■ COLOMBIA
Owner nabs sleepy thief
A thief surprised by a home owner’s return hid inside a closet and fell fast asleep until he was discovered and arrested on Sunday, police in the port city of Barranquilla said. The 24-year-old man bored his way through a wall to get inside the house in the predawn hours on Sunday, and Police Chief Oscar Gamboa surmised the physical effort and the late hour likely contributed to the thief’s exhaustion. “It looks like he was overwhelmed by sleep,” Gamboa said, adding that when the owner of the house discovered the robbery and checked the house to see what was missing, he found the burglar sleeping with his loot in a closet. The owner had to protect the thief from a neighborhood lynching party while waiting for the police to show, Gamboa said.
■MEXICO
Forecasters eyeing storms
Tropical Storm Boris strengthened unexpectedly to just below hurricane strength on Sunday but remained far from land over the eastern Pacific, forecasters said. The US National Hurricane Center said Boris’ wind speeds had increased to 110kph but it was expected to weaken yesterday. Boris was located 1,225km southwest of the tip of Baja California and was not expected to threaten land, forecasters said. A second tropical storm, Cristina, as about 2,165kms off shore and was not expected to threaten land either.
■MEXICO
Truck crash kills 14
At least 14 people were killed and 28 injured on Sunday when a truck slammed into two passenger buses stopped for repairs on the Pan-American Highway in Chihuahua, police said. “One of the buses stopped due to a mechanical failure and was partially off the road. Another bus stopped behind it. Apparently neither vehicle used warning lights, and a tractor trailer slammed into them,” Chihuahua Federal Police officer Andres Valle said. One bus burst into flames in the crash and 14 people perished in the fire, he said. Officials said the death toll could rise as several of the injured were in critical condition. All the crash victims were aboard the bus that had stopped to help the first bus change a tire. The passengers of the bus with the bad tire had gotten off the vehicle and were unharmed in the accident. The tractor trailer slammed into the occupied bus in such a way that its doors were closed stuck, trapping the people inside when the fire broke out, Valle said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Southern territory rocked
A strong 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck near the South Sandwich Islands, a remote British territory near Antarctica and South America’s southern tip, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said yesterday. The quake, which was 10km deep, took place 283km southeast of Bristol Island and 2,374km southeast of Punta Arenas, Chile, the USGS said. “There is a small possibility of a local or regional tsunami that could affect coasts located usually no more than a few hundred kilometers from the earthquake epicenter,” the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission said in a statement.
■HONDURAS
Navy seizes cocaine cargo
A ship believed bound for the US was stopped off the coast on Saturday and found to be carrying 4.17 tonnes of cocaine, media reports said on Sunday. Six people on board were arrested, the reports said, citing the Honduran navy.
RSS