CANADA
Crossbow attack probed
Detectives investigating a triple homicide in which two men died of crossbow bolt and arrow injuries and one woman was strangled are trying to determine what motivated the attack at a Toronto home. Brett Ryan, 35, has been charged in the killings. Police on Monday asked to speak with anyone who had contact with Ryan in the hours before the incident on Thursday last week. The identities of the victims and their relationship to the accused, who was due to be married soon, cannot be reported due to a court publication ban. Detective Sergeant Mike Carbone said autopsies showed that the woman died from ligature strangulation, one man died from a crossbow bolt stab wound to the neck and a man found in the driveway died from a single arrowhead stab wound to the neck.
UNITED STATES
Asylum teen talks
The Honduran teenager who spent about seven months in federal custody under threat of deportation said it is difficult to explain what he went through while he was kept away from family and friends in North Carolina. Nineteen-year-old Wildin Acosta said the beds at the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia were narrow and small and detainees could watch, but not listen to, television. However, he did make friends and said he learned a lot from his experience. Acosta gave one of his first interviews on Monday since his release on Aug. 13. The teen fled his country in 2014 to escape a gang member who he says threatened to kill him. He is awaiting a ruling on his request for asylum.
UNITED STATES
Turbine divides neighbors
Even as Rhode Island makes history as the first US state with an offshore wind farm, its people are not so fond of wind turbines sprouting up on land near where they live. Town leaders in North Smithfield are proposing a ban on any new wind turbines in the rural community near the Massachusetts border. However, it might be too late to stop a 125m high turbine that Ruth Pacheco has a permit to build on her 21 hectare farm property. The 86-year-old proprietor of the Hi-on-a-Hill Herb Farm says a 25-year-old lease agreement with a wind energy developer will help her preserve the land she has tended all her life.
UNITED STATES
Suspect claims royalty
A man jailed in Las Vegas ahead of three court appearances this week on charges that could put him in prison for up to 14 years said that he holds a British royal title, police said on Monday. Alexander Montagu-Manchester identified himself to detectives as the 13th Duke of Manchester, Las Vegas Police Department spokeswoman Officer Laura Meltzer said. The royal title dates back 950 years in Britain, to the time of William the Conqueror. Montagu-Manchester, 53, was to face a judge yesterday on a burglary charge stemming from a break-in at a home last month. Police said he was found shirtless about 2:30am in a neighboring home shortly after the burglary was reported, and said he lived there. Montagu-Manchester is also scheduled in court today in a separate felony false police report case that led to his arrest on Aug. 12. He has been jailed since then. He is to face another judge tomorrow in a misdemeanor driving under the influence of drugs case from last year. Prosecutor Eric Bauman said he is accused of having high levels of the muscle-relaxant benzodiazepine in his system at the time.
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