BRAZIL
Automatic rifles found
Police on Thursday confiscated 60 automatic rifles found in a cargo shipment at Rio de Janeiro’s Galeao International Airport, authorities said. The weapons were discovered in a container along with pool heaters in the cargo section of the airport. Four people were arrested and a Brazilian citizen is being investigated in Miami, where the shipment originated, officials said. Rio de Janeiro Secretary of Security Roberto Sa said 250 automatic rifles have been confiscated in the past five months in the state and called the latest seizure “the biggest in 10 years.” Police representatives said they planned to use the seized weapons, adding that Rio state is struggling under budgetary constraints.
MEXICO
Storm hits Pacific coast
Tropical Storm Beatriz on Thursday approached Mexico’s Pacific coast, the US National Hurricane Center said, dumping heavy rains that resulted in at least three deaths, caused landslides, and forced road closures and flight cancellations. The emergency services in the southwestern state of Oaxaca said a landslide in the village of San Marcial Ozolotepec buried some houses and rescuers found the bodies of two girls. Another woman was killed by a landslide in the village of San Carlos Yautepec, the emergency services added. The center said the storm was about 24km south of the town of Puerto Angel, on the nation’s southwestern Pacific coast, blowing maximum sustained winds of 72kph, moving northeast at 8kph. Beatriz was expected to weaken once it hit land in the southwest on Thursday evening and peter out over the mountainous region yesterday, it said. However, the center also expected it to produce “life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.”
UNITED STATES
ICE denounces fake fliers
Washington officials and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency are denouncing fake fliers distributed in the capital warning against helping people who are in the US illegally. The fliers were found on Thursday on cars and lampposts around Washington. They bear the logos of ICE and Homeland Security, and say residents should report people in the US illegally. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser on Twitter and Facebook said the flier is meant to scare and divide residents. “DC remains a sanctuary city,” she said. ICE spokeswoman Carissa Cutrell said in a statement that the fliers are dangerous and irresponsible, while the Washington Post reported that Washington police have been instructed not to cooperate with federal authorities working to deport immigrants.
UNITED STATES
Court considers emoji advice
A judge is to sentence an Illinois man who used emojis to offer advice on how to kill a wealthy Chicago woman vacationing in Indonesia. Government filings before the sentencing yesterday described Robert Bibbs texting “high-five” symbols from Chicago, approving plans by his cousin and the cousin’s girlfriend to kill Sheila von Wiese-Mack at a Bali resort in 2014. Prosecutors want a sentence of nine to 11 years. They say Bibbs offered advice on killing the mother of his cousin’s girlfriend for an inheritance cut. The cousin, Tommy Schaefer, is serving 18 years in jail in Indonesia, while Heather Mack is serving 10 for bludgeoning von Wiese-Mack to death with a fruit-stand handle and stuffing her body in a suitcase. Defense attorneys said Bibbs had a lesser role and should not receive a similar sentence.
CHINA
Jiang Tianyong detained
The wife and father of prominent human rights campaigner Jiang Tianyong (江天勇) say police have told the family that he has been formally arrested and has dismissed his lawyers. Jiang disappeared in November last year, after publicizing the plights of the families of lawyers who had been detained in a crackdown on rights campaigners. State media later said he was accused of inciting subversion of state power, a common charge against those viewed as challenging the Chinese Communist Party’s monopoly on power. Jiang’s wife, Jin Bianling (金變玲), yesterday said that police officials in Changsha handed over a statement from Jiang dismissing his family-appointed lawyers. Jin said she believes the statement was written by Jiang under duress.
CHINA
Angry driver kills 13
Police say a disgruntled driver started a fire aboard his school bus last month that killed 13 people, including 11 children from China and South Korea. A statement from the city government of Weihai (威海) says the driver, who caused an incident on May 9, had apparently been angered by the halting of his overtime bonus and night work pay.
NEW ZEALAND
Premier’s guard keeps job
A police officer assigned to protect the prime minister has managed to keep his job despite leaving his gun in a public bathroom at the nation’s parliament, and then enlisting a colleague to drive back and retrieve it. Police yesterday released the results of their yearlong investigation into the incident in June last year. In their report, they said the officer made a genuine mistake by leaving his Glock service pistol in the bathroom, but should have dealt with it differently.
‘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