Vancouver ramming attack suspect charged with murder as hundreds attend vigils for victims

Update Vancouver ramming attack suspect charged with murder as hundreds attend vigils for victims
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Canadian police officers work at the scene, the morning after a vehicle was driven into a crowd at a Filipino community Lapu Lapu Day block party, in Vancouver, British Columbia, on April 27, 2025. (REUTERS)
Update Vancouver ramming attack suspect charged with murder as hundreds attend vigils for victims
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People leave flowers near the scene where a car drove into a crowd of people during the Lapu Lapu Festival on April 27, 2025 in Vancouver, Canada.(Getty Images via AFP)
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Updated 28 April 2025
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Vancouver ramming attack suspect charged with murder as hundreds attend vigils for victims

Vancouver ramming attack suspect charged with murder as hundreds attend vigils for victims
  • Multiple counts of murder on allegations he killed 11 people when he rammed a crowd of people at a Filipino heritage festival
  • The festival was in honor of Lapu-Lapu, a national hero who stood up to Spanish explorers in the 16th century

VANCOUVER, British Columbia: A 30-year-old man was charged with multiple counts of murder on allegations he killed 11 people when he rammed a crowd of people at a Filipino heritage festival in Vancouver, as hundreds attended vigils across the city for the victims and the Canadian prime minister visited the site on the eve of a federal election.

Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, was charged with eight counts of second degree murder in a video appearance before a judge on Sunday, hours after he was arrested at the scene, said Damienne Darby, spokeswoman for British Columbia prosecutors. Lo has not yet entered a plea.

Investigators ruled out terrorism as a motive and said more charges are possible. They said Lo had a history of mental health issues.

An attorney for Lo was not listed in online court documents and The Associated Press wasn’t immediately able to reach an attorney representing him.

Those killed were between the ages of 5 and 65, officials said. About two dozen people were injured, some critically, when the black Audi SUV sped down a closed street just after 8 p.m. Saturday and struck people attending the Lapu Lapu Day festival. Authorities had not released victims’ names by Sunday evening.




Vancouver police survey the scene after a driver killed multiple people during a Filipino community festival on April 27, 2025, in Vancouver, British Columbia. (AP Photo)

Nathaly Nairn and her 15-year-old daughter carried flowers to one of the vigils. They had attended the festival on Saturday, and Nairn recounted seeing the damaged SUV and bodies on the ground.

“Something really dark happened last night,” Nairn said, as she and her daughter wiped away tears.

Emily Daniels also brought a bouquet. “It’s sad. Really sad,” she said. “I can’t believe something like this could happen so close to home.”

Police Interim Chief Steve Rai called it “the darkest day in Vancouver’s history.” There was no indication of a motive, but Rai said the suspect has “a significant history of interactions with police and health care professionals related to mental health.”

Video of the aftermath showed the dead and injured along a narrow street in South Vancouver lined by food trucks. The front of the Audi SUV was smashed in.

Kris Pangilinan, who brought his pop-up clothing and lifestyle booth to the festival, saw the vehicle enter slowly past a barricade before the driver accelerated in an area packed with people after a concert. He said hearing the sounds of people screaming and bodies hitting the vehicle will never leave his mind.

“He slammed on the gas, barreled through the crowd,” Pangilinan said. “It looked like a bowling ball hitting bowling pins and all the pins are flying into the air.”

Suspect detained by bystanders before the police arrived

Rai said the suspect was arrested after initially being apprehended by bystanders.




British Columbia Premier David Eby, second from right, and Member of the Legislative Assembly of B.C., Mable Elmore, walk with members of the Filipino community to a press conference after a vehicle drove into a crowd during a Lapu Lapu Day festival in Vancouver on April 27, 2025. (The Canadian Press via AP)

Video circulating on social media showed a young man in a black hoodie with his back against a chain-link fence, alongside a security guard and surrounded by bystanders screaming and swearing at him.

“I’m sorry,” the man said, holding his hand to his head. Rai declined to comment on the video.

Prime Minister Mark Carney canceled his first campaign event and two major rallies on the final day of the election campaign before Monday’s vote.

“Last night families lost a sister, a brother, a mother, father, son or a daughter. Those families are living every family’s nightmare,” Carney said. “And to them and to the many others who were injured, to the Filipino Canadian community, and to everyone in Vancouver, I would like to offer my deepest condolences.”

Carney joined British Columbia Premier David Eby and community leaders Sunday evening in Vancouver.

The tragedy was reminiscent of an attack in 2018, when a man used a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto.




People leave flowers near the scene where a car drove into a crowd of people during the Lapu Lapu Festival on April 27, 2025 in Vancouver, Canada.(Getty Images via AFP)

Witnesses describe how they leaped out of the way

Carayn Nulada said that she pulled her granddaughter and grandson off the street and used her body to shield them from the SUV. She said that her daughter suffered a narrow escape.

“The car hit her arm and she fell down, but she got up, looking for us, because she is scared,” said Nulada, who described children screaming, and pale-faced victims lying on the ground or wedged under vehicles.

“I saw people running and my daughter was shaking,” Nulada said.

Nulada was in Vancouver General Hospital’s emergency room Sunday morning, trying to find news about her brother, who was run down in the attack and suffered multiple broken bones.

Doctors identified him by presenting the family with his wedding ring in a pill bottle and said that he was stable, but would be facing surgery.

James Cruzat, a Vancouver business owner, was at the celebration and heard a car rev its engine and then “a loud noise, like a loud bang” that he initially thought might be a gunshot.

“We saw people on the road crying, others were like running, shouting, or even screaming, asking for help. So we tried to go there just to check what was really actually happening until we found some bodies on the ground. Others were lifeless, others like, you know, injured,” Cruzat said.

Vincent Reynon, 17, was leaving the festival when he saw police rushing in. People were crying and he saw scattered bodies.

“It was like something straight out of a horror movie or a nightmare,” he said.

Adonis Quita said when he saw the SUV ramming through the crowd, his first reaction was to drag his 9-year-old son out of the area. The boy kept saying “I’m scared, I’m scared,” Quita recalled. Later they prayed together.

His son had just relocated to Vancouver from the Philippines with his mother to reunite with Quita, who has lived here since 2024. Quita said he worries the child will struggle to adjust to life in Canada after witnessing the horrific event.

Vancouver Mayor Kenneth Sim said the city had “suffered its darkest day.”

“I know many of us are fearful and feel uneasy,” said the mayor. “I know it’s hard to feel this way right now, but Vancouver is still a safe city.”

Vancouver’s large Filipino population was honoring a national hero

Vancouver had more than 38,600 residents of Filipino heritage in 2021, representing 5.9 percent of the city’s total population, according to Statistics Canada, the agency that conducts the national census.

Lapu Lapu Day celebrates Datu Lapu-Lapu, an Indigenous chieftain who stood up to Spanish explorers who came to the Philippines in the 16th century. The organizers of the Vancouver event, which was in its second year, said he “represents the soul of native resistance, a powerful force that helped shape the Filipino identity in the face of colonization.”

Eby said the province won’t let the tragedy define the celebration. He urged people to channel their rage into helping those affected.

“I don’t think there is a British Columbian that hasn’t been touched in some way by the Filipino community,” he said. “You can’t go to a place that delivers and not meet a member of that community in the long-term care home or hospitals, childcare or schools. This is a community that gives and gives and yesterday was a celebration of their culture.”

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. issued a statement expressing sympathy with the victims and their families.

“The Philippine Consulate General in Vancouver is working with Canadian authorities to ensure that the incident will be thoroughly investigated, and that the victims and their families are supported and consoled,” he said.


Argentina’s Supreme Court finds archives linked to the Nazi regime

Argentina’s Supreme Court finds archives linked to the Nazi regime
Updated 8 sec ago
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Argentina’s Supreme Court finds archives linked to the Nazi regime

Argentina’s Supreme Court finds archives linked to the Nazi regime
  • The president of the Supreme Court, Horacio Rosatti, has ordered the preservation of the material and a thorough analysis

BUENOS AIRES: The Argentine Supreme Court has found documentation associated with the Nazi regime among its archives including propaganda material that was used to spread Adolf Hitler’s ideology in the South American nation, a judicial authority from the Court told the Associated Press on Sunday.
The court came across the material when preparing for the creation of a museum with its historical documents, the source said. The official requested anonymity due to internal policies.
Among the documents, they found postcards, photographs, and propaganda material from the German regime.
Some of the material “intended to consolidate and propagate Adolf Hitler’s ideology in Argentina, in the midst of World War II,” the source said.
The boxes are believed to be related to the arrival of 83 packages in Buenos Aires on June 20, 1941, sent by the German embassy in Tokyo aboard the Japanese steamship “Nan-a-Maru.”
At the time, the German diplomatic mission in Argentina had requested the release of the material, claiming the boxes contained personal belongings, but the Customs and Ports Division retained it.
The president of the Supreme Court, Horacio Rosatti, has ordered the preservation of the material and a thorough analysis.


UK prime minister, under pressure from Farage, tightens migration rules

UK prime minister, under pressure from Farage, tightens migration rules
Updated 12 May 2025
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UK prime minister, under pressure from Farage, tightens migration rules

UK prime minister, under pressure from Farage, tightens migration rules
  • Under Starmer government’s plan, skilled worker visas will be restricted to graduate-level applicants
  • Care sector firms barred from recruiting abroad; businesses required to increase training for local workers

LONDON: Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a new salvo of measures to toughen up Britain’s migration system on Sunday, saying many immigrants would have to wait longer before getting the status they need to claim welfare.
Starmer’s government — which is due to publish plans for new legislation to reduce immigration on Monday — is under pressure to counter the rise in popularity of Nigel Farage’s right-wing, anti-immigration Reform UK party.
Over the weekend, interior minister Yvette Cooper announced plans to restrict skilled worker visas to graduate-level applicants, prevent care sector firms from recruiting abroad and require businesses to increase training for local workers.
“Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control,” Starmer said in a statement. “Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall.”
Under the changes, automatic settlement and citizenship for people who move to Britain will apply after 10 years, up from five years now, although highly skilled workers — such as nurses, doctors, engineers and AI experts — would be fast-tracked.
Migrants who are in the UK on visas are typically ineligible for welfare benefits and social housing.
The government also said it plans to raise English language requirements to include all adult dependents who will have to show a basic understanding of English. It said the change would help integration and reduce the risks of exploitation.
“This is a clean break from the past and will ensure settlement in this country is a privilege that must be earned, not a right,” Starmer said.
“And when people come to our country, they should also commit to integration and to learning our language,” he said.
The number of European Union migrants to Britain fell sharply after Brexit but new visa rules, a rise in people arriving from Ukraine and Hong Kong and higher net numbers of foreign students led to an overall surge in recent years.
Net migration — the number of people coming to Britain minus the number leaving — hit a record 906,000 in the year to June 2023, up from 184,000 who arrived in the same period during 2019, when Britain was still in the EU.
Employers’ groups are worried that tightening the rules on foreign workers will make it harder for companies to fill vacancies.
“This major intervention in the labor market will leave many employers fearful that in tackling concerns about immigration, government goes after the wrong target,” Neil Carberry, chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), said.
Being open to skilled workers was essential for Britain “but so is a controlled, affordable and responsive immigration system that keeps investment flowing to the UK,” Carberry said.


Poland accuses Russia of ordering major fire in Warsaw last year

Poland accuses Russia of ordering major fire in Warsaw last year
Updated 11 May 2025
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Poland accuses Russia of ordering major fire in Warsaw last year

Poland accuses Russia of ordering major fire in Warsaw last year
  • The fire in May 2024 has completely destroyed a large shopping center in the capital of Warsaw

WARSAW: Polish authorities accused Russian intelligence services on Sunday of orchestrating a fire that destroyed a large shopping center last year in the capital of Warsaw.
Since Russia’s February 2022 offensive against Ukraine, Poland — a loyal ally of Kyiv — claims to be the target of sabotage attempts which they blame on Russia.
In May 2024, a fire completely destroyed a large shopping center in Warsaw and the 1,400 small businesses it housed, most of them owned by members of the Vietnamese community.
Authorities immediately launched an investigation but had until now refrained from blaming Moscow.
“We now know for sure that the great fire of the Marywilska shopping center in Warsaw was caused by arson ordered by the Russian special services,” said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on X.
The justice and interior ministries said in a separate, joint statement Sunday that some of the alleged perpetrators were already in custody, while others had been identified but still at large.
“Their actions were organized and directed by a specific person residing in the Russian Federation,” the two ministries said, adding that they were cooperating with Lithuania, “where some of the perpetrators also carried out acts of diversion.”
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Poland has detained and convicted several individuals suspected of sabotage on behalf of Russian intelligence services, accused of assaults, arson or attempted arson.
In May 2024, Poland imposed restrictions on the movements of Russian diplomats on its soil, due to Moscow’s “involvement” in a “hybrid war.”
Five months later, Warsaw ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Poznan, in western Poland, accusing Moscow of orchestrating “sabotage attempts.”
In December, Polish diplomacy said it was willing to close all Russian consulates in Poland if acts of “terrorism” continued.
Russia closed in January the Polish consulate in Saint Petersburg in retaliation.
Bordering Ukraine, Poland — a NATO and European Union member — is one of the main countries through which Western nations supply weapons and ammunition to Kyiv to help Ukraine fight Russian troops.


First white South Africans board plane for US under Trump refugee plan

First white South Africans board plane for US under Trump refugee plan
Updated 11 May 2025
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First white South Africans board plane for US under Trump refugee plan

First white South Africans board plane for US under Trump refugee plan
  • Trump’s offer of asylum to white South Africans coincides with heightened racial tensions over land and jobs
  • Trump said descendants of mostly Dutch early settlers, the Afrikaners, were 'victims of unjust racial discrimination'

The first white South Africans granted refugee status under a program initiated by US President Donald Trump boarded a plane to leave from the country’s main international airport in Johannesburg on Sunday.
A queue of white citizens with airport trolleys full of luggage, much of it wrapped in theft-proof cellophane, waited to have their passports stamped, a Reuters reporter saw, before they entered the departure lounge for their charter flight.
“One of the conditions of the permit was to ensure that they were vetted in case one of them has a criminal issue pending,” South African transport department spokesperson Collen Msibi told Reuters, adding that 49 passengers had been cleared.
Journalists were not granted access to those headed to the US Msibi said they were due to fly to Dulles Airport just outside Washington, D.C., and then on to Texas. They had boarded the plane but not yet left as 18:30 GMT.
Trump’s offer of asylum to white South Africans, especially Afrikaners — the group with the longest history in South Africa and who make up the bulk of whites — has been divisive in both countries. In the United States, it comes as the Trump administration has blocked mostly non-white refugee admissions from the rest of the world. In South Africa, it coincides with heightened racial tensions over land and jobs that have dogged domestic politics since the end of white minority rule.
Despite a wider freeze on refugees, Trump called on the US to prioritize resettling Afrikaners, descendants of mostly Dutch early settlers, saying they were “victims of unjust racial discrimination.”
The granting of refugee status to white South Africans — who have remained by far the most privileged race since apartheid ended 30 years ago — has been met with a mixture of alarm and ridicule by South African authorities, who say the Trump administration has waded into a domestic political issue it does not understand.
Three decades since Nelson Mandela ushered democracy into South Africa, the white minority that ruled it has managed to retain most of the wealth that was amassed under colonialism and apartheid. Whites still own three quarters of private land and about 20 times the wealth of the Black majority, according to the Review of Political Economy, an international academic journal. Whites are also the race least affected by joblessness. Yet the claim that minority white South Africans face discrimination from the Black majority has been repeated so often in online chatrooms that is has become orthodoxy for the far right, and has been echoed by Trump’s white South African-born ally Elon Musk.


At least three die, including two children, in Libya-Italy crossing

At least three die, including two children, in Libya-Italy crossing
Updated 11 May 2025
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At least three die, including two children, in Libya-Italy crossing

At least three die, including two children, in Libya-Italy crossing
  • The migrants were intercepted on Saturday on a rubber boat floating adrift south of the Italian island of Lampedusa that had been spotted by a surveillance aircraft of the EU border agency Frontex

ROME: At least three people have died, including two children aged 3 and 4, in a Mediterranean sea crossing from Libya to Italy, a German sea rescue charity said on Sunday, adding that it had rescued 59 survivors.

The migrants were intercepted on Saturday on a rubber boat floating adrift south of the Italian island of Lampedusa that had been spotted by a surveillance aircraft of the EU border agency Frontex.

“By the time (we) reached the rubber boat at around 4.30pm (1430 GMT), it was too late to help some of the people,” the RESQSHIP charity said in a statement.

“Two bodies of infants aged 3 and 4 were handed over to us,” the charity quoted one of its paramedics identified only as Rania as saying. “They had died the day before, probably of thirst.”

A man was found unconscious and declared dead after attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful, RESQSHIP said, adding that it was told by survivors that another migrant had drowned on Friday after going overboard.

Many of the survivors, who were taken to Lampedusa, suffered chemical burns from salt water and fuel, the group said. Two children and four adults in critical condition were handed over to the Italian coast guard to be brought ashore more quickly.

The rubber boat had set off from the port of Zawiya in western Libya on Wednesday, but its engine failed after one day of navigation, leaving the migrants on board exposed to wind and weather, the NGO said.

Lampedusa lies between Tunisia, Malta and the larger Italian island of Sicily and is the first port of call for many migrants seeking to reach the EU from North Africa, in what has become one of the world’s deadliest sea crossings.

Almost 25,000 migrants have died or gone missing on this central Mediterranean route since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration, including around 1,700 last year and 378 so far this year.