Rihanna Hardy had been excited about seeing Ariana Grande ever since she got her concert ticket as a Christmas gift. So when the day came, the 11-year-old left school a couple of hours early to make sure to get to Manchester Arena on time.

Her parents, Ryan and Shauna, took the afternoon off work, and the family drove the 225 kilometers (140 miles) from Newcastle to Manchester. They struggled to find the arena’s multistory parking lot, and barely managed to buy Rihanna a black Ariana Grande tour sweatshirt before the concert started.

But what was supposed to be a special night for Rihanna and thousands of other young concertgoers turned into a tragedy when a suicide bomb blasted off just outside the cavernous hall. It killed 22 people, including an 8-year-old girl, and injured 59 — the deadliest attack in Britain in more than a decade.

“Poor Rihanna … just kept asking every five or 10 seconds, ‘Are we going to die?’ Those were her exact words,” her father said.

The family took their seats, close to the stage, just before the first of two supporting acts warmed up the crowd. The arena, which seats 21,000, was packed. Many clutched pink balloons and donned cat ears, like those the 23-year-old Grande is famous for wearing.

As the former star of the Nickelodeon series “Victorious” sang and danced her way through her set, the arena heated up. Young children and their parents glistened with sweat.

Then, as the concert ended, the horror began.

Just a few minutes after Grande finished her final song, “Dangerous Woman,” blew a kiss to the audience and left the stage, the house lights came back on. People began filing toward the exits.

It was then that a suspect identified as 22-year-old Salman Abedi set off his suicide bomb in the foyer, near a road linking the venue to the city’s railway station. Witnesses described seeing bolts and other bits of metal at the scene of the blast.

The boom echoed through Manchester Arena, shaking the floor with a hollow thud. Thousands of Ariana Grande fans — many of them youngsters accompanied by their parents — fell silent for a few seconds, in shock. Then the screaming started.

“I thought we were going to die. It was just horrendous,” said Rihanna’s mother.

Panic descended on the hall.

“It was just sheer chaos,” said Kirstyn Pollard, who had a seat close to the stage. “People were trying to get off the balconies. It was awful.”

Melissa Andre and two friends clambered over a security barrier in their rush to get out. It was already dented from other concertgoers fleeing the arena, as officials tried frantically to restore order.

“A security official was on stage saying ‘Be calm, everything’s fine,’ ” said Andre, 20. “I think they were just saying that to calm people down before they got out. And then when we got out, the alarm went off.”

Police were called in at 10:33 p.m. As they arrived, a smell hung in the air — a bit like smoke, a bit like burning, nothing the Ryans had ever smelled before.

“I can’t describe it. It was a really awful smell,” Shauna Hardy said. “And there was just alarms going off, police everywhere. Sirens everywhere. People running, screaming. It was just crazy. Absolutely crazy.”

Ryan Hardy desperately tried to slow down his wife and daughter as they left the arena, worried they might fall in the crush of people fleeing the carnage. They emerged from the stifling heat of the concert hall into the cool night.

“Everyone else was running out the entrance while he was walking out the entrance,” Rihanna —  still wearing her Ariana Grande sweatshirt — said Tuesday, looking up proudly at her dad.

Police and paramedics rushed to aid the wounded, wrapping some in foil blankets to keep them warm and ward off shock. Others hobbled off into the night, their clothes torn and stained by blood.

Charlotte Fairclough, 14, was part of the rush to flee.

“Everyone was like scrambling over each other,” she said. “Quite a few people got knocked over. It was like just a race to get out.”

When Charlotte got out, she immediately called her mom, Stacy, who was waiting to pick up her daughter and a friend. The she called again to say she’d heard a big bang.

Her mother, at the time, wasn’t too worried.

“I’d heard fireworks earlier in the night, so I wasn’t too concerned to start with,” she said.

The full scale of the attack did not hit home until they turned on the news at a hotel.

The Hardy family escaped unscathed, but the shock of the night endured even as they tried to sleep it off. When a door slammed loudly at half past five in the morning, Rihanna got frightened.

“There are a lot of people killed, a lot of people injured, a lot of people missing,” Shauna Hardy said. “And we just feel so so lucky that we are all together.”
…

Ariana Grande returned to the United States on Tuesday, one day after a suicide bomber killed 22 people at the singer’s concert in Manchester, England, as questions lingered over whether she would continue her European tour.

Grande, 23, was seen in photographs posted by Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper walking down the steps of a private plane at an airport in her hometown of Boca Raton, Florida, and being met by family members.

The Daily Mail images showed the diminutive pop star dressed casually in sweats and appearing downcast as she greeted her boyfriend, the rapper Mac Miller, on the tarmac.

Grande had not been seen publicly since an explosion ripped through the packed Manchester Arena at the end of her performance there. Some of the 22 people who died in the attack were teens or young girls. Grande was apparently unharmed.

British police have identified the man suspected of carrying out the massacre as 22-year-old Salman Abedi, who was born in Manchester to parents of Libyan origin. Islamic State claimed responsibility for what it called revenge against “Crusaders,” but there appeared to be contradictions in its account of the operation.

In her only statement so far, Grande took to Twitter some five hours after the bombing to describe herself as “broken” in the aftermath of the attack.

“from the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don’t have words,” she said in the tweet.

Grande was performing in Manchester during the European leg of a tour to promote her third album, “Dangerous Woman,” which also has her scheduled to visit London, Belgium, Poland, Germany and Switzerland in the coming weeks.

Despite speculation that she would cancel the rest of the tour, no formal announcement had been made as of Tuesday. Grande’s manager, Scooter Braun, did not respond to requests for comment by Reuters.

“We mourn the lives of children and loved ones taken by this cowardly act,” Braun said in a statement posted on Twitter on Monday evening. “We ask all of you to hold the victims, heir families and all those affected in your hearts and prayers.”

Grande, a native of Boca Raton, starred in the Broadway musical “13” and on the Nickelodeon TV series “Victorious” before releasing her solo debut album, “Yours Truly.”

Best known for her singles “Problem” and “Break Free,” Grande is credited with having an exceptionally broad vocal range for a pop star.
…

The suspected suicide bomber who killed 22 people at a concert in Manchester, northern England, on Monday has been identified as 22-year-old Salman Abedi, British police said.

Abedi was born in Manchester in 1994 to parents of Libyan birth, U.S. security officials said, citing British intelligence officials. Prime Minister Theresa May confirmed Abedi was born and brought up in Britain.

His parents emigrated from Libya to London before moving to the Fallowfield area of south Manchester, where they have lived for at least 10 years, the U.S. officials said. Police raided a house in Elsmore Road in Fallowfield earlier on Tuesday.

A U.S. government source said investigators were looking into whether Abedi had traveled to Libya and whether he had been in touch with Islamic State militants there. The Times newspaper said Abedi was believed to have returned to Britain from Libya recently.

The University of Salford, based in Manchester, said in a statement that Abedi was one of its students and it was helping the police with their investigation.

Police arrest man

A 23-year-old man arrested by police in a separate move in south Manchester in connection with the attack on Tuesday was believed to be Abedi’s brother, news reports said.

Abedi had a sister named Jomana Abedi, the U.S. security officials said.

Abdalla Yousef, a spokesman for the Didsbury Mosque in Manchester, said Abedi’s father and brother had prayed there but Abedi had worshipped at another mosque.

“I have managed to track down somebody who knows the family. He confirmed his father and sister and the rest of the family had moved to Libya and had moved there straight after the revolution after Gadaffi was killed,” Yousef said.

He said it was possible the brothers had traveled between the two countries since then.

A trustee of the mosque, Fawzi Haffar, said Abedi’s father was currently in Libya and had been there for a while.
…

British police say at least 22 people were killed and 59 wounded in an explosion Monday night outside a concert venue in Manchester, England.

“We have been treating this as a terrorist incident and we believe at this stage the attack last night was conducted by one man,” Ian Hopkins, chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, said Tuesday.

Hopkins said investigators believe the attacker was carrying an improvised explosive device, which he detonated, and that he died at the site. 

Police are working with national counterterrorism and intelligence officials to figure out more details about the attacker with a priority on determining whether he was acting alone or as part of a network, Hopkins said.

The blast happened in the lobby of the 21,000 seat Manchester Arena at the end of a concert by American pop star Ariana Grande.

“Broken.  From the bottom of my heart, I am so, so sorry,” Grande wrote on Twitter after the blast.  “I don’t have words.”

“This was a barbaric attack, deliberately targeting some of the most vulnerable in our society, young people, children, out at a pop concert,” said British Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said her thoughts are with the victims of what she called an “appalling terrorist attack.”  May and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, agreed to suspend campaigning ahead of the country’s June 8 elections.

After the attack, Manchester police deployed hundreds of officers overnight and at one point conducted a precautionary controlled explosion near the arena of an object they later said turned out to not be anything suspicious.

Video from the concert showed thousands of concertgoers, many of them young girls, scrambling and screaming, trying to escape the building.

Some witnesses said the ground near the blast was covered with nuts and bolts.

Abandoned shoes, phones and jackets were scattered throughout the arena.

“It was a huge explosion. You could feel it in your chest. It was chaotic. Everybody was running and screaming just trying to get out,” a concertgoer told Reuters.

Worried parents who had brought their children to the show crowded the streets outside the building. A nearby hotel opened its doors to the kids looking for their mothers and fathers.

Cab drivers turned off their meters and offered to drive people from the ill-fated concert to wherever they want to go.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was monitoring the situation in Manchester, and that it did not have any information showing a “specific credible threat” to music venues in the U.S.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump stops at the Vatican Wednesday for a meeting with Pope Francis. It is the last of Trump’s visits to the seats of the world’s three Abrahamic religions. The first two – Saudi Arabia and Israel – were filled with symbolism, ceremony and history. But as VOA White House correspondent Peter Heinlein reports, this one will be shorter, less formal, and possibly more awkward.
…

Bombing at Manchester Concert
…

When U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife Melania arrive Wednesday at the Vatican for a planned 20-minute audience with Pope Francis and Roman Catholic Church leaders they will be received with far less pomp than in Saudi Arabia.

Their arrival at the Vatican will be via what’s in effect a side-entrance to the Holy See, Porta del Perugino, a consequence of the pope’s request the faithful not be disturbed in St. Peter’s Square on the eve of Ascension Day. The pope is scheduled to hold his regular general audience in the square shortly after meeting Trump.

The understated arrival, though, is reflective of an eagerness by both the White House and the Vatican to lower expectations. American and Vatican officials have been nervous in the run-up to the meeting.

Tense exchanges

The two men have never met, but they have traded pointed exchanges. Last year, in February, Trump accused Francis of allowing himself to be used as a political pawn by the Mexican government on the issue of migration. The pontiff responded by questioning then-candidate Trump’s Christian faith, saying his plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico had no basis in the Gospel. “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges is not Christian,” the pontiff told reporters while flying to Mexico.

That drew a harsh retort from Trump, who replied to Francis’ comments with a three paragraph statement in which he warned the Vatican could be attacked by Islamic State terrorists and then church leaders would be grateful if he were in the White House. “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful,” Trump said.

Since then the pair have not argued directly, but the pope, the spiritual leader of America’s 50 million Catholics, has clearly been at odds with Trump on a range of issues, including climate change, asylum-seekers and nuclear arms.

Bridging the divide

Earlier this month, though, Francis was more conciliatory, saying the upcoming Trump visit offered an opportunity to listen to each other. “I never make a judgment about a person without listening to them,” the pontiff said. He followed up by saying, “I will say what I think; he will say what he thinks.”

In recent weeks there have been intense discussions about the agenda for the meeting, and, a Vatican official told VOA, they aimed to avoid “mishap” and to stage a partial reconciliation between the pope and the president. For the White House, a good visit at the Vatican will help further the goal of presenting Trump as a figure eager to unite three religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, in the fight against Islamic militants.

Papal aides told Corriere della Sera newspaper Sunday, “the meeting will be fine.” Although the paper commented that it wasn’t sure if this were a prediction, a wish or a prayer. An official told the newspaper that Melania Trump’s attendance was being seen by some papal aides as useful, as it would likely help to prevent the encounter from becoming too hard-edged.

But for all their differences, the pope, who is highly political, is guided by a deep wish to forge unity and to build consensus and he sees disagreement as a useful dynamic, argue some Vatican-watchers. In Argentina, as a cardinal he strove to nurture relationships with diametrically opposed politicians and to build trust with them and between them, acting as a pastor.

American Catholics

Francis will also likely be mindful that six in 10 white American Catholics backed Trump in the November elections. There is already considerable tension between the Vatican and American Catholics, especially over the church’s handling of child abuse by parish priests.

While some U.S. and Italian reporters are anticipating the meeting between the pair as a possible prize-fight between ideological pugilists, some who know the pontiff say he will search for common ground and may focus on the downsides of globalization to the need to combat human trafficking.

Austen Ivereigh, who has written a book on the pontiff, argued Sunday in Crux, a U.S.-based independent Catholic media outlet, “Pope Francis wants to be in a relationship with world leaders, whomever they are, and whatever their views, so that when the opportunity to work together arises, the bond is there.”
…

Thousands of Moscow residents protested this month against plans to move more than a million people if their apartments, built during the 1950’s era of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, are torn down. 

Russian authorities say some 8,000 short-story buildings are in disrepair, and promise to find or build the residents better apartments.  While some living in crumbling buildings celebrate, many Muscovites are skeptical and suspect corruption.

Families like Elmira Shagiakhmetova’s have lived in their home for generations.  They are shocked that it may be demolished.  

“I’ll be here until the bulldozers start,” says Elmira.  “I am not going to leave as by the (Russian) Constitution I have the right to stay in my property. This building is not falling apart.”

Family home

For Elmira and her mother, Galina, their modest but recently-refurbished two bedroom apartment is a home full of memories.  “We moved here in ’79 and it’s the place where my children were born, lived and their conscious experience started,” says Galina.  “It’s my history and my memory.”

Galina moved out some years ago and her husband passed away.  But the apartment is still their family home.

“When my father was still alive we celebrated his 50th birthday,” says Elmira describing the scene as she sits in the same living room.  “So many people came to congratulate him that we couldn’t find seats for them all in one room.  So the tables continued into the corridor.  And I remember this because then I understood how important it was to have a home that would hold all your friends together.”

Public uproar

After a public uproar, Moscow guaranteed the residents better apartments in the same areas or ‘appropriate’ financial compensation.  City authorities removed about half the buildings from a demolition list, including Elmira’s, and say they now will be razed only if more than two-thirds of residents agree.  Those living in Elmira’s building are to take a vote at the end of May.

But, like many Muscovites resisting the plan, Galina and Elmira suspect corruption as their building was not even inspected before its supposed need for demolition was announced.  “You know, a special commission should work and declare the building dangerous to live in,” says Galina.  “We have not seen such a commission ever here. So by many indications we may judge that it is not the people who are most important, but the location.”

Elmira agrees.  “The draft (law) that’s debated now is not about improvement of the living conditions, it’s about overriding the rights of property owners,” she says.  “It allows the authorities to get the land on which the houses stand free and to strip off the owners of their right to own and defend their property.”

No comment

The Moscow mayor’s office did not respond to VOA’s request for a TV interview with a spokesperson on the issue or written replies to submitted questions. 

Russian media reports quoted Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin saying he was prepared to take unpopular moves if he felt it was best for the city and people. 

Russia’s parliament is still drafting the final legislation for the Moscow renovation plan.  Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the law should not violate property rights or he would not sign it.

For families like Elmira’s, the controversy has moved them – for the first time – to protest against the state.  If authorities fail to satisfy Russians in the capital, they risk growing opposition at the polls in next year’s key presidential and mayoral elections. 

Ricardo Marquina Montanana contributed to this report.
…

Resistance is building in Moscow over buildings — Soviet-era apartment buildings, scheduled to be demolished because authorities say they are in disrepair. They promise the million-plus people displaced will be relocated to new, modern apartments. But many Muscovites are skeptical, spawning protests and feeding suspicions of corruption. More from VOA’s Moscow correspondent Daniel; Schearf.
…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has formally extended the state of emergency declared after a failed 2016 military coup, saying the decree will remain in place until the country finds “welfare and peace.”

Erdogan spoke Sunday in Ankara to tens of thousands of his followers and members of his ruling (AK) Justice and Development Party, which convened to re-elect their party co-founder to the post.

The state of emergency permits Erdogan and his Cabinet to issue decrees without parliamentary approval or judicial review.  

Erdogan’s announcement and his return as party chief came four weeks after Turkish voters narrowly approved a national referendum greatly expanding presidential powers.

The April 18 vote created a powerful executive presidency that largely sidelines Turkish lawmakers and the office of prime minister.  Under the constitutional amendments, Erdogan will also set the national budget and appoint judges to the high court and the constitutional court.

Critics, including prominent human rights organizations, have argued the reforms are tantamount to creating an elected dictatorship.  Erdogan and his supporters claim they will create a less cumbersome system of government better able to confront terrorism and a sluggish economy.

Tens of thousands jailed in crackdown

Under emergency rule, more than 47,000 people have been arrested and 100,000 others dismissed from public service for alleged connections to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Erdogan has accused the cleric of fomenting the July 15, 2016, uprising that left more than 260 people dead.  Gulen has denied involvement.

Erdogan’s address comes just days after his visit to the White House, where he sought to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to scrap a U.S.-led military alliance with Syrian Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State extremists in northern Syria.

Erdogan’s efforts appeared unsuccessful.  The Turkish leader also drew sharp U.S. public criticism when, hours after the White House visit, he was shown outside the Turkish embassy in Washington standing by as his bodyguards assaulted protesters opposed to his rule.
…

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the U.S. has expressed its “dismay” to Turkish officials about last week’s clash in which Turkish security personnel apparently attacked demonstrators in Washington.

Tillerson told Fox News Sunday that Turkey’s ambassador to the U.S. has been told that last Tuesday’s violence was “simply unacceptable.”

“There is an ongoing investigation,” he said, adding that he will wait on the outcome of that probe before deciding on a more formal response.

The clash broke out between Turkish security personnel and protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington.

Protesters say they were attacked by Turkish security forces as they demonstrated peacefully. Turkey blamed the clash on the demonstrators, claiming they aggressively provoked people who had gathered to see Erdogan.

VOA’s Turkish service recorded images at the scene that indicated the Turkish security detail suddenly turned on the demonstrators, knocking them to the ground and kicking them until American police pushed the Turks away. The video showed Erdogan standing beside his limousine, watching the brawl.

U.S. officials briefly detained two members of Erdogan’s security detail, but they were soon released, under customary diplomatic protocols granting immunity to aides accompanying a visiting dignitary.

Some U.S. lawmakers have demanded the United States take stronger action, including Republican Senator John McCain, who called for the Turkish ambassador to be expelled.

 
…

Germany’s Social Democrats raised pressure on conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday, saying if she could not resolve a row with Turkey over access to the Incirlik air base, German troops should move.

Merkel’s defense minister, tacitly admitting the possibility said she had been looking for other locations and hinted that Jordan could be one.

Turkey, which has refused permission for German lawmakers to visit their troops at Incirlik, has said Berlin is free to move its soldiers from the base. That would, however, be a significant snub to a NATO ally.

Already strained bilateral ties have deteriorated further over Incirlik where roughly 250 German soldiers are stationed as part of the coalition against Islamic State militants.

“If Mrs Merkel doesn’t succeed at the NATO summit on Thursday to get Turkey to change course, we need alternative bases,” Thomas Oppermann, head of the SPD parliamentary group told Bild am Sonntag.

The SPD, or Social Democrats, trail Merkel’s conservatives in polls four months before the national election. It is desperate to score points with voters on issues other than social justice, its main focus in the last couple of months which has so far failed to resonate.

Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen is looking at alternatives, including Jordan and Cyprus, and said on Saturday she had been impressed with a possible base in Jordan but stressed the government had not yet made a decision.

Merkel is vulnerable on relations with Turkey as critics accuse her of cosying up to President Tayyip Erdogan, who last month won sweeping new powers in a referendum, as she needs his help to control the flow of migrants to western Europe.

The SPD, junior partner in Merkel’s right-left coalition, also tried at the weekend to raise its profile on European issues.

Leader Martin Schulz, a former president of the European Parliament, has tried to ally himself with new pro-EU French President Emmanuel Macron and on Saturday said he would model his campaign on the Frenchman’s.

On Sunday he told a rally in Bavaria it was time for a “new German-French initiative for a socially fair Europe of growth.”

A week after a disastrous election defeat in Germany’s most populous state, an Emnid poll showed the gap widening between Merkel’s conservatives, up 1 percentage point at 38 percent, and the SPD, down 1 point at 26 percent.
…