UNITED STATES
Honduran leaders accused
The former boss of Honduras’ Los Cachiros cartel on Friday testified that he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to the current and former presidents of Honduras in exchange for protection from extradition to the US and other favors. Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga said in a Manhattan court that he gave then-Honduran president Porfirio Lobo between US$500,000 and US$600,000 in 2009 and that Lobo helped him launder the proceeds from drug trafficking. Rivera Maradiaga also said he paid a US$250,000 bribe to Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, without specifying the date.
MEXICO
Migrant boat sinks
A small boat carrying African migrants off the coast of the country’s south sank on Friday, leaving two people dead and one missing, authorities said. The boat was traveling off the southern border state of Chiapas when it listed to one side, pitching its occupants into the water, the state prosecutors’ office said in a statement. A 39-year-old man was found dead washed up on the shore, it said. A second body was later located a few hundred meters from the first. A search operation “managed to rescue eight migrants alive,” the office said, adding that one person was missing. All were from Cameroon, which has seen a growing exodus of refugees amid an increasingly violent conflict between its French and English-speaking communities.
UNITED STATES
Killer sentenced to death
A man who prosecutors said was driven by vengeance when he fatally shot six members of his ex-wife’s family in Texas, including four children, was on Friday sentenced to death, a decision the lone survivor of the attack has said would help her let go of “hurt and anger.” Jurors sentenced Ronald Lee Haskell after deliberating for little more than four hours. The jury had to choose between life in prison without parole or a death sentence. The same jury last month convicted Haskell of capital murder in the 2014 killings of Stephen and Katie Stay at their home in suburban Houston.
UNITED STATES
Lost dog found after 12 years
A toy fox terrier that disappeared from its family’s south Florida home in 2007 was this week found almost 2,000km away in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and reunited with its owner on Friday. The 14-year-old dog named Dutchess was found hungry, shivering and in serious need of a nail trim under a shed on Monday, Humane Animal Rescue said. The property owner took the dog to a Humane Animal Rescue location, where staffers located a microchip and traced the dog back to its owners in Boca Raton, Florida. The dog’s owner, Katheryn Strang, drove to Pittsburgh for an emotional reunion with Dutchess. Boca Raton is about 1,800km from Pittsburgh.
NEPAL
Bus crash kills at least 11
An overloaded bus plunged down a hill, killing at least 11 people and injuring 108, an official said yesterday. The packed bus was ferrying passengers — who had been celebrating the Hindu festival of Dashain — from Sindhupalchowk to neighboring Kathmandu. However, the crowded vehicle slipped and fell more than 50m at a bend. “Six people were killed instantly and five more passed away on the way to hospital or while being treated,” district official Goma Devi Chemjong told reporters.
‘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