■ Mexico
Fourteen killed in bus crash
Fourteen people were killed on Tuesday when a passenger bus crashed into the back of a tractor trailer in the western state of Nayarit, officials said. The bus was heading from the state capital of Tepic to Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city, when it smashed into the trailer and exploded into flames, said Nayarit fire chief Jose Lopez. Tepic is 625km northwest of Mexico City. Four people suffered minor injuries. Lopez said an investigation would be launched to determine the cause of the crash but it appeared likely that the bus was speeding. The area is often foggy, he added.
■ United States
Dinosaur stolen
New York police are on the lookout for a missing dinosaur, last seen at the weekend in an affluent Long Island suburb. The life-size fiberglass replica of a carnivorous Deinonychus went missing on Saturday from a local festival, the New York Post reported on Tuesday. "It's a very unusual theft, and because of that, we're hoping the public will spot it somewhere," police detective Lieutenant John May said. The report said that someone had sawn through a metal pole attaching the 3m-long model to a trailer. "You'd definitely notice it, if someone rode by with it," said Cindy Smith, spokeswoman for the Oyster Bay Festival.
■ United States
Drunk driver guilty of murder
A New York man who drove the wrong way down a highway following a night of heavy drinking, slamming head-on into a wedding limousine and killing the chauffeur and a seven-year-old flower girl, was convicted on Tuesday of two counts of murder. Martin Heidgen, 25, was charged with murder -- a rarity in driving-while-intoxicated fatal crashes -- after prosecutors said he showed a "depraved indifference to human life" by ignoring drivers on the Long Island highway who flashed their headlights and honked their horns as he drove into traffic. The slain girl's parents and several jurors cried when the verdict was read out.
■ United States
Study details medicine harm
Harmful reactions to some of the most widely used medicines -- from insulin to a common antibiotic -- sent more than 700,000 US citizens to emergency rooms each year, landmark government research shows. Accidental overdoses and allergic reactions to prescription drugs were the most frequent cause of serious illnesses, according to the study, the first to reveal the nationwide scope of the problem. People over 65 faced the greatest risks. The study was developed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, and published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
■ Turkey
Erdogan leaves hospital
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was discharged from hospital on Tuesday several hours after he was admitted after fainting due to exhaustion and fasting. A smiling but tired Erdogan emerged from the private Guven hospital in the company of his wife Emine and was greeted by children throwing petals on his path and presenting him with flowers, live footage on the NTV news channel showed. "Thank you very much and I wish you a good night. I will continue onwards," Erdogan said, waving and posing for photographers before leaving in his official car. Erdogan, 52, fainted around 11am as he was being driven to parliament.
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