Montana woman who killed ex-husband after she said he attempted rape has charges cleared

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Susan Collins to support breaking Jan. 6 commission filibuster

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8 people were killed in a mass shooting at a San Jose rail yard, authorities confirm. The shooter is also dead.

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Elderly Man Eats Once a Day After SF City Truck Killed His Working Wife

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'Extinct' giant tortoise found in Galapagos

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US banks accused of failing the public during Covid - bbc.co.uk

1. US banks accused of failing the public during Covid  bbc.co.uk
2. Elizabeth Warren takes on JPMorgan CEO as bank collects nearly $1.5bn from overdraft fees in 2020  The Independent
3. Elizabeth Warren tears into the 'star of the overdraft show' JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon  Daily Mail
4. Elizabeth Warren and Jamie Dimon face off in heated Senate hearing  Salon
5. The housing market is in a 'little bit of a bubble,' Jamie Dimon says  CNN
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Anger as armed white police officers with dogs pose with captured Black suspect

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German scientist believes he's found solution to blood clots linked to AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines

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The Best Beach Towels That Aren’t Totally Boring

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A Montana tribal councilwoman was beaten and 'left for dead,' family says. No one has been charged.

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Dawn French slams scammers using her image to sell 'dangerous' diet pills in social media ads - Daily Mail

1. Dawn French slams scammers using her image to sell 'dangerous' diet pills in social media ads  Daily Mail
2. Dawn French slams scammers using her image to flog ‘dangerous’ diet pills...  The Sun
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‘Bomb Threat' That Justified Belarus Hijacking Came 24 Minutes After

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Zinedine Zidane decides to end his second stint as Real Madrid manager - The Guardian

1. Zinedine Zidane decides to end his second stint as Real Madrid manager  The Guardian
2. Zinedine Zidane 'quits as Real Madrid manager with immediate effect'  Daily Star
3. Zinedine Zidane leaves Real Madrid with immediate effect as two frontrunners emerge  Express
4. Zinedine Zidane quits Real Madrid as French manager walks out for second time  The Mirror
5. Zinedine Zidane ‘decides to leave’ Real Madrid with immediate effect as former UFC star Khabib Nur...  talkSPORT.com
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Passengers refused boarding amid testing confusion

Travellers with Ryanair and EasyJet were told they could not fly because they had taken the wrong PCR test.

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Covid: Banks call for overhaul of mortgage support

Some people on benefits get help to pay their mortgage interest but ministers face pressure to extend support.

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France to impose Covid quarantine on visitors from UK - The Guardian

1. France to impose Covid quarantine on visitors from UK  The Guardian
2. France announces compulsory isolation for British tourists  Daily Mail
3. COVID-19: France to insist travellers from UK quarantine due to rising cases of Indian variant  Sky News
4. France to impose mandatory quarantine on UK arrivals  The Telegraph
5. France imposes tougher rules for UK travellers because of Indian Covid variant  Metro.co.uk
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Belarus plane: Lukashenko hits back at condemnation of journalist's arrest - BBC News

1. Belarus plane: Lukashenko hits back at condemnation of journalist's arrest  BBC News
2. Belarus president calls backlash against plane incident a ‘planned provocation’  The Guardian
3. Belarus threatens to flood Europe with migrants and drugs in response to sanctions  Daily Mail
4. The Belarus plane hijacking doesn’t just make the E.U. less safe. It also makes it less European.  The Washington Post
5. Belarus’s dictator isn’t winning. He’s desperate.  The Washington Post
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Stephen Hawking’s office and archive gifted to UK to settle tax bill - The Guardian

1. Stephen Hawking’s office and archive gifted to UK to settle tax bill  The Guardian
2. Stephen Hawking's papers to be saved for the nation  BBC News
3. Stephen Hawking: Belongings of the late physicist to be shown at London's Science Museum next year  Daily Mail
4. Stephen Hawking's glasses and wheelchair among items to be displayed at London's Science Museum  Sky News
5. Stephen Hawking's archive, office acquired for UK public  Times of India
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Bernabeu on fire: Real Madrid’s stadium seen throwing out plume of smoke - The Independent

1. Bernabeu on fire: Real Madrid’s stadium seen throwing out plume of smoke  The Independent
2. Real Madrid's Bernabeu stadium on FIRE as Spanish giants see £500m redevelopment work jeopardised  Daily Mail
3. Real Madrid's Stadium Has Caught Fire Around Building Work  SPORTbible
4. Bernabeu stadium on fire as smoke billows from stand as workers build Real Madrid state-of-the-art new home...  The Scottish Sun
5. Real Madrid's Bernabeu Stadium on fire as smoke bellows out of construction works  Daily Star
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Biden orders new US intelligence report into Wuhan Covid lab leak theory - The Independent

1. Biden orders new US intelligence report into Wuhan Covid lab leak theory  The Independent
2. Joe Biden orders US intelligence to intensify efforts to study Covid’s origins  The Guardian
3. Wuhan lab leak may be to blame for Covid pandemic, says Biden  The Times
4. Biden orders more Intel investigation of COVID-19 origin  The Independent
5. Joe Biden orders report on Covid lab link after 'closing Trump probe'  Metro.co.uk
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Coffins of Israeli family killed in Italian cable car horror lined up ahead of their repatriation - Daily Mail

1. Coffins of Israeli family killed in Italian cable car horror lined up ahead of their repatriation  Daily Mail
2. Coffins of 5 Israeli family members killed in cable car crash land in Israel  The Times of Israel
3. 'Botched fix on Italian cable car's brakes' is blamed for tragedy that claimed 14 lives  Daily Mail
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Doctors urged to watch out for signs of stroke after giving AstraZeneca vaccine - Echo

1. Doctors urged to watch out for signs of stroke after giving AstraZeneca vaccine  Echo
2. COVID-19: Small number of people suffer stroke after receiving AstraZeneca jab - as experts urge doctors to be alert  Sky News
3. Oxford vaccine linked to strokes: One patient dies and two hospitalised after receiving Covid jab  Daily Mail
4. Woman, 35, dies from brain blood clot caused by AstraZeneca vaccination  Telegraph.co.uk
5. ‘Beautiful’ Brit model Stephanie Dubois, 39, was ‘living the dream’ with family in Cyprus before dying afte...  The Sun
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The lives lost to hospital-acquired Covid - The Guardian

1. The lives lost to hospital-acquired Covid  The Guardian
2. COVID-19: Anyone aged 30 and over can now book coronavirus jab in England  Sky News
3. UK COVID-19 Update: Cummings' Accusations, NHS Pressure Rising, 3 in 4 Have Antibodies  Medscape
4. 100 Covid patients died after catching virus at Kettering General Hospital  Northamptonshire Telegraph
5. More than 77,000 NHS staff in England have caught Covid, shows research  The Guardian
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Liverpool told cashing in on Salah 'now' can unleash two Klopp favourites - Teamtalk.com

1. Liverpool told cashing in on Salah 'now' can unleash two Klopp favourites  Teamtalk.com
2. Jurgen Klopp could bring in £80m for three crucial Liverpool signings  Liverpool Echo
3. Inside Anfield: Unseen footage from the last day of the season | Liverpool vs Crystal Palace  Liverpool FC
4. Edwards lets 12 leave Liverpool as path is cleared for sparkling young duo  Teamtalk.com
5. "EVENTUALLY THE PENNY DROPPED!" Jason Cundy feels Jurgen Klopp made too many mistakes!  talkSPORT
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McConnell and McCarthy rebuke Greene for Holocaust remarks but stop short of taking action against rising GOP star

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Fed-up savers may test their luck in prize draws with rates so low

The UK's largest building society becomes the latest provider to offer a prize draw to attract custom.

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Millions cannot afford water bills, says watchdog

Overhauling water tariffs could help struggling families, the Consumer Council for Water says.

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Violence and abuse against shop workers increasing, survey says

There were 455 incidents of violence or abuse towards staff a day in 2019, a trade body says.

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Building projects hit by lack of supplies and price rises

Industry warns people to delay home improvement due to shortage of cement, electric components, timber and steel.

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Racist Slurs, Broken Glass, Then a Return to Business for an Asian-Owned Store Attacked Twice. ‘We Have No Choice.’

Mun Sung and his wife watched helplessly on March 30 as a man wielding a metal pole smashed through glass, ripped down racks and hurled racial slurs at them inside the Charlotte, N.C. convenience store they’ve owned for two decades.

They knew from following the news that Asian Americans were increasingly being targeted and attacked across the nation. But despite facing racism at work on a daily basis since the pandemic began—even growing hardened to the hatred month after month—Sung could not imagine his family would fall victim to violence.

“I didn’t think it would happen to us,” the 65-year-old says, “but it did.”

On Tuesday, less than two months later, it happened again.

After a male customer grew irate that he could not afford a pack of cigarettes, he repeatedly slammed a sheet of plexiglass with his fists until it shattered, shouting racial slurs as he pummeled the protective barrier, according to Mark Sung, who helps his parents run the store and who shared video of the attack with TIME.

“He said, ‘You Chinese motherf-ckers are 100% going to hell, 100% going to hell,’” says the 35-year-old Sung, whose family is Korean.

Sung says his 63-year-old mother, Joyce, was hit by pieces of plexiglass, which sent her stumbling back. She sustained a bruise on her forehead and a cut on her finger. “It hurts every time I blink my eye,” she says. “I was shocked at first, but I’m fine now.”

The second attack on the Sung family is the latest example of the fear Asian Americans live with each day, in a world where they cannot count on bystanders to help. Just like in New York City, where security guards at a nearby building shut the doors on a 65-year-old Asian American woman who was attacked on March 29, nobody came to Joyce Sung’s aid or indicated they were calling for help.

The surveillance video obtained by TIME shows one customer walking away as the man becomes increasingly violent. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department directed comment to G4S, the company that is responsible for daily security operations at the transit hub where the store is located. G4S did not respond to requests for comment.

Mark Sung says he doesn’t blame customers for not intervening, citing the dangers and likelihood that an attacker could have a weapon. Instead, the family has learned to prepare for the possibility of confrontations and has a routine for when things escalate: call the police, assess the damage, file an insurance claim, go back to work.

“Knowing that we’re going to get cursed out every day while we’re getting ready for work is just… we don’t know what words to use,” Joyce Sung says.

The latest confrontation at the Plaza Sundries store erupted at around 11 a.m., when the man first tried paying for cigarettes with 50 cents and then $1. Mark Sung says he turned violent when his mother returned his change.

Surveillance video, which has no audio, shows the man putting down what appears to be a Bible that he entered the store with before whaling on the plexiglass above the cash register with his fists. The man can be seen using both hands to shove the quarter-inch thick protective shield, bending it until it shatters.

Authorities arrested a suspect in the March 30 attack, which was also captured on surveillance video. Mark Sung said someone had also been detained in Tuesday’s attack, but there was no confirmation of that from police or the security company.

There have been more than 6,600 reported hate incidents against Asian Americans from March 2020 to March 2021, according to Stop AAPI Hate, a reporting database created at the beginning of the pandemic. Anti-Asian hate crimes in 16 of America’s largest cities increased 149% in 2020, according to an analysis of official preliminary police data by the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

Despite the latest attack, Mark Sung says they couldn’t afford to shut down the store for the rest of the day, especially on a popular day for Lottery purchases and after the pandemic drove sales down at the store about 45%.

“Closing would set us back so far,” he says, adding that damages and lost revenue from the March incident cost the family roughly $25,000.

Within two hours, after alerting the authorities, the family erected a new sheet of plexiglass and went back to work.

“We have no choice,” he says.

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Blood moon - live: Rare spectacle as super flower moon to combine with Lunar Eclipse - The Independent

1. Blood moon - live: Rare spectacle as super flower moon to combine with Lunar Eclipse  The Independent
2. Supermoon visible this week - with lunar eclipse at same time for a lucky few  Sky News
3. Best time to see rare Blood Supermoon light up the night sky tomorrow  The Mirror
4. Blood Supermoon 2021: Best time to see rare celestial event light up night sky  Daily Star
5. Blood Moon 2021: When is the next Blood Moon visible over the UK? Find out here  Daily Express
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Southgate’s desire for ‘versatility’ boosts Alexander-Arnold’s Euro 2020 hopes - The Guardian

1. Southgate’s desire for ‘versatility’ boosts Alexander-Arnold’s Euro 2020 hopes  The Guardian
2. England name provisional Euro 2020 squad: Ben White, Ben Godfrey, Aaron Ramsdale and Sam Johnstone in  BBC Sport
3. GARETH SOUTHGATE NAMES PROVISIONAL SQUAD FOR EUROS!  Sky Sports Football
4. Debate goes on but Southgate should know his best England squad by now  The Guardian
5. Ex-manager makes ‘phenomenal’ Bamford claim after big news for Leeds ace  Football Insider
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Trump investigation: NYC prosecutor convenes grand jury, signaling charges could be coming - report

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Amazon accused of unfair pricing policies by Washington DC - BBC News

1. Amazon accused of unfair pricing policies by Washington DC  BBC News
2. Amazon sued by Washington attorney-general over merchant terms  Financial Times
3. DC Atty. Gen. sues Amazon over online retail pricing  ForexLive
4. DC attorney general files antitrust suit against Amazon over third-party seller agreements  TechCrunch
5. A New Antitrust Case Cuts to the Core of Amazon's Identity  WIRED
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A COVID-19 vaccination clinic set to open on Sundance Square this week

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Couple charged with murder of kids in strange doomsday case

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Samuel E Wright dead: Little Mermaid star dies aged 74 - Metro.co.uk

1. Samuel E Wright dead: Little Mermaid star dies aged 74  Metro.co.uk
2. The Little Mermaid's Samuel E. Wright who did the voice of Sebastian has died at 74  Daily Mail
3. Samuel E Wright, voice of The Little Mermaid’s Sebastian, dies at 74  The Independent
4. Who was Samuel E. Wright and how did he die?...  The Sun
5. Samuel E. Wright, Voice Actor Of Little Sebastian In The Little Mermaid, Has Died  LADbible
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Arizona's Secretary of State 'stripped' of duties after criticizing election audit

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GOP-led states are cutting $300 weekly federal unemployment benefits. Here are the 24 states making the cut this summer.

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Rebekah Vardy celebrates fifth wedding anniversary with Jamie - Daily Mail

Rebekah Vardy celebrates fifth wedding anniversary with Jamie  Daily Mail

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Britain's youngest MP is battling PTSD - Telegraph.co.uk

1. Britain's youngest MP is battling PTSD  Telegraph.co.uk
2. Nadia Whittome MP: I'm taking time off with PTSD  BBC News
3. Britain’s youngest MP to take time off with post-traumatic stress disorder  The Guardian
4. Labour's Nadia Whittome takes leave suffering from PTSD  Daily Mail
5. Nadia Whittome: Britain's youngest MP to take 'several weeks' off work due to post-traumatic stress disorder  Sky News
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Jamie Redknapp baby news welcomed by dad Harry who is 'so excited' - Daily Record

1. Jamie Redknapp baby news welcomed by dad Harry who is 'so excited'  Daily Record
2. Louise Redknapp 'knocked sideways' by Jamie Redknapp's shock baby joy  Daily Star
3. Jamie Redknapp's pregnant girlfriend Frida Andersson steps out  Daily Mail
4. Harry Redknapp breaks silence on Jamie's baby news and says he's 'so excited'  The Mirror
5. Men becoming dads at any age is grossly unfair on women, says VANESSA FELTZ  Daily Express
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Nicola Sturgeon drops Covid elimination strategy - Telegraph.co.uk

1. Nicola Sturgeon drops Covid elimination strategy  Telegraph.co.uk
2. Covid in Scotland: 'Cautious optimism' despite rising Covid numbers  BBC News
3. SNP accused of 'fantasy economics' over Scottish independence 'blueprint'  Daily Mail
4. 'Drop-in centres' or booking vaccination appointments could miss those at risk, says Nicola Sturgeon  The Scotsman
5. Sturgeon and Sarwar's immigration nonsense is worse than virtue signalling: it's arrant hypocrisy  Telegraph.co.uk
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Eric Bailly issues Ole Gunnar Solskjaer stern warning ahead of Europa League final decision - The Mirror

1. Eric Bailly issues Ole Gunnar Solskjaer stern warning ahead of Europa League final decision  The Mirror
2. Bruno Fernandes: Man Utd midfielder 'honoured' by Eric Cantona comparison  BBC Sport
3. Europa League final preview - Opinion: A triumph over Villarreal must only be the start for Manchester United  Eurosport UK
4. Match Preview | Villarreal v Manchester United | UEFA Europa League Final  Sky Sports News
5. The reason Liverpool fans should support Man City in Champions League final  Daily Star
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Biden says he underestimated how many people would believe Trump’s big lie

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Israeli blitz destroys major Hamas weapons site and terror tunnels killing 20 commanders - The Mirror

1. Israeli blitz destroys major Hamas weapons site and terror tunnels killing 20 commanders  The Mirror
2. Israel-Gaza conflict: Blinken promises US support for Gaza reconstruction  BBC News
3. US to reopen Jerusalem consulate as Blinken pledges help for Gaza's 'grave humanitarian situation'  Sky News
4. Now that the guns are silent, minds turn to reconstruction  Al Jazeera English
5. Opinion | On Israel-Palestine, Biden Must Revive a Two-State Solution  The New York Times
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‘Deeply disturbing.’ 4-year-old girl buried in NC backyard since September, police say

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'Derek Chauvin knew he'd killed George Floyd but stayed on him to hide it fearing a riot' - Mirror Online

1. 'Derek Chauvin knew he'd killed George Floyd but stayed on him to hide it fearing a riot'  Mirror Online
2. Biden to meet with George Floyd family but miss police reform deadline  The Guardian
3. George Floyd death anniversary latest – Hundreds gather in Minneapolis to mark 1 year since his murder by D...  The Sun
4. George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter protests sparked a conversation that is far from over  The Independent
5. The stifling of protest around the world paves the road for authoritarian rule  The Guardian
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Coping with trauma and grief in Gaza - Sky News

1. Coping with trauma and grief in Gaza  Sky News
2. The rise of Hamas: support for Gaza militant group grows in West Bank  The Independent
3. Mediators work to halt destruction and loss by extending Israel Hamas ceasefire  The Sun
4. From the Twitter trenches: The Israeli army’s propaganda war  Al Jazeera English
5. Opinion | The Agony of Israel and the Palestinians  The New York Times
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Florida governor signs bill to ban Big Tech 'deplatforming'

The Florida measure will fine companies that violate the rules up to $250,000 per day.

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Arrested Strawberry Crest High School teacher died by suicide, records show

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Idaho’s far-right ‘indoctrination’ witch hunt comes up short in Boise State investigation

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Belarus’s Exiled Opposition Leader Says President Lukashenko Is Operating With ‘Impunity’ After Journalist Arrest

When exiled Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya took a Ryanair flight from Athens to Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, she wasn’t overly concerned about her safety. She couldn’t have predicted that just a week later her home country would scramble a fighter jet to force that same passenger flight to land and arrest a dissident journalist.

“We could not imagine that this regime would make such an act, to endanger the lives of hundreds of passengers, just to kidnap one person,” Tikhanovskaya told TIME, speaking from Vilnius on Monday. Of her own recent flight on that route, she said: “we never even thought about security. We were absolutely sure that we were safe.”

For those fighting to end the 27-year rule of President Alexander Lukashenko, who some call “Europe’s last dictator,” any sense of safety within the E.U. has vanished since Sunday’s nightmarish detour of the commercial airliner, which has triggered the bloc to announce stiffer sanctions against Belarus.

Stringer/EPA-EFE/ShutterstockIn March 2017, police officers detain journalist Roman Protasevich while attempting to cover a rally in Minsk.

Ryanair, one of Europe’s most popular budget airlines, had almost reached its destination of Vilnius on Sunday night, when a Belarussian MiG-29 fighter jet sped towards it in mid-air, and ordered its pilots to divert to the country’s capital Minsk. Authorities told the pilots there was a security threat on board. Once the aircraft was on the ground at Minsk Airport, Belarus security agents forcibly dragged journalist Roman Protasevich, 26, and his girlfriend, law student Sofia Sapega, 23, off the plane to be detained in the country’s notorious jails. Three other passengers—believed to be from Belarus’s KGB intelligence service—also disembarked in Minsk.

While the incident was deeply shocking for Tikhanovskaya, she says it is the latest escalation in a pattern of behavior that has become all too familiar. “People are facing kidnapping from the streets every day,” she says. “Thousands of people are in jail. The situation in Belarus is deteriorating.”

She thinks Lukashenko has come to believe that he faces no serious consequences for his actions. “This event showed that the escalation is a result of impunity and the lack of attention,” she says. “Lukashenko thinks nobody can do anything, so he thinks, ‘I’ll do anything I want.’”

ONLINER.BY/AFP/Getty ImagesA Belarusian dog handler checks luggage after the Ryanair flight landed in Minsk on May 23.

‘No one feels safe anymore’

Protasevich’s arrest is part of a sweeping crackdown on whatever non-government media is left in Belarus. Last week the country’s financial police raided the offices of Tut.BY, the biggest independent news service in Belarus, and opened an investigation into its operations.

As the cofounder of Nexta, a hugely popular news channel on the Telegram platform run by Belarus dissidents, Protasevich was a big target. The channel has posted hundreds of videos and photos detailing the crackdown on protesters and incidents of torture in prisons.

In December, Nexta’s other founder, Stsiapan Putsila, told TIME that hundreds of Belarussians were risking arrest by smuggling images to Nexta. “It is very dangerous for them to send this information,” said Putsila, who now lives in the Polish capital Warsaw. “But their will to share the information is more significant.”

The exiled opposition politicians are deeply on edge after Sunday night’s arrests. Several are now based in Vilnius, just a three-hour drive from Belarus. “I did not sleep last night because I was so nervous,” says Franak Viacorka, Tikhanovskaya’s senior advisor, by phone from Vilnius on Monday. “No one feels safe anymore. They will not stop.”

Mikhail Klimentyev—Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS/Getty ImagesRussia’s President Vladimir Putin, right, and Lukashenko hold a meeting in Moscow in April.

Despite three rounds of E.U. sanctions against Belarus, officials have previously stopped short of sweeping, tough measures against Lukashenko’s inner circle, in part because of divisions within Europe over how to deal with Belarus’s giant neighbor and ally, Russia. With Belarus on its knees economically, Russian President Vladimir Putin granted Lukashenko a $1.5-billion bailout last September, helping the authoritarian leader to hold on to power.

The crisis erupted last August, when Lukashenko declared himself the overwhelming winner of Belarus’s presidential elections, although many in Belarus believed Tikhanovskaya had easily won. Tikhanovskaya’s campaign had effectively created its own election fraud detection system, by having its voters snap photos of their completed ballots, thus proving her victory.

Tikhanovskaya, 38, a former English teacher, jumped into the race last May, after security police arrested her husband Sergei Tikhanovsky, thwarting his presidential run.

A political neophyte, Tikhanovskaya packed huge rallies, mobilizing thousands to march in protest, before fleeing last August across the border into Vilnius, where she now lives with her two children.

Her husband remains in jail in Minsk, leaving Tikhanovskaya to negotiate with world leaders and diplomats over tough sanctions against Lukashenko. She held talks on Monday with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and E.U. foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell, urging a strong international response to Sunday’s plane diversion. She told TIME she plans to travel to Washington “as soon as COVID restrictions are lifted,” she says.

Read more: How a Belarusian Teacher and Stay-at-Home Mom Came to Lead a National Revolt

Amid global furor over the incident, Ryanair came under pressure to explain why its pilots landed the plane in Minsk. In a muted initial statement posted on Twitter on Sunday, the company said the pilots “were notified by Belarus ATC [air traffic control] of a potential security threat on board and were instructed to divert to the nearest airport, Minsk.” It made no mention of the fact that Belarus security forces had seized two of its passengers. The company updated its statement on Monday, this time condemning Belarus’s action as “an act of aviation piracy,” while its CEO Michael O’Leary called the incident “state-sponsored hijacking.”

Lithuania’s government opened an investigation into Belarus on Monday and could possibly bring charges of plane hijacking, forced disappearance of a person and violating international aviation treaties.

Belarus became top of E.U. leaders’ agenda as they gathered in Brussels on Monday evening to commence a two-day summit. E.U. leaders demanded the immediate release of Pratasevich and Sapega and agreed to economic sanctions, saying the bloc would expand the list of individuals and entities that would be targeted. They also imposed a ban on Belarusian airlines using E.U. airspace and airports and called on carriers based in the 27-nation bloc to avoid flying over Belarus.

Ramunas Stanionis, advisor to Lithuania’s former Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, who heads the Belarus policy group in the E.U. Parliament, says some E.U. officials had become frustrated by the months of debate over what action to take against Lukashenko. Speaking to TIME by phone from Brussels before the sanctions were announced, he questioned why the E.U. had been slow to act, but speculated that the Ryanair incident could be a catalyst. “It is an act of state terrorism,” he said.

Earlier on Monday AirBaltic—an airline operated by the small E.U. nation of Latvia—said it would no longer fly to Belarus. And in Minsk, Belarus authorities held a Lufthansa plane on the tarmac for 90 minutes, claiming a terrorist threat, before finally releasing the Frankfurt-bound aircraft.

Omar Marques—Getty ImagesPeople hold paper airplanes during a protest in Warsaw on May 24 against the detention of Protasevich.

‘Brazen and shocking act’ raises questions

In the shocked aftermath of theRyanair incident on Monday, one crucial question remained: What might have happened, if the pilots had disobeyed the instructions on Sunday to divert their plane to Minsk?

Belarus experts and opposition figures believe the pilots had been told that if they failed to take the plane to Minsk, the Boeing 737-8AS aircraft would be shot out of the sky by the Russian-built fighter jet that had cornered it in the air.

That would have resulted in major loss of life, with 171 passengers on board. “They were ready to shoot down the Ryanair plane,” says Tikhanovskaya’s senior advisor Viacorka. “The goal was to forcibly land the plane,” he says.

Data from the website FlightRadar24 shows how the plane veered sharply off course just about two minutes—less than 20 miles—from entering the safety of E.U. airspace in Lithuania. The plane was far closer to its destination Vilnius than it was to Minsk, when it made a sudden turn South towards the Belarus capital.

Analyzing the data, Vadim Lukashevich, an aviation expert in Moscow, said in a Facebook post he was convinced that the Ryanair pilots had been told they would die if they did not divert. “I am absolutely sure that the crew of the passenger airliner turned around only after receiving a notification from the Belarusian fighter that, in case of disobedience, it would open fire before the passenger plane left the airspace of Belarus,” Lukashevich wrote on Facebook on Sunday night. Ryanair has not commented on whether the pilots were threatened with an armed attack in the air.

The FlightRadar24 data also showed that the plane was flying higher and faster than normal for the final minutes of its trip, suggesting that it may have been trying to outfly the fighter jet. That likely made for a terrifying ordeal for the commercial pilots who had assumed they were on a routine journey between two European cities, both capitals of NATO member countries—and technically a domestic flight within the borderless, 27-country E.U.

“We don’t know if they really would have been shot down,” said Stanionis, the policy advisor in the E.U. Parliament. “But it is just a matter of pressing a button on a MiG-29.” In addition, the operation appeared to be a complex mission, well-planned likely from the top ranks of Belarus’s military—and perhaps Lukashenko himself. “If the object was to detain Raman [Protasevich] you [would] need to know when he is boarding, have access to registration systems, plan all the possible communication with ground control centers,” Stanionis says. “You need to look at different scenarios, and coordinate with air forces.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the incident a “brazen and shocking act,” and demanded an international investigation.

But Tikhanovskaya says action is needed as much as investigations, especially given the dire conditions in Belarus’s prisons.

“There is sexual abuse, women are strip searched, there is stress positions for hours, cells are overcrowded,” she says, listing conditions that have been reported by former and current prisoners. “People from democratic countries cannot even imagine,” she says.

Despite the increased danger—even in the air between E.U. cities—Tikhanovskaya says she intends to continue traveling to meetings to pressure foreign leaders to take action against Belarus. “I have a row of official visits in the near future,” she says, declining to name the countries. “I will not delay any official visits.”

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