MEXICO
Shot children mourned
Relatives on Wednesday gathered in a driving rain to mourn and bury three children, a 17-year-old and five adults shot to death in an attack on a video game arcade in Michoacan state. Authorities have not yet said whether the brutal killings were related to the drug violence that has swept the state. However, Sergio Arroyo, the priest who officiated at the boys’ funeral, said simply: “We cannot remain powerless. We cannot let ourselves become accustomed to this. We must take action.” The mothers wept and clutched framed photographs of the three boys, who authorities have identified only as Luis Angel, 12; Miguel Angel, 13; and Jose Alexis, 14. Rosa Gutierrez, grandmother of Miguel Angel, said that the boy was like many youths his age, a video game fanatic. “I have cried myself all out,” Gutierrez said as the family buried Miguel Angel. “I have no more tears left, now they are coming from the sky.”
MEXICO
Long weekends threatened
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has floated a proposal to end the practice of creating long weekends by moving national holidays around. Lopez Obrador is a student of the country’s history and he was irked because few people appeared to remember that Wednesday was the anniversary of the 1917 adoption of the country’s constitution. The official holiday was moved this year to Monday to allow the public three continuous days off. That is similar to the US practice of celebrating Memorial Day or former US president George Washington’s birthday on the nearest Monday. Lopez Obrador said it is a bad practice because it leads people to forget what they were celebrating, even though he acknowledged that the three-day weekends are popular. “I know this is going to be controversial, but I believe that, if you don’t know where you come from, you’ll never know where you are going,” Lopez Obrador said. “For us, history is fundamental. It is life’s teacher.”
UNITED STATES
Flipped ship to be cut apart
Salvage workers plan to use a long cutting chain suspended from a floating crane to saw apart a large cargo ship that overturned nearly five months ago off the Georgia coast, the multi-agency command overseeing the vessel’s removal said on Wednesday. Plans released by the salvage team call for the South Korean ship Golden Ray to be carved into eight pieces, each weighing up to 3,720 tonnes. The capsized vessel would be straddled by a giant crane anchored to a barge on opposite sides of the ship. The crane would lift each chunk and load it onto a barge for removal. The cutting is not to start until crews surround the wrecked ship with a giant mesh barrier designed to contain any loose debris as the vessel gets cut apart. Construction of that barrier should begin in about two weeks and is to take more than a month to complete, said Coast Guard Petty Officer First Class Nate Littlejohn, a spokesman for the salvage team.
KAZAKHSTAN
Koch breaks space record
NASA astronaut Christina Koch yesterday returned safely to Earth after shattering the spaceflight record for female astronauts with 328 days aboard the International Space Station. She touched down along with Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Koch was shown seated and smiling after being extracted from the descent module in the Roscosmos video footage from the landing site. “I am so overwhelmed and happy right now,” she said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in 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
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