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      Talk of an Immigrant ‘Invasion’ Grows in Republican Ads and Speech

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      Once relegated to the margins of the national debate, the word is now part of the party’s mainstream message on immigration.A campaign ad from a Republican congressional candidate from Indiana sums up the arrival of migrants at the border with one word. He doesn’t call it a problem or a crisis.He calls it an “invasion.”The word invasion also appears in ads for two Republicans competing for a Senate seat in Michigan. And it shows up in an ad for a Republican congresswoman seeking re-election in central New York, and in one for a Missouri lieutenant governor running for the state’s governorship. In West Virginia, ads for a Republican representative facing an uphill climb for the Senate say President Biden “created this invasion” of migrants.It was not so long ago that the term invasion had been mostly relegated to the margins of the national immigration debate. Many candidates and political figures tended to avoid the word, which echoed demagoguery in previous centuries targeting Asian, Latino and European immigrants. Few mainstream Republicans dared use it.But now, the word has become a staple of Republican immigration rhetoric. Use of the term in television campaign ads in the current election cycle has already eclipsed the total from the previous one, data show, and the word appears in speeches, TV interviews and even in legislation proposed in Congress.The resurgence of the term exemplifies the shift in Republican rhetoric in the era of former President Donald J. Trump and his right-wing supporters. Language once considered hostile has become common, sometimes precisely because it runs counter to politically correct sensibilities. Immigration has also become more divisive, with even Democratic mayors complaining about the number of migrants in their cities.Democrats and advocates for migrants denounce the word and its recent turn from being taboo. Historians and analysts who study political rhetoric have long warned that the term dehumanizes those to whom it refers and could stoke violence, noting that it appeared in writings by perpetrators of deadly mass shootings in Pittsburgh, Pa.; El Paso, Texas; and Buffalo, N.Y., in recent years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mall Attack Was Australia’s Worst Mass Violence in Years

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      The stabbing attack in a Sydney shopping center that left at least six people dead on Saturday was Australia’s worst act of mass violence since 2017, when a driver killed six people by deliberately plowing his car into pedestrians in Melbourne.In a country where mass stabbings and shootings are rare — in part because of strict gun laws — the latest attack has horrified Australians.Here is how it compares to other acts of mass violence in the country in recent years:June 2019: A gunman killed four people in a shooting spree across the main business district of Darwin, in the Northern Territory.January 2017: A man with drug-induced psychosis drove his car into a busy shopping street in Melbourne’s central business district, killing six people and injuring more than 20 others.December 2014: A gunman held 18 people hostage in a cafe in Sydney’s central business district. The standoff with the police, which lasted 16 hours, ended with the deaths of two hostages and the gunman. The authorities later labeled it a terrorist attack.November 2011: Fourteen people died when a nurse set fire to a nursing home in Quakers Hill, near Sydney.April 1996: Australia’s worst mass shooting occurred at Port Arthur, Tasmania, when a gunman killed 35 people. Just weeks later, the country’s leaders brought in strict gun laws. More

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      U.S. Intelligence Warning to Moscow Named Specific Target of Attack

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      The C.I.A. told Russia that Islamic State terrorists were plotting an attack on Crocus City Hall, a concert venue.The U.S. warning to Russia ahead of a terrorist attack near Moscow was highly specific: Crocus City Hall was a potential target of the Islamic State, according to U.S. officials.The warning had the right venue but imprecise timing, suggesting that the attack could come within days. Indeed, the public warning by the United States Embassy on March 7 warned of potential terrorist attacks in the next two days.Gunmen stormed the hall on March 22, killing 144 people, the deadliest attack in Russia in nearly 20 years. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, and Russia charged four men from Tajikistan, accusing them of carrying out the massacre.But President Vladimir V. Putin and other top officials have continued to claim, without evidence, that Ukraine could have played a role in the attack, a statement that American officials have repeatedly said was baseless.The news that the U.S. warning specified the precise target of the attack was reported earlier Tuesday by The Washington Post.The United States works intensely to collect intelligence on potential plots by the Islamic State and its Afghanistan-based branch, ISIS-Khorasan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Piknik, a longtime Russian rock band, is now at the center of a tragedy.

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      Early Saturday, Piknik, one of Russia’s most popular heritage rock bands, published a message to its page on Vkontakte, one of the country’s largest social media sites: “We are deeply shocked by this terrible tragedy and mourn with you.”The night before, the band was scheduled to play the first of two sold-out concerts, accompanied by a symphony orchestra, at Crocus City Hall in suburban Moscow. But before Piknik took the stage, four gunmen entered the vast venue, opened fire and murdered at least 133 people.The victims appear to have included some of Piknik’s own team. On Saturday evening, another note appeared on the band’s Vkontakte page to say that the woman who ran the band’s merchandise stalls was missing.“We are not ready to believe the worst,” the message said.The attack at Crocus City Hall has brought renewed attention to Piknik, a band that has provided the soundtrack to the lives of many Russian rock fans for over four decades.Ilya Kukulin, a cultural historian at Amherst College in Massachusetts, said in an interview that Piknik was one of the Soviet Union’s “monsters of rock,” with songs inspired by classic Western rock acts including David Bowie and a range of Russian styles.Since releasing its debut album, 1982’s “Smoke,” Piknik — led by Edmund Shklyarsky, the band’s singer and guitarist — has grown in popularity despite its music being often gloomy with gothic lyrics. Kukulin attributed this partly to the group’s inventive stage shows.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kamala Harris Visits Parkland and Urges States to Adopt Red-Flag Gun Laws

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      At the site of the 2018 school shooting in Florida, the vice president announced federal help for states to limit weapon access for people deemed to be threats.Vice President Kamala Harris stood beside the parents of children killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and announced a new federal resource center to help states implement their red-flag laws.Drew Angerer/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesVice President Kamala Harris on Saturday toured the still-bloody and bullet-pocked classroom building in Parkland, Fla., where a gunman killed 14 students and three staff members in 2018, using the grim backdrop to announce a new federal resource center and to call for stricter enforcement of gun laws.The freshman building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had been preserved as evidence for criminal trials and is set to be demolished this summer. For now, it remains a memorial to one of the most shocking mass shootings in the history of the United States.In remarks after taking her tour and meeting for more than an hour with family members of victims of the attack, Ms. Harris said the experience had been a compelling one.“Let us, through the courage and the call to action of these families, find it in ourselves to consider what they’ve been through as some level of motivation and inspiration for all of us,” she said.“This school is soon going to be torn down,” the vice president added. “But the memory of it will never be erased.”Ms. Harris said the attack, carried out by a former student with a history of mental health and behavior problems, should prompt officials around the country to embrace local red-flag laws. These allow courts to temporarily seize firearms and other dangerous weapons when they believe a person may be a threat to themselves or others. The Parkland shooter had purchased his gun legally.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      James Crumbley Found Guilty in Michigan School Shooting Trial

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      Mr. Crumbley and his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, who was found guilty on identical charges last month, are the first parents in the country to be directly charged for the deaths caused by their child in a mass shooting.A jury found James Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter late Thursday over his failure to prevent his teenage son from killing four fellow students and wounding seven others in Michigan’s deadliest school shooting.Mr. Crumbley and his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, who was found guilty on identical charges in a separate trial last month, are the first parents in the country to be directly charged for the deaths caused by their child in a mass shooting.Their prosecutions were seen as part of a national effort to hold some parents responsible for enabling deadly violence by their children. In the Crumbleys’ trials, “the prosecution here found a successful playbook,” said Mark D. Chutkow, a lawyer and former federal prosecutor in Michigan.Prosecutors argued that the Crumbleys ignored warning signs about the massacre, painting Ms. Crumbley as a detached and negligent mother, and accusing Mr. Crumbley of failing to secure the gun used in the shooting.“James Crumbley was presented with the easiest, most glaring opportunities to prevent the deaths of these four students,” Karen McDonald, the prosecutor in Oakland County, said in closing arguments on Wednesday. “And he did nothing.”Oakland County prosecutors charged the Crumbleys three days after the Nov. 30, 2021, shooting that killed Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Justin Shilling, 17; and Hana St. Juliana, 14.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Michigan School Shooting: 5 Cases of Parents Convicted After Child’s Actions

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      The mother and father of a Michigan teenager who carried out a school shooting are among the parents who have been convicted of crimes in the aftermath.A jury on Thursday found James Crumbley partially responsible for the deadliest school shooting in Michigan’s history. Mr. Crumbley’s son, Ethan, killed four people and injured seven more at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit on Nov. 30, 2021.Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, later pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced last year to life in prison without the possibility of parole.Mr. Crumbley’s wife, Jennifer, was convicted of identical charges of involuntary manslaughter last month. They were the first parents in the country to be directly charged for the deaths caused by a child in a mass shooting at a school.Here is a look at their case and others in which parents have been found criminally liable after a shooting by their child.Oxford High School, Michigan, 2021Ms. Crumbley, 45, was convicted on Feb. 6 on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each of the four students who were killed. She and her husband had given their son the pistol he used in the shooting as a gift.Ms. Crumbley faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison; sentencing is scheduled for April 9.The historic verdict in her case was built on evidence that included text messages and the accounts of a meeting with school officials just hours before the shooting, which jurors felt proved she should have known the mental state of her son. Ethan did not testify in his either of his parents’ trials.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      James Crumbley Declines to Testify in Oxford High School Shooting Trial

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      Witness testimony in the trial ended on Wednesday. Mr. Crumbley faces involuntary manslaughter charges for the four students killed by his son.Testimony ended Wednesday morning in the trial of James Crumbley, whose son carried out Michigan’s deadliest school shooting more than two years ago, and whose wife was convicted last month in the same courtroom for failing to prevent the rampage.Prosecutors took the rare step of seeking to hold the Crumbleys partially responsible for the shooting at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021, in which their son, Ethan, who was 15 at the time, killed four people and injured seven others.“That nightmare was preventable, and it was foreseeable,” Marc Keast, an Oakland County prosecutor, said in an opening statement last week. He accused Mr. Crumbley of failing to secure the gun that his son used in the shooting.Mr. Crumbley has been jailed since December 2021, when he and his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, were each charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter. They requested separate trials, and unlike his wife, Mr. Crumbley chose not to testify in his own defense.The witness lists in the two trials were similar, but there were a few key differences in the evidence that was presented.At Ms. Crumbley’s trial, lawyers pored over her communications with her son, including months of text messages, as prosecutors tried to paint her as a detached and negligent mother.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More