VOA news for Wednesday, May 12th, 2021

VOA news for Wednesday, May 12th, 2021
This is VOA news.
Via remote, I’m Tommy McNeil.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday militants in the Gaza Strip will pay a very heavy price after a day of Gaza rocket fire and Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian coastal enclave.
Hostilities between Israel and Hamas escalated Tuesday raising the death toll in 2 days to at least 30 Palestinians and 3 Israelis with Israel carrying on multiple air strikes in Gaza and the Islamist militant group firing rockets at Tel Aviv.
A 13-story residential Gaza block collapsed after one of the several dozen airstrikes.
Late into the night the people reported their homes shaking and the sky lighting up with near constant Israeli strikes.
More than 1000 gas stations in the southeast United States reported running out of fuel primarily because of what analysts say is unwarranted panic buying among drivers as a shutdown of a major pipeline by gang of hackers entered its fifth day Tuesday.
Government officials acted swiftly to waive safety and environmental rules to speed the delivery of fuel by truck, ship or rail to motorists and airports even as they sought to assure the public that there was no cause for alarm.
The Colonial pipeline, the biggest fuel pipeline in the United States, delivering about 45 percent of what is consumed on the US east coast, was hit on Friday with a cyber attack by hackers who lock-up computer systems and then demand a ransom to release them.
The attack raised concerns once again about the vulnerability of the nation's critical infrastructure.
More at VOAnews.com.
This is VOA news.
Murder indictments against a man accused of killing 8 people, mainly Asian-Americans in the Atlanta area, AP correspondent Tim McGuire with more.
Grand juries in Fulton and Cherokee countys in Georgia, have indicted Robert Aaron Long on murder charges for a series of shootings at massage businesses in the Atlanta area on March 16th.
Fulton County district attorney Bonnie Willis wants a capital trial.
“I, along with my staff, have made a determination that this office will seek the death penalty.”
The grand jury in Cherokee county has leveled 23 charges against the 22-year-old Long.
He faces 19 counts in Fulton County.
6 of the 8 victims were women of Asian descent.
Willis said she is also seeking hate-crime charges against Long.
There's no word on when Long will be arraigned in either county.
I'm Tim McGuire.
Brazil's federal government on Tuesday nationallyy suspended the vaccination of pregnant women with the AstraZeneca Covid-19 shot after an expectant mother in Rio de Janeiro died from a stroke possibly related to the inoculation.
The coordinator of the health ministry's vaccination program told reporters the suspension was enacted as a precautionary measure after health regulators issued a warning about the vaccines use in pregnant women earlier in the day.
Authorities are investigating the incident.
Meanwhile, health officials in Costa Rica warned on Tuesday that the country's hospitals are struggling to cope with the dramatic increase in Covid-19 cases amid an April surge of Covid-19 infections.
Hospital beds are scarce in the tropical country, its infection rate in the last week of April surpassed even tragedy-struck India and Brazil.
Given the lack of widespread testing the real figures could be even worse.
Local authorities respond by ordering new restrictions on activities and some businesses during the week in May.
US President Donald Trump's acting Defense Secretary during the January 6th capital riots, plans to tell Congress that day he was concerned in the days before the insurrection that sending troops to the building would fan fears of a military coup and could cause a repeat of the deadly Kent State shootings according to a copy of prepared remarks obtained by the Associated Press.
Christopher Miller's testimony is aimed at defending the Pentagon's response of the chaos of the day and rebutting broad criticism that the military forces were too slow to arrive even as pro-Trump rioters violently breach the building and stormed inside.
More at VOAnews.com.
Via remote, I'm Tommy McNeil, VOA news.