Penulis: Agus S

On Saturday, two state lawmakers from Minnesota were gunned down in their homes in what Governor Tim Walz called a "politically motivated assassination" attempt. The attacks left one politician dead and the other seriously injured.

The suspect, Vance Luther Boelter, was taken into custody in rural woodland after a day-long manhunt. He has been charged with multiple counts of murder at the state and federal level.

During a press conference on Monday, officials said that Mr Boelter allegedly also attempted to kill two other state lawmakers on Saturday.

State representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed in their home, the governor said.

She had served in the Minnesota House of Representatives for 20 years, and was speaker of the chamber from 2019 to 2025.

Under her tenure, Minnesota Democrats passed a variety of liberal legislation that included the expansion of abortion rights and legalisation of recreational marijuana.

She was also known for working across the aisle. In one of her final votes before the attack, sided with Republicans to support a bill provision that would make the state's undocumented population ineligible for the state's low-income healthcare programme.

State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also shot multiple times and injured, but survived.

During the shooting Yvette Hoffman threw herself on their adult daughter Hope Hoffman to shield her from the bullets, a relative has said.

After surviving the hail of bullets that wounded her parents,Hope Hoffmanthen called local authorities who rushed to the scene and saved her parents' lives.

Both lawmakers who were shot are Democrats.

Mrs Hoffman shared a statement on social media after the incident, saying she and her husband were "incredibly lucky to be alive" after they were hit by a combined total of 17 bullets.

"John is enduring many surgeries right now and is closer every hour to being out of the woods," Mrs Hoffman wrote.

She also expressed sympathy for the loss of her colleagues in the state house.

"We are gutted and devastated by the loss of Melissa and Mark. We have no words. There is never a place for this kind of political hate," she wrote.

Law enforcement has confirmed the attacks occurred in the early hours of Saturday in the cities of Brooklyn Park and Champlin, Minnesota.

Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said police received a call at 02:00 local time (03:00 EDT; 07:00 GMT) about an incident at Hoffman's house in Champlin.

Another call to police came in at 03:35, when officers were checking on Hortman's home, nearby in Brooklyn Park.

Police discovered what looked like an emergency vehicle parked at the home with emergency lights flashing.

Coming out of the home was someone resembling a police officer, who immediately opened fire on officers, darted back into the house, then escaped on foot.

Mark Bruley, chief of Brooklyn Park police, said the suspect was "wearing a vest with a Taser, other equipment, a badge" posing as law enforcement in order "to manipulate their way into the home".

In between Mr Boelter's alleged attack at the Hoffman residence and the shooting at the Hortman residence, he visited the homes of two other state lawmakers allegedly targeting them, US Attorney Joseph H Thompson said on Monday.

One of those lawmakers identified herself as one of the targets.

"I have been made aware that the shooting suspect was parked near my home early Saturday morning," Minnesota state senator Ann Rest said in a statement on Monday. "I am so grateful for the heroic work of the New Hope Police Department and its officers. Their quick action saved my life."

The attacks drew condemnation from across the political spectrum. President Donald Trump said "such horrific violence will not be tolerated".

Meanwhile, US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, called it "an attack on everything we stand for as a democracy".

Police identified the suspect as 57-year-old Mr Boelter. They did not give details on a possible motive.

A former political appointee, Mr Boelter was once a member of the same state workforce development board as Hoffman.

"We don't know the nature of the relationship or if they actually knew each other," said Evans.

Investigators reportedly found a list of 70 "targets", including the names of state Democratic politicians, in a vehicle the suspect drove for the assassination.

Walz, congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Minnesota's two US senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, and state Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison were on the hit list, according to local media.

Locations for Planned Parenthood were also on the list, a person familiar with the investigation told the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Supt Evans told reporters he would not describe the notebook found in the car as a "manifesto" as it was not "a treatise on all kinds of ideology and writings".

Mr Boelter is a security contractor and religious missionary who has worked in Africa and the Middle East, according to an online CV.

He once preached as a pastor at a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Facebook photos. He had travelled often to the nation, indicate posts from his LinkedIn account.

An online video from two years ago seemed to show him addressing a congregation, adding that he has a wife and five children.

He had also worked back in Minnesota for a major food distributor, a convenience store chain and for two funeral services businesses, according to his online profile.

According to local TV affiliate KTTC, Mr Boelter's only criminal history in Minnesota was for traffic tickets, including speeding and parking violations.

He texted a troubling message to friends at a Minneapolis residence, where he had rented a room and would stay one or two nights a week,the Minnesota Star Tribune reports.

Mr Boelter said: "I'm going to be gone for a while. May be dead shortly, so I just want to let you know I love you guys both and I wish it hadn't gone this way."

On Sunday night, police said they found Mr Boelter after receiving information that he was seen in the area of Green Isle, a village not far from his home.

Officers called the two-day search the "largest manhunt in the state's history", with multiple law enforcement agencies working together to find him.

Mr Boelter was arrested in a rural area with mostly farmland, fields and small woods, and taken into custody "without any use of force" or injury to police.

Police said he was armed when he was arrested, but did not provide further information on the type of weapons present.

Supt Evans said Mr Boelter's arrest brought "a sense of relief" to communities and lawmakers who were on the suspect's list of targets.

He also said law enforcement believed the suspect acted alone and was not part of a broader network.

Authorities also condemned Mr Boelter's impersonation of a police officer while carrying out the attacks, saying "he exploited the trust our uniforms are meant to represent".

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz also followed with a plea for civility, urging people to "shake hands" and "find common ground".

"One man's unthinkable actions have altered the state of Minnesota," he said.

"This cannot be the norm. It cannot be the way that we deal with our political differences."

Prior to Mr Boelter's arrest, his wife was detained in a traffic stop along with three relatives in a car in the city of Onamia, more than 100 miles from the family home, on Saturday morning, but released after questioning.

Mr Boelter has been charged at both the state and federal level.

Officials said on Monday, that the suspect faces six federal charges, some of which could lead to death penalty. At the federal level, he faces two counts of stalking, two counts of murder, and two firearms-related charges.

Separately, at the state level he is charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder at the state level.

At a brief court appearance on Monday, Mr Boelter said he couldn't afford a lawyer and would have a federal defence lawyer.

His next court appearance is scheduled for later this month.

Fears of crime and gang violence in the notorious townships on the outskirts of the South African city of Cape Town are forcing some parents to make difficult decisions to send their children on long daily commutes to former white-only schools.

"Thugs would go into the school carrying guns threatening teachers, forcefully taking their laptops in front of the learners," Sibahle Mbasana told the BBC about the school her sons used to attend in Khayelitsha, Cape Town's largest township.

"Imagine your child experiencing this regularly. There's hardly any security at the school and even if there is, they are powerless to do anything."

It is more than three decades since the end of white-minority rule in South Africa, but there are still black students who have to endure the vast inequalities that were the bedrock of the racist system of apartheid.

Mrs Mbasana feels her three children are the inheritors of this legacy – particularly affecting her oldest son Lifalethu who was at a township school between the ages of six and 10.

One of the apartheid era's main laws was the Bantu Education Act of 1953, which aimed to prevent black children from reaching their full potential. This created segregated schools with less funding and fewer resources for those in poor areas, which to this day are overcrowded and often suffer from the fallout of high crime, drug use and violence.

Mrs Mbasana, who grew up in Eastern Cape province and moved to Khayelitsha when she was 18, decided she had no choice but to transfer Lifalethu, who is now 12, and her other son Anele, 11, to a state school some 40km (25 miles) away in Simon's Town, situated on a picturesque bay on the Cape Peninsula which is famously home to South Africa's navy.

The boys have been joined by their seven-year-old sister Buhle at the school, which has better facilities and smaller class sizes.

"I told myself [that] Buhle was not going to that [local] school because I already endured so many things with the two boys when they were at that school,"saidthe 34-year-old clothes designer.

She and her husband would love to move their family away from Khayelitsha completely.

"We don't want to live in the township, but we have to live here because we can't afford to move out," she said.

"Speak to anyone in the township and they'll tell you they would move out at the first opportunity if they could."

There is no doubt that there are township schools, led by visionary principals and hard-working teachers, that have done wonders despite the obstacles of poor infrastructure and large class sizes.

However, safety and security have proved insurmountable for some when, for example, gangs demand protection fees from teachers.

The GroundUp news website has reported that teachers at Zanemfundo Primary School in Philippi East, close to Khayelitsha, were allegedly told to pay 10% of their salaries to the extortionists who seemed to operate with impunity.

"It is not safe at all. We are in extreme danger," one teacher told GroundUp.

"These gangs come to the school gun-wielding. Our lives are at risk. Teachers at the school are asking for transfers because they don't feel safe."

According to the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), a private security company is now to be stationed at the school and the police are patrolling nearby.

But similar incidents have reportedly taken place at five other schools in the surrounding areas of Nyanga, Philippi and Samora Machel.

"My husband Sipho works in the navy in Simon's Town and he travels there so I thought it would be safer and more comfortable for my children to go to that school," said Mrs Mbasana.

But longer commutes, often by bus or minibus taxi, to safer schools come with their own dangers and stresses.

"My children get up at around 4.30am and leave at 5.50am when Sipho is transporting them. When they go by bus, because Sipho may be working elsewhere, they leave by 5.30 and they get home by 4.30 in the afternoon," said Mrs Mbasana.

"They are always tired and want to sleep. They are strong because they do their homework, but they sleep much earlier than other kids would."

Lifalethu made national headlines last year when there was a frantic search for him after he was forced to walk home from Simon's Town to Khayelitsha as the bus he regularly takes refused him entry as he could not find his ticket.

The driver involved was subsequently suspended for contravening company policy, which requires employees to assist schoolchildren in uniform who have lost their tickets.

With darkness falling, it was Mrs Mbasana'sworst nightmare when Anele called to say his elder brother had not been allowed aboard.

But a massive social media frenzy followed and by several strokes of good fortune he was found – at one stage the boy had been given a lift by a good Samaritan who dropped him off at a petrol station around 5km from his home.

From there he was accompanied on foot by a security guard who lived in his area before being picked up and taken home to his relieved family by police officers who had joined the search for him.

His case highlighted the plight of thousands of pupils from townships, some of whom do a round trip of up to 80km per day either on public transport or pre-arranged trips with minibus taxis to attend school in the city's suburban areas – which used to accept only white students in the apartheid era.

Wealthier residents of these suburbs often opt for a private education for their offspring, meaning that the state schools there tend to have spaces for those coming from further afield.

Donovan Williams, vice-principal of the state primary school in Cape Town's trendy Observatory district, says about 85% of his school's intake of around 830 students come from the townships – many of whom are exhausted by their long days.

"Some parents work in the area while most spend lots of money on transport for their children to access schools with better infrastructure," he told the BBC.

"Sometimes they fall asleep in class."

According to Amnesty International, South Africa has one of the most unequal school systems in the world – with a child's outcome very much dependent on their place of birth, wealth and colour of their skin.

"Children in the top 200 schools achieve more distinctions in mathematics than children in the next 6,600 schools combined. The playing field must be levelled," its 2020 report said.

State schools are subsidised, but parents still have to pay school fees, which in the Western Cape can range from between $60 (£45) and $4,500 (£3,350) a year.

Of the nearly 1,700 schools across the province, more than 100 are no-fee institutions as designated by the government for learners living in economically depressed areas.

The province's education department explains that it often has to cover a shortfall in funding from the government – and schools in more middle-class areas turn to parents to cover the costs.

Recently 2,407 teaching posts were lost in the province as the government allocated only 64% of the cost of the nationally negotiated wage agreement with teachers, the WCED said.

The reduction in posts has meant that some contract teachers were not reappointed when their contracts ended in December, while some permanent teachers have been asked to move schools.

"We are in an impossible position, and it is not of our making, and the Western Cape is not the only province affected," the WCED added.

The National Professional Teachers' Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) says the decision has been particularly devastating for schools in impoverished and crime-ridden areas.

"The schools that are feeling the real impact of this is your typical township school. They can't afford to replace those teachers with governing-body appointments, which is the case with the better-resourced schools where parents can afford to pay extra fees," Naptosa executive director Basil Manuel told the BBC.

"They feel the cut, they will have the bigger class sizes, they will have the teachers that are more stressed out.

"The children, especially those who are not too academically inclined, will slip through the cracks."

Experts blame the continuing educational disparities on the debt the African National Congress (ANC) government of Nelson Mandela inherited in 1994 from the apartheid regime.

"The ANC had to confront the fact that it couldn't deliver in the way it said it would," Aslam Fataar, research professor in higher education transformation at Stellenbosch University,told the BBC.

Faced with fiscal austerity "poorer schools were never given a chance to develop a sustainable platform for teaching and learning", he said.

"The political interest in what happens in the township schools has been lost 20 years ago. When it comes to teacher expenditure and pupil-teacher ratios you can see how that sector has been neglected. The numbers of teachers in those schools continues to bear the brunt of cuts."

Prof Fataar is equally bleak about the future: "I can't see, bar a miracle, how we can increase the finances for poor schools."

Parents like the Mbasanas, stuck in the townships and often at the mercy of gangs, have run out of patience.

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The Edmonton Oilers are heading south to Miami to fight to bring the Stanley Cup back to Canada for the first time since 1993.

They will be hoping to avoid a repeat of last year when they made the same trip and lost.

For over 30 years, the winner of the National Hockey League's top prize has gone to an American team. It's a sorry legacy for a country where ice hockey is not just a sport, but part of the national identity. About 40% of players in the NHL, across all teams, are Canadian – more than any other country.

Last year, the Oilers flopped during the final game of the seven-game series against the Florida Panthers.

It was a "heartbreaking" loss for Carson Duggan, who grew up in rural Alberta and now lives in the US. She had travelled all the way to Miami to watch that final game, where she says she was joined by thousands of other Canadians.

It's a sore point for many Canadians that the league's most die-hard fans have gone so long without a trophy, and yet remain willing to spend big money and travel big distances to support their team.

Now Edmonton has a second chance at breaking the losing streak this year, but heading into Game 6, there are concerns that history could indeed repeat itself. While the Oilers began the series strong, winning the first game 4-3, the Panthers demolished Edmonton 5-2 on Saturday, giving them a 3-2 series lead.

Tuesday's game, in Miami, will be do-or-die.

The repeated losses have, in a way, united Canadians against a common enemy – the US. Although there are seven Canadian teams in the NHL for Canadian fans to cheer for, when it comes to the playoffs most get behind whichever Canadian team goes the farthest. Thus, in this year's final series, the Edmonton Oilers have been christened, by elimination, Canada's team.

"I think it's just like, we need a cup as Canada," Ms Duggan said. "A lot of Canada is cheering for Edmonton."

This is especially true because of tensions between Canada and the US, which have heightened amidst a testy trade war.

The international rivalry really came to a head during the winter's 4 Nations Face Off, when Trump was repeatedly making digs at Canada by calling it the "51st state".

Canadians booed the American national anthem during the game, and three fights broke out on the ice during the first nine seconds of one game. Shortly after Canada won the 4Nations, Canadian comedian Mike Meyers appropriated the hockey term "elbows up" as a rallying cry for Canadian sovereignty.

The slogan was adopted by Prime Minister Mark Carney (whose hometeam is Edmonton) during his election campaign.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has personally called the Panthers, who play about an hour away from his estate Mar-A-Lago, to offer his support.

Temperatures between the two countries have seemed to cool a bit, Ms Duggan said. But that doesn't mean that a Canadian win wouldn't be a "cherry on top".

"We're not going to be bullied," she said, adding that she thinks "most Canadians know that most Americans are good people".

Every Canadian has their own hypothesis as to why Canadian teams have not won the Cup since 1993, from the mundane to the downright conspiratorial.

For starters, under the eye of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, American franchises have vastly overtaken the league, with seven out of eight new teams since 1993 going to sunshine states like Nevada, Florida and most recently, Utah. Now there are just seven Canadian teams compared to America's 25.

Others point to the mild temperatures and lucrative tax breaks in many US states as a draw for free agents.

Ms Duggan likes to think it's at least partly because of ice hockey's uniquely egalitarian gameplay – players are only on the ice for 45 seconds at a time, typically, which means that even a star player, like the Oiler's captain Connor McDavid, can't monopolise the rink.

The 28-year-old, whose been compared to Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky, has been playing with the team since he was first draft pick in the NHL during the 2015-2016 season. While it's taken the Oilers years to get to the level that they're playing at now, even then it was clear he would be a star.

"If he was drafted to Boston or Chicago or Philly or Rangers, or really any team in the United States, I think hockey would have grown exponentially," Ms Duggan said. "You could know absolutely nothing about hockey and watch five minutes and see [he's] the best player."

Now living in New Hampshire, after moving to the US to play university-level ice hockey and coach, Ms Duggan – whose great-grandfather was a mayor of Edmonton – said the Oilers are still her home team.

"I think that was a piece of home that was always there," she said. "They've probably taken years off my life, because some of their puck drops are at like, 10pm, and I stay up and watch every single game."

Sudan's war is in strategic stalemate. Each side stakes its hopes on a new offensive, a new delivery of weapons, a new political alliance, but neither can gain a decisive advantage.

The losers are the Sudanese people. Every month there are more who are hungry, displaced, despairing.

The Sudan armed forces triumphantly announced the recapture of central Khartoum in March.

It broadcast pictures of its leader, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, walking throughthe ruins of the capital's Republican Palace, which had been controlled by the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), since the earliest days of the war in April 2023.

The army deployed weapons newly acquired from Egypt, Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries including Qatar and Iran. But its offensive quickly stalled.

The RSF, headed by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as "Hemedti", responded with a devastating drone attack on Port Sudan, which is both the interim capital of the military government and also the main entry point for humanitarian aid.

These were long-range sophisticated drones, which the army accuses the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of supplying – a charge the UAE rejects, along with well-documented reports that it has been backing the RSF during the 27-month conflict.

The RSF has also expanded operations to the south of Khartoum.

Hemedti struck a deal with Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, the veteran rebel commander of the Sudan People's Liberation Army-North, which controls the Nuba Mountains near the border with South Sudan.

Their forces combined may be able to make a push to the border with Ethiopia, hoping to open new supply routes.

Meanwhile, the RSF has been besieging the capital of North Darfur, el-Fasher, which is defended by a coalition of Darfurian former rebels, known as the Joint Forces, allied with the army.

Most of the fighters are ethnic Zaghawa, who have been in fierce conflict with the Arab groups that form the core of the RSF.

Month after month of blockade, bombardment and ground attacks have created famine among the residents, with the people of the displaced camp of Zamzam worst-hit.

The RSF and its allied Arab militias have a terrifying record of massacre, rape and ethnic cleansing. Human rights organisations have accused it ofgenocide against the Massalit people of West Darfur.

Zaghawa communities in el-Fasher fear that if the Joint Forces are defeated, they will suffer savage reprisals at the hands of the RSF.

The pressure on el-Fasher is growing. Last week the RSF captured desert garrisons on the border with Libya held by the Joint Forces.

The military has accused forces loyal to Libyan strongman Gen Khalifa Haftar, who controls the east of the country and is also a reported beneficiary of Emirati support, of joining in the attack.

Sudan's civilians, who six years ago managed the extraordinary feat ofoverthrowing the country's long-time leader Omar al-Bashir through non-violent protests, are in disarray.

Different groupings are aligned with Burhan, with Hemedti, or trying to stake out a neutral position. They are all active on social media, polarised, acrimonious and fragmented.

The neighbourhood committees that were the driving force of the civic revolution are clinging to life.

Most have kept their political heads down, focusing instead on essential humanitarian activities. Known as "Emergency Response Rooms", aid workers recognise that they are the most efficient channel for life-saving assistance.

But many lost their fundingwhen the administration of US President Donald Trump closed down USAID, and other donors have not stepped into the breach.

The army and RSF both see any form of civic activism as a threat.

They are cracking down, arresting, torturing and killing national aid workers and human rights activists.

There is no credible peace process.

The UN's chief diplomat assigned to Sudan, former Algerian Prime Minister Ramtane Lamamra, formulated a peace plan that was premised on the assumption that the army would achieve a military victory.

All that would be left to negotiate would be the disarmament of the RSF and the reconstruction of the country. That is totally unrealistic.

Burhan has a big diplomatic advantage over Hemedti because the UN has recognised the military side as the government of Sudan, even when it did not control the national capital.

Hemedti's attempt to launch a parallel administration for the vast territories controlled by the RSF has gained little credibility.

Foreign ministers at a conference in London in April, hosted by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, failed to agree a path to peace. The conference chairs had to settle for a statement that covered familiar ground.

On this occasion, as before, progress was blocked because Saudi Arabia and the UAE could not agree.

Diplomats acknowledge that Sudan's war is an African problem that needs an Arab solution.

The road to peace in Khartoum runs through Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Cairo.

For Egypt, the big question is whether Burhan is able to distance himself from Sudan's Islamists.

Under Bashir, the Islamist movement was in power for 30 years, and established a formidable and well-funded organisation, that still exists.

The Islamists mobilised combat brigades that were key to the army's recent victory in Khartoum.

Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi supports Burhan and wants him to sideline the Islamists, but knows that he cannot push the Sudanese general too far.

This question takes on added salience with Israel's attack on Iran and the Islamists' fear that they are facing an irreversible defeat.

The other big question is whether the UAE will step back from supporting Hemedti.

After the RSF lost Khartoum, some hoped that Abu Dhabi might seek a compromise – but within weeks the RSF was deploying drones that appear to have come from the UAE.

The UAE is also facing strategic challenges, as it is an outlier in the Arab world in its alignment with Israel.

No-one wants to see Sudan divided. But the reality of the war points towards a de facto partition between bitterly opposed warring camps.

Meanwhile, the world's largest and deepest humanitarian emergency worsens with no end in sight.

More than half of Sudan's 45 million people are displaced. Nearly a million are in famine.

Both sides continue to restrict aid agencies' access to the starving. The UN's appeal for $4.2bn (£3bn) for essential aid was only 13.3% funded in late May.

Globally and among the Arab world's powerbrokers, Sudan is no-one's priority, an orphan in a region that is ablaze.

It is a country where the multilateral organisations – the United Nations and the African Union – could still be relevant.

They can remind all of their commitments to human rights and human life, and that it is in no-one's interest to see Sudan's catastrophe continue to unfold.

The long-suffering Sudanese people surely deserve that quantum of mercy.

Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.

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