UNITED STATES
Hearst heir dies at 77
John Randolph Hearst Jr, a grandson of media titan William Randolph Hearst and heir to the family fortune, has died, the Hearst Corp said on Saturday. He was 77. Hearst died on Friday in New York City, the Hearst Corp said in a statement on its Web site. The cause of death was not disclosed. John “Bunky” Hearst spent most of his career at the company his grandfather founded. Besides serving on the board, he was a trustee of The Hearst Family Trust and a director of the Hearst Foundations. He also worked for Hearst publications, including as a news photographer for the New York Daily Mirror in the 1950s and as an editor for Motor Boating & Sailing magazine. He suffered a debilitating stroke in 1989, but several months later, he married 50-year-old Barbara Hearst. The marriage lasted until 2004, when Barbara Hearst filed for divorce, accusing him of constructive abandonment and cruel and inhumane treatment.
CANADA
Protester found dead
A woman at the Occupy Vancouver camp died on Saturday after being discovered in an “unresponsive” condition, police say. The cause of death has not been determined, but there is no evidence to indicate foul play, police said. The woman in her 20s was found in a tent by another protester. Paramedics took her to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, Vancouver police said in a statement. Lauren Gill, an organizer at the camp, said the woman apparently died of a drug overdose. She said the death highlights the need for more addiction services because drugs were such a big issue in the city.
COLOMBIA
Landslide leaves many dead
A landslide caused by heavy rains left 14 people dead and dozens more missing in the northwest on Saturday, a Red Cross official said. Cesar Uruena, a Red Cross rescue director, said the landslide buried more than 14 homes in the city of Manizales in Caldas state, 165km northwest of Bogota. Rescuers have reports of 14 people dead and 13 injured, Uruena said. “We are talking about an average of 60 people missing. This could be a bit speculative, but the number is high,” Uruena said by telephone. Caldas emergency services director Sandra Lopez said heavy rains pounded the area the night before and caused a part of a mountain to collapse onto the houses.
MEXICO
Eight killed at game
Gunmen who killed eight people and wounded seven at a pickup volleyball game in Sinaloa state were targeting the men at the game, authorities said on Saturday. Sinaloa prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera said while it had not been ruled out that the volleyball players and spectators were caught in a crossfire, witnesses have told authorities the assailants arrived with two people with covered faces who pointed out to the gunmen who to shoot. “The attackers knew perfectly well who they were going to kill,” Higuera said, adding that the shooting appears to be part of a conflict between rival groups. No motive has been given for Friday’s attack in Culiacan, but Sinaloa is the home of the powerful Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Elsewhere, federal police arrested a suspected local chief of the La Familia cartel in Chalco, Mexico state. A statement from the Public Security Secretariat said the suspect, Hector Russel Rodriguez Baez, alias “El Toro,” headed one of La Familia’s most violent cells. Rodriguez was allegedly in charge of drug sales and extortion in the area, and was involved in at least 20 murders, the statement said.
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
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
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