MEXICO
Shooters kill mayor
Shooters on Thursday killed the mayor of a town in the western state of Michoacan shaken by a deadly turf war between rival drug cartels, authorities said. Elsewhere in the avocado-producing region, clashes between suspected gang members left several people dead, prosecutors said. Aguililla Mayor Cesar Valencia was shot dead by unknown attackers while traveling in a city hall vehicle near a soccer field in the town, military personnel who were dispatched to the scene said.
GUATEMALA
President calls to halt law
President Alejandro Giammattei on Thursday called on congress to shelve a new law ramping up prison sentences for women who choose to have an abortion, while banning gay marriage and teaching on sexual diversity. Giammattei said he would veto the law, passed by his allies this week, because it contravenes the constitution and international agreements signed by the country. The Life and Family Protection Law punishes women who “have induced their own abortion or given their consent to another person to carry it out” with 10 years behind bars — more than three times the current sentence of three years.
UNITED STATES
Woman sues over DNA
A woman whose DNA from a sexual assault case was used by San Francisco police to arrest her in an unrelated property crime plans to sue the city, her attorney said on Thursday. She filed notice of a possible federal lawsuit because she feels betrayed by police officers who broke her trust and contravened her rights, said her attorney, Adante Pointer. San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin last month said that a match linking her to a burglary late last year came from DNA collected from her as part of a 2016 domestic violence and sexual assault case. Boudin said he dropped felony property crime charges against the woman after becoming aware of a report that referred to the DNA. “This is the ultimate betrayal and re-victimization at the hands of authorities and people that she sought help and protection from,” Pointer said.
CHILE
Same-sex couples marry
Two same-sex couples on Thursday became the first to legally tie the knot, as the country joins a handful of nations in majority Catholic Latin America to allow LGBTQ couples to marry. Under a law approved by congress in December last year, and signed by outgoing President Sebastian Pinera, they can also adopt children. “We never imagined we would experience this moment in Chile,” Jaime Nazar, 39, declared proudly after marrying his partner of seven years Javier Silva, 38, in a Santiago suburb. The pair’s two young children were there for the historic event. “Now, yes, we can say we are a family,” Silva said.
EUROPEAN UNION
No EU fast-track for Ukraine
Leaders meeting in France on Thursday ruled out fulfilling Ukraine’s demand for a fast-track integration with the bloc. After nine hours of talks, heads of states and government ended the first day of discussions with an agreement on language acknowledging Ukraine’s “European aspirations,” but stopped short of going further into the process. “It was an opportunity to show unwavering, firm support for Ukraine,” EU Council President Charles Michel said. For now, Ukraine has an “Association Agreement” with the EU, which is aimed at opening Ukraine’s markets and bringing it closer to Europe.
PAKISTAN
Military protests missile hit
An unidentified surface-to-surface missile from India entered Pakistani airspace this week in the eastern province of Punjab, but caused no casualties, the military said late on Thursday. The military protested the violation caused by what it described as an “unarmed supersonic missile” that landed in the area of Mian Channu in Khanewal District on Wednesday. It damaged some residential property. The air force tracked the flight path of the missile from its “point of origin near Sirsa in India,” military spokesman Major General Iftikhar told reporters in the northern city of Rawalpindi. “The flight path of this object endangered many domestic and international passenger flights both in Indian and Pakistani air space, as well as human life and property on ground.”
MALAYSIA
Four killed in mudslide
Four people were killed after a massive landslide triggered by “unusual” heavy rains buried their homes in the suburb of Ampang on Thursday, Selangor state emergency services head Norazam Khamis said yesterday. The nation has been experiencing heavy rains over the past few weeks, which officials and environmentalists say is unusual at this time of year and could be the result of climate change. Rescuers, backed by an earth-mover, recovered four dead bodies and a fifth person was rescued alive, Norazam said. Torrential rains lasting 30 minutes caused a nearby hill to erode, sending tonnes of soil mixed with water crashing down on a row of houses below, he said. ”
CHINA
US leads in cyberattacks
The nation has experienced continuous cyberattacks since February to target Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. It cited the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC), a cybersecurity technical center that leads efforts to prevent and detect cybersecurity threats to the country. “Monitoring by the CNCERT/CC found that since late February, China’s Internet has continuously faced cyberattacks from abroad. These overseas groups attacked by taking control of computers in the country to carry out cyberattacks on Russia, Ukraine and Belarus,” it quoted the center as saying. “After analysis, most the addresses for these attacks came from the United States,” it said, adding that a few came from other countries such as Germany and the Netherlands.
AUSTRALIA
Cop cleared of murder
A police officer was yesterday cleared of murder over the fatal shooting of an indigenous teenager, in a verdict immediately criticized by relatives and elders frustrated by the high number of Aboriginal deaths in custody. More than 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have died in custody since 1991, when detailed records began, including at least 11 in the past seven months. A jury in Darwin found Constable Zachary Rolfe not guilty of murder over the killing of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker, deciding that all three shots fired by the officer in a remote town on Nov. 9, 2019, were justified. Rolfe was also found not guilty of lesser charges of manslaughter and a violent act causing death. Family and elders from the indigenous community cried and wailed outside the Darwin court following the unanimous verdict. “We’re deeply disappointed, and though we’ve been given a trial, I can’t with honesty say that it’s been fair,” Walker’s cousin Samara Fernandez-Brown told reporters, vowing that the family would not give up their struggle.
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land. “We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute,” Sture said on Monday. “I’m trying to think what’s in its mind.” The bird then attacked Sture five more times on Thursday last week, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier’s face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway
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