Washington, D.C
Suspect charged in Washington DC killings of two foreign officials
BBC News
The suspect accused of gunning down two Israeli embassy staff members outside a Jewish museum in Washington DC has been charged with first-degree murder, as well as murder of foreign officials and related firearm charges.
Wednesday night’s attack is being investigated as a hate crime, and more charges are expected, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said at a news conference.
“This is a death penalty-eligible case,” she said on Thursday, adding that it is too early to say whether prosecutors will decide to seek a death sentence.
Steve Jenson, from the FBI’s Washington DC field office, called the killings “an act of terror and directed violence against the Jewish community”.
Couple Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were shot dead outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC around 21:08 local time (02:08 BST) on Wednesday, police said. The suspect opened fire on a group of four exiting the event, killing the two victims, police said.
Police identified the suspect as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago. He was arrested at the scene shortly after the shooting.
ReutersOfficials said he was seen pacing outside the museum before opening fire. Eyewitnesses told the BBC he initially was mistaken for a traumatised bystander, and given aid inside the museum.
One witness, Yoni Kalin, said people inside had been “calming him down”. “Little did we know he was somebody that executed people in cold blood,” he said.
Police said the suspect also shouted “free Palestine” before he was taken into custody.
The suspect landed in the Washington DC area one day earlier, Jenson said, and investigators are still piecing together his whereabouts before the attack. According to an affidavit, officials believe he flew on Tuesday from Chicago to Washington DC for a work conference.
Social media accounts linked to the suspect show he worked at the American Osteopathic Information Association (AOIA) in Chicago as an administrative specialist since 2024.
At his court hearing Thursday, the suspect was charged and ordered to remain in detention. His next hearing was scheduled for 18 June.
ReutersIsrael’s ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter said shortly after the shooting that Mr Lischinsky planned to propose to Ms Milgrim during an upcoming trip they had planned to Jerusalem.
“They were a beautiful couple,” Leiter said at a news conference.
A vigil for Ms Milgrim was expected on Thursday in her hometown of Kansas City. She previously had spoken out about her fears of antisemitism in American public life. In 2017, she was interviewed by a local TV station after her school in Kansas was vandalised with a Nazi swastika.
“I worry about going to my synagogue, and now I have to worry about safety at school and that shouldn’t be a thing,” said Ms Milgrim, who was in her final year of high school at the time.
Police said the suspect was not on their radar and has no prior interactions with law enforcement. They said he admitted to the attack and is believed to have acted alone.
The gun used in the attack was a 9mm handgun legally purchased in Illinois in March 2020 and brought to Washington in his checked luggage. Illinois has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the US.
Social media accounts linked to the suspect also indicate that he was heavily involved in the pro-Palestinian protest movement. Investigators said they were working to authenticate writings online purportedly authored by him, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, criticising US policy and discussing the use of political violence.
A home linked to the suspect in Chicago was seen being searched on Thursday, and authorities also said they were scouring his electronic devices.
One of his neighbours in Chicago, John Wayne Fry, told reporters that he lived in the same apartment building as the suspect for around a year.
The suspect displayed a photo outside his flat of a Palestinian-American child who was killed in Chicago in 2023, Mr Fry said.
The man who killed six-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi was convicted of hate crime charges earlier this month. Officials said he was motivated by hatred for Islam and the conflict in Gaza.
It is unclear whether the suspect had any direct contact with the boy’s family.
Getty ImagesJojo Kalin, one of the event’s organisers in Washington DC, told the BBC that the event the victims attended was focused on how to build a coalition to help people suffering in Gaza amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
She added it is “deeply ironic that what we were discussing was bridge building and then we were all hit over the head with such hatred”.
The attack was condemned by world leaders, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said he “thoroughly” condemns the “antisemitic attack” in Washington DC.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack “a heinous antisemitic murder” and added that security would be increased for Israeli representatives and diplomatic missions worldwide.
US President Donald Trump also decried antisemitism in response to the attack, writing on his social media platform Truth Social that “hatred and radicalism have no place in the USA.”
Trump and Netanyahu later spoke over the phone about the incident, where the US president expressed sorrow to his Israeli counterpart, according to a readout of the call.
With reporting from Mike Wendling in Chicago
Washington, D.C
Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week
4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
Washington, D.C
Rosselli opens in DC, serving classic Italian flavors from chef Carlos
Washington, D.C. (7News) — Rosselli is the newest restaurant to open in DC.
Bringing in classic Italian flavors, Chef Carlos explained how he hopes his food is a unique addition to the Italian food scene in the DMV.
Chef also demoed a signature dish with Brian and Megan.
BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT
You can learn more and book your table here.
-
San Francisco, CA7 seconds agoEastbound I-80 closure in San Francisco snarls traffic, slows business
-
Dallas, TX6 minutes agoPetar Musa’s Brace Not Enough as FC Dallas Draws LA Galaxy 2-2
-
Miami, FL12 minutes agoMLS: Messi double helps Inter Miami slay Rapids in front of huge crowd
-
Boston, MA18 minutes agoFrom across Boston they flock to play for Latin Academy boys’ tennis, a co-op of 29 schools – The Boston Globe
-
Denver, CO24 minutes agoDale Kistler Obituary | The Denver Post
-
Seattle, WA30 minutes agoWEST SEATTLE WEATHER: Warm day, but far below record
-
San Diego, CA36 minutes agoSolans, Luna, Guilavogui help RSL beat slumping San Diego, extend unbeaten streak to 6 games :: WRALSportsFan.com
-
Milwaukee, WI42 minutes agoMilwaukee boy critically missing, last seen near Teutonia and Kiley