■UNITED STATES
Ivana Trump taken off plane
Police in Florida say Ivana Trump has been escorted off a plane at Palm Beach International Airport after she became belligerent when children were running and screaming in the aisles. Authorities say the former wife of billionaire Donald Trump cussed at the children on Saturday, and when flight attendants on the New York-bound plane tried to calm her, she became even more aggravated. Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies asked Trump to voluntarily exit the plane, but they said she refused. She was then escorted off. She has not been charged.
■MEXICO
Six bodies found
Prosecutors in Chihuahua say they found the bullet-riddled bodies of six members of the same family late on Friday in a mountainous area. No motive was given for the killing, but drug trafficking, illegal logging and drug cultivation are all common in the northern region. State prosecutors’ spokesman Eduardo Esparza says the victims were men between the ages of 45 and 55, and all from the same family.
■UNITED STATES
Kidnap suspect identified
Phoenix police have identified a suspect accused of kidnapping and molesting a five-year-old girl before a patrol officer spotted his car and helped rescue the child. Forty-five-year-old Larry Jon Ladwig was booked into jail early on Saturday on charges of kidnapping, sexual molestation of a child, aggravated assault of a police officer and felony flight. The girl was rescued on Friday evening, more than seven hours after police believe she was kidnapped while playing outside a Phoenix apartment building with her two sisters. Police say the girl is doing well.
■MEXICO
Women’s rights activist dies
Esther Chavez, a women’s rights activist who first drew attention to the brutal slayings of women in Ciudad Juarez, has died, her nephew said on Saturday. She was 73. Hector Chavez Arbizu said his aunt died of cancer on Friday and will be buried in Ciudad Juarez, where more than 100 women were strangled and their bodies dumped in the desert or vacant lots in a string of killings that began in the 1990s. Chavez founded Casa Amiga, a shelter for female victims of violence in the city. She worked tirelessly to denounce the decade-long string of killings and to demand that the deaths be properly investigated. Most of the victims were young factory workers. Authorities initially downplayed the problem, and many of the crimes remain unresolved. To the end of her life, Chavez remained highly critical of police efforts and said the total death toll from the wave of violence against women in the city was in the hundreds. “The death of activist Esther Chavez represents a loss for the fight for human rights and the rule of law in this country,” La Jornada wrote in an editorial on Saturday. “She made the problems in Chihuahua visible on the international stage.” Chavez won the nation’s National Human Rights Award last year.
■UNITED STATES
Money seizures up at border
Seizures of money bound mostly for Mexico’s violent drug cartels more than quadrupled this year on the Arizona border, and government officials are crediting beefed-up screening at checkpoints. Inspectors intercepted US$1.1 million heading into Mexico last year. This year, they netted US$4.9 million. Brian Levin, a Customs and Border Protection spokesman, said the seizures reflect a new clampdown.
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