Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 75

The Costliest Wildfire in U.S. History

NEWS BRIEF What started as an illegal campfire in July has turned into the costliest wildfire to fight in U.S. history.

For two months, 185 square miles of California’s Big Sur coast has been covered in flames, and there’s no end in sight. The fire, which the National Interagency Fire Center says has cost $206.7 million to fight, is only two-thirds contained. It could be several more weeks before the fire is extinguished.

This latest report only accounts for the firefighting costs, and not for property damage. The Associated Press adds:

The cost is mostly attributable to the long duration of the fire, and the need to pay thousands of firefighters for their daily work, the U.S. Forest Service said. The daily costs got as high as $8 million at the fire’s peak, though they’ve settled at closer to $2 million as it has calmed…

California is seeing a relative lull in active and dangerous wildfires as it awaits its heavy fire season, but three major uncontained fires are still burning around the state as wildfire conditions continue to expand into previously safe months, and new ones break out almost daily.

The Big Sur fire surpasses the previous high, when in 2002 it cost $165 million to put out a fire that raged in California and Oregon. These figures, though, are not adjusted for inflation.

A Fire at One of Greece's Largest Refugee Camps

NEWS BRIEF Fast-moving flames engulfed a third of one of Greece’s largest refugee camps, forcing up to 4,000 migrants to flee Monday night.

Local police on the island of Lesbos told The Guardian that some of the migrants may have started the fire at the Moria camp, which quickly consumed tents and makeshift houses. No one was injured. Some migrants are being allowed to return to the camp now that the fire is out.

Tensions began Monday at a rally in the village of Moria, where around 500 residents protested the presence of migrants and refugees on the island, calling on the local government to reduce their numbers. Until recently, residents have been commended internationally for their compassion for the migrants. Greek newspaper Kathimerini reports:

Lesvos Mayor Spyros Galinos was reportedly verbally attacked by the ultra-nationalists, who appeared at the rally as part of a group calling itself the “Patriotic Movement of Lesvos.” Galinos was addressing the protesters when the ultra-nationalists started shouting “throw them in the sea,” before they turned their vitriol on the official.

Some 300 migrants living in the camp attempted to rally against those protesters, but were subsequently rounded up by police and escorted back to the camp. Officials say the fire happened soon after.

Migrants in the camp have been frustrated with the slow asylum request process, rumors they would be deported to Turkey, the over-capacitated camp, and ethnic tensions between migrants.

An estimated 60,000 refugees are currently registered in Greece, blocked by neighboring countries’ closed borders. While facilities in Lesbos only has capacity for 3,600 migrants, about 5,600 now reside there.

The Shooting of an Unarmed Black Man in Oklahoma

NEWS BRIEF Footage released Monday by Tulsa police shows 40-year-old Terence Crutcher was unarmed and held his hands in the air when he was fatally shot by officers last week.

Police released the footage Monday. It can be found here and may be disturbing to some viewers.

“The video is very disturbing, it’s very difficult to watch,” Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan said in a press conference Monday before the video’s release. “We will do the right thing—we will not cover anything up.”

The footage comes from the dashboard camera of a police car that responded to a report of a stalled SUV in the middle of the road in Tulsa. The video shows the car arriving at the scene, where another police car is stopped behind the disabled SUV. Crutcher can be seen walking away from the cop cars and toward the driver’s side of his car, with his hands raised over his head. One police officer follows him, her gun pointed at his back. Three officers join her, obscuring the camera’s view of Crutcher. Crutcher then collapses to the ground. One of the officers’ voices can be heard saying, “Shots fired.”

The department identified two officers involved in the shooting, according to the Associated Press. The first, Tyler Turnbough, was said to have fired a stun gun at Crutcher. The second, Betty Shelby, fired the shot that killed him. Shelby, who has served as an officer in Tulsa since 2011, was placed on paid leave.    

Police spokeswoman Jeanne MacKenzie said Saturday that Crutcher refused the officers’ commands to put his hands up. Members of Crutcher’s family, who saw the video before to it was released to the public, said the footage contradicts that claim.

“We saw that Terence did not have any weapon. Terence did not make any sudden movements. We saw that Terence was not being belligerent," Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for Crutcher’s family, said in a press conference Monday.

Soloman-Simmons said the video also raises questions about when Crutcher died. Police said he died Friday night in a hospital after the shooting.

MacKenzie said the county would investigate whether Crutcher’s civil rights had been violated and if criminal charges should be brought against the officers responsible, assuring that “we will achieve justice in this case.”

Danny Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma, said the Department of Justice would conduct a separate civil-rights investigation.

This incident is the latest in a number of officer-involved shootings of unarmed black men in the United States this year. According to a database of officer-involved deaths maintained by The Guardian, Crutcher is one of 32 unarmed black men to be killed by police in the United States this year.

Clinton and Trump Accuse Each Other of Inspiring ISIS

Sometimes crises provoke national conversations about American values and the wisdom of contending policy choices. But that’s not what’s happened aftermath of attacks in New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota.

Even before police in New Jersey arrested Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in explosions on Saturday and Monday, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton had begun a fierce debate in which each side accused the other not just of misguided policies but of actively aiding ISIS, the latest nasty bout in a nasty campaign.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference Monday morning in Philadelphia, Clinton said that Trump’s rhetoric about Muslims made him a “recruiting sergeant for the terrorists.” That language stuck out—The New York Times called it “most drastic version yet of an attack Mrs. Clinton has tried out recently”—though actually, she has been using that line for some time. In April, for example, she told Henry Blodget, “I think it was said just this week that the way Donald Trump talks about terrorism and his very insulting language towards Muslims is making him the recruiting sergeant for ISIS.”

Trump’s campaign took quick umbrage. Spokesman Jason Miller said in a statement:

Hillary Clinton’s comments today accusing Mr. Trump of treason are not only beyond the pale, it’s also an attempt to distract from her horrible record on ISIS. If Clinton really wants to find the real cause of ISIS, she needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror. The decision to remove all American troops from Iraq in 2011, which was vigorously supported by Clinton, created the vacuum that led to the founding of ISIS. Nothing she says or does can ever un-ring that bell.

Meanwhile, Trump posted on Facebook, arguing that “Hillary Clinton's weakness while she was Secretary of State, has emboldened terrorists all over the world to attack the U.S., even on our own soil. They are hoping and praying that Hillary Clinton becomes President - so that they can continue their savagery and murder.” He later expanded on that sentiment in a campaign statement.

There is no small irony to Trump’s complaint that Clinton was accusing him of “treason.” Clinton’s accusation was certainly provocative, but it not as stunning as what Trump said about President Obama after the Orlando shooting. At that time, he suggested that Obama may have known about the shooting and done nothing. He acted outraged when the press reported those comments, but he promptly added that Obama put the interests of American allies over the country’s interest. Later, he said Obama “founded ISIS,” a statement that clearly was hyperbolic and not intended to be taken literally, although he insisted he meant it that way, before reversing course and calling his statement “sarcasm.”

Clinton’s claim is based on statements made by former intelligence officials. In March, Al Jazeera asked Michael Hayden, the former head of the CIA and NSA, whether Trump’s rhetoric about Muslims made him a “recruiting sergeant” for ISIS. Hayden said it did. More recently, after Clinton said on Israeli TV that the group “prays to Allah for Trump victory,” Matt Olsen, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, wrote, “Trump’s anti-Muslim proposals are likely to inspire and radicalize more violent jihadists in the U.S. and Europe.”

Trump has shown a predilection for the rhetorical turn best known as “I’m rubber, you’re glue.” When Clinton began assailing her temperament, he added a long attack on her temperament to his stump speech. Last week, after spending five years pushing conspiracy theories about whether Obama was born in the United States, Trump argued that Clinton had started the whole thing, which was both untrue and an odd claim for someone who had so eagerly adopted the theory. His response to Clinton’s “recruiting sergeant” jab is to simply turn it around on Clinton and say that she’s the real recruiting sergeant.

Even by the standards of this election, it was a fast trip from attack to mutual accusations of treason. There are reasons Trump might not want to get into a more detailed policy argument. In particular, his solutions are often shallow, unconstitutional, or both. On Monday, he appeared on Fox and Friends, where he promised to “do something extremely tough” to stop ISIS. Like what, asked Steve Doocy, not ordinarily known as a tough questioner. Trump’s response:

Like knock the hell out of them. We have to get everybody together and and we have to lead for a change. Because we’re not knocking them. We’re hitting them every once in a while. We’re hitting them in certain places. We’re being very gentle about it. We have to be very tough and you have other countries who are getting devastated far more than we are and you have to get them together. It’s called leadership. They have to fight. They have to fight the battle. The battle is over there. And we have to fight the battle and we can’t let any more people come into this country and when we have bad ones—we have people going over fighting for ISIS and coming back and we know they are fighting for ISIS and we take them. Once you leave this country, you fight for ISIS, you never come back.

Elsewhere in the interview, he claimed that the Obama administration was planning to let 100,000 new Syrian refugees into the country, which is both untrue—the 2017 goal is 110,000 refugees from across the globe—and largely irrelevant, as the suspects in both New York and Minnesota were not Syrian refugees. Rahami’s family came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 1995, long before ISIS or the Syrian civil war, and was granted asylum in the U.S. in 2011, and Rahami himself is a citizen. It’s unclear how one would vet a seven-year-old, on which basis Chris Christie in November argued against admitting even five-year-old orphan refugees. The asylum decision came when Clinton was secretary of state, which will almost certainly become a line of attack for Trump.

During the Fox and Friends interviews, Trump also made some cryptic comments about bomb designs that appeared to argue for limits on press freedom, as he admitted:

So I see the other day, and they're all talking about it so wonderfully because it's called freedom of the press—where you buy magazines and they tell you how to make the same bombs that you saw. I would—now people will go crazy, they'll say Trump is against freedom of the press. I'm totally in favor of freedom of the press. But how do you allow magazines to be sold—these are magazines that tell you, from step one, go to the store and buy such-and-such, right?

It’s unclear quite what magazines he’s referring to. The Anarchist Cookbook, a book, has been in circulation for decades. The other notable publication offering bomb recipes is Inspire, the Al Qaeda periodical. Its publishers, however, are overseas, and the Obama administration’s approach was far more aggressive than simple arrests: It killed Samir Khan, an American citizen believed to be Inspire’s editor, in a 2011 drone strike.  

Elsewhere on Monday, Trump lamented that Rahami would receive medical treatment and a lawyer, as constitutionally required.

Clinton, for her part, has offered more detail about how she’d approach homegrown terrorism and national security. It’s a fairly straightforward, sober, predictable set of ideas: Make sure first responders and police are trained in prevention; improve intelligence gathering; enact stronger gun controls; and improve relationships between Muslim American communities and law enforcement. In other words, Clinton wants to basically stay the course on Obama’s strategy for homegrown terror. There’s nothing flashy, and the hard truth underlying it is that some number of attacks is inevitable. She might rather trade allegations of treason, too.

The Chicago Hot Dog King and a Mysterious Gold Tooth

NEWS BRIEF More than 70 years after a revered Japanese commander was killed by U.S. forces in the South Pacific, his gold tooth may be in the possession of a Chicago hot dog magnate.

Dick Portillo, who sold his successful chain of diners for a reported $1 billion two years ago, says the tooth he recovered on an island in Papua New Guinea last year may have belonged to Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander who led the Japanese navy beginning in 1939. If the tooth is confirmed to be Yamamato’s, Portillo wants to give it to the Japanese government, according to a Chicago Tribune story Monday about the find.

“I don’t want to make any money,” Portillo told the Tribune. “I don’t care if I keep the tooth, you know what I mean? The value to me is the fun, the experience of doing that, the fact that I had a lot to do with it, and history.”

About that history. In 1941, Yamamoto orchestrated the attack on Pearl Harbor, even though he opposed war with the United States. Two years later, in April 1943, the commander embarked on a tour of military units in the South Pacific to boost morale after Japan failed to retake the island of Guadalcanal from Allied forces. Japanese forces sent coded messages to those units about Yamamoto’s visit. The U.S. navy intercepted and decrypted these messages, and warplanes were dispatched. On April 18, 1943, U.S. aircraft shot down the plane carrying Yamamoto, killing everyone on board. The plane crashed in thick jungle of the Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville, and tourists can visit and see the wreckage today.

Portillo, a 76-year-old former Marine, is a World War II history buff, according to the Tribune. He has organized at least five expeditions to South Pacific sites that played important roles in the war. In July 2015, he led a team to Bougainville to survey the wreckage of Yamamoto’s plane. One of the members of the group, a retired professor, crawled through the fuselage, and on his way out spotted something shiny in the mud nearby: the gold tooth.

Portillo bought it for $14,000 from the local clans who oversee the wreckage site. Back in the U.S., dentists verified it was a human tooth that was forcefully removed. Portillo is still working with contacts in Japan and U.S.-based researchers to confirm whether it came from Yamamoto’s mouth. That may be difficult since the plane was carrying 10 other men that day, and there are no dental records for Yamamoto, who was cremated after his death.

But Portillo, who keeps the tooth inside a prescription medicine bottle, is not deterred. “I’ll do whatever it takes to find out,” he said.

The Philippine President's Dwindling Opposition

NEWS BRIEF The Philippine politician at the head of an investigation into President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, and who presented a man last week who claimed Duterte ran a hit squad as mayor of Davao city, was removed Monday from her position as head of the Senate’s justice committee.

Senator Leila de Lima, Duterte’s most vocal critic, has questioned the president’s crackdown that resulted in more than 3,500 deaths, many of them caused by vigilantes. Lawmakers’ vote to remove de Lima came around the same time Duterte said he would need to extend his war on drugs for another six months, more than doubling his original time-length. “Even if I wanted to, I cannot kill them all,” Duterte said of his country’s criminals.

On Monday, legislators voted 16 to 4 to unseat de Lima, after Duterte’s allies said the witness she brought before the investigatory panel last week had tarnished the country’s international image. The motion to remove her was brought by Manny Pacquiao, the senator and boxer.  The vote was called “unprecedented,” by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and gained momentum after a speech by Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, Duterte’s close political ally. The Inquirer reported that:

Cayetano, running mate of Mr. Duterte, said De Lima was among those misleading the people and the international media to destroy the image of the chamber as an institution and to distract senators from the much-needed work to be done.

He also said “long-honored traditions of collegiality and civility” among senators were being destroyed, following last week’s Senate hearing in which De Lima presented confessed hit man Edgar Matobato who linked the President to Davao Death Squad (DDS) execution of criminals when Mr. Duterte was mayor.

As The Atlantic reported last week,  de Lima’s witness tied Duterte to his controversial time as mayor of the southern city of Davao. Duterte reduced crime in the city during the two decades he served as mayor. But rumors—some of which he nurtured by bragging about in the press—of how he accomplished that reduction followed him throughout the election.

Last week, de Lima presented a man named Edgar Matobato, who claimed to have worked as a hitman on the Davao Death Squad. He said orders to kill people came directly from Duterte, that they once fed a man to a crocodile, and they regularly dumped bodies into Manila Bay (one of Duterte’s campaign promises). Duterte has often made boastful claims, even bragging about having killed three men accused of kidnapping a girl. But before Matobato testified to the Senate’s investigatory panel, Duterte’s claims were often written off as hyperbole.

Now that de Lima is off the Senate’s justice committee, it’s not known what will come of the investigation into thousands of deaths the country has seen since Duterte won the election at the end of June. It’s likely the panel will back off; de Lima’s replacement, Senator Richard Gordon, is an ally of the president.

What We Know: The Explosions in New York and New Jersey

What we know on Monday, September 19:

—The suspect: The New York Police Department identified the suspect in Saturday’s bombing as Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, a New Jersey resident. New Jersey State Police say he is also wanted for the explosion Saturday in Seaside Park. Rahami is reportedly in custody.

—The bombs in New York City: The blast occurred at around 8:30 p.m. Saturday at West 23rd Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, injuring 29 people. Several hours later, NYPD found what appeared to be a pressure-cooker bomb four blocks away on West 27th Street.

—The bombs in New Jersey: There was an explosion Saturday near the starting point of a Marine Corps charity race in Seaside Park. Then late Sunday, authorities said several bombs, including pipe bombs, were found inside a backpack near the train station in Elizabeth.

6:50 p.m.

Prosecutors have charged Rahami with five counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, NBC News reports. The charges are related to the gun battle he had with police, where two officers were injured.

Both officers are expected to make full recoveries. Rahami was also shot several times, including in the leg and arm. He, too, is expected to recover.

Rahami was also charged with second-degree unlawful possession of a gun and second-degree possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose. His bail was set for $5.2 million.

He has yet to be charged for the bombings in New York and New Jersey.

6:15 p.m.

President Obama spoke with the two New Jersey law enforcement officers who were injured while apprehending Rahami, the White House said Monday.

The president also praised the “extraordinary work and coordination that is taking place between the FBI and law enforcement,” while speaking at a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in New York.

1:35 p.m.

At a news conference Monday afternoon, Bill de Blasio, the New York City mayor, said: “We have every reason to believe this was an act of terror.” He added “there is no [other] individual we’re looking for at this point in time.” De Blasio also defended the first-time use of the emergency-alert message delivered to New Yorkers’ cell phones, saying the alert helped in the suspect’s capture.  

De Blasio and law-enforcement officials thanked police in Linden, New Jersey, who shot and wounded the suspect, who is now in custody. Two officers were injured while capturing him, James O’Neill, the New York police commissioner, said.

He said there was no motive yet for Ahmad Khan Rahami’s actions. Speaking at the news conference, the FBI Assistant Director Willian Sweeney said there is “no indication” a terrorist cell is operating in the New York-New Jersey area. Sweeney also said the five people detained on the Verrazano-Narrows bridge Saturday night were no longer in custody.

11:44 a.m.

Images are emerging on social media of Ahmad Khan Rahami’s capture. Authorities have not independently confirmed these images.

#BREAKING: #Linden #NJ (Union Cnty) #activeshooter. One Suspect in custody pic.twitter.com/nqzAdlRh9U

— Jewish Breaking News (@JBN) September 19, 2016

Ahmad Khan Rahami alive but injured, loaded into ambulance in Linden https://t.co/aMCNYxwFnH pic.twitter.com/JJlFhPLYSu

— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) September 19, 2016

11:26 a.m.

President Obama said: “We are extremely grateful that nobody was killed.” He said “at this point” there was no connection to the stabbings over the weekend in Minnesota.

“Our counterterrorism professionals ... are working together to prevent attacks and keep us safe,” he said. “They are the best of the best.”

11:21 a.m.

Ahmad Khan Rahami is reportedly in custody, according to NBC News and a coalition of reporters in New York City:

BREAKING NEWS: Ahmad Rahami wanted in connection with #ChelseaExplosion and #Elizabeth NJ is in Custody!!! pic.twitter.com/RPsMpllc2U

— New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) September 19, 2016

City leaders and law-enforcement officials are expected to hold a news conference in which they’ll provide more details.

10:23 a.m.

We’re learning more about Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in the New York and New Jersey blasts. The New York Times reports he and his family lived above the fast-food restaurant, First American Fried Chicken, they operated in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And, the newspaper says, Rahami had a penchant for fast cars.

Police and FBI agents searched multiple homes and businesses in the southern part of Elizabeth for Rahami, and authorities released new images of the suspect.

Additional photos of Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, wanted in connection to the Chelsea explosion. Call #800577TIPS pic.twitter.com/Vk1edyZVps

— Chief Joanne Jaffe (@NYPDCommAffairs) September 19, 2016

9:51 a.m.

Authorities in New Jersey say Ahmad Khan Rahami is also wanted for the explosion Saturday in Seaside Park.

This marks the first time authorities are publicly connecting the weekend’s blasts in New York City and New Jersey.

8:28 a.m.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Ahmad Khan Rahami “could be armed and dangerous.” “Anyone seeing him should call 911 immediately,” he said.

Speaking on ABC’s Good Morning America, de Blasio said there would be increased police presence in the city. When asked if the blast was an act of terrorism, he replied: “It's definitely leaning in that direction.”

De Blasio also said the five people detained late Sunday after their car was pulled over on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, headed to Brooklyn, were being questioned.  

On CNN, Andrew Cuomo, the New York governor, said he “would not be surprised if we did have a foreign connection to the act.” On Sunday, he’d said the blast didn’t appear to be linked to international terrorism.

ABC News, meanwhile, reported that it appears likely the blast in New York and the incidents in New Jersey are connected, though law-enforcement officials have not publicly linked the incidents.

7:58 a.m.

New York City Police have identified the bombing suspect as Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Afghan descent.

Wanted: Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28 year old male, is being sought in connection with the Chelsea bombing. #nyc pic.twitter.com/hSxhMqO7Qh

— J. Peter Donald (@JPeterDonald) September 19, 2016

Bill de Blasio, the New York City mayor, said Rahami was a New Jersey resident.

Earlier Monday, Chris Bollwage, the mayor of Elizabeth, New Jersey, said two men who had came out of a restaurant near the city’s train station late Sunday found a backpack on a municipal garbage can that they opened and found “wires and a pipe.”

They alerted the police, who, in turn, contacted the bomb squad in Union County, he said. Federal and state authorities eventually found five explosive devices, including pipe bombs, inside the backpack. A robot sent by the FBI accidentally detonated a device, Bollwage said.

#BREAKING video shows moment bomb robot accidentally detonated device found @ Elizabeth NJ train station. @PIX11News pic.twitter.com/xfO97F2ebm

— Anthony DiLorenzo (@ADiLorenzoTV) September 19, 2016

It’s unclear if the incident is in any way connected to the blast late Saturday in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood that injured 29 people or the pressure-cooker bomb that was found—and defused—just blocks away a few hours later. Nor is it known if the bombs found in Elizabeth are connected to the explosion Saturday near the starting point of a Marine Corps charity race in Seaside Park, New Jersey. No one was injured, and the motive behind the bomb is not yet known.

The FBI Bomb Squad was continuing its investigation at the scene where the backpack was found, Bollwage said.

Updated at 5:49 p.m. EST

A powerful explosion in Manhattan injured 29 people, sent shrapnel flying, shattered windows, and prompted widespread street closures Saturday night. Police later found a second device, which did not go off, a few blocks away.

The blast occurred at around 8:30 p.m. at West 23rd Street and 6th Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Twenty-nine people suffered non-life-threatening injuries. All the victims were treated and released from the hospital by Sunday morning.

New York police said Sunday the device had “some components indicative of an IED,” an improvised explosive device.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters Sunday the explosion was “an act of terrorism.” But at another press conference Sunday, New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill did not back up Cuomo’s characterization. “If it is an act of terrorism, we’re going to come out and say it,” said O’Neill, who is in his second day on the job as commissioner.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also stopped short of describing the explosion as an act of terrorism. “We’re going to be very careful and patient to get to the full truth here,” he said Sunday afternoon, after Cuomo’s remarks. “We are not going to jump to conclusions.”

Officials say preliminary evidence does not show any connection to foreign terrorist organizations.

Cuomo said 1,000 state and National Guard officers have been dispatched to major commuter hubs in the city. De Blasio described the police presence as “bigger than ever.”

Several hours after the explosion, the NYPD found a second device four blocks away on West 27th Street. That device appeared to be a pressure-cooker bomb, of the kind used in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Here’s a photo:

BREAKING PHOTO! Here is the second device found by a NYSP Sgt. At 27 street and 7 Ave. investigation is ongoing pic.twitter.com/x7o9Rr30I3

— New York City Alerts (@NYCityAlerts) September 18, 2016

The NYPD’s bomb squad removed the device from the site and is still examining it. Cuomo said Sunday this device was similar to the one that detonated.

City officials said Saturday night’s incident was not connected to a pipe-bomb explosion in New Jersey near the starting point of a Marine Corps charity race on Saturday morning. No one was injured, and the motive behind the bomb is not yet known.

New York police is reviewing video footage from both crime scenes on 6th Avenue and have asked the public to call in with tips. The department is investigating the explosion with the help of state police, FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The explosion comes one week before the United Nations brings dozens of world leaders and diplomats to New York City for its annual General Assembly gathering.

Vladimir Putin's Big Win

NEWS BRIEF Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won a huge victory in the country’s parliamentary election Sunday, but voter turnout was low compared to the last election four years ago.

More than 90 percent of votes were counted by Monday morning, and Putin’s party had won 54 percent of the vote in elections for the Duma, the lower house of parliament. Both the Communist Party and the nationalist LDPR secured about 13 percent, while the social democratic party, A Just Russia, won 6 percent.

It was widely expected that Putin’s party would win. The results mean United Russia will take 343 of the 450 seats in the Duma. In the 2011 elections, the party won 238 seats. Sunday’s outcome means Putin’s party holds the largest-ever majority of seats. That, Reuters points out, is enough to allow the party to unilaterally change the country’s constitution.

The weekend election was also the first time the people of Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine two years ago, voted in a Russian election as Russian citizens. As the BBC reported, voters in Crimea overwhelmingly supported Putin:

United Russia won all the region's constituency seats, in a vote that prompted protests in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.

Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov - a firm ally of Mr Putin who runs his troubled North Caucasus republic with an iron fist - swept to victory with 98% support, with 78% of votes counted.

Voter turnout was the lowest in Russia’s modern history, with less than 48 percent of the eligible voters casting a ballot. In 2011, turnout was 60 percent. Widespread reports of vote-rigging led to protests in the country during that election, and this year the Kremlin sought to avoid allegations of tampering. Still, some stations did report vote-rigging. One video showed an election worker cramming ballots into a box, and in one part of Siberia, there were reports of “carousel voting,” in which a group of people are bussed to different voting stations to cast ballots more than once.

Putin is eligible to seek another term in 2018, when the presidential election is held, but he has not yet said whether he will run. The president’s approval rating is at 83 percent.

The Attack in a Minnesota Shopping Mall

NEWS BRIEF The suspect behind the mall attack in Minnesota Saturday has been identified by family members as 22-year-old Dahir Aden, according to local media.

An off-duty police officer shot and killed the man who stabbed nine people at a St. Cloud shopping mall Saturday night. The suspect’s family identified him as Aden, a Somali-American student at St. Cloud State University. The attacker was wearing a security guard’s uniform and reportedly made a reference to Allah during the attack. None of the victims sustained life-threatening injuries.

Aden’s father, Ahmed, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune the family first learned of the 22-year-old’s death Saturday night from police, though they did not suspect his involvement until the FBI executed a search warrant for the family’s apartment the following day. Authorities have not formally identified Aden as a suspect.

Aden’s father said his son was born in Kenya, but grew up in the United States. Community members described him as an honors student who worked part-time as a security officer. They said he did not have a history of violence.

“The entire community is shocked by this incident,” Abdul Kulane, a leader in St. Cloud’s Somali-American community, said in a statement Sunday. “Our sympathy goes to the families and the victims and the entire community affected by this incident.”

Members of the Somali community—said to be the largest in the diaspora—expressed fears of backlash.

“Let us not rush and jump into conclusions,” Ahmed Said, executive director of the Somali American Relations Council, said in a statement. “We strongly stress that everybody calms down and focus on what unites us than what divides us in these difficult times.”

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack through the militant group’s Amaq news agency. It identified the attacker simply as a “soldier of the Islamic State.”

Amaq telegram channel issues statement on Minnesota mall knife attack yesterday. pic.twitter.com/Y0beAN3xHf

— Program On Extremism (@gwupoe) September 18, 2016

In a statement Sunday, Richard Thornton, the FBI’s special agent in charge, said the incident is being investigated as a “potential act of terrorism,” and said authorities do not yet know if the suspect was communicating with or was inspired by any foreign terrorist organizations.

David Kleis, the mayor of St. Cloud, praised Jason Falconer, the off-duty police officer, for his role in ending the attack. “He clearly prevented additional injuries and potentially loss of life,” Kleis said. “His heroic actions are exemplary.”

The Americans Who Stockpile Guns

There are hundreds of millions of guns in the United States—enough, according to several estimates, for every American civilian adult to own more than one.

But actual gun ownership is far more lopsided than that.

A sweeping new survey by researchers at Harvard University and Northeastern University finds that roughly half of the nearly 300 million firearms in the United States are concentrated in the hands of a tiny sliver of the U.S. population: Just 3 percent of American adults own some 130 million guns, according to The Trace and Guardian US, two news organizations that first reported on the survey. (The full survey has not yet been released; Guardian US and The Trace reported plans to publish a series of stories about the findings throughout the week.)

This portrait of gun ownership represents the equivalent of about 17 guns per person among a group of “super-owners,” the 7.7 million Americans who own between eight and 140 guns each.

Super-owners are emerging at a time when the number of guns in the country is rising—the nation’s stock of firearms has swelled by some 70 million guns since 1994 —while the percentage of gun owners in America has dipped. In other words, there are now more guns to go around in a shrinking population of gun owners. (About one-quarter of Americans say they own a gun, though more than one-third of Americans report living in a house where there is a firearm.)

Super owners are distinct from the larger group of gun owners in America in several ways. For one thing, they’re more likely to be men than women—even at a time when gun ownership among women is on the rise. (One area of overlap: Both women and super-owners were more likely than overall gun owners to say they owned a gun for protection.)

The new study, which is based on a 2015 survey of some 4,000 people, found super-owners were also less likely to be black or Hispanic compared with the rest of gun owners. From Guardian US:

Some super-owners are dedicated collectors with special rooms to display their assortment of historic firearms. Others are firearms instructors, gunsmiths, or competitive shooters, who need a variety of firearms in the course of work or competition. Some gun owners have a survivalist streak, and believe in storing up weapons, as well as food and water, in case of a disaster scenario. Others simply picked up a handgun here, a shotgun or hunting rifle there, and somehow ended up with dozens.

One man compared gun collecting to buying several pairs of shoes. “If you going hiking,” Philip van Cleave told Beckett, “you don’t want to use that one pair of high heels.”

Data on gun ownership in the United States remains fraught, largely because of the political and cultural intensity around the topic. There’s no official tally of how many guns—or gun owners—there are in the U.S., though many surveys and organizations have produced estimates. Tracking gun deaths is arguably even more complicated.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the government entity that studies other public health issues, virtually ignores gun violence, owing to legislation widely interpreted as preventing such research,” wrote Kate Masters for The Trace. As Beckett points out for Guardian US, much of the existing data on gun ownership is debated. Gun rights advocates often argue that Americans underreport gun ownership—challenging reports that ownership is dropping—and, already, some of them are questioning the validity of the new survey.

“Really? Three percent of American gun owners own half the guns? That seems wildly off the mark,” Mike Bazinet, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, wrote in an email to Beckett. “On the surface, this survey sounds like part of the ongoing effort to minimize gun ownership to make more gun control seem politically achievable.”