Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Friends and families of the roughly 60 people, including many children, hit by an SUV that sped through a Christmas parade in a suburban Milwaukee downtown say many suffered life-threatening injuries.
One of them, 8-year-old Jackson Sparks, died on Tuesday, his parents announced on his GoFundMe page. His brother, 12-year-old Tucker Sparks, was going to be discharged from the hospital.
The boys -- among three sets of siblings hospitalized after being struck by the SUV -- were marching with their baseball team when they were hit.
Tucker has head injuries but is recovering and will be sent home, according to Alyssa Albro, the niece of the boys' parents, Aaron and Sheri Sparks. Jackson had suffered a more serious brain injury.
"The entire family is devastated," Albro wrote.
A young girl who is a member of a dance troupe struck by the SUV, a moment captured on cellphone video, woke up Monday and told doctors, "just glue me back together," according to her GoFundMe fundraising page organized by a family friend.
"No child or parent should have to endure this amount pain and suffering," the girl's mother, Amber Konhke, posted Tuesday afternoon.
The fundraising pleas detail the extent of some of the injuries from the incident that has left six people dead so far and more than 60 hurt. The suspect, Darrell Brooks Jr., was charged with five counts of first-degree intentional homicide. A sixth count for the death of Jackson Sparks, which happened after the complaint was drawn up, will be added, according to Waukesha County District Attorney Susan Opper.
Konhke's daughter Jessalyn is shown smiling directly at the camera on one GoFundMe page, wearing a white Santa hat and holding matching pompoms. She is standing alongside other girls on the Waukesha Xtreme Dance team in a picture taken moments before she was struck.
Jessalyn is "fighting for her life," according to the fundraising account established by family friend Oscar Luna. She lost a kidney, broke her pelvis and has damage to her liver and lungs, Luna said.
"This holiday season will be a brutal one for them," he said of their family.
In an update posted Tuesday morning, Luna wrote that she had woken up briefly Monday.
"She is not fully aware of the severity of her injuries but managed to say, `just glue me back together,"' he wrote. "Only a child could reference themselves as a little doll in this situation."
Julia, who was also marching with her dance team and whose last name also isn't given, "is in the fight for her life," suffering from brain trauma after being hit, her fundraising page established by family friend Jen McCarthy says.
"Everyone that knows this little girl knows what joy she brings to the world," the post says. "She has a heart of gold, a smile that can light up the room and is loved by so many."
Aidan Laughrin, a senior at Waukesha South High School, was hit while performing with the marching band, suffering fractured ribs, according to an online fundraiser.
The family is "tough but the road ahead is going to be tough too, both physically and emotionally," the organizer posted.
Another band member, saxophonist Tyler Pudleiner, also was struck and has undergone two surgeries since Sunday. "He has a long road to recovery," wrote Joane Chmiel, one of two people raising money to help Pudleiner.
Tamara Rosentreter was doing what she loved, entertaining the crowd as part of the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies, when she was struck by the SUV that took the lives of three of her fellow dancers.
The mother of four and grandmother of one was the leader of the troupe, according to an online fundraiser seeking help for Rosentreter's recovery. The organizer posted a message from Rosentreter, who said "I'm still here. Lots of pain, stitches, broken bones and lots of bumps and bruises. Love you ALL."
She described how a woman prayed for her at the scene "to help give me peace and comfort" and how another kept her warm with a blanket.
"This tragedy is so hard to wrap my head around," she said, saying her "heart aches" for the victims and their families, those who witnessed the devastation and "for my teammates and their families who are my family."
Lucero Isabel Perales says several family members were a part of the parade and were struck by the SUV. That includes a cousin with skull fractures who is in a coma, an uncle who underwent six hours of surgery for a broken leg and another cousin with bruises all over her body.
"This is a very hard time for all of us, it was something so unexpected," Isabel Perales wrote.
Nearly $900,000 had been raised by Tuesday evening for the 22 GoFundMe-verified pages for parade victims. Another community fund for victims had raised more than $600,000 by Tuesday morning, said Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly. The Waukesha County Community Foundation said that fund had grown to more than $916,000 by Tuesday afternoon.
"There's so much outpouring of support," Reilly said. "It warms your heart to know that people are saying, `We support your community, we feel for you."'
------
Associated Press writer Carrie Antlfinger contributed to this report from Milwaukee. Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan.
This story has corrected the spelling of Rosentreter on second references.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.