Two Civilians Dead as Russia Pounds Frontline Kherson Region

 A Ukrainian serviceman jumps out of the boat onto the shore of Dnipro at the frontline near Kherson, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023. (AP)
A Ukrainian serviceman jumps out of the boat onto the shore of Dnipro at the frontline near Kherson, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023. (AP)
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Two Civilians Dead as Russia Pounds Frontline Kherson Region

 A Ukrainian serviceman jumps out of the boat onto the shore of Dnipro at the frontline near Kherson, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023. (AP)
A Ukrainian serviceman jumps out of the boat onto the shore of Dnipro at the frontline near Kherson, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023. (AP)

Russian shelling pounded the frontline region of Kherson in southern Ukraine on Monday, killing two civilians, hurting at least eight others and hitting a bus, a critical infrastructure facility and cemetery, local authorities said.

"As of now, we know about seven victims as a result of the shelling of a (bus) in Kherson. Two men and five women," regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram messenger, adding that some of them had sustained severe injuries.

The bus had been at a crossroads when a shell exploded nearby, local prosecutors said. Images published by local officials online showed the floor of a badly-damaged bus covered in shards of glass and blood.

"Residential buildings, power lines, and vehicles were also damaged," the prosecutors said on Telegram.

Prokudin said Russia also attacked an unspecified critical infrastructure facility in the region, leaving the residents of four small settlements without electricity.

The vast Dnipro river runs through Kherson region and Russian troops control the territory on the eastern bank of it. The city of Kherson and Ukrainian-held areas on the western bank come under regular Russian shelling.

A cemetery in the region's village of Kindiyka also came under fire, killing one person and injuring a 62-year-old man, Prokudin said.

The city of Kherson also came under heavy overnight shelling, which killed an 85-year-old woman, Roman Mrochko, head of the city's military administration, said on Telegram.

"In the central district of the city, high-rise buildings and one of the social institutions were hit," Mrochko added.

He said the attack caused a fire and injured a resident, posting a video showing scorched rooms with collapsed walls and ceilings, shattered windows and piles of construction waste.

In a separate morning missile strike, an administrative building and equipment in a shipyard in the Black Sea region of Odesa were also hit, local prosecutors said, adding that four workers had been injured.

Images showed a blast crater, buildings with shattered windows and two destroyed vehicles.

The attacks followed attempted Russian drone strikes on southern, central, and northern Ukraine. Kyiv's military said air defenses destroyed all 12 drones and two missiles launched against the Mykolaiv, Kherson, Kirovohrad, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi and Dnipro regions.

There was no immediate comment on the strikes from Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory in the east and south.



Trump Administration to Cancel Student Visas of Pro-Palestinian Protesters

The Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza led to several months of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled US college campuses. (AFP)
The Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza led to several months of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled US college campuses. (AFP)
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Trump Administration to Cancel Student Visas of Pro-Palestinian Protesters

The Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza led to several months of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled US college campuses. (AFP)
The Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza led to several months of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled US college campuses. (AFP)

US President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday to combat antisemitism and pledge to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests, a White House official said.

A fact sheet on the order promises "immediate action" by the Justice Department to prosecute "terroristic threats, arson, vandalism and violence against American Jews" and marshal all federal resources to combat what it called "the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses and streets" since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

"To all the resident aliens who joined in the protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you," Trump said in the fact sheet.

"I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before."

The Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza led to several months of pro-Palestinian protests that roiled US college campuses, with civil rights groups documenting rising antisemitic, anti-Arab and Islamophobic incidents.

The order will require agency and department leaders to provide the White House with recommendations within 60 days on all criminal and civil authorities that could be used to fight antisemitism, and would demand "the removal of resident aliens who violate our laws."

The fact sheet said protesters engaged in pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation, blocked Jewish students from attending classes and assaulted worshippers at synagogues, as well as vandalizing US monuments and statues.

Many pro-Palestinian protesters denied supporting Hamas or engaging in antisemitic acts, and said they were demonstrating against Israel's military assault on Gaza, where health authorities say more than 47,000 people have been killed.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a large Muslim advocacy group, accused the Trump administration of an assault on "free speech and Palestinian humanity under the guise of combating antisemitism," and described Wednesday's order as "dishonest, overbroad and unenforceable."

During his 2024 election campaign, Trump promised to deport those he called "pro-Hamas" students in the United States on visas.

On his first day in office, he signed an executive order that rights groups say lays the groundwork for the reinstatement of a ban on travelers from predominantly Muslim or Arab countries, and offers wider authorities to use ideological exclusion to deny visa requests and remove individuals already in the country.