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Man who killed 3 Black shoppers in Jacksonville carried a swastika-decorated gun
(JTA) — The man who killed three Black shoppers at a Florida Dollar General on Saturday carried a gun that had a swastika on it, according to police in Jacksonville.
The shooter, who died by suicide inside the store, left behind multiple manifestos spelling out his hatred for Black people, officials said, adding to a string of racist attacks on minority groups in the United States. The manifestos have not been made public.
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the shooting as “a hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement on Sunday.
Jacksonville officials said they had not found any evidence thus far that the shooter, Ryan Christopher Palmeter, 21, was part of an organized hate group. But advocates say the presence of the Nazi insignia, coupled with the racist manifestos, offer yet another example of how hate ideologies threaten people of many backgrounds.
“From Charlottesville to Pittsburgh to Poway to El Paso to Buffalo, we’re witnessing a cycle of white supremacist violence – fueled by increasingly normalized conspiracy theories and hate promoted directly by politicians and pundits and enabled by social media,” Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said in a statement on Saturday, naming the locations of mass shootings by white supremacists.
“And it’s sadly no surprise that this racist shooter marked his gun with swastikas: because antisemitism, anti-Black racism, and white supremacy are inextricably linked, animating and fueling each other in a constant feedback loop – with deadly consequences for our communities and our democracy,” Spitalnick added.
The Jacksonville area has emerged as a hub of extremism, with multiple white supremacist and other hate groups active in the area, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The leader of the antisemitic propaganda group Goyim Defense League said he was drawn to the Jacksonville area shortly before he moved from California to Florida last year. In October, the Goyim Defense League used a light projection to display the text “Kanye is right about the Jews,” a catchphrase used by hate groups, at a Jacksonville football game attended by 75,000 people.
The Dollar General shooting took place on the five-year anniversary of a fatal shooting at a video game convention in Jacksonville, and officials said the shooter’s manifestos indicated an awareness of the date. (The perpetrator in that case, which was not treated as a hate crime, was a Jewish man from Baltimore.)
It also comes 15 months after a shooter who subscribed to “replacement theory,” or the belief that minorities are usurping white Americans in a plot masterminded by Jews, killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store. The theory has united white supremacists across borders in their hatred of Jews and immigrants and inspired multiple attacks, including the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in which 11 Jews were murdered; the 2019 attack on a New Zealand mosque that killed 51; and the 2019 massacre at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart that targeted Hispanic immigrants..
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited the scene of the Jacksonville shooting on Sunday, where his remarks were briefly interrupted by booing before a local councilwoman silenced the crowd. DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, has loosened gun laws in Florida and has also sought to constrain instruction about race and racism in public schools.
“We are not going to let people be targeted based on their race,” DeSantis said. “We are going to stand up and we are going to do what we need to do to make sure that evil does not triumph in the state of Florida.”
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Israel Agrees to Talks on Lebanon Border, to Free Five Lebanese, PM Office Says
An Israeli flag flies in Lebanon, near the Israel-Lebanon border, following the ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, as seen from Metula, northern Israel, Dec. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
Israel said on Tuesday it had agreed to hold talks to demarcate its border with Lebanon, adding it would release five Lebanese detainees held by the Israeli military in what it called a “gesture to the Lebanese president.”
A statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had agreed with Lebanon, the US, and France to establish working groups to discuss the demarcation line between the two countries.
Though Israel has largely withdrawn from southern Lebanon under a ceasefire deal agreed in November, its troops continue to hold five hilltop positions in the area with airstrikes in southern Lebanon citing what it described as Hezbollah activity.
The ceasefire deal ended more than a year of conflict between Israel‘s military and the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah that was playing out in parallel with the Gaza war.
The fighting peaked in a major Israeli air and ground campaign in southern Lebanon that left Hezbollah badly weakened, with most of its military command killed in Israeli strikes.
The post Israel Agrees to Talks on Lebanon Border, to Free Five Lebanese, PM Office Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UN Security Council to Meet Over Iran’s Growing Stockpile of Near-Bomb-Grade Uranium
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The United Nations Security Council will meet behind closed doors on Wednesday over Iran’s expansion of its stock of uranium close to weapons grade, diplomats said on Monday.
The meeting was requested by six of the council’s 15 members – France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, Britain, and the US.
They also want the council to discuss Iran’s obligation to provide the UN nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency – with “the information necessary to clarify outstanding issues related to undeclared nuclear material detected at multiple locations in Iran,” diplomats said.
Iran’s mission to the UN in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the planned meeting.
Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the IAEA has warned.
Western states say there is no need to enrich uranium to such a high level under any civilian program and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
Iran reached a deal in 2015 with Britain, Germany, France, the US, Russia, and China – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Washington quit the agreement in 2018 during Donald Trump’s first term as US president, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments.
Britain, France, and Germany have told the UN Security Council that they are ready – if needed – to trigger a so-called snap back of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
They will lose the ability to take such action on Oct. 18 this year when the 2015 UN resolution on the deal expires. US President Donald Trump has directed his UN envoy to work with allies to snap back international sanctions and restrictions on Iran.
The post UN Security Council to Meet Over Iran’s Growing Stockpile of Near-Bomb-Grade Uranium first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Entire Families Killed in Syria’s Military Crackdown, UN Says
A man inspects a damaged car in Latakia, after hundreds were reportedly killed in some of the deadliest violence in 13 years of civil war, pitting loyalists of deposed President Bashar al-Assad against the country’s new Islamist rulers, Syria, March 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Haidar Mustafa
Entire families including women and children were killed in Syria’s coastal region as part of a series of sectarian killings by the army against an insurgency by Bashar al-Assad loyalists, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.
Pressure has been growing on Syria’s Islamist-led government to investigate after reports by a war monitor of the killing of hundreds of civilians in villages where the majority of the population were members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
“In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families – including women, children, and individuals hors de combat – were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular,” UN human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said, using a French term for those incapable of fighting.
So far, the UN human rights office has documented the killing of 111 civilians and expects the real toll to be significantly higher, Al-Kheetan told a Geneva press briefing. Of those, 90 were men; 18 were women; and three were children, he added.
“Many of the cases documented were of summary executions. They appear to have been carried out on a sectarian basis,” Al-Kheetan told reporters. In some cases, men were shot dead in front of their families, he said, citing testimonies from survivors.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk welcomed an announcement by Syria’s Islamist-led government to create an accountability committee and called for those investigations to be prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial, the spokesperson added.
The post Entire Families Killed in Syria’s Military Crackdown, UN Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.