquitous drones and overhead surveillance, “it’s very hard to hide nowadays,” this person said.

When it comes to lessons learned, “there’s a book to be written about this,” said Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

US defense contractors have also taken note of the novel opportunity to study – and market – their systems.

BAE Systems has already announced that the Russian success with their kamikaze drones has influenced how it is designing a new armored fighting vehicle for the Army, adding more armor to protect soldiers from attacks from above.

And different parts of the US government and industry have sought to test novel systems and solutions in a fight for which Ukraine needed all the help it could get.

In the early days of the conflict, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency sent five lightweight, high-resolution surveillance drones to US Special Operations Command in Europe – just in case they might come in handy in Ukraine. The drones, made by a company called Hexagon, weren’t part of a so-called program of record at the Defense Department, hinting at the experimental nature of the conflict.

Navy Vice Adm. Robert Sharp, the head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency at the time, even boasted publicly that the US had trained a “military partner” in Europe on the system.

“What this allows you to do is to go out underneath cloud cover and collect your own [geointelligence] data,” Sharp told CNN on the sidelines of a satellite conference in Denver last spring.

Despite intense effort by a small group of US officials and outside industry, it remains unclear whether these drones ever made it into the fight.

Meanwhile, multiple intelligence and military officials told CNN they hoped that creating what the US military terms “attritable” drones – cheap, single-use weapons – has become a top priority for defense contractors.

“I wish we could make a $10,000 one-way attack drone,” one of these officials said, wistfully.

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