MEXICO
Rollercoaster crash kills two
A speeding rail car on a rollercoaster flipped over mid-ride at an amusement park on Saturday, killing two people and injuring two others. The Mexico City attorney general’s office said two men aged 18 and 21 died of head and other injuries when the last car on the coaster derailed at the La Feria amusement park. Two women were hurt. Preliminary investigations indicated that a mechanical failure caused the car to come loose and fall from a height of 10m above the ground, office spokesman Ulises Lara Lopez said. Authorities are treating the accident as a case of negligent homicide. Video circulating on social media showed the car flipping nearly upside down and smashing into a metal loop on the rollercoaster.
UNITED STATES
Four stabbed at mall
Police in Maryland have said that four people at an outdoor shopping mall were stabbed and a fifth person was beaten before officers shot and killed a suspect. Baltimore County police have said the victims were rushed from the Hunt Valley Towne Centre north of Baltimore to hospitals on Saturday afternoon, but did not appear to suffer life-threatening wounds. Three were attacked inside a liquor store and a fourth was stabbed outside a nearby store, while a fifth was wounded on a restaurant’s patio. Police initially said five people had been stabbed, but the Baltimore Sun reported that the number was revised after police reviewed video footage and interviewed witnesses.
PHILIPPINES
Quake hits southern province
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake yesterday morning struck off the province of Davao Occidental in the south, the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, but several aftershocks were felt, the institute said in its advisory. The epicenter was 126km southeast of Jose Abad Santos town.
SPAIN
Separatists’ jailing protested
Several thousand people on Saturday marched near Barcelona to protest the jailing of seven Catalan separatists on suspicion they planned to carry out attacks with explosives. Protesters walked behind a banner that read “The repression won’t stop us. Liberty” as they marched through Sabadell, the hometown of some of the arrested separatists. Police said 12,000 people demonstrated. Supporters of independence for the Catalonia region said the arrests are an attempt to criminalize a movement that has been overwhelmingly peaceful. The seven were arrested on Monday last week on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization, manufacturing explosives and conspiring to wreak havoc.
POLAND
Police end far-right march
Police on Saturday used water cannons and pepper spray and detained dozens of far-right protesters who tried to disrupt an LGBT pride march in the country’s conservative east. The clash took place during the second so-called Equality March in the city of Lublin. The event reflects the gay rights movement, which has grown more vocal and met a backlash from social conservatives in the mostly Roman Catholic country. The ruling Law and Justice Party depicts the movement as a threat to traditions and has made opposing gay rights a key theme ahead of an Oct. 13 general election. Lublin’s mayor originally banned Saturday’s march, citing security concerns, but a court overruled the decision.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was