UNITED STATES
Fetal remains found
More than 2,000 medically preserved fetal remains have been found at the Illinois home of a former Indiana abortion clinic doctor who died on Sept. 3, authorities said. The Will County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release on Friday that an attorney for Ulrich Klopfer’s family contacted the coroner’s office on Thursday about possible fetal remains being found at the home in an unincorporated part of Will County in northeastern Illinois. The sheriff’s office said that authorities found 2,246 preserved fetal remains, but there was no evidence that medical procedures were performed at the home. Klopfer was a longtime doctor at an abortion clinic in South Bend, Indiana. It closed after the state revoked the clinic’s license in 2015. Representative Jackie Walorski called the discovery of the fetal remains “sickening beyond words” in a statement released by her office. “He was responsible for thousands of abortions in Indiana and his careless treatment of human remains is an outrage,” she said. In June 2014, Klopfer was charged in St Joseph County, Indiana, with a misdemeanor for failure to file a timely public report. He was accused of waiting months to report an abortion he provided to a 13-year-old girl in South Bend. That charge was later dropped after Klopfer completed a pre-trial diversion program.
UNITED STATES
Shooting report refuted
Authorities in northern Virginia say they have found no evidence that a shooting occurred at a movie theater that is part of a mall. Reports of a shooting had prompted panic and a large police presence on Saturday night, but the Arlington County Police Department later tweeted that authorities had completed a preliminary search of the theater at the Ballston Quarter mall in Arlington without finding any evidence that a shooting took place. As fears over the possibility of a shooting dissipated, many continued to eat and drink inside restaurants and bars in the area.
UNITED STATES
Home blast deemed suicide
A homeowner near Pittsburgh blew up his house on his daughter’s wedding day, police said shortly after his body was found in the rubble on Saturday. The man had been seen standing in front of his house in Edgewood shortly before it exploded and caught fire, authorities said, but for several hours he could not be accounted for. His death has been ruled a suicide. Officials are still investigating the explosion’s cause, but “it looks like he disconnected the gas line in the basement of the house,” Police Chief Robert Payne said. “And of course, it wouldn’t take much of a spark to explode the house.” Most of the family was out of the house at the time for the wedding, officials said.
JAPAN
Fever-affected pigs culled
Officials have culled 753 pigs in Saitama Prefecture north of Tokyo after detecting an outbreak of swine fever, the Yomiuri newspaper said yesterday. The cull, which took place on Saturday, was necessary after it was determined that pigs raised in the prefecture for shipment to central Japan were infected, the Yomiuri reported. Saitama also halted shipments from two other pig farms in the area of the outbreak, it said. Officials from the Saitama Prefecture government were not immediately available to comment. The fever detected in Japan is a different strain from the African swine fever that China has been battling, the Ministry of Agriculture has said.
‘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