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Russian missile strike sparks blaze in Ukraine as Ukrainian forces continue to push into Russia’s Kursk region

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A Russian missile strike sparked a blaze in the Ukrainian city of Sumy on Saturday, while Ukrainian forces continued to push into Russia’s Kursk border region.

Two people were injured in the Sumy strike, which also damaged cars and nearby buildings, said Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. It said that the hit had involved an Iskander-K cruise missile and an aerial bomb.

Ukraine’s air force also said it had shot down 14 Russian drones overnight, including over the Kyiv region.

Russia Ukraine
Destroyed Russian tanks lie on a roadside near Sudzha, Kursk region, Russia, Friday, Aug. 16, 2024. This image was approved by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry before publication. 

AP


Last month, Russia launched dozens of missiles at cities across Ukraine in an attack that killed at least 31 people and smashed into a children’s hospital in Kyiv, officials said. Explosions rang out and black smoke could be seen rising from the centre of Kyiv, AFP journalists reported.

Meanwhile, fighting continued in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have been deployed since Aug. 6 in a bid to divert the Kremlin’s military focus away from the front line in Ukraine.

Alexander Kots, military correspondent with the pro-Kremlin newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, said that Ukrainian pressure in Kursk “is not weakening yet.”

“In the main sections of the ragged front, the situation has stabilized. But there are areas where the enemy continues to try to expand its bridgehead,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday that Ukraine had destroyed a bridge across the Seim River in the Glushkovsky district with U.S.-made HIMARS rockets, marking their first use in the Kursk region.

Zakharova’s statement couldn’t be independently confirmed, although the Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said that geolocated footage published on Aug. 16 showed that the bridge had collapsed following the strike.

Russian military bloggers said that the destruction of bridges would impede deliveries of supplies to Russian forces, but not cut them off completely.

“No one has canceled the pontoons,” said Kots, stressing that the Seim River is smaller than Ukrainian waterways such as the Dnieper River. “And there are still smaller bridges.”

Russia has seen previous raids on its territory in the war, but the Kursk incursion is notable for its size, speed, the reported involvement of battle-hardened Ukrainian brigades and the length of time they have stayed inside Russia. As many as 10,000 Ukrainian troops are involved, according to Western military analysts.

The incursion, which Russian authorities say has led to the evacuation of more than 120,000 civilians, came as a shock to many, Yan Furtsev, an activist and member of local opposition party Yabloko, told the AP.

“No one expected that this kind of conflict was even possible in the Kursk region. That is why there is such confusion and panic, because citizens are arriving (from front-line areas) and they’re scared, very scared,” he said.

Ukrainian forces have also captured a number of Russian troops as they have moved across the region.

On Friday, the AP visited a detention center in Ukraine, the location of which cannot be disclosed due to security restrictions. Dozens of POWs were seen, some of them walking with their hands tied behind their backs while a guard led them down a corridor. Some had rations of a thin soup with cabbage and onions.

On Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Ukrainian soldiers and commanders for capturing Russian military personnel and said the country’s “exchange fund” that it would use to bargain for the return of Ukrainian POWs was being replenished.

“I thank all our soldiers and commanders who are capturing Russian military personnel, thereby advancing the release of our warriors and civilians held by Russia,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

Russia Ukraine
A Ukrainian soldier walks past at a city centre in Sudzha, Kursk region, Russia, Friday, Aug. 16, 2024. This image was approved by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry before publication. (AP Photo)

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Suspect detained in killing of Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of Russia’s biological, chemical forces in Moscow blast

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Moscow — Russia’s security service said Wednesday that it has detained a suspect in the killing of a senior general in Moscow.

The suspect was described as an Uzbek citizen recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, didn’t name the suspect, but said he was born in 1995. According to an FSB statement, the suspect said he was recruited by Ukrainian special services.

Ukrainian security sources had told CBS News Monday that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) killed Kirillov in a special operation. The claim couldn’t be independently verified, but Russian officials quickly vowed to take revenge against Ukraine’s leaders.  

RUSSIA-BLAST-MILITARY
In this screengrab from an AFPTV footage, Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s radiological, biological and chemical protection unit, speaks at a press briefing in June 2018.

AFPTV / AFP via Getty Images


Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov was killed Tuesday by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service leveled criminal charges against him. His assistant also died in the attack. A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack.

The FSB said the suspect had been promised a reward of $100,000 and permission to move to a European Union country in exchange for killing Kirillov.

The agency stated that, acting on instructions from Ukraine, the suspect traveled to Moscow, where he picked up a homemade explosive device. He then placed the device on an electric scooter and parked it at the entrance to the residential building where Kirillov lived.

The suspect then rented a car to monitor the location and set up a camera that livestreamed footage from the scene to his handlers in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Once Kirillov was seen leaving the building, the suspect detonated the bomb.

According to the FSB’s statement, the suspect faces “a sentence of up to life imprisonment.”

Kirillov, 54, was the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces and was under sanctions from several countries, including the U.K. and Canada, for his actions in Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. On Monday, Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons.

Russia has denied using any chemical weapons in Ukraine and, in turn, has accused Kyiv of using toxic agents in combat.

Kirillov, who took his current job in 2017, was one of the most high-profile figures to level those accusations. He held numerous briefings to accuse the Ukrainian military of using toxic agents and planning to launch attacks with radioactive substances – claims that Ukraine and its Western allies rejected as propaganda.

The bomb used in Tuesday’s attack was triggered remotely, according to Russian news reports. Images from the scene showed shattered windows and scorched brickwork.

Head of Russian nuclear protection forces killed in Moscow explosion
A view of the scene after Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Defense Troops, and his assistant were killed in an explosion in Moscow on December 17, 2024. 

Sefa Karacan / Anadolu via Getty Images


Russia’s top state investigative agency said it’s looking into Kirillov’s death as a case of terrorism, and officials in Moscow vowed to punish Ukraine.



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Indiana conducts first execution in 15 years, puts quadruple killer to death

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Michigan City, Indiana — An Indiana man convicted of killing four people including his brother and his sister’s fiancé decades ago was put to death Wednesday, without any independent witness, marking the state’s first execution in 15 years.

Joseph Corcoran, 49, was pronounced dead at 12:44 a.m. CST at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana, the Indiana Department of Correction said in a statement. CBS Indianapolis affiliate WTTV reports that officials said the execution process started just after midnight.

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Undated photo provided by the Indiana Department of Corrections shows Joseph Corcoran.

Indiana Department of Corrections via AP


Corcoran was scheduled to be executed with the powerful sedative pentobarbital, but the state agency’s statement did not mention that drug. Corcoran’s execution was the 24th in the U.S. this year.

According to WTTV,  the statement said Corcoran told officials his last words were, “Not really. Let’s get this over with.”  

He was convicted in the July 1997 shootings of his brother, 30-year-old James Corcoran, his sister’s fiancé, 32-year-old Robert Scott Turner, and two other men, Timothy G. Bricker, 30, and Douglas A. Stillwell, 30.

According to court records, before Corcoran fatally shot the four victims he was under stress because the forthcoming marriage of his sister to Turner would necessitate moving out of the Fort Wayne, Indiana, home he shared with his brother and sister.

While jailed for those killings, Corcoran reportedly bragged about fatally shooting his parents in 1992 in northern Indiana’s Steuben County. He was charged in their killings but acquitted.

Last summer, Gov. Eric Holcomb announced plans to resume state executions following a yearslong hiatus marked by a scarcity of lethal injection drugs nationwide.

The state provided limited details about the execution process, and no media witnesses were permitted under state law.

Indiana and Wyoming are the only two states that do not allow members of the media to witness state executions, according to a recent report by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Corcoran’s attorneys had fought his death penalty sentence for years, arguing he was severely mentally ill, which affected his ability to understand and make decisions. This month, his attorneys asked the Indiana Supreme Court to stop his execution but the request was denied.

Corcoran exhausted his federal appeals in 2016. But his attorneys asked the U.S. District Court of Northern Indiana last week to stop his execution and hold a hearing to decide if it would be unconstitutional because Corcoran has a serious mental illness. The court declined to intervene Friday, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit did the same Tuesday.

Corcoran’s attorneys then asked the U.S. Supreme Court issue an emergency order halting his execution, but the high court denied their request for a stay late Tuesday, ending Corcoran’s options with the courts.

His sole remaining hope then became Holcomb, who could have commuted Corcoran’s death sentence. But that commutation never came and the execution proceeded as scheduled.

WTTV says Holcomb issued a statement saying Corcoran’s case “has been reviewed repeatedly over the last 25 years – including 7 times by the Indiana Supreme Court and 3 times by the U.S. Supreme Court, the most recent of which was tonight. His sentence has never been overturned and was carried out as ordered by the court.”

Indiana’s last state execution was in 2009 when Matthew Wrinkles was put to death for killing his wife, her brother and sister-in-law in 1994.

Since then, 13 executions were carried out in Indiana, but those were initiated and performed by federal officials in 2020 and 2021 at a federal prison in Terre Haute.

State officials have said they couldn’t continue executions because a combination of drugs used in lethal injections had become unavailable.

For years, there has been a shortage across the country because pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell their products for that purpose. That’s pushed states, including Indiana, to turn to compounding pharmacies, which manufacture drugs specifically for a client. Some use more accessible drugs such as the sedatives pentobarbital or midazolam, both of which, critics say, can cause intense pain.

Religious groups, disability rights advocates and others have opposed his execution. About a dozen people, some holding candles, held a vigil late Tuesday to pray outside the prison, which is surrounded by barbed wire fences in a residential area about 60 miles east of Chicago.

“We can build a society without giving governmental authorities the right to execute their own citizens,” said Bishop Robert McClory of the Diocese of Gary, who led the prayers.

Other death penalty opponents also demonstrated outside the prison Tuesday night, some holding signs that read “Execution Is Not The Solution” and “Remember The Victims But Not With More Killing.”

“There is no need and no benefit from this execution. It’s all show,” said Abraham Borowitz, director of Death Penalty Action, his organization that protests every execution in the U.S.

Prison officials said in a brief statement Tuesday evening that Corcoran “requested Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for his last meal.”

Corcoran said farewell late Tuesday to relatives, including his wife, Tahina Corcoran, who told reporters outside the prison that they discussed their faith and their memories, including attending high school together. She reiterated her request for Indiana’s governor to commute her husband’s death sentence.

Tahina Corcoran said her husband is “very mentally ill” and she didn’t think he fully grasped what was happening to him.

“He is in shock. He doesn’t understand,” she said.



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1 killed, 9 injured in shooting, fiery crash in Baltimore suburb of Towson, police say

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1 dead, 9 injured in mass shooting, fiery crash in Towson, police say


1 dead, 9 injured in mass shooting, fiery crash in Towson, police say

06:24

BALTIMORE — One person was killed and nine others injured in a shooting and fiery crash in the Baltimore suburb of Towson Tuesday night, authorities said.

Law enforcement responded at around 7:15 p.m. in the 8500 block of Loch Raven Boulevard, Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough said in a news briefing. 

“It appears to be a mass shooting incident,” McCullough told reporters. “We have multiple persons who were shot. Right now, we are determining the circumstances and the conditions in this case.”


Baltimore County Police provide update to mass shooting in Towson

10:11

The first arriving officer found a vehicle on its side in flames near a funeral home, McCullough said, and then several gunshot victims were found in the area. 

“There appears to be some type of incident that led to the vehicle crashing and catching on fire,” McCollough said. “Investigators are looking into the circumstances leading up to that.”   

The name of the person killed and the manner of death was not released, nor were the conditions of the nine people injured. McCollough did not specify how many of the nine people injured were gunshot victims. 

At this time, investigators believe this was an isolated and targeted incident, with no further threat to the community, he added. It’s unclear if any suspects have been arrested. There was no word on a possible motive. 

“We will leave no stone unturned and we will dedicate every resource to this,” McCullough said. “We don’t generally see incidents like this in our community in Baltimore County. I assure you as your police chief that we will put all resources toward trying to clear this case.”

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was at the scene assisting police, as was the Baltimore County Fire Department.

“This is an incident that is shocking, particularly for those of us in Baltimore County,” said Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski. “These types of incidents are unheard of here, so it really shocks the conscience. However, we want our residents to know that we are, as always, fully committed to ensuring that both our fire and police departments have the full support and all the resources they need from the Baltimore County government to ensure that they bring this investigation to a conclusion.” 

Anyone with information is asked to call Baltimore County Police at 410-887-4636.



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