UNITED STATES
Man chokes cougar to death
A mountain lion lunged at a runner on a Colorado trail and bit his face before the man fought back and choked the animal to death, wildlife officials said on Tuesday. The unidentified man was running alone at Horsetooth Mountain Open Space near Fort Collins on Monday when he heard a noise and turned back. That was when the cougar attacked, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife said. The man was hospitalized with serious injuries and was expected to make a full recovery. Authorities are not identifying the man and say he needs time to decompress and decide if he will speak out. The man told investigators he choked the cougar, and an examination of the animal confirmed that, parks spokeswoman Rebecca Ferrell said.
UNITED STATES
Senate bill backs Israel
The Senate on Tuesday passed a measure designed to shield Israel from boycotts, but its adoption remains uncertain in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, where liberal lawmakers warn the approach tramples free-speech rights. The Middle East security bill aims to combat the global BDS — boycott, divestment and sanctions — movement that denounces Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and pressures companies that do business with the Jewish state. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, the measure’s sponsor, said he is pushing back against what he described as a “campaign of discriminatory economic warfare against Israel.” It would allow a state or local government “to divest from entities that engage in” BDS activities targeting Israel or persons or companies doing business in Israel. The text also authorizes arms transfers to Israel, expands military cooperation with Jordan and slaps new sanctions on Syria.
COSTA RICA
Arias accused of assault
A doctor has filed a criminal complaint of sexual assault against former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias, the New York Times (NYT) reported on Tuesday, an allegation that Arias categorically denied. The accuser said that Arias assaulted her at his home in San Jose in 2014, NYT and local media reports said. Arias was president from 1986 to 1990 and again from 2006 to 2010. He was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1987 for his efforts to end civil wars in Central America. “I categorically reject the accusations against me. I have never disrespected the wishes of any woman,” Arias said in a statement through his lawyer. The woman is an anti-nuclear activist who often met with Arias, who supported her cause, the NYT said. The woman, who is not seeking monetary damages, alleged that Arias touched her breasts and put his hand under her clothes, according to NYT and local media reports.
UNITED STATES
Warren ID raises questions
Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren identified herself as an “American Indian” in handwriting on her 1986 registration card for the State Bar of Texas, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The disclosure marks the latest twist in a controversy surrounding Warren and her claims to Native American ancestry as she raises money and hires staff ahead of an expected formal launch to her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The yellow registration card, which is dated April 1986, was filled out in blue ink and signed by Warren, the Post reported. The paper said her office did not dispute the card’s authenticity.
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
VIOLENCE: The teacher had depression and took a leave of absence, but returned to the school last year, South Korean media reported A teacher stabbed an eight-year-old student to death at an elementary school in South Korea on Monday, local media reported, citing authorities. The teacher, a woman in her 40s, confessed to the crime after police officers found her and the young girl with stab wounds at the elementary school in the central city of Daejeon on Monday evening, the Yonhap news agency reported. The girl was brought to hospital “in an unconscious state, but she later died,” the report read. The teacher had stab wounds on her neck and arm, which officials determined might have been self-inflicted, the news agency