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Tag: Washington

  • واشنگٹن میں فائرنگ، ایک ہلاک، متعدد زخمی

    واشنگٹن میں فائرنگ، ایک ہلاک، متعدد زخمی

    واشنگٹن کے ایک مصروف علاقے میں جمعرات کی صبح ایک مسلح شخص نے فائرنگ کر دی، جس میں کم از کم ایک شخص ہلاک اور کئی دیگر زخمی ہو گئے۔ اس حملے کے بعد امریکی دارالحکومت کے مرکز میں پولیس کی بھاری نفری پہنچ گئی۔

    فائرنگ شہر کے شمال مغربی حصے میں لوگن سرکل کے علاقے میں 15 ویں اور پی اسٹریٹ کے قریب ہوئی، جو وائٹ ہاؤس سے تقریباً ڈیڑھ میل کے فاصلے پر ہے۔ پولیس کے مطابق حملہ آور ایک عمارت کے اندر چھپ گیا تھا، اور خصوصی تیاری کے ساتھ پولیس اہلکاروں نے علاقے کو تیزی سے گھیر لیا۔

    میٹروپولیٹن پولیس ڈیپارٹمنٹ نے لوگوں کو خبردار کیا کہ وہ جائے وقوعہ سے دور رہیں، اور بتایا کہ اس کی ایمرجنسی ریسپانس ٹیم موقع پر موجود ہے۔ رائفلیں اٹھائے اہلکار قریبی عمارتوں کی چھتوں پر پوزیشنیں سنبھالتے دیکھے گئے، جب کہ درجنوں پولیس گاڑیوں نے آس پاس کی سڑکوں کو بھر دیا تھا۔

    محکمے نے سماجی رابطے کی ویب سائٹ ایکس پر ایک پیغام میں عوام سے کہا کہ وہ علاقے سے گریز کریں، جب کہ صبح بھر خصوصی لباس میں ملبوس مزید اہلکار موقع پر پہنچتے رہے۔

    مقامی میڈیا کی رپورٹوں کے مطابق حملے میں کم از کم ایک شخص ہلاک اور کئی زخمی ہوئے۔ بعض رپورٹوں میں زخمیوں کی تعداد چار یا اس سے زیادہ بتائی گئی، تاہم پولیس کے ترجمان کا کہنا تھا کہ ابھی یہ تصدیق نہیں ہو سکی کہ کتنے لوگ زخمی ہوئے ہیں۔

    فٹنس کلب سے متعلق دعویٰ

    سٹی کونسل کی رکن بروک پنٹو نے بتایا کہ فائرنگ ویڈا فٹنس کلب میں ہوئی تھی اور وہاں کئی افراد کو گولیاں لگی تھیں۔ تاہم پولیس نے اس تفصیل کی فوری طور پر تصدیق نہیں کی۔

    جمعرات کی دوپہر تک حملہ آور اب بھی پولیس کی حراست میں نہیں آیا تھا، اور عمارت کے گرد تعطل جاری تھا۔ پولیس نے 15 ویں اسٹریٹ کے آس پاس کی سڑکیں بند رکھیں، جب کہ اہلکار صورتحال کو قابو میں لانے کی کوشش کرتے رہے۔

    لوگن سرکل واشنگٹن کا ایک معروف رہائشی اور تجارتی علاقہ ہے، اور فائرنگ کی آواز نے علاقے کی صبح کی سرگرمیوں کو روک دیا۔ رہائشیوں اور وہاں کام کرنے والوں کو کہا گیا کہ وہ پولیس کے گھیرے سے دور رہیں، جب کہ مسلح اہلکاروں نے عمارت کی تلاشی لی۔

    یہ واقعہ رواں برس امریکی شہروں میں فائرنگ کے واقعات کی ایک کڑی میں تازہ ترین ہے، اور اس نے دارالحکومت میں عوامی تحفظ کے بارے میں سوالات ایک بار پھر اٹھا دیے ہیں۔ پولیس کا کہنا ہے کہ آپریشن مکمل ہونے اور متاثرین کی شناخت کے بعد مزید معلومات جاری کی جائیں گی۔

  • Two Arrested After Twin Security Scares at White House

    Two Arrested After Twin Security Scares at White House

    Two people were arrested near the White House on Monday after separate, nearly simultaneous security incidents at Lafayette Park, prompting a brief lockdown of the presidential complex.

    According to the United States Secret Service, a driver crashed a vehicle onto the sidewalk surrounding Lafayette Park just before 10 in the morning. The driver was combative with law enforcement before being swiftly taken into custody by Secret Service police and National Guard troops who responded to the scene.

    Around the same time, a second person jumped a security barricade near the northwest corner of Lafayette Park and was immediately apprehended. The vehicle had crashed on the north side of the park, near 16th and H streets, while the barricade breach took place a short distance away.

    President Donald Trump was inside the White House at the time of the incidents. The complex was briefly placed on lockdown and roads around the park were closed while law enforcement responded, with the lockdown lifted about an hour later. A bomb squad carried out a precautionary sweep of the vehicle after the driver was taken into custody.

    The Secret Service said both incidents were under investigation and that it was not clear whether the two were related. Neither of the two people arrested has been publicly identified, and no motive has been given.

    The Secret Service is the federal agency charged with protecting the president, his family and the White House, and its officers patrol the park and the streets around the complex around the clock. Lafayette Park, directly in front of the White House, is one of the most closely watched public spaces in Washington, which is why any breach there triggers an immediate security response.

    The arrests came four days after Secret Service officers detained a man in a parked car on Constitution Avenue near the White House, adding to a run of security incidents around the presidential compound in recent days.

    Officials stressed that the two Monday incidents were handled quickly and that the situation was brought under control without further disruption, though questions remain about how both breaches happened within minutes of each other in the same area.

  • Washington Voters Back Trans Athlete Ban by 57%

    Washington Voters Back Trans Athlete Ban by 57%

    Voters in Washington state have approved a ballot measure barring transgender girls from playing on girls’ school sports teams, a major defeat for LGBTQ advocates in a state that normally votes Democratic.

    With about 80 per cent of ballots counted on Friday, approximately 57 per cent of voters had approved Initiative 638, while 43 per cent voted against it, and opponents conceded that the gap was too large to overcome. The Associated Press had called the race on November 4.

    The initiative, known as the Defending Equity in Interscholastic Sports Act, will require the prohibition of transgender girls from competing with and against female students in public school sports. It applies to elementary, middle and high school athletics.

    Under the measure, girls who want to play school sports must submit a statement from a healthcare provider verifying their biological sex, through reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup or naturally produced testosterone levels.

    The political action committee behind the measure, Let’s Go Washington, which is bankrolled by conservative hedge fund manager Brian Heywood, called its passage a huge win for girls in Washington state. Similar ballot measures restricting transgender athletes also passed this week in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska.

    The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, which governs school-linked youth sports in the state, said earlier this year it was aware of just 10 transgender middle and high school students playing sports, out of some 200,000 students competing statewide.

    Opponents of the measure included doctors who said it was not backed by clinical guidelines and would create unwarranted stress and harm for young girls. Civil rights advocates argued the campaign scapegoated a very small group of people, most of them children, who already face discrimination and bullying.

    Libby Watson, campaign manager of the group No Hate WA State, which campaigned against the measure, called the initiative deceptive and said the fight was not over. The measure is expected to face legal challenges, with civil rights groups warning it could run afoul of the state constitution’s Equal Rights Amendment and the Washington Law Against Discrimination.

    The initiative is due to take effect on December 3, 2026, when election results are certified. In June, the US Supreme Court ruled that states can ban transgender girls and women from female sports teams, and more than half of US states have enacted laws in recent years restricting the participation of transgender students in sports.

  • Judge Blocks Trump’s 250-Foot Arch Hours After Approval

    Judge Blocks Trump’s 250-Foot Arch Hours After Approval

    A federal judge in the United States has temporarily blocked construction of President Donald Trump’s proposed 250-foot triumphal arch in Washington, in the latest legal setback for one of the president’s most ambitious building projects in the capital.

    US District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a 14-day temporary restraining order on Thursday, hours after the National Capital Planning Commission voted 8-4 to approve the project. The order bars the administration from starting any construction, excavation or other ground work at the site while the court considers the case.

    The arch is planned for Memorial Circle, near the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery and across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial. It is intended to mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the administration has described it as a triumphal arch honouring the nation’s history.

    The ruling followed a lawsuit brought by the District of Columbia and Virginia, who argue that the project lacks the specific congressional authorisation required for new monuments on federal land and that the administration bypassed environmental and historic-preservation reviews. The judge found that construction would likely cause the two governments significant costs that could not be recovered.

    The White House remains confident the legal issue will be resolved in the president’s favour, saying it is only a matter of time before the arch is completed. The administration contends that Congress authorised the structure more than a century ago, when it approved construction of a bridge across the Potomac, a claim the judge rejected for now.

    The project has faced sustained opposition from local officials, veterans and conservationists. Opponents raised concerns during a marathon public hearing about the arch’s effect on the Lincoln Memorial-Arlington Cemetery sightline, traffic, and nearby historic sites, including Arlington House and the cemetery itself.

    The National Park Service, which oversees the project, has acknowledged that the arch would have adverse effects on as many as 42 historic sites. The Justice Department had argued that the arch serves a national security purpose, but the judge described that assertion as belated and unsupported.

    With the restraining order in place, the court will now move quickly to consider whether a longer injunction is needed. The case will decide whether one of the most contested monuments in modern Washington can be built at all, and on what legal basis.

  • First US bird flu death of 2026 reported in Washington

    First US bird flu death of 2026 reported in Washington

    A resident of Yakima County in Washington state has died after catching bird flu from infected dairy cattle, health officials have said, in the first death from the virus in the United States in 2026.

    The person, who had underlying health conditions and has not been publicly identified, was hospitalised with severe illness after contact with infected cattle. The Yakima Health District first reported the case as a severe hospitalisation on 31 October, and on 1 November it confirmed that the person had died.

    It is the third death from bird flu in the United States since February 2024, when the virus first jumped into dairy cattle, and the first in 2026. Health officials have also confirmed a third human infection in Yakima County linked to exposure at a dairy, and they are closely monitoring the contacts of the person who died to make sure the infection has not spread further.

    The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded more than seventy human bird flu cases in the country since 2024. Officials stress that every case so far has been a dead-end infection, in which the virus jumps from an animal to a person but does not spread onwards, and that no human-to-human transmission has ever been documented in the United States. The agency analysed the genetic sequence of the virus from the person who died and found no changes that would make it spread more easily or cause more severe illness.

    Washington state has confirmed bird flu in more than thirty dairy herds, most of them in Yakima County, after the virus was first detected in the state’s dairy cattle in October. Farm workers are considered at higher risk, and officials are advising them to wear respiratory and eye protection and gloves when handling poultry or sick animals.

    Health officials are also cautioning against drinking unpasteurised milk and eating dairy products from cows or goats, which can carry a risk of bird flu. Yakima health officer Dr Dave Atteberry said avian influenza can cause severe illness, particularly in people with underlying health conditions, but added that the risk to the general public remains low.

    Washington Governor Bob Ferguson said he was being briefed on the situation and that his team was in close coordination with public health and agriculture officials. Workers at affected farms have been advised to take safety precautions while monitoring continues.