FRANCE
Arson suspect faces judge
A 36-year-old man suspected of starting a deadly Paris fire in which eight people, including two children, were killed was brought before an investigating judge in the city on Saturday. Four others were hurt in the blaze on Wednesday, with terrified residents forced to jumped out of upper-floor windows of the five-story block in the 18th district of the capital as flames engulfed the building. Judicial sources said that the suspect — who was arrested near the scene — was carrying a lighter and a candle when he was first stopped by police, while security camera footage showed him passing close to the building before the fires broke out. Firemen were initially called to deal with a small fire at the building in the Goutte d’Or area of the city before the fatal blaze broke out two hours later. Six of the victims died of smoke inhalation, including two children aged eight and 14, a 44-year-old woman and a man of 63, all apparently from the same family, officials said. Hundreds of people gathered on Friday near the building to mourn those killed.
UNITED STATES
Dog found after 42 days
Yellowstone National Park is known for its wildlife, including bears and wolves, but for six weeks, one animal that roamed the park did not belong. An Australian dog named Jade was found in the Canyon area on Friday, 42 days after she went missing. “She’s skin and bones, but otherwise she seems perfectly fine,” the dog’s owner David Sowers of Denver said. Sowers said Jade ran off on July 23 after an auto wreck while he and his girlfriend, Laura Gillice, were driving through the park. “When they tried to get her out of the car she bolted and she ran into the woods,” Sowers said. “She disappeared for, like, 15 days, and I thought she was gone.” Over the past several weeks, signs were posted and an Internet campaign started asking park visitors to keep an eye out for the dog. Traps with dog food were even set. Reports of Jade being seen roaming the park started coming in. Sowers and his girlfriend, who were both injured in the wreck, had returned to Yellowstone several times to look for the dog before finding her on Friday. “I haven’t been following doctors’ orders very well,” said Sowers, who suffered injuries to his ribs, arm and leg in the accident. “They told me not to be doing this, but I wanted to find my dog.” On Friday morning, Gillice was with their other dog when she saw something black and white across a meadow. In less than a minute “she started running toward me,” Gillice said. Sowers said other than a small cut on her lip and losing weight, Jade is OK.
TURKEY
Journalist reports detention
A Dutch journalist said she has been detained by police while covering clashes in a town in the nation’s mainly Kurdish southeast region. Frederike Geerdink said on Twitter yesterday that she was detained in the town of Yusekova and would be questioned by a prosecutor. It was the second time that the freelance journalist, who reports mainly on Kurdish issues, has been taken into custody in Turkey. She was briefly detained in January and in April was acquitted of charges of engaging in propaganda on behalf of the Kurdish rebels. This week, a Turkish court released from jail two British Vice News journalists who were arrested on terror-related charges while reporting from Diyarbakir, the main city in the nation’s mainly Kurdish region. Their Turkey-based assistant remains jailed.
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
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
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