VENEZUELA
Officials foil prison break
Authorities say they foiled plans for a prison break when they discovered a tunnel that inmates had dug leading to a sewer. Prisons official Iris Varela says inmates at La Planta prison in Caracas had dug the tunnel leading to a sewer pipe that emerges alongside a river. Varela said authorities had been investigating the possibility of an escape attempt for three days, and that on Friday firefighters spotted the tunnel while carrying out an inspection. She said that after the tunnel was discovered, officials installed bars in the sewers.
UNITED STATES
Suspect found dead
Law enforcement blew the roof off a mountain hideout in Washington on Saturday and inside found the body of a man suspected of killing his wife and teenage daughter, officials said. Peter Keller, who had been missing since April 22 when the bullet-ridden bodies of Lynnettee Rocha Keller, 41, and their 19-year-old daughter, Kaylene Keller, were discovered at the family home, apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. “They believe the person has been dead for some time. There’s a great deal of blood and a pistol nearby,” King County Sheriff Steven Strachan said of the scene in the Cascade foothills 40km east of Seattle.
UNITED STATES
Beer tent storm kills one
High winds swept through a beer tent where 200 people gathered after a St Louis Cardinals baseball game on Saturday, killing one and seriously injuring five others. However, the owner of the St Louis bar that hosted the crowd said it was lightning, not wind, that killed the patron. Seventeen were hospitalized and up to 100 people were treated at the scene after straight-line winds whipped through a large tent outside Kilroy’s Sports Bar, near Busch Stadium. The crowd was celebrating after the Cardinals had beaten Milwaukee 7-3, a game that ended about 80 minutes earlier. Eddie Roth, director of the St Louis Department of Public Safety, said winds of about 80kph shattered aluminum poles that held up the tent, located south of the stadium.
MEXICO
Journalist found dead
Authorities in Veracruz State say the body of a journalist with the national news magazine Proceso has been found dead inside her home. The Veracruz Attorney General’s Office has released a statement saying Regina Martinez’s body was found in the bathroom of her house in Xalapa, Veracruz, and that authorities believe she was murdered. The statement said that the journalist’s body showed signs of “blows to the head and body” and initial evidence suggested she died of asphyxiation.
UNITED STATES
Bear sent to mountains
A 90kg black bear that wandered onto the University of Colorado campus and caused a stir before falling 4.5m from a tree has been returned to the wild, officials said on Friday. State wildlife official Jennifer Churchill said that the male bear was tagged and taken to a remote Rocky Mountain area of ponderosa pines, with plenty of oak brush and chokeberry — food fit for a bear — west of Boulder. The bear has become a celebrity since it wandered around a university residence hall in Boulder and climbed a tree on Thursday. Wildlife officers eventually tranquilized it, and the bear dropped from its perch onto pads placed on the ground.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was