UNITED STATES
Man pleads guilty to IS plot
A man charged with plotting to help the Islamic State (IS) group pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy charges, including a plot to behead conservative blogger Pamela Geller. Nicholas Rovinski, of Warwick, Rhode Island, admitted he conspired with two Massachusetts men to kill Geller and attempted to recruit others to carry out additional violent attacks in the US. The plots were never carried out. A plea agreement between Rovinski, 25, and federal prosecutors calls for a sentence of between 15 and 22 years. Judge William Young set sentencing for March next year. Rovinski, who has cerebral palsy and walks with a limp, answered softly when asked by the judge why he decided to plead guilty instead of going to trial. “I feel that in the interest of myself and the people of the United States I should pay for the crimes that I have committed,” he said. Prosecutors said Rovinski plotted with David Wright, of Everett, and Wright’s uncle Usaamah Rahim, of Boston, to kill Geller, who angered Muslims when she organized a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, in May. The contest ended in gunfire, with two Muslim gunmen shot to death by police. Assistant US Attorney Stephanie Siegmann said Rovinski told authorities after his arrest that he, Wright and Rahim had agreed to kill Geller, who is from New York. Siegmann said Rahim later told Wright he wanted to go after “those boys in blue,” a reference to police.
UNITED STATES
Storm causes severe flooding
More than 60 people had to be rescued on boats because of flooding in parts of North Carolina on Thursday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Julia lingered off the Atlantic Coast with days of rain. Schools in North Carolina and Virginia also canceled classes as localized flooding blocked roads and inundated parking lots. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency for 11 counties, saying the state had not seen flooding so severe since Hurricane Floyd in 1999. The hardest hit area of North Carolina appeared to be around Bertie County in the northeastern part of the state. McCrory said five swift water rescue teams helped people who were stranded. A medical evacuation bus was also sent to help evacuate a nursing home with 52 residents. The 67,000-student school district of Virginia Beach canceled classes for a second day because of “widespread flooding.” McCrory said that between 12cm and 30cm of rain fell over eastern North Carolina. The National Weather Service reports that about 46cm of rain has fallen in some parts of Virginia’s Hampton Roads region. What is left of Tropical Storm Julia has been spinning off the coast. It was expected to move out to sea yesterday.
MEXICO
FBI-wanted fugitive detained
Prosecutors say they have detained one of the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives, a Mexican sought for kidnapping, rape and homicide charges in Chicago, Illinois. The federal attorney general’s office on Thursday said that Fidel Urbina was detained on a US extradition warrant in a tiny hamlet named El Polvo in a remote part of the border state of Chihuahua. According to the FBI wanted poster, “Urbina is wanted for allegedly beating and raping a woman in March of 1998. While out on bond, he also allegedly beat, raped and strangled a second woman to death in October of 1998. Her body was later found in the trunk of a vehicle that had been burned.”
‘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