UNITED STATES
Jail wanted for billionaire
The government on Friday asked a judge to sentence Macanese billionaire Ng Lap Seng (吳立勝) to more than six years in prison, after his conviction in July last year for bribing two UN ambassadors to help him build a multibillion-dollar conference center. Prosecutors made their request in a filing with the District Court in Manhattan, and are also seeking a US$2 million fine. The request came four weeks after Ng’s lawyers urged that their 69-year-old client be sentenced to time served, and allowed to return to his family in China. Lawyers for Ng did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
MEXICO
Migrants rescued from truck
More than 100 Central American migrants, including dozens of minors, were found crowded inside a sweltering truck without food or water en route to the US, authorities said on Friday. The 136 migrants, from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, were rescued in the state of Veracruz after 24 hours in temperatures above 38°C, migration institute INM said. The migrants were discovered by federal police and migration agents who heard cries for help from within the truck, which had been abandoned near a freeway. Authorities said they counted 49 minors among the group, 13 of whom were traveling alone and are to receive aid to apply for refugee status in the country.
MEXICO
Presidential race begins
Two of the four candidates for the presidency have launched their campaigns before hundreds of cheering supporters. Ricardo Anaya, candidate of a right-left coalition, appealed to the youth vote with a 12-hour hackathon to develop proposals to effect change. Margarita Zavala, the former first lady who left Anaya’s conservative National Action Party to embark on an independent run, tried to distinguish herself as the only candidate free from corruption. Both set their sights squarely on front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, depicting him as a candidate with an antiquated vision who is soft on crime. Lopez Obrador and Jose Antonio Meade, the ruling party candidate, are scheduled to officially launch their campaigns today. The presidential election is to be held on July 1.
UNITED STATES
Zoo welcomes orangutan
The Denver Zoo is welcoming a baby Sumatran orangutan who is named after an Indonesian word that means “bright” and is often used to refer to sunshine. The female primate named Cerah was born on Sunday last week to parents Nias and Berani, and the family is bonding away from public view. Cerah is to make her debut within the next two weeks in the Great Apes exhibit in Primate Panorama. She was conceived within a month of 29-year-old Nias and 25-year-old Berani getting set up in July last year.
UNITED STATES
Missing teens found dead
Two bodies found in an abandoned Utah mine are those of a teenage couple who disappeared nearly three months ago, authorities confirmed on Friday. Riley Powell, 18, and Brelynne Otteson, 17, were stabbed to death and dumped in the mine in late December last year after visiting a woman whose boyfriend had warned her not to have male visitors, Utah County sheriff officials said. The bodies found on Wednesday were believed to be the missing couple, but the determination from state medical examiners made the identification official.
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
IN PROTECTION: Video released by the Senate showed Ronald dela Rosa being chased through the halls of the upper chamber, pursued by National Bureau of Investigation officers Philippine authorities on Monday said that they would not arrest for now a lawmaker wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, capping a lengthy Senate standoff. Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, who served as police chief and Duterte’s top enforcer during the bloody drug crackdown, would be treated as if in the custody of the Senate, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Melvin Matibag told reporters after the politician had taken refuge in the legislative building. “We respect that they are a co-equal branch,” Matibag said after the Senate refused
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