The families of nine people fatally shot in 2015 at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, have reached an $88 million settlement with the Justice Department in their lawsuit over the shooter’s weapon purchase.

The settlements range from $6 million to $7.5 million per claimant for those killed at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and $5 million per claimant for survivors, the Justice Department said.

The victims killed ranged from 26 to 87 years old. They were Pinckney, the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, the Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, the Rev. Daniel Simmons, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Myra Thompson, Ethel Lance and Tywanza Sanders.

Dylann Roof, a White supremacist, was convicted of federal murder and hate crimes charges for killing nine congregants during a Bible study program June 17, 2015. He was sentenced to death in 2017 and has appealed his conviction.

The widow of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney thanked supporters and those involved in reaching the settlement.

“Even though Clementa is not with us here physically, I know spiritually he is with us, and I know that he’s smiling down on us right now,” Jennifer Pinckney said.

“He will be missed, along with all the others that didn’t survive that night.”

The 14 plaintiffs filed civil cases against the FBI over accusations the agency was negligent in failing to prohibit the sale of the firearm Dylan Roof used in the massacre inside Mother Emanuel AME Church.

Bakari Sellers, one of the attorneys for the victims, said the settlement is a “big ‘F you’ to White supremacists of this country.”

He said the settlement of $88 million – $25 million split among survivors and $63 million split among the families for those killed is symbolic because the number 88 is a symbol of hate and was written on Roof’s shoes while he carried out the shooting.

“Domestic terror, White domestic terror, is a real issue in this country,” Sellers said. “These individuals were killed because they were Black. That attack was not on First Baptist, that attack was on Mother Emanuel AME Church. So let’s not misconstrue what this issue is.”

A serial killer nurse who killed patients by injecting them with air “for fun” has been sentenced to death in Texas.

The former nurse at CHRISTUS Trinity Mother Frances in Tyler who was charged with killing multiple patients back in 2017 and 2018, was sentenced to death by a Smith County jury.

37-year-old Davis who worked in the hospital’s cardiovascular ICU wing was found guilty on October 19 by a jury, of injecting air into Christopher Greenaway, 47; Jose Kalina, 58; Ronald Clark, 68; and John Lafferty, 74.

The court heard that doctors were puzzled how the patients became more ill after surgery and scans showed air in their brains, reported the New York Times.

The case which was beset for years with delays from the pandemic, changes in attorneys and other reasons, was prosecuted bySmith County District Attorney Jacob Putman who inherited the case after his contested election in 2018. It has been arguably the most high-profile trial East Texas has seen in at least a decade.

During the trial’s sentencing phase, prosecutors played for the jury recordings of telephone calls Davis made from jail shortly after the Oct. 19 guilty verdict. In a call to his ex-wife, Davis said he would find ways to prolong patients’ ICU stays so he could work more overtime and make more money.

Prosecution experts testified that all four victims showed signs of air in their brains that caused irreversible damage. After the fourth death, security video showed Davis was the last person to see the victim before the man’s condition deteriorated.

Mr Putman reportedly told the jury during the opening of the trial: “We’re going to ask you to find him guilty of capital murder because that’s what he did.”

Prosecutors said Davis was a serial killer who “enjoyed” injecting air into patients without anyone watching.  “(He) liked to kill people,” prosecutor Chris Gatewood said during closing arguments.

Gatewood added; 

“He enjoyed going into the rooms and injecting them with air. If you watch the video on (Joseph) Kalina, he sat at the end of the hall and he watched those monitors and he waited. That’s because he liked it.”

However Davis’ counsel, Phillip Hayes’ claim of the hospital having many problems and that Davis was purely at the wrong place at the wrong time, was dismissed by the jury as was the argument that the patients had underlying medical conditions and had shown signs of a watershed stroke where there is a lack of blood to the brain.

The jury only took two hours to make a decision and after Wednesday’s sentencing Mr Putman said: “I don’t know why they deliberated a short amount of time but if I had to guess it would be the case that the detectives put together was so strong. It didn’t leave a doubt in their mind.”

Taiwan’s President for the first time in the Island’s history has confirmed the presence of US military troops on the island.

President Tsai Ing-wen says the threat from Beijing is growing “every day,” adding that Taiwan, which is located fewer than 200 kilometers (124 miles) away from China’s southeastern coast, was a “beacon” of democracy that needed to be defended to uphold faith worldwide in democratic values.

Taiwan and mainland China have been separately governed since the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war more than 70 years ago. Taiwan is now a democracy but the mainland’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to view the island as an inseparable part of its territory — despite having never controlled it.

Earlier this month, China’s military sent a record number of warplanes into the air around Taiwan while diplomats and state-run media warned of a possible invasion unless the island toes the CCP line.

Chinese president, Xi Jinping has vowed to reunite the island with mainland China with force if necessary.

Speaking with CNN in an exclusive interview, President Tsai Ing-wen said;

“Here is this island of 23 million people trying hard every day to protect ourselves and protect our democracy and making sure that our people have the kind of freedom they deserve,” she said.

“If we fail, then that means people that believe in these values would doubt whether these are values that they (should) be fighting for.”

Tsai became the first Taiwan President in decades to acknowledge the presence of US troops on the island for training purposes. The last official US garrison left in 1979, the year Washington switched formal diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. China has in the past said deployment of US troops in Taiwan will be regarded as a ‘red line’ that will prompt military action.

Tsai wouldn’t say exactly how many US military personnel are on the island at present but said it was “not as many as people thought.” “We have a wide range of cooperation with the US aiming at increasing our defense capability,” she said.

Speaking to CNN, Tsai called on regional democratic partners, including Japan, South Korea and Australia, to help support the island.

“When authoritarian regimes demonstrate expansionist tendencies, democratic countries should come together to stand against them. Taiwan is on the front lines,” she said.
“When authoritarian regimes demonstrate expansionist tendencies, democratic countries should come together to stand against them”

Tsai said the government needed to tailor its military to defend a small island, rather than a conventional fighting force.

“We have a system that is inherited from China, which is a very different country … The way you defend a big piece of land is different from the way you protect a small island, so we have to change the traditional thinking about how a military should be structured,” she said.

Tsai said she believed if Taiwan came under attack from mainland China, the US and other regional democracies would come to its aid, “given the long-term relationship we have with the US.”

“Taiwan is not alone because we are a democracy, we respect freedom and we are peace lovers. And we share values with most of the countries in the region and geographically we are of strategic importance”

When asked if Taiwan could defend itself without military assistance, Tsai said the island would defend itself “as long as we can…But let me reiterate, it’s important that we have the support of our friends, and also like-minded countries,” she said.