UNITED STATES
Bill heads to governor
Texas lawmakers have sent Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott a bill that would restrict insurance coverage for abortion and makes no exceptions in cases of rape and incest. Abbott is expected to sign the measure that was given final approval by the state senate on Sunday night. It requires women to purchase extra insurance to cover abortion except amid medical emergencies. Ten other states already have laws restricting insurance coverage of abortion in private insurance plans. Republican supporters say Texas policyholders who object to abortion should not help pay for insurance coverage for women undergoing the procedure.
UNITED STATES
Suspect drowns in lake
Authorities said a shoplifting suspect in New Jersey drowned when he ran from police and then tried to swim away in a lake. Gloucester County prosecutors said officers approached the 20-year-old man at a Woodbury convenience store at about 3:50am on Saturday and tried to speak with him. However, he ran off and jumped into nearby Woodbury Lake, they said. The officers ordered the man to leave the water, but they soon lost sight of him when he swam under a bridge. Emergency responders then searched the water for the man, but could not find him. A state police dive team eventually found his body at about 10:30am.
UNITED STATES
Man pleads not guilty
A man accused of bludgeoning his mother, sister and another woman in a deadly hammer attack on New York’s Long Island has pleaded not guilty to murder. Bobby Vanderhall is being held without bail after his arraignment on Sunday. The 34-year-old was on Saturday arrested on murder charges in the deaths of his mother, Lynn Reichenbach-Vanderhall; his sister, Melissa Vanderhall; and visitor Janel Simpson. Officials said a fourth woman managed to escape and summon help.
MEXICO
Four killed in Acapulco
At least four people have been shot and killed in the Pacific resort of Acapulco, which has become a hotspot in the country’s rising drug violence. A journalist saw the four bodies, including a man who lay on a central avenue in Acapulco in broad daylight on Sunday with a pink towel over his face. Pedestrians watched from a footbridge as police secured the scene. The deaths came as violence reached new heights with 2,234 murders in June, the country’s deadliest month in at least 20 years, according to government data. For the first six months of this year, authorities nationwide recorded 12,155 homicide investigations, or 31 percent more than the 9,300 during the same period last year.
VENEZUELA
Suspects held over raid
The government is holding 18 people — soldiers and civilians — over a raid on an army base a week earlier by a renegade group that stole weapons, the country’s intelligence chief said on Sunday. An additional 23 people were being sought in relation to the incident, said General Gustavo Gonzalez Lopez, head of the intelligence service known as SEBIN. He said that Interpol had issued red notices — essentially an international arrest warrant — for some of the fugitive suspects. However, Interpol’s Web site on Sunday did not turn up international alerts requesting their arrest. Among those detained or wanted were businessmen, union leaders and a journalist living in Miami, he said.
AUSTRALIA
Crown staff in China freed
Crown Resorts yesterday said that China had released all of the casino group’s employees who were detained as part of a gambling crackdown last year. Mogul James Packer’s gaming company said the last of the 19 current and former Crown employees had been set free after being held for 10 months. “Crown is pleased that all of our employees have now been released and reunited with their families and loved ones,” executive chairman John Alexander said. The executives were accused of breaching Chinese anti-corruption laws by organizing banned gambling activities overseas for wealthy Chinese.
EGYPT
Railway head resigns
The head of the railway authority resigned on Sunday after 41 people were killed in a train crash, the prime minister’s office said. A statement said that Minister for Transportation Hisham Arafat had accepted the resignation of Medhat Shousha. Arafat and “affirmed the investigations are ongoing to reveal the causes of the trains’ collision,” according to the statement. The nation’s latest train disaster saw two trains collide on the Cairo-Alexandria mainline on Friday, leading to the deaths of 41 people and injuring scores more. It was the deadliest train accident in Egypt since a train plowed into a bus carrying schoolchildren in November 2012, killing 47 people.
ITALY
Bear shot dead after attack
A brown bear has been shot dead by forest rangers after it mauled a walker in the northeastern Trentino region last month, local media said on Sunday. The bear, a female identified as KJ2, was also suspected of injuring a tourist in 2015. Trentino’s regional governor called the killing “an absolute necessity” in order to secure visitor safety during the busy tourist season. Brown bears were reintroduced to forests in northern Italy in the 1990s and there are thought to be about 50 of the animals there today.
FRANCE
Search for climber called off
Rescuers on Sunday called off their search for a Japanese climber who went missing on Mont Blanc, a day after a Czech mountaineer died while descending Europe’s highest peak. No one had seen Hironobu Shimosawa, 35, since Monday last week, after he set out on his own to scale the 4,810m summit. The PGHM rescue service, based in Chamonix, said Shimosawa had contacted a friend via Facebook on Wednesday asking for help. Search efforts using mountaineers and helicopters were hampered by bad weather. Despite relatively warm temperatures during the day, the peak remains treacherous even in the height of summer.
KENYA
Artists graffiti for peace
As political tensions threatened to erupt into more violence following disputed elections, a fresh spate of graffiti urging peace cropped up in Nairobi’s Kibera slum. “Peace wanted alive” and the peace symbol was sprayed in many prominent Kibera locations, which has been the site of violent protests against President Uhuru Kenyatta’s election victory. The graffiti urges residents to refrain from violence. Many of the peace slogans were sprayed by Solo 7, the name used by artist Solomon Muyundo who is a member of Art 4 Peace group. Muyundo started spraying the peace slogans to encourage Kenyans to avoid the violence in which more than 1,000 people died following the country’s 2007 elections.
‘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