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Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gunned down while giving speech

July 8, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NARA, Japan) — Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot and killed during a campaign speech in western Japan on Friday, hospital officials said.

Abe, 67, was just minutes into his speech on a street in Nara when he was shot from behind. He was airlifted to Nara Medical University Hospital for emergency treatment, but his heart had already stopped and he had no vital signs. He was later pronounced dead, hospital officials said at a press conference Friday.

Abe sustained two gunshot wounds to the right side of his neck. Doctors tried to stop the bleeding but the bullet had traveled to Abe’s heart and they could not resuscitate him. Abe’s wife was by his side at the hospital when he died, according to hospital officials.

Nara prefectural police arrested the alleged gunman — identified as 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami — and recovered a weapon — described as a handmade shotgun — at the scene of the attack on Friday, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, a partner of ABC News.

Citing Japanese defense sources, NHK reported that Yamagami served in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force for three years in the 2000s.

The attack and a motive remains under investigation, but police said the suspect told investigators that he was dissatisfied with the former prime minister and intended to kill him, according to NHK.

Abe was in Nara stumping for his party’s candidates in the upcoming elections for the upper house of Japan’s bicameral legislature when he was gunned down. Despite no longer being Japan’s prime minister, Abe wheeled great influence on national security and economic policies and is the longest-serving premier in the country’s history.

U.S. President Joe Biden released a statement Friday, saying he was “stunned, outraged, and deeply saddened by the news that my friend Abe Shinzo, former Prime Minister of Japan, was shot and killed while campaigning.”

“This is a tragedy for Japan and for all who knew him,” Biden said. “I had the privilege to work closely with Prime Minister Abe. As Vice President, I visited him in Tokyo and welcomed him to Washington. He was a champion of the Alliance between our nations and the friendship between our people. The longest serving Japanese Prime Minister, his vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific will endure.”

“Above all, he cared deeply about the Japanese people and dedicated his life to their service,” Biden added. “Even at the moment he was attacked, he was engaged in the work of democracy. While there are many details that we do not yet know, we know that violent attacks are never acceptable and that gun violence always leaves a deep scar on the communities that are affected by it. The United States stands with Japan in this moment of grief. I send my deepest condolences to his family.”

The deadly shooting shocked many in Japan, which is one of the world’s safest countries and has some of the strictest gun control laws.

In an emotional speech from Tokyo on Friday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he was “lost for words” upon learning of Abe’s death. He said Abe had led the country “with great leadership” was his “personal friend,” someone he has “spent a lot of time with.”

“I have great respect for the legacy Shinzo Abe left behind and I pay the deepest condolences to him,” Kishida said.

The prime minister called Abe’s killing a “heinous act.”

“It is barbaric and malicious and it cannot be tolerated,” he added. “We will do everything we can, and I would like to use the most extreme words available to condemn this act.”

New gun legislation won’t eliminate mass shootings but will still save lives, say experts

July 8, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act signed into law last month most likely would not have prevented the recent Fourth of July massacre and won’t eliminate future mass shootings — but the legislation can still save lives, mental health and gun violence experts told ABC News.

Congress’ new gun safety package — the first if its kind in almost 30 years — was signed into law by President Joe Biden just nine days before the July 4 shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, that that left seven dead and dozens injured.

“God willing, it’s going to save a lot of lives,” Biden said while signing the bill.

The new law commits at least $8 billion to programs that support mental health. It also includes enhanced background checks for gun buyers under the age of 21, plus incentives for states to pass “red flag” laws to remove firearms from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.

Despite those measures, experts say that most red flag laws would not have helped prevent the Highland Park shooting — even though the gunman previously had two encounters with the police, including one after he allegedly threatened to kill members of his family, which led officers to confiscate 16 knives. That’s because the suspect didn’t yet own any guns at the time of those incidents.

According to Daniel Webster, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, which focuses on research and gun violence prevention advocacy, red flag laws are meant to respond to risk “in the most immediate sense.”

“The whole system seems to be reactive,” Webster told ABC News. “When an assessment was done of when there was clear and present danger, there were no firearms. So there were no firearms to remove.”

“I can’t a month later say, ‘Come take away his guns because a month ago he was suicidal and homicidal,'” said Dr. Jeff Temple, a psychologist and founding director of the Center for Violence Prevention at the University of Texas Medical Branch, which focusses on gun policy research and community education. “And that’s the problem with these red flag laws: It puts it on the family and takes it away from the legislative process and takes the power away from the police.”

Webster said the new legislation lacks provisions to prevent the “initial acquisition of firearms” by people who may present danger to themselves or others.

“We have to prove that you’re too dangerous to have a gun, and the way that we do that is a fairly rigid system that sets a pretty low bar for being able to get a gun,” Webster said.

However, several experts said that the new law will save lives in other ways.

The legislation includes $750 million to help states implement and conduct crisis intervention programs like mental health courts, drug courts, and veteran courts, and provides funding for mental health programs and school security, including $150 million for the suicide crisis hotline and $250 million for community mental health.

“The best thing about it is, even though I wish it was more, the money for mental health services is going to save lives,” said clinical psychologist Dr. Joel Dvoskin. “It’s going to help a lot.”

The new measures are “going to reduce suicides and they’re going to reduce homicides,” Temple said.

Experts also praised the legislation’s expansion of an existing law that prevents people convicted of domestic abuse from owning a gun, so now it includes not only spouses but also individuals in “serious dating relationships.”

“The most important thing about this is the closing of the ‘boyfriend loophole,'” said Temple. “Now it applies to dating relationships, which is huge, because about half of domestic violence incidents and homicides are within dating partners.”

Nevertheless, SUNY Oswego criminal justice professor Jaclyn Schildkraut said she’s concerned that most of the provisions in the law won’t address the underlying factors that are known to cause mass shootings.

“I don’t want to be non-optimistic that the legislation that was passed will not help people in our country — it absolutely will,” said Schildkraut, national expert on mass shootings research. “Will it stop mass shootings? No.”

John Cohen, a former ranking Department of Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor, said that in order for the legislation to actually prevent mass casualty shootings, “every local jurisdiction across the nation [needs to operate] under a consistent threat assessment and threat management process.”

“I would say that this law, when combined with a national, consistent level of threat assessment and threat management, could be highly effective,” Cohen said. “The law by itself doesn’t necessarily give you any insight or whether [Highland Park] could have been prevented or not.”

Threat assessments, which are an evidence-based approach to identifying individuals who may pose a threat and providing intervention before a violent incident occurs, are not a new concept, Cohen said.

“Local jurisdictions like Los Angeles, New York City and Montgomery County, Maryland, have threat management units,” Cohen said. “These are units that integrate mental health and law enforcement expertise in order to engage in these types of activities. At the local level, they can be highly effective in preventing these types of mass shootings.”

Schildkraut told ABC News that Congress’ new legislation lacks specific provisions for threat assessments that might have helped stop recent mass shootings.

“Threat assessment is designed to catch anybody who’s in crisis who needs assistance,” Schildkraut said. “It’s especially helpful in instances where there are potential mass shooting plots, and where somebody brings that information forward.”

Schildkraut also decried the legislation for failing to impose more sweeping measures like requiring universal background checks or banning the sale of large-capacity magazines or military-style rifles.

“We have policies that we know can work, like universal background checks,” Schildkraut told ABC News. “We have different things that we know can help, but they’re not being done.”

Trevor Reed speaks out on Russia’s detention of Brittney Griner, Paul Whelan

July 8, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As American basketball star Brittney Griner remains detained in Russia, Trevor Reed said he knows her grim reality all too well.

“They do not like Americans and they don’t try to hide that,” Reed, 30, told ABC News in an interview airing Friday on Good Morning America.

The U.S. Marine veteran was imprisoned in Russia for nearly three years. Reed, a Texas native, was arrested in Moscow in the summer of 2019 while visiting his Russian girlfriend. Russian authorities accused him of assaulting officers while being driven to a police station after a night of heavy drinking. He was convicted by a Russian court in mid-2020 and sentenced to nine years in a prison camp.

“There’s pretty horrible conditions there,” Reed said. “Some of those places don’t have a toilet — there’s just a hole in the floor for where the toilet should be.”

“There’s rats, [the] food there could be, you know, really bad,” he added. “In the summer, it’s very hot there. There’s no air conditioning obviously, or even fans inside of those cells.”

Reed was ultimately freed on April 27 as part of a prisoner swap agreed between the United States and Russia.

“The real fear that you have that just kind of sits on you like this weight the whole time, is that, you know, you could be there forever,” he said.

Griner, who plays professional basketball for the Phoenix Mercury, was returning to Russia to play in the off-season when she was detained at Sheremetyevo International Airport near Moscow on Feb. 17, after being accused of having vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in the country. On Thursday, the two-time Olympic gold medalist pleaded guilty to drug possession charges on the second day of her trial in a Russian court.

Griner, 31, also told the court that she had no “intention” of breaking Russian law, adding that she was in a rush when packing and did not mean to leave the cartridges in her bag. The trial was then adjourned until July 14.

Her detention has been extended repeatedly, most recently through Dec. 20, which was the expected length of her trial. If convicted, Griner faces up to 10 years in Russian prison and also has a right to an appeal.

The U.S. government has classified Griner’s case as “wrongfully detained,” meaning Washington will more aggressively work to negotiate her release even as the legal case against her plays out, according to the U.S. Department of State.

The White House said in a statement Wednesday that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have called Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, to discuss efforts to release her.

Griner had personally reached out to Biden in a handwritten letter that the White House received on Monday, when Americans were celebrating Independence Day. In the letter, she urged Biden to help her and other American detainees get out of Russia.

“As I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner wrote to the president. “It hurts thinking about how I usually celebrate [the Fourth of July] because freedom means something completely different to me this year.”

Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine and Michigan-based corporate security executive, has been detained in Russia since his December 2018 arrest on espionage charges, which both he and the U.S. government claim are false. Whelan, 52, was left out of the April prisoner exchange that led to Reed’s release.

Reed said the Biden administration is “not doing enough” to free Griner and Whelan.

“I hope that President Biden and his administration will do everything possible to get both, you know, Brittney and Paul out of Russia, and that they will do that immediately,” he told ABC News. “Because every day that, you know, they sit here and wait to make a decision is one more day that, you know, Paul and Brittney are suffering.”

Reed noted that freeing Whelan “needs to be the no. 1 priority there, just simply based off of the fact that he’s been there the longest.” He also criticized the Biden administration for contacting Griner’s family but not Whelan’s.

“They called Brittney’s family, and I’m extremely excited that they did that. I think that’s a step in the right direction,” Reed said. “But, at the same time, they did not contact Paul Whelan’s family and he’s been there for longer than I was even in Russia.”

During a news briefing Thursday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to say whether Biden has plans to call Whelan’s family, telling reporters that she didn’t have a telephone call to “announce or preview.” But she described regular contact between the Biden administration and the Whelans.

“The president is getting regularly updated,” Jean-Pierre told reporters. “This is top of mind.”

She added: “We’re going to do everything that we can to bring home Brittney Griner safely, and to also make sure that we bring Paul Whelan back home as well.”

Jobs data arrives as economy faces threats of inflation and recession

July 8, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As recession fears grow, officials on Wall Street and in Washington, D.C., will be watching employment data on Friday to see if aggressive borrowing cost increases from the Federal Reserve have slowed a monthslong stretch of robust U.S. hiring — suggesting economic activity may be quieting down.

The jobs report is expected to show that U.S. employers hired 273,000 workers last month, a marked slowdown in payrolls from the 390,000 jobs added during the month prior, according to a survey from Bloomberg. The survey predicts that the unemployment rate will remain at 3.6%.

The new data arrives at a precarious moment. Across the economy, acute financial distress could grow as the Fed pursues a series of rate hikes that aim to dial back sky-high inflation but risks tipping the economy into a recession. At its most recent meeting, last month, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate 0.75%, its largest rate increase since 1994.

“It’s amazing how head-spinning the predictions of the economy have been,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at The New School for Social Resarch. “Inflation was the top issue before the Fed met last month and now it’s recession,” she added.

Heightening the sense of economic uncertainty, the S&P 500 suffered its worst first-half performance of any year since 1970, falling 20.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell even further over that period, dropping more than 28%.

Economic data released this week presented a mixed picture of the job market. Employers posted 11.3 million job openings in May, a dropoff from the peak of 11.8 million in March but far higher than pre-pandemic levels, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Wednesday. The statistics indicate that demand for workers dipped but remained strong in May.

On the other hand, data released by the Labor Department on Thursday showed that jobless claims stood at 235,000 last week, an increase of 4,000 from the week prior and the highest seen since mid-January. The data suggests that the tight labor market may be loosening, a possible sign of an economic slowdown.

Ghilarducci, the labor economist, cautioned that the persistence of a low unemployment rate in June may not mean that the economy remains in good shape, since the unemployment rate often lags behind overall economic trends.

“The unemployment rate is a note from a different time,” she said.

Still, the White House and the Federal Reserve will be watching closely to see if the data reveals anything about their difficult tight-rope walk of fighting sky-high prices by slowing down demand, while simultaneously avoiding the type of steep slowdown that could cause a recession.

In recent months, strong hiring has turned the monthly jobs report into a recurring indicator of the hot U.S. labor market.

Prior to May, the U.S. enjoyed a streak of 12 straight months in which it added at least 400,000 jobs. Meanwhile, for the past three months of jobs data — from March to May — the unemployment rate has stood at 3.6%, a tick above the 3.5% unemployment rate that the U.S. saw in February 2020.

US job growth stronger than expected as economy adds 372,000 jobs

July 8, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. saw stronger than expected job growth in June, as the economy added 372,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remained at 3.6%, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.

The data shows moderately lower but robust job growth, despite aggressive borrowing cost increases from the Federal Reserve.

The leisure and hospitality industry continued to show strong growth, adding 67,000 jobs, though a slight dip from the positions added over the month prior. Jobs were also added in health care and professional and business services.

The labor force participation rate, a measure of working-age Americans who hold jobs or are actively looking for one, inched down to 62.2% in June, suggesting that workers still remain on the sidelines. That figure stands 1.2 percentage points below pre-pandemic levels seen in February 2020.

Wage increases — a key metric for observers of inflation focused on consumer demand — rose 0.3% over last month and 5.1% over the past year. Those measures are largely unchanged from the report released a month prior.

“The unemployment rate is a note from a different time,” she said.

Still, the White House and the Federal Reserve are watching closely to see if jobs data reveals anything about their difficult tight-rope walk of fighting sky-high prices by slowing down demand, while simultaneously avoiding the type of steep slowdown that could cause a recession.

In recent months, strong hiring had turned the monthly jobs report into a recurring indicator of the hot U.S. labor market.

On Friday, April and May numbers were revised to show 74,000 fewer jobs added in those months.

ABC News’ Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.

Privacy fears emerge over corporate policies covering travel for abortion

July 8, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a slew of major U.S. companies said they will cover travel costs for employees who cannot access an abortion where they live.

High-profile brands like Apple, Target, Starbucks, Amazon and Disney, ABC News’ parent company, are among those that vowed to help employees afford such travel, as 26 states are “certain or likely” to ban abortion in the aftermath of the court ruling, the Guttmacher Institute predicted in October. In several states, abortion bans have already taken hold.

But the new policies position companies as a key bulwark for abortion rights in states banning the procedure, raising concerns over the privacy of employees who may share intimate details of their personal lives in order to access the subsidy for travel costs. Fear of retribution or discrimination based on the desire to access the employee benefit could dissuade women from using it, experts told ABC News.

Assessing such privacy concerns is difficult in the early days of these policies, when companies are still figuring out exactly what implementation will require and the state-by-state legal environment remains in flux, the experts said. They added that federal law offers robust, albeit incomplete protection for the confidentiality of medical information, urging companies to administer the plan through a health insurer rather than deliver the benefit directly.

“Women should not assume with these policies that their privacy is absolutely 100% guaranteed,” said Wendy Parmet, a professor of health law at Northwestern University. “On the other hand, there are protections.”

“We risk the situation in which the fear itself becomes a more formidable barrier to access to needed care than the actual laws,” she added.

A central question for the new policies covering travel for abortion procedures hinges on whether companies administer the subsidy through an insurer or do it themselves, experts said.

If the benefit is provided through an insurer, then employees will retain the strong privacy protections that they receive whenever pursuing a medical procedure or health benefit through employer-provided health insurance, said Sharona Hoffman, a health law professor at Case Western Reserve University. In such cases, HIPAA prevents the release of medical information about a patient, she added.

If a company provides the benefit directly, then those same privacy protections will not apply. “HIPAA doesn’t apply to employers — there’s no HIPAA privacy coverage,” Hoffman said.

She noted that federal law does offer some confidentiality protections for sensitive medical information held by an employer through the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“If they learn somebody has HIV or cancer, they can’t disclose that to anyone else, unless they have to disclose it to a supervisor who has to provide accommodations to personnel,” she said, noting that it’s unclear how such protections will apply in the case of women seeking to use a company’s coverage for abortion-related travel.

Experts also emphasized the uncertain implications of potential legislation that may aim to prevent people from traveling to other states for an abortion. If such a law took effect and empowered law enforcement to subpoena information from companies or insurers that administer the travel subsidy, then they could be forced to turn over information.

“There’s a HIPAA exception for law enforcement,” said Hoffman, the health law professor at Case Western Reserve University. “Even health care providers have to respond to requests from law enforcement.”

Companies must establish guidelines for how they will respond to potential legal attacks on their policies, said Sonja Spoo, the director of reproductive rights campaigns at the feminist advocacy group UltraViolet.

“If you’re going to provide these benefits to workers, you need to make sure you have a plan in place to protect them,” she said. “Make sure employees are safe from attempts by whoever is in power to see information and weaponize it.”

ABC News posed questions about privacy concerns to 20 top companies that have announced policies that cover travel for employees who cannot access abortion nearby. Eight companies responded, of which seven provided a general comment about their policies but did not answer questions about privacy protections.

One company, Yelp, responded directly to questions from ABC News about privacy concerns regarding its policy.

“The privacy and safety of our employees were critical to how we would introduce this benefit, which is administered through our health insurance provider, ensuring confidentiality,” a Yelp spokesperson told ABC News. “Yelp will never receive any information on who incurred a claim and/or received reimbursement.”

Several companies responded to privacy questions about their policies covering employee travel with general statements on the new policies, including Bank of America, Lyft, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Meta, the parent company of Facebook.

“We intend to offer travel expense reimbursements, to the extent permitted by law, for employees who will need them to access out-of-state health care and reproductive services,” a Meta spokesperson told ABC News. “We are in the process of assessing how best to do so given the legal complexities involved.”

As the political and legal terrain shifts, companies will need to constantly adapt to ensure employee information remains private, Kirsten Vignec, an employment attorney at the law firm Hill Ward Henderson, told ABC News.

“This is the beginning — not the end — of the transition as a result of the change in precedent,” she said.

Police determined Highland Park shooting suspect posed ‘clear and present danger’ after past threat

July 8, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(HIGHLAND PARK, Ill.) — Highland Park Police Department three years ago determined that the alleged Fourth of July massacre suspect posed “clear and present danger” after a family member claimed he was threatening to “kill everyone,” a newly released police record shows.

The record is part of a series of police documents released Thursday that detail Highland Park shooting suspect Robert “Bobby” Crimo III’s troubled past and family turmoil, including an incident in which he threatened to “kill everyone” in the house in September 2019, just months before he went through background checks in his application for a firearm owner identification card.

The police reports confirm Lake County Sheriff’s Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli’s revelation during a Tuesday press conference that Crimo was approved for a gun license despite the two troubling run-ins with police that apparently did not surface in his background checks.

Highland Park police, which responded to the call in September 2019, removed a 24-inch Samurai blade, a box containing a 12-inch dagger and 16 hand knives from Crimo’s house that day, according to an incident report. Crimo told the police that he was depressed and had a history of drug use, the incident report shows. He also told the police that he had no intention of harming himself or others, according to the report.

No charges were filed in the incident when his family declined to press charges, Covelli said.

But the incident, labeled “well-being check,” prompted Highland Park police to file a report titled “Person Determined to Pose a Clear and Present Danger” on Crimo, which states Crimo is identified as a person “who, if granted access to a firearm or firearm ammunition, pose an actual, imminent threat of substantial bodily harm to themselves or another person(s) that is articulable and significant or who will likely act in a manner dangerous to public interest.”

According to the record, the “Clear and Present Danger form” was faxed to the Illinois State Police.

The revelations from the newly released records raise further questions about whether the incident should have prevented the alleged shooter from obtaining firearms.

Crimo had already had a police encounter earlier that year in late April, when an unnamed caller reported an alleged suicide attempt with a machete by Crimo a week before, another Highland Park police incident report shows.

The police noted in the incident report that the alleged suicide attempt had already been “handled by mental health professionals” the previous week and that no threats of harm were made by Crimo against himself or others that day.

In an interview with ABC News, the suspect’s father, Robert Crimo Jr., alleges he was not aware of his son’s alleged suicide attempt, but the incident report indicates that both parents were at the location when police were called a week after the alleged attempt. A source close to the matter told ABC News the report is incorrect and Crimo Jr. was not present for the police call.

“I’m not aware — I’m not aware of that one,” Crimo Jr. said. “You know, we live — we live in separate households.”

Despite the two alarming prior encounters, in December 2019, Crimo III passed four background checks to purchase weapons, the Illinois State Police said.

Because he was under the age of 21, his father sponsored his application, and at the time it was reviewed, “there was insufficient basis to establish a clear and present danger and deny the FOID application,” the state police said.

The state police said that before they approved Crimo III’s FOID application, they reviewed his criminal history and only found a January 2016 ordinance violation for being a minor in possession of tobacco.

Several other police reports between 2009 and 2014 revealed numerous incidents of domestic violence among Crimo III’s father, Crimo III’s mother and her boyfriend, who is not named.

Among the police reports was a 911 call from Crimo III’s mother Denise Pesina-Crimo’s boyfriend who alleged she tried to kill herself, which Pesina-Crimo disputed. In another incident, Pesina-Crimo was accused of biting the caller in 2012. In another incident, Pesina-Crimo allegedly struck Crimo III’s father with a screwdriver.

Several of these incident reports indicate that the suspect’s mother was allegedly intoxicated.

Another police record released on Thursday is a 2002 arrest card for Crimo III’s mother for endangering the life of a child, now identified as Crimo III.

Crimo III is accused of opening fire at an Independence Day parade, killing seven people and injuring dozens of others. The suspect plotted another attack in Madison, Wisconsin, authorities said Wednesday, but did not follow through.

He was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder on Tuesday. Prosecutors said that Crimo III confessed to Monday morning’s parade massacre. He did not enter a plea during a bond hearing on Wednesday.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dies at 67 after assassination

July 8, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(SEOUL, South Korea) — Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated by a gunman during a campaign speech Friday in Nara, Japan.

Abe was in the middle of a speech on the street when he was shot. Witnesses heard two loud bangs accompanied by smoke, causing confusion at the scene, according to local reports.

Police arrested a 41-year old local man on charges of attempted murder and confiscated a homemade gun. The shooter, dressed in a gray shirt and khaki pants, has been identified as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, and had worked for the Maritime Self Defense Force for three years until around 2005, according to Defense sources.

There is currently no known motive over the attack but the shooter allegedly had “no grudge against Abe’s political beliefs,” according to Japanese police.

Gun violence in Japan is very rare because the country has one of the strictest gun control laws in the world. No handguns are allowed but hunters are licensed to own shotguns and air rifles after training and background checks.

Abe was in the western city of Nara stumping for his party’s candidates in the upcoming upper house election when the shooting occurred. Despite no longer being Japan’s prime minister, Abe remained influential on national security and economic policies, and as a central figure within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Known to be a hard-line conservative inside his party, Abe served as chief cabinet secretary from 2005 to 2006 under Junichiro Koizumi. He was then elected president of the Liberal Democratic Party and became Japan’s prime minister in 2006 at the age of 52 — the country’s youngest prime minister since World War II.

He served from 2006 to 2007 and then again from 2012 to 2020, before stepping down due to chronic health issues. He later revealed he was being treated for ulcerative colitis, a chronic intestinal disease.

His visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine to honor World War II criminals as well as laws passed during his time in office allowing Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to participate in wars alongside allies overseas had strained relationships with neighboring countries. Abe was also a strong vocal critic of Beijing as he sided with Taiwan’s desire to be recognized as a democratic independent state.

Abe was the first foreign leader to meet former President Donald Trump after Trump was elected in 2016. Trump called Abe “the greatest prime minister in Japan’s history” and the two leaders held a total of 14 official meetings. They were also known to have been “golf buddies” playing together five times during Abe’s second term as prime minister.

During his tenure, Abe pursued aggressive economic policies, dubbed “Abenomics” to bolster Japanese economic growth which had become stagnant after two decades of sustained success. His so-called three arrows strategy was characterized by monetary easing from the Bank of Japan, government spending and economic structural reforms. Abe’s policy reforms reduced real interest rates and generated inflationary expectations in the market but, overall, there are debates in Japan as to whether “Abenomics” was ultimately effective.

Abe was born to a politically powerful household. His maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi helped found the governing conservative Liberal Democratic Party in 1955 and led Japan from 1957 to 1960. His father, Shintaro Abe, was also a leading member of the LDP and was Japan’s foreign minister from 1982 to 1986.

Plans for Abe’s funeral have not yet been announced.

ABC News’ Hakyung Kate Lee, Eunseo Nam and Hyerim Lee contributed to this report.

Families forced out of homes due to city’s property tax demand seek justice

July 7, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(DETROIT) — Sonja Bonnett and her family built their lives in a home a few blocks south of Eight Mile in northeastern Detroit. The family spent years dreaming of owning the property, but then a letter arrived that quickly tore that life apart.

“One day, I get a letter in the mail that says there’s a $5,000 tax debt,” said Bonnett.

In 2011, Bonnett and her family entered a contract to become full owners and made monthly payments that they thought were covering property tax. The Bonnett family soon discovered multiple years of unpaid property taxes.

Bonnett and her husband could not afford to pay those back taxes and, in 2017, the couple, along with their seven children, were forced out of their home.

“The trauma of losing the house, and the way I lost it, killed a lot of how I felt about the neighborhood and the house,” said Bonnett. “But I still care about the people.”

City records showed that the unpaid taxes owed on Bonnett’s home from 2012 and 2013 added up to less than $5,000. A 2020 investigation by the Detroit News estimated Detroit residents, like the Bonnetts, were overtaxed by $600 million from 2010 to 2016.

Based on estimates by the Detroit News investigation, Bonnett’s former home was overtaxed by more than $1,500 in 2012 and 2013.

For years the city of Detroit greatly over-assessed the value of Bonnett’s home and many others like it. From 2011 to 2015, one in four Detroit homes went into foreclosure because of failure to pay property tax, according to a 2018 study.

Alvin Horhn is the deputy CFO and assessor for the city of Detroit. According to city records, the assessed value of the Bonnetts’ home in 2011 was $22,838, but when the property was reassessed in 2017 – it fell to $10,4000 – less than half of what it was valued before.

“There is no question the city lost control of its assessment roll,” said Horhn.

At the time, Horhn said that the city didn’t have the resources for a citywide reappraisal. In 2013, the city filed for bankruptcy and reportedly $18 billion in debt.

“There’s 400,000 properties in the city of Detroit, over 200,000 houses. I would never tell anyone that every single one of them is valued correctly, but that’s why we have a review,” said Horhn.

According to Michigan’s state constitution, property cannot be assessed at more than 50% of its marketable value.

Bernadette Atuahene is a property law scholar who works with the Coalition for Property Tax Justice and is fighting to end over-assessments in Detroit and to get compensation for affected residents. She said her research found that 53% to 84% of Detroit homes were assessed in violation of that rule from 2009 to 2015.

“We find that the burden of these illegally inflated property taxes is being borne on the most vulnerable homeowners, the ones in the lowest valued homes,” said Atuahene.

While Detroit acknowledges the over-assessment problems in past years, the city told ABC News that the problem is no longer happening.

“There are no systemic over-assessments in this city. If I were to tell you that 95% of the assessment roll is correct, that’s still 5% [or] 20,000 houses that could possibly be overvalued,” said Horhn.

But Atuahene and other housing advocates would argue otherwise. A 2020 study from the University of Chicago found that while fewer Detroit homes were being assessed in violation of the constitution, the city’s lower-valued homes were still being over-assessed.

The problem is not unique to Detroit. A 2021 study found that property rates are 10%-13% higher for Black and Hispanic residents nationwide. In recent years, investigative reports have uncovered disproportionate assessments in Cook County, Illinois, and Philadelphia.

“Detroit is just ground zero for a national problem. We see these inflated property taxes. It’s a national racial justice issue that our country has yet to come to tackle with,” Atuahene said.

In 2020, Detroit proposed a plan offering benefits for homeowners affected between 2010 and 2013, including discounts for properties owned by the Detroit Land Bank, authority and priority access to affordable housing and city jobs. The plan was voted down by Detroit’s city council, with critics saying it didn’t go far enough.

“The city does not have the money to hand people cash. It’s against state law and the city is not going to do anything that could bring the FRC back in control of their finances,” said Horhn.

Residents like the Bonnetts said if the city can admit it was wrong, they have the obligation to make it right.

“I want the world to take a look at what’s going on here… When you talk to Detroiters who went through this, we want our money back,” she said. “Why am I just accepting whatever they can give me?”

Sustainable funding still needed for new 988 Lifeline number, advocates say

July 7, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — As the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline prepares for the launch of its new three-digit number, 988, on July 16, experts said Thursday they’re excited about the opportunity to reimagine crisis care in the U.S., but building out the system will take time.

“We know that the 16th is the start of a transition, and not an end,” Dr. Miriam Delphin-Rittmon said during a press call hosted by the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. Delphin-Rittmon is the assistant secretary for mental health and substance abuse at SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done, we know, to strengthen and transform the crisis-care continuum,” she said.

The Lifeline has been in operation using a 10-digit number since 2005 and has been underfunded and understaffed since its inception, advocates say. Ahead of the launch of the new number, which experts anticipate will create a dramatic increase in call volume, workforce capacity issues continue to be a concern.

As of December 2021, the Lifeline was only able to answer about 85% of calls coming through nationwide, according to an appropriations report from SAMHSA.

Answer rates vary from state to state, but those calls are answered at the local level when possible. When a local call center isn’t able to answer a call, it gets forwarded to one of the national backup call centers.

The Biden administration has allocated $272 million in federal grant money for states, territories and the national backup centers to help fund the implementation of the new number. An additional $150 million was recently added to that effort as a part of the gun violence legislative package passed by Congress in late June.

That federal funding, hailed by advocates as an unprecedented investment, has already made a difference, Delphin-Rittmon said Thursday.

She explained that the Lifeline’s ability to respond has increased amid the wave of federal funding.

In May, Delphin-Rittmon said, the Lifeline was able to answer 27,000 more calls, 27,000 more chats and 3,000 more texts, compared to February.

Despite the increases in capacity, experts say more state-level investment is needed to ensure this system holds up long-term.

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra echoed this sentiment last Friday while speaking with reporters, saying the new number, “will work, if the states are committed to it.”

“It is up to states to step up to the plate and create the funding [to increase capacity],” said Angela Kimball, senior vice president for advocacy and policy for the mental health policy coalition, Inseparable.

Four states have passed cell phone fees to help fund the call centers and crisis response at the state level, and some others have allocated funds from their yearly budget. But, Kimball said, “a lot of states have allocated insufficient resources to actually build a system that has the capacity to respond like people need.”

“That’s going to take people stepping up and demanding that elected officials invest,” she added. “It’s not going to happen for free.”

In addition to the federal funding, SAMHSA has developed a jobs portal for call center jobs across the country to try to help address the workforce issues in the states.

“Crisis care is a priority as it hasn’t been in the past,” said Colleen Carr, director of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention.

“988 is really a transformational moment in our nation’s response to mental health and suicide prevention,” Carr continued. “And to achieve its full promise, it’s going to require long-term commitment and resources to ensure that anyone in crisis has access to quality and compassionate crisis care, when and where they need it.”

The long-term goals for crisis care response, advocates say, includes not just call centers but mobile crisis response teams and crisis stabilization units for people experiencing issues that cannot be deescalated over the phone. Experts say this continuum, as it’s called, will take even longer to develop than a consistent call response.

These sorts of resources, when available, can provide a professional, compassionate response, Kimball said.

Her own son has struggled with his mental health, she explained, and once needed the help of a mobile crisis team, which was able to deescalate the situation and get him the help he needed.

“This, honestly, is the kind of respectful, humane recovery-oriented response that everyone in crisis needs and deserves,” she said.

988 is the first step in making that continuum a reality, she added, saying, “No one’s worst day should ruin their chance to live their best life.”

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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