UNITED STATES
Trump orders voting probe
The White House says US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order creating a commission to look at the public’s confidence in the integrity of the voting system. The long-awaited panel follows Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations that millions of people voted illegally in last year’s election. The commission is to look at allegations of improper voting and fraudulent voter registration in states across the nation. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said US Vice President Mike Pence will chair the panel, and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach will co-chair it. She says the group plans to complete its work with a report to Trump by next year.
UNITED STATES
Man indicted in stock plot
A grand jury has charged a Florida man with plotting to set off explosions in Target stores so that he could gain financially from a plunge in the company’s stock price. An indictment filed on Wednesday in federal court in Ocala charges 49-year-old Mark Barnett with five counts of attempted arson, possession of a destructive device and unlawful possession of a weapon. A criminal complaint says the convicted felon offered a friend US$10,000 to place packages of food filled with explosives at Target stores along the east coast in February. The friend instead went to authorities, who say Barnett hoped to buy Target stock after the price plunged. In another bomb plot linked to financial gain, German prosecutors say a 28-year-old man schemed to net millions by betting against a soccer team and then bombing the team’s bus. The officials said last month that the man, identified only as Sergej W in line with German privacy laws, took out a five-figure loan to bet that Borussia Dortmund shares would drop, then bombed the team’s bus on April 11 when it left a hotel in an attack he tried to disguise as Islamic terrorism.
UNITED STATES
Mannequin ‘killer’ charged
A man who police suspect killed two homeless men in Las Vegas pleaded not guilty on Thursday to attempted murder in an unusual case charging him with trying to kill a mannequin that police posed as a decoy near the scene of the earlier killings. Shane Allen Schindler, 30, has not been charged in the Jan. 4 bludgeoning death of Daniel Aldape or the Feb. 3 killing of David Dunn, who police say were apparently sleeping when they were attacked. Schindler was arrested Feb. 22 after police said he was seen on surveillance video creeping up on the mannequin in a vacant downtown lot, pulling a hood over his head and using a two-handed grip to pummel the head of the decoy with a 1.8kg hammer. Schindler told police following his arrest that he knew it was a mannequin he was attacking, but prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo has said Schindler could not have known he was not attacking a human. Schindler’s court-appointed attorney, Ashley Sisolak, has withdrawn a challenge of his mental competency. She declined to comment about the case outside court. Schindler, who moved to Las Vegas from Bay City, Michigan, entered the plea in Nevada state court to attempted murder and carrying a concealed weapon. A grand jury indicted him last week. A judge set trial for Aug. 8. Clark County public defender Phil Kohn has derided the charge of attempted murder as a legal impossibility, saying someone cannot kill an inanimate object, but Nevada appellate law appears to support the charge. The state Supreme Court in 1976 and 1989 pointed to intent when it rejected arguments of legal impossibility in attempted crimes.
‘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