Ukraine promised shelters with heat and water and encouraged its people to save energy as a harsh winter loomed amid relentless Russian strikes that have left its power structure in tatters.

Special “invincibility centres” will be set up around Ukraine to provide electricity, heat, water, internet, mobile phone connections and a pharmacy, free of charge and around the clock, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Tuesday.

Russian attacks have knocked out power for long periods for up to 10 million consumers at a time. Ukraine’s national power grid operator said on Tuesday the damage had been colossal.

“If massive Russian strikes happen again and it’s clear power will not be restored for hours, the ‘invincibility centres’ will go into action with all key services,” Zelenskiy said.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said this week that some 8,500 power generator sets are being imported to Ukraine daily.

The first snow of the winter has fallen in much of the country over the past week.

Authorities have warned of power cuts that could affect millions of people to the end of March – the latest impact from Russia’s nine-month invasion that has already killed tens of thousands, uprooted millions and pummelled the global economy.

Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities follow a series of battlefield setbacks that have included a retreat of its forces from the southern city of Kherson to the east bank of the Dnipro River that bisects the country.

A week after being retaken by Ukrainian forces, residents in Kherson were tearing down Russian propaganda billboards and replacing them with pro-Ukrainian signs.

“The moment our soldiers entered, these posters were printed and handed over to us. We found workers to install the posters, and we clean up the advertisement off as quickly as possible,” said Antonina Dobrozhenska, who works at the government’s communications department.

Russian missiles hit a maternity hospital in the Zaporizhzhia region killing a baby, the regional governor said on the Telegram messaging service.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the report. Russia denies targeting civilians.

Battles raged in the east, where Russia is pressing an offensive along a stretch of front line west of the city of Donetsk, which has been held by its proxies since 2014. The Donetsk region was the scene of fierce attacks and constant shelling over the past 24 hours, Zelenskiy said.

In Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Russian air defences were activated and two drone attacks were repelled on Tuesday, including one targeting a power station near Sevastopol, the regional governor said. Sevastopol is the home port of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

Russian-installed Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev called for calm and said no damage had been caused.

The World Health Organization warned this week that hundreds of Ukrainian hospitals and healthcare facilities lacked fuel, water and electricity.

“Ukraine’s health system is facing its darkest days in the war so far. Having endured more than 700 attacks, it is now also a victim of the energy crisis,” Hans Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe, said in a statement after visiting Ukraine.

Russia’s strikes on energy infrastructure are a consequence of Kyiv being unwilling to negotiate, Russia’s state news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying last week.

Russia says it is carrying out a “special military operation” to rid Ukraine of nationalists and protect Russian-speaking communities.

Ukraine and the West describe Russia’s actions as an unprovoked, imperialist land grab in the neighbouring state it once dominated within the former Soviet Union.

Western responses have included financial and military aid for Kyiv – it received 2.5 billion euros ($2.57 billion) from the EU on Tuesday and is expecting $4.5 billion in U.S. aid in coming weeks – and waves of sanctions on Russia.

The BBC reported Britain is sending three helicopters to Ukraine, the first piloted aircraft it is sending since the war began. Ukraine will deploy them with Ukrainian crews trained in Britain, it said.

The West has also sought to cap Russian energy export prices, with the aim of reducing the petroleum revenues that fund Moscow’s war machine while maintaining flows of oil to global markets to prevent price spikes.

The Group of Seven nations should soon announce the price cap and will probably adjust the level a few times a year, a senior U.S. Treasury official said on Tuesday.

Related Galleries:

A shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia late on Tuesday resulted in multiple fatalities, and the shooter is dead, the City of Chesapeake said.

“Chesapeake Police confirm an active shooter incident with fatalities at the Walmart on Sam’s Circle. The shooter is deceased,” the City of Chesapeake tweeted.

The number of dead and wounded is still unclear, but no more than 10 people have died, local media outlet WAVY reported.

Walmart and the Chesapeake police department did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

דאָנערשטיק, דעם 24סטן נאָוועמבער, וועט פֿיליפּ שוואַרץ, אַ דאָקטאָראַנט פֿון ייִדיש־שטודיעס בײַם וואַרשעווער אוניווערסיטעט, אָפּהאַלטן אַ רעפֿעראַט אינעם בר־אילנער אוניווערסיטעט וועגן דעם חב״דישן ייִדיש וואָס מע האָט גערעדט אין מיזרח־אייראָפּע.

די לעקציע, וואָס הייסט „די געאָפּאָעטיק פֿונעם חב״דישן ייִדיש: צווישן רײַסן און פּוילן“, וועט געפֿירט ווערן אויף ייִדיש און וועט פֿאָרקומען פֿון 12:00 ביז 13:30 אויפֿן דריטן שטאָק פֿונעם בנין מדעי יהדות 410 אינעם בר־אילנער אוניווערסיטעט, רמת־גן.

אַ רעקאָרדירונג פֿון דער לעקציע וועט פֿאַרעפֿנטלעכט ווערן עטלעכע טעג נאָכן רעפֿעראַט אױפֿן פֿײסבוק־זײַטל פון דער „שנײַדערמאַן־קאַטעדרע פֿאַר ייִדישער קולטור און חסידיזם“. כּדי צו זען דערגיין צי די רעקאָרדירונג איז שוין גרייט, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.

אין זײַן לעקציע וועט שוואַרץ פֿאָקוסירן אויף חיים יצחק בונין (1875 ־ 1943), אַ פֿאָרשער פֿון חב״ד־חסידות אין פּוילן צווישן די צוויי וועלט־מלחמות, וואָס האָט לכתּחילה געשריבן אויף העברעיִש אָבער האָט בעת דער ערשטער וועלט־מלחמה אַרויסגעגעבן עטלעכע דערציילונגען אויף ייִדיש, אַרײַנגערעכנט אַ זאַמלונג מעשׂיות, „חב״דיש“.

אויפֿן סמך פֿון דער פֿאָרשאַרבעט פֿון יונתן מאיר וועט שוואַרץ דיסקוטירן פֿאַר וואָס בונין איז אַריבער אויף ייִדיש, און צי דאָס איז אפֿשר געווען צוליב זײַן קאָלאַבאָראַציע מיטן ליובאַוויטשער רבין, יוסף־יצחק שניאורסאָן. ער וועט אויך געבן דוגמאָות פֿון בונינס לשון וואָס איז געווען אָנגעפּיקעוועט מיט ווערטער און אויסדרוקן סײַ פֿונעם ווײַסרוסישן דיאַלעקט, סײַ פֿון די ליובאַוויטשער און אַנדערע תּלמידי־חכמים.

במשך פֿון די פֿאַרגאַנגענע צוויי יאָר האָט דער פֿאָרווערטס אַרויסגעלאָזט אַ צאָל ייִדישע אַרטיקלען פֿון שוואַרצן ווי, למשל, „איסלאַם, מחמד און מוסולמענער אין דער ייִדישער פּאָעזיע“ און „אלישע ראָדין – אַ פּאָעט אַ מורד־במלכות װאָס איז געגאַנגען אױף קידוש־הלשון“ — אַרטיקלען וואָס האָבן צוגעצויגן אַ סך לייענער.

The post Lecture: The Yiddish used by Rabbi Chaim Yitzchak Bunin, researcher of Chabad Hasidism appeared first on The Forward.

(NewsNation) — Multiple people were killed when a gunman opened fire Tuesday inside a Walmart in southeast Virginia, police said.

The call reporting the shooting in the city of Chesapeake came in just after 10 p.m., NewsNation affiliate WAVY reported.

Police told reporters during a media briefing they believe the shooter is dead and that fewer than 10 people were believed to be killed. At least one person was dead outside the store.

Officers were still investigating the scene as of 11 p.m. CT.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

(NewsNation) — The person who is accused of killing five people during a shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado is nonbinary, according to court records.

Joseph Archambault and Michael Bowman, the public defenders for Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, included the information about the suspect’s identity in the footnotes of a motion filed Tuesday. Aldrich is facing murder and hate crime charges.

“Anderson Aldrich is non-binary. They use they/them pronouns, and for the purposes of all formal filings, will be addressed as Mx. Aldrich,” the attorneys wrote. The footnote was included in a document notifying the court of Aldrich’s legal representation.

The Colorado Springs Police Department said in a tweet Tuesday that Aldrich was turned over to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office at the jail. They are scheduled to go before a judge via video Wednesday.

Aldrich was tackled and beaten by bar patrons during the attack in Colorado Springs that left 17 other people with gunshot wounds. They face five murder charges and five charges of committing a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, online court records showed.

Police have declined to answer questions about what evidence suggests hate crime charges are warranted.

Officials have identified the victims killed in Sunday’s shooting as Kelly Loving, Daniel Aston, Derrick Rump, Ashley Paugh and Raymond Green Vance.

Aldrich changed their name more than six years ago as a teenager, after filing a legal petition in Texas saying they wanted protection from a father with a criminal history including domestic violence against the suspect’s mother.

Aldrich was known as Nicholas Franklin Brink until 2016. Weeks before their 16th birthday, they petitioned a Texas court to change their name, court records show. A petition for the name change was submitted on Brink’s behalf by their grandparents, who were his legal guardians at the time.

Aldrich identified as a male at the time of the name change request, the court records appear to indicate.

“Minor wishes to protect himself and his future from any connections to birth father and his criminal history. Father has had no contact with minor for several years,” said the petition filed in Bexar County, Texas.

The suspect’s father is a mixed martial arts fighter and pornography performer with an extensive criminal history, including convictions for battery against the alleged shooter’s mother, Laura Voepel, both before and after the suspect was born, state and federal court records show.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A rise in the number of new COVID-19 infections in China prompted the commercial hub of Shanghai to abruptly cancel an auto industry event on Wednesday, creating more uncertainty about the reopening plans of the world’s second largest economy.

The rise in cases is testing China’s resolve to stick to recent tweaks recently made to its COVID rules, putting pressure on local authorities to stamp outbreaks without one-size-fits-all measures such as mass lockdowns.

Tuesday’s 28,883 new domestically transmitted cases hovered near daily highs from April, pressing authorities to double down on enforcing tighter curbs to prevent more infections.

Chengdu, with 428 cases on Tuesday, became the latest city to announce mass testing from Nov. 23 to Nov. 27.

The capital Beijing, where 1,486 cases breached another daily high, was largely a ghost town with malls, restaurants and parks staying shut. The cases now involve 16 districts and economic development areas, city officials said on Tuesday.

Officials specifically mentioned the high incidence of cases in Beijing’s upscale Chaoyang district and urged its 3.5 million residents “to not go out the area unless necessary.”

Shanghai also announced that people may not enter venues such as shopping malls and restaurants within five days of arriving in the city.

China’s top auto association said on Wednesday it would cancel the second day of the China Automotive Overseas Development Summit that was taking place in Shanghai, citing the deteriorating COVID-19 situation.

In Shenzhen, residents must present a negative test within 48 hours or a record of already taking a COVID test within 24 hours from Nov. 24 to enter airports, railway stations and bus stations.

While China’s infection numbers are low by global standards, the country continues to stick with its outlier zero-COVID approach, fuelling widespread public frustration and inflicting damage on the world’s second-largest economy.

Investors are also worried that this latest wave of infections might slow the reopening of the economy. read more

“The next few weeks could be the worst in China since the early weeks of the pandemic both for the economy and the healthcare system,” said analysts at Capital Economics.

“Efforts to contain the current outbreak will, at the very least, require additional localised lockdowns in many cities, which will further depress economic activity.”

Major manufacturing hubs Chongqing and Guangzhou have seen persistently high numbers for days, accounting for most of China’s total caseload.

Cases in Guangzhou fell slightly on Tuesday to 7,970 and authorities have said infections continue to be concentrated in key areas of Haizhu, which extended its COVID-19 restrictions in some areas to Nov. 27.

An earthquake of magnitude 6.0 struck western Turkey on Wednesday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said, while the interior minister said there were no immediate reports of deaths or significant damage.

The quake was at a depth of 2 km (1.2 miles), EMSC said.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), which measured the quake at 5.9 magnitude, said the epicenter of the tremor had been in Golyaka, a district in the northwestern province of Duzce.

“We almost completed our checks in the villages around Golyaka. There is no severe damage reported; only some barns were wrecked in these places … There was a power cut during the quake but authorities are reinstating power now,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on broadcaster TRT Haber.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter that 35 people in Duzce and nearby provinces had been injured.

Turkish media said the earthquake was also felt in Istanbul and the capital, Ankara.

(This story’s headline has been corrected to show the earthquake-hit region is in western Turkey, not eastern)

On the main road to billionaire Gautam Adani’s planned Vizhinjam mega port on the southern tip of India, a shelter built by the coastal region’s Christian fishing community blocks the entrance, preventing further construction.

The simple 1,200 square-feet structure with a corrugated-iron roof has since August stood in the way of ambitions for the country’s first container transhipment port – a $900 million project that seeks to plug into the lucrative shipping trade flowing between juggernaut manufacturers in the East and wealthy consumer markets in the West.

Decorated with banners proclaiming “indefinite day and night protest”, the shelter provides cover for roughly 100 plastic chairs, although the number of protesters taking part in the sit-ins on any one day is usually much lower.

Across the street, supporters of the port including members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party and Hindu groups have set up their own shelters.

Even when protester numbers are low, up to 300 police officers with batons will gather nearby each day to carefully monitor the situation. Despite repeated orders by Kerala state’s top court that construction should proceed unhindered, the police are unwilling to take action against the protesters, fearful that doing so will set flame to social and religious tensions simmering over the port.

For Adani, the world’s third-richest person according to Forbes, it’s a high-stakes impasse with no apparent easy solution.

Reuters interviewed more than a dozen protesters as well as port supporters, police officials and reviewed hundreds of pages of filings in legal actions brought by the Adani conglomerate against the Catholic priests leading the protests and against the state government. All point to an intractable divide.

Protest leaders allege construction of the port since December 2015 has resulted in significant erosion of the coast and further building promises to wreak havoc with the livelihood of a fishing community they say numbers some 56,000.

They want the government to order a halt to construction and independent studies on the impact of the port’s development on the marine ecosystem.

The Adani conglomerate plans to send heavy vehicles to the port on Friday after the court this week said vehicle movement should not be blocked. In October, vehicles that tried to exit the port had to turn back.

Eugine H. Pereira, vicar general of the archdiocese leading the protesters, said they would not be removing the shelter despite the court order.

“We are willing to be arrested in large numbers if need be,” he told Reuters.

Adani Group said in a statement the project is in full compliance with all laws and that many studies conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology and other institutions in recent years have rejected allegations relating to the project’s responsibility for shoreline erosion.

“In light of these findings by independent experts and institutions, we feel that the ongoing protests are motivated and against the interests of the state and the development of the port,” it said.

The Kerala state government, which has been in talks with protesters and argues that erosion has occurred due to cyclones and other natural disasters, did not respond to a request for comment.

Adani, whose empire spans gas and power projects as well as a ports and logistics business valued at some $23.5 billion, has described Vizhinjam as an “unmatched location” on one of the world’s main shipping routes. As a transhipment port, it would be well-positioned to grab business from Sri Lanka – where arch-rival China has invested heavily in port infrastructure – as well as from Singapore and Dubai.

With transhipment, containers are transferred from mainline vessels on key trade routes to smaller, feeder vessels on other trade lanes – creating a hub-and-spoke network that is more economical and flexible than relying on point-to-point shipping.

Eager to get on with plans to complete the first phase of construction by December 2024, the Adani conglomerate has sued the Kerala government for police inaction.

But Prakash R, a senior police officer in charge of security outside the port, said his aim is to avoid a situation like the 2018 environmental protests against a Vedanta (VDAN.NS) copper smelter in neighbouring Tamil Nadu state that resulted in 13 deaths and the smelter’s closure.

“We are holding back from using forces to avoid any untoward incidents. What if someone threatens or commits suicide? All hell will break loose.”

“We can’t rule out the possibility of this spiralling into communal tensions. We are strategically positioned between the two sides to prevent any such incident,” he added.

Each day, the protesters and port supporters blare music from loudspeakers and chant slogans. Prakash R describes the situation as a standoff between “people of the sea”, who are mostly Christian and make their living from fishing and “people of the land” who are predominantly Hindu.

The fishing community erected the shelter after years of failed efforts to get the Kerala government to intervene while watching the coast steadily erode. An easing of the pandemic also made it easier than previous years to protest.

Protesters say the construction has reduced the size of their catches and if the port is completed they’ll be forced to fish much further out to sea.

A group of 128 residents from the fishing community near the port has also sued the Vizhinjam unit of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSE.NS) as well as the Kerala government, claiming dredging and other construction work has caused erosion that is destroying their homes.

Following protesters’ demands, the state last month set up a panel to study coastal erosion at the site.

Adani Group said in its statement that India’s National Green Tribunal, which has been monitoring the impact of the project, has not found any environmental or social violations.

For their part, pro-construction supporters at their shelters accuse the protesters of impeding progress.

“This is a matter of providing jobs to the many localities here,” said Mukkola G Prabhakaran, a Kerala state council member in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Indian protests recall the backlash Adani faced in Australia over his Carmichael coal mine. There, activists concerned about carbon emissions and damage to the Great Barrier Reef forced Adani to downsize production targets and delayed the mine’s first coal shipment by six years.

In Kerala, the Adani conglomerate which is shouldering a third of the project’s cost with the rest borne by the state and federal governments has repeatedly sought relief from the state’s court.

In filings, it has claimed the protests have caused “immense loss” and “considerable delay” to the project, adding that protesters have warned port officials of “dire consequences” and pose a “constant and continuous militant” threat.

An Oct. 27 “land and sea protest” saw protesters burn a fishing boat and more than 1,500 people break into the port’s grounds with some carrying iron rods to the main gate, according to the filings.

Asked about the claim, Pereira said: “We do not endorse or promote any sort of violence. Our protests have been peaceful all along.”

Accusing the Kerala state police of being “mute spectators”, the Adani conglomerate has also called for federal police to be brought in. The court’s next hearing on Adani’s complaints is slated for Monday.

For the time being, the tense standoff continues, with protesters saying they can congregate quickly if police move to dismantle the shelter. The site has four CCTV cameras providing a live feed so protest leaders can keep tabs on the situation with their phones.

“We’re prepared to go to any lengths to protect our livelihood. It’s a matter of do or die,” says Joseph Johnson, a protesting fisherman.

Related Galleries: