UNITED STATES
Gun store locations restricted
Counties can restrict the location of gun stores without violating the Second Amendment, a court of appeals said on Tuesday. The ruling by an 11-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a California county’s ordinance banning new gun stores within 152m of schools, day care centers, residential areas, liquor stores and other gun shops. A majority of the panel said the law did not violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms of would-be gun owners because there were other stores in the county where they could buy a gun. The majority also rejected the argument that gun sellers’ Second Amendment rights were violated, saying there is no constitutional right to sell guns.
UNITED STATES
HHS secretary appointed
President Donald Trump has appointed Eric Hargan as acting secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the White House said on Tuesday. Hargan, the deputy secretary of the department, formerly served on Trump’s transition team for HHS. The appointment follows Tom Price’s resignation as secretary last month over his use of costly private charter planes for government business. US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, considered a potential successor to Price, said on Tuesday he believed he could best serve the administration in his current role.
MEXICO
Inmates killed in prison riot
At least 13 inmates died in a prison riot in the northern State of Nuevo Leon that authorities ended with lethal force, a state security official said on Tuesday. Spokesman Aldo Fasci said the riot occurred at the state prison in Cadereyta and the death toll could climb because eight people were in critical condition. Several hours of attempted negotiations failed and police using non-lethal force were unable to quell the riot, Fasci said. Authorities decided to use lethal force to protect the lives of the guards and the prisoners. Authorities could see through video monitors that at least one prisoner had already been killed and guards had been taken hostage, Fasci said.
URUGUAY
Transgender senator seated
Michelle Suarez on Tuesday became the nation’s first transgender senator, vowing to use her position to expand and protect the rights of transgender people in the counrty. The 34-year-old lawmaker representing the Communist Party assumed her seat in the upper chamber of congress, where she intends to push a law that would let transgender people change their legal identities without having to get a judge’s approval. It would also mandate that 1 percent of government jobs be reserved for transgender people and establish a pension to compensate transgender people who were persecuted during the 1973 to1985 military dictatorship. “Uruguay has evolved, but it’s still a discriminatory country,” Suarez said. Previously, as an activist, she helped draft a bill that legalized gay marriage when it became law in 2013. In an interview, Suarez said she was 15 when she acknowledged that she was a woman living in a male body. She added that her parents have always been supportive, but some classmates and teachers discriminated against her growing up. Suarez became the first transgender person in the nation to earn a university law degree. In 2009, she began working as an activist for gender rights as a way to cope with her mother’s death.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing