Investigators were seeking a motive for the Boston Marathon bombings and whether others were involved as they awaited a chance yesterday to interview the surviving ethnic Chechen suspect.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was in a Boston hospital seriously wounded and unable to speak, after he was captured late on Friday at the end of a huge manhunt.
His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a firefight with police earlier on Friday.
Investigators are trying to determine if others had a role in detonating bombs made in pressure cookers and packed with ball bearings and nails that exploded at the Boston Marathon on Monday last week, killing three people and injuring 176.
Tamerlan traveled to Moscow in January last year and spent six months in the region, a law enforcement source said. However, it was unclear what he did while he was there and if he could have had contact with militant Islamist groups in Russia’s Caucasus region.
Authorities have yet to charge Dzhokhar, who will be defended by the US Federal Public Defender Office that represents criminal suspects who cannot afford a lawyer.
Sources had said he would face charges on Saturday, but late in the evening officials from the US Attorneys’ Office and the US Department of Justice indicated no statement would be made before yesterday.
The role of the FBI is also being questioned after the agency said it had interviewed Tamerlan in 2011 after Russian security services raised concerns he followed radical Islam. The FBI said it did not find any “terrorism activity” at that time.
However, the brothers’ mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva told a Russian TV station that Tamerlan had been under FBI surveillance for years.
The New York Times, citing unnamed federal officials, reported authorities had held up Tamerlan’s application for US citizenship because of the FBI’s 2011 interview.
Records show Tamerlan was arrested when police were called to a report of domestic violence in 2009.
Dzhokhar, a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, was shot in the throat and could not speak, a source said.
“We have a million questions and those questions need to be answered,” Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said on Saturday.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
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