At least 9 dead in Austrian school shooting, along with alleged shooter, mayor says
(LONDON, PARIS and BELGRADE) — At least nine people are dead after a shooting on Tuesday at a high school in Graz, Austria, the city’s mayor said, adding that the alleged shooter is also dead.
Austrian state police confirmed the death toll, after earlier saying on social media that there had been several fatalities at the school, the BORG Dreierschützengasse.
Several others were seriously injured, police said in an update. The suspect was a former student at the high school, where he attended about three years ago, the mayor’s office said.
“The school shooting in Graz is a national tragedy that has deeply shocked our entire country,” Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said in a statement posted on social media.
He added, “Young people suddenly ripped from the lives they had ahead of them. There are no words for the pain and grief that all of us — all of Austria — are feeling right now.”
Officers responded after gunshots were heard at the school, the Styria State Police said in a message posted on social media, later adding, “The school was evacuated and all persons were brought to a safe meeting point.”
Emergency vehicles, including Cobra tactical vehicles, had been deployed to the site, police said. Video shot near the scene showed a street lined with ambulances and other emergency vehicles.
The city of Graz sits in southern Austria, in the Styria province. It’s the second-largest Austrian city by population, with about 300,000 residents.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge is probing whether the Trump administration deported migrants to South Sudan on Tuesday in violation of an earlier order barring deportations of migrants to countries other than their own without giving them sufficient chance to contest their removal.
An order from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy late Tuesday directs the government to “maintain custody and control” of anyone deported to South Sudan covered under a lawsuit challenging the administration’s practice of deporting migrants to third countries “to ensure the practical feasibility of return if the Court finds that such removals were unlawful.”
The judge’s order comes after attorneys with the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and other groups filed an emergency motion to bar the government from deporting migrants to South Sudan, saying they had indications at least 12 migrants had been sent to the East African country.
Lawyers said they believed one of the men, a native of Myanmar identified in court filings as “N.M.,” was removed from the Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas to South Sudan on Tuesday morning. The attorneys also allege a Vietnamese migrant referred to as T.T.P. “appears to have suffered the same fate.”
Both men named in the filing have orders of removal to their home countries, the attorneys said.
During a hastily arranged virtual hearing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boston, a Justice Department lawyer told the judge that N.M. had been deported to Myanmar, not South Sudan. But the lawyer declined to say where T.T.P had been sent, saying the information was classified, according to an account of the hearing in The New York Times.
The lawyer also said the current location of the plane carrying the migrants to be removed as well as its final destination were classified, according to the Times.
Murphy, a Biden appointee, told the DOJ lawyer that officials who carried out deportations in violation of his earlier order could face criminal contempt proceedings, according to the Times. Attorney Trina Realmuto, of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, who was present for the hearing, confirmed this account.
ABC News has reached out to DHS for comment about the alleged removals to South Sudan.
As a part of his order, Murphy also instructed the government to be prepared to identify the affected deportees and to provide more details about their removal and the opportunity each individual had to raise a fear-based claim.
The U.S. State Department currently advises American travelers not to visit South Sudan due to the threat of crime, kidnapping and armed conflict.
Another hearing in the case is set for Wednesday at 11 a.m.
Last month, Murphy issued an order requiring the Trump administration to provide individuals with written notice before they’re removed to a third country and a “meaningful opportunity” to raise concerns about their safety. The preliminary injunction also prohibits the government from removing a migrant to a third country without screening for possible risks to their safety in that country and a 15-day window to contest the government’s determination based on that screening.
In a declaration, one of the attorneys for N.M. said he was also one of the men whom the Trump administration attempted to deport to Libya earlier this month setting off a legal scramble to block it. In that instance, the judge said removing the men to Libya without due process would “clearly violate” his order.
(FRY, GREECE) — A 6.1 magnitude earthquake was reported near Greece early Wednesday local time, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Greek Emergency Management warned of a possible tsunami risk following the quake, which the agency reported as occurring nearly 30 miles southeast of Kasos as a 5.9 magnitude earthquake.
“Move away from the coast immediately,” Greek Emergency Management said.
The USGS said the epicenter is located over 9 miles south of Fry, Greece.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LONDON) — Russia launched more than 100 drones into Ukraine following the conclusion of a phone call between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, Ukraine’s air force said, and as the world waited for what Trump said would be an immediate resumption of peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv.
Ukraine’s air force wrote on Telegram that its forces shot down 35 of the 108 Russian drones launched into the country overnight, with a further 58 jammed or otherwise neutralized while in flight. The air force reported damage on the ground in four Ukrainian regions.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down eight Ukrainian drones overnight.
Cross-border drone exchanges occur near-nightly and have increased in size and sophistication throughout the 3-year-old war. Monday night’s barrage came despite Trump’s latest assurance that a peace deal between the two sides is possible, following a phone call with Putin that lasted two hours.
“I think something’s going to happen,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after the call. “It’s a very, very big egos involved, I tell you, big egos involved. But I think something’s going to happen. And if I thought that President Putin did not want to get this over with, I wouldn’t even be talking about it because I’d just pull out.”
Despite the failure of peace talks to date — including a chaotic meeting between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Istanbul, Turkey, last week — Trump still appeared confident of success.
In a post to his Truth Social website on Monday, Trump said Russia and Ukraine will “immediately” start negotiations toward a ceasefire. Kyiv has repeatedly requested a full 30-day pause to the fighting to facilitate peace talks. The Kremlin has so far dodged the proposal.
When questioned if he had asked Putin to meet with him during the call on Monday, Trump replied, “Of course.”
“I said, ‘When are we going to end this, Vladimir?'” Trump said. “I said, ‘When are we going to end this bloodshed, this, this bloodbath?’ It’s a bloodbath. And, I do believe he wants to end it.”
Putin’s own statement showed no sign of concessions. “Russia’s position is clear,” the president said in a statement to the media after the call. “Eliminating the root causes of this crisis is what matters most to us,” Putin said, per a Kremlin readout.
Trump’s threats of new sanctions on Russia do not appear to have pushed the Kremlin away from its maximalist war goals, which essentially equate to Ukrainian capitulation.
Those demands include the annexation of four partially-occupied Ukrainian regions — plus the retention of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014 — Kyiv’s demilitarization, a permanent block on Ukrainian accession to NATO and the “denazification” of the country — a nebulous demand based on Russia’s false representation of the Ukrainian government as a far-right dictatorship.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — with whom Trump also spoke on Monday — has sought to present Kyiv as ready and willing to make peace, instead framing Putin as the key obstacle to Trump’s desired deal.
“This is a defining time,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post to Telegram on Monday. “Now the world can see whether its leaders have the capacity to ensure an end to the war and the establishment of a real, lasting peace.”
“I confirmed to President Trump that we in Ukraine are ready for a complete and unconditional ceasefire, as the United States, in particular, has been talking about,” he continued.
“It is important not to dilute this offer. If the Russians are not ready to stop the killings, there must be stronger sanctions for that. Pressure on Russia will encourage it to make real peace — this is obvious to everyone in the world,” he said.
“We must ensure that Russia is prepared to hold such productive negotiations,” Zelensyy wrote.” It is very important for all of us that the United States does not distance itself from the negotiations and achieving peace, because the only one interested in this is Putin.”
If Putin drags out or blocks real negotiations, Zelenskyy said, “America and the whole world behave accordingly, including responding with additional sanctions. Russia must end the war that it started, and it can do so any day. Ukraine is always ready for peace.”
