MEXICO
Lightning strike kills seven
Four children were among seven people from the same family killed in a devastating lightning strike in rural Mexico on Friday, authorities said. Another child and a 26-year-old woman were also injured as the group worked in a field during a violent storm in the town of Mesa Cuata, in central Guanajuato State. The children were aged three, five, nine and 14, a Guanajuato civil protection official said. The other victims were three women aged 19, 32 and 44. The town where the tragedy took place is in the mountainous Sierra Gorda region.
UNITED STATES
Gun toddler’s mom jailed
A woman whose toddler was shown on videos putting a handgun in her mouth has been sentenced to 30 months’ probation. Twenty-three-year-old Toni Wilson was sentenced on Friday after pleading guilty to charges of neglect of a dependent and criminal recklessness in a court in Indiana. Police said two videos showing the girl handling a gun were found in January following the arrest of Wilson’s boyfriend, 20-year-old Michael Barnes, who was accused of trying to sell a firearm to an undercover police officer. Police said that in both videos Barnes can be heard repeatedly telling the girl to say “Pow,” while the child handles the gun and at one point places its muzzle in her mouth.
UNITED STATES
Jaywalking alligator dies
An alligator that was caught crossing a New York street during rush hour has died unexpectedly. A New York Animal Care and Control spokesman said the 0.91m alligator died on Friday. Police officers had discovered the creature crossing Ninth Avenue in Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood on Thursday evening. The spokesman said authorities have not yet determined the alligator’s cause of death. It is illegal to have exotic animals, including alligators, in New York.
UNITED STATES
Spy might be paroled
Convicted spy Jonathan Pollard could be released from federal prison within months. Pollard becomes eligible for parole in November, on the 30th anniversary of his arrest on charges of selling classified information to Israel. Officials said they are unlikely to oppose his parole. Attorney Eliot Lauer on Friday told reporters that he hoped his client would be released, but said he had received no commitment from the government. Supporters of Pollard, a former Navy intelligence analyst said that he was punished excessively and note that he spied for an ally. The government has previously dangled his release, including during Israel-Palestinian talks last year. His release now could be seen as a concession to Israel, which strongly opposed the just-concluded nuclear deal with Iran.
UNITED STATES
N Korea not hacked: official
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said President Barack Obama’s administration made a conscious decision not to use technology to retaliate against North Korea in response to last year’s breach, that damaged Sony computers and disclosed internal company e-mails. Clapper told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum that the administration decided to confine its response to economic sanctions. He said that was in part out of concerns about the repercussions of a punitive US cyberattack on North Korea. North Korea suffered Internet blackouts in December last year, shortly after the Sony hack, but US officials denied at the time that the US was responsible.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in