India Evacuates Thousands Threatened by Cyclone Amid Pandemic

Supreme Court Unanimously Revives Punitive Damages Award Against Sudan for Aiding Terrorists

The Supreme Court has reinstated a $4.3-billion award of punitive damages against Sudan for providing material support and safe haven to the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda that was responsible for deadly bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa in the late 1990s. The decision is a victory for the Trump administration, which argued on behalf of the victims of terrorism as a so-called friend of the court. In the 8-0 decision in Opati v. Republic of Sudan that came May 18, the high court reversed the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that threw out the punitive damages. A separate $5.9 billion in non-punitive damages was not at issue in this case. Although Sudan did not put in a legal defense to those claims and lost by default, the country’s government…

BHUBANESWAR/KOLKATA, India—India began evacuating thousands of villagers and halted port operations ahead of a cyclone expected to hit its east coast this week, officials said on Monday, piling pressure on emergency services grappling with the CCP virus pandemic.

The cyclone, expected to make landfall on Wednesday, comes as India eases the world’s longest lockdown, imposed in April against the virus, which has infected more than 96,169 people and killed 3,029.

The states of Odisha and West Bengal sent disaster management teams to move families from homes of mud and thatch to places of shelter from the severe cyclonic storm, Amphan, which is expected to gain strength in the next 12 hours.

“We have to evacuate people from low-lying areas, and protect them from the coronavirus too,” said a senior official of India’s home ministry who sought anonymity.

“It’s not an easy task.”

The cyclone season usually runs from April to December, with severe storms forcing the evacuations of tens of thousands, causing widespread death and damage to crops and property, both in India and neighboring Bangladesh.

Authorities at the port of Paradip in Odisha ordered ships to move out to sea to avoid damage as the cyclone formed over the Bay of Bengal was likely to intensify into a super cyclonic storm.

“Operations have been wound down,” said Rinkesh Roy, chairman of the Paradip Port Trust. “We are clearing the port.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to hold a meeting in New Delhi, the capital, to plan how to mitigate damage and injuries.

“The extremely severe cyclonic storm ‘Amphan’…is likely to gain more strength and intensify further into a super cyclonic storm in the next 12 hours,” weather officials said in a statement, forecasting heavy rain in eastern and southern areas.

India, with a coastline of 4,670 miles, gets hit by more than a tenth of all the world’s tropical cyclones, the bulk of them hitting its eastern coast around the Bay of Bengal.

Epoch Times staff contributed to this report

Focus News: India Evacuates Thousands Threatened by Cyclone Amid Pandemic

Investigators Open Criminal Probe Into LA Explosion

LOS ANGELES—Police and fire investigators launched a criminal probe Sunday into the cause of an explosion at a hash oil manufacturer in downtown Los Angeles that sent firefighters running for their lives. Detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department’s major crimes division were working with the city Fire Department’s arson investigators to determine what might have sparked the blast that shot a ball of flames out of the building Saturday night and scorched a fire truck across the street, police spokesman Josh Rubenstein said. “We’re in the very early stages of the investigation … to understand what happened and figure out how to move forward,” he said. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was assisting local fire investigators, an agency spokeswoman said. The blast injured a dozen…