CHINA
Police investigate ‘rumors’
Police are investigating a woman for allegedly fabricating “rumors” that Beijing would enter a three-day lockdown, officials said yesterday, after the claims on social media prompted panic buying across the capital. Residents rushed to supermarkets on Thursday to stock up on groceries as rumors spread that stay-at-home orders would soon be announced. Instead of a lockdown, officials announced a three-day mass testing drive for most of the city and told residents there was no need to panic-buy food. Beijing police said in a statement on social media that they have launched an investigation into a woman surnamed Yao (姚). The 38-year-old “fabricated and published the relevant rumors,” the statement said, adding that police have taken “criminal compulsory measures” against her — a broad term that can refer to detention, arrest or home surveillance.
CHILE
Journalist dies after protest
A journalist who was shot near May Day protests in the capital, Santiago, died on Thursday, a hospital official said, as the country’s president promised there would be no “impunity” in the case. The death of 30-year-old Francisca Sandoval was also confirmed in a statement by the online community outlet that she wrote for. “Francisca did not leave us. They killed her,” wrote the Senal 3 de La Victoria site, without elaborating on who it blamed for her death. Sandoval was shot in the head during violent clashes on the sidelines of a union demonstration organized to mark International Workers’ Day on May 1. Two other people were also injured by the gunfire. Three alleged perpetrators of the shooting were arrested last week, and the person suspected of shooting Sandoval was placed in pre-trial detention for manslaughter and illegal possession of a firearm.
SLOVENIA
Death toll rises in blast
A worker hurt in an explosion at a chemical factory has died from his injuries, bringing the total number of people killed in the accident to six, local media reported yesterday. The blast occurred on Thursday when a cistern exploded at a resin factory belonging to chemicals company Melamin in the municipality of Kocevje. “Unfortunately our fears have been confirmed,” Melamin general manager Srecko Stefanic told reporters. The strength of the explosion “did not leave them any chance of survival,” he said. Initially, five people were reported to have been killed and six others injured, including two who were hospitalized with serious burns. One of the two has since died in hospital and the other is still in critical condition, public radio reported. The tragedy was “caused by a human error,” Stefanic said, declining to give more information until the investigation has been completed.
COLOMBIA
Court allows assisted suicide
The nation on Thursday became the first Latin American country to authorize assisted medical suicide for patients under a doctor’s supervision, a Supreme Court of Justice ruling said. The country’s highest court ruled that a doctor can help a seriously ill patient take their own life by consuming a lethal drug, without risking going to jail. It already allows euthanasia — where a doctor is the one to administer a life-ending drug to a patient. “The doctor who helps someone with intense suffering or serious illness and who freely decides to dispose of their own life, acts within the constitutional framework,” read the court ruling that passed by six votes to three.
‘EATING UP SPRING’: Temperatures are 10oC to 15oC above the seasonal average and a city northwest of Madrid experienced its first ‘tropical’ May night on Friday Parts of Spain are experiencing their hottest May since records began, as a mass of hot, dry air blows in from Africa, bringing with it dusty skies and temperatures of more than 40°C. Spain’s state meteorological agency, Aemet, has warned of a weekend heat wave of an “extraordinary intensity,” with temperatures between 10°C and 15°C above the seasonal average and more akin to high summer than mid-May. “The early hours of 21 May have been extraordinarily hot for the time of year across a good part of the center and south of the peninsula,” Aemet said on Saturday. “In many places the
BUSINESS AS USUAL: Thousands of people were forcibly removed from their homes in the dead of night and all mentions of the incident were scrubbed from the Internet Thousands of COVID-19-negative Beijing residents were forcibly relocated to quarantine hotels overnight due to a handful of infections, as the Chinese capital begins to take more extreme control measures resembling virus-hit Shanghai. Beijing has been battling its worst outbreak since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 1,300 since late last month, leading city restaurants, schools and tourist attractions to be closed indefinitely. China’s strategy to achieve zero COVID-19 cases includes strict border closures, lengthy quarantines, mass testing and rapid, targeted lockdowns. More than 13,000 residents of the locked-down Nanxinyuan residential compound in southeast Beijing were
INTERVENTION: A source said that a border patrol agent had rushed into the school without waiting for backup and killed the teen gunman, who was behind a barricade An 18-year-old man on Tuesday opened fire at a Texas elementary school, killing at least 19 children as he went from classroom to classroom, officials said. The attacker was killed by law enforcement. The death toll also included two adults, authorities said. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that one of the two was a teacher. The assault at Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde was the deadliest shooting at a US school since a man killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. Outside the town civic center, where families were told to await news
‘I’M STUNNED’: The disease is not known to be sexually transmitted, but a large outbreak might reveal previously unknown transmission routes, a virologist said Scientists who have monitored numerous outbreaks of monkeypox in Africa say they are baffled by the disease’s recent spread in Europe and North America. Cases of the smallpox-related disease have previously been seen only among people with links to central and West Africa. However, in the past week, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the US, Sweden, Canada all reported infections, mostly in young men who had not previously traveled to Africa. There are about 80 confirmed cases worldwide and 50 more suspected ones, the WHO said. France, Germany, Belgium and Australia reported their first cases on Friday. “I’m stunned by this. Every day I
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