VENEZUELA
Animal sacrifice debated
The country’s highest court is to decide whether to annul a ban on animal sacrifice, after admitting a petition by a member of a small religious group saying his constitutional and civil rights were violated. The case opens up questions of religious freedom, but also comes amid an economic and social crisis in which staple foods and medicines are running short. The petition was filed by a lawyer who said that local ordinances violate the country’s constitution. It was accepted by the country’s highest court two weeks ago, according to documents on its Web site. The lawyer, Giogerling Mendez, is a self-described adherent of the Santeria religion, which has roots in West African traditions and beliefs brought to Latin America by slaves. It is practiced by about one in 100 people in the country, according to a 2011 survey.
UNITED STATES
Mother suspected of murder
A Phoenix mother is suspected of stabbing her three young sons to death and stuffing their partially dismembered bodies in a closet before trying to kill herself at their home, police said on Thursday. Neighbors had often seen the older boys riding their bikes outside the townhome along a winding one-way street in central Phoenix. Now the 29-year-old mother is in the hospital in critical condition with self-inflicted stab wounds and her sons Jaikare Rahaman, eight, Jeremiah Adams, five, and Avery Robinson, two months old, are dead, Phoenix Police Sergeant Trent Crump said. Phoenix police will not release the name of the suspect until she is charged, Crump said on Thursday afternoon. Police said the suspect’s brother came home from work on Wednesday night to find his sister in the garage. She talked about God and said she had found the answer to life. The pair conversed, and then the woman went inside and barricaded herself in a room. The woman emerged some time later covered in blood with stab wounds across her abdomen and neck, Crump said.
GERMANY
Man’s ‘titles’ rescinded
A German man who added nobility titles to his name after obtaining dual citizenship in Britain will have to settle with being plain-old Nabiel Peter Bogendorff von Wolffersdorff in his native land following a ruling from the European Court of Justice. The Luxembourg-based court on Thursday said that EU member states are not always obliged to recognize name changes of a citizen who has dual citizenship with another in the bloc that contain “tokens of nobility” not accepted by that state. Germany abolished titles of nobility in 1919, but the man added both “Graf” and “Freiherr” — Count and Baron — to his last name when living in Britain more than a decade ago, becoming Peter Mark Emanuel Graf von Wolffersdorff Freiherr von Bogendorff. Upon return home, German authorities rejected the change.
UNITED STATES
Crash kills five soldiers
An army truck overturned in a swollen Fort Hood creek on Thursday, killing five soldiers and leaving four missing as storms dumped more rain on flood-hit parts of Texas. The rising floodwaters in Texas scrambled transportation, further swelled rivers already over their banks and sent more people to evacuation shelters. The army said the truck overturned at Fort Hood’s Owl Creek low-water crossing during a training exercise. Three bodies were recovered downstream, the army said. It is unclear where the bodies of the additional two soldiers were found.
‘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
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