MEXICO
Crime reporter killed
A crime reporter has been found dead in Sonora State, authorities said on Tuesday. The body of Juan Arjon Lopez, an independent journalist who ran a news page on Facebook, was discovered in San Luis Rio Colorado near the US border. The 62-year-old was identified from his fingerprints, a source at the Sonora attorney general’s office told reporters, hours after state prosecutor Indira Contreras told reporters that a body with tattoos matching those of Arjon had been found. He had been reported missing on Tuesday last week. An autopsy found that the cause of death was blunt trauma, the attorney general’s office said in a statement, adding that it was not ruling out any line of investigation. Arjon had alternated between working as a reporter and at a local restaurant, media rights group Reporters Without Borders said. His final news reports on his Facebook page — “What are you afraid of” — were about a drug seizure and the recovery of several stolen goods.
UNITED STATES
Border wall topples
An effort by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey to use shipping containers to close a 300m gap in the border wall with Mexico near Yuma had a brief setback when two stacked containers toppled over. Claudia Ramos, a correspondent for the digital platform of Univision Noticias in Arizona, posted on Twitter a photograph she took on Monday of the containers on their side. She said they fell on the Arizona side of the border. Ramos said that contractors in the area told her that they believed the containers might have been toppled by strong winds. However, C.J. Karamargin, a Ducey spokesman, said he doubted that hypothesis, adding that even though the containers are empty, they still weigh a lot. “It’s unlikely this was a weather event,” said Karamargin, suggesting that someone opposed to the wall was to blame. The stacked pair of containers were righted by early Monday morning. “Clearly we struck a nerve. They don’t like what we are doing and they don’t want to keep the border open,” the spokesman said. Officials with Ducey’s office say they were acting to stop migrants after repeated, unfulfilled promises from the administration of President Joe Biden to close the gap. Federal officials have not commented on the state’s actions, which are being conducted without explicit permission on federal land.
UNITED STATES
Monkey calls police
California police officers rushed to a zoo after a call to emergency services only to find it had been placed by a monkey. Dispatchers sent officers to investigate a possible emergency after receiving a call on Saturday that had disconnected. Sheriff’s deputies in San Luis Obispo County traced the call to the offices of Zoo to You, a conservation park 320km north of Los Angeles, but could not find any humans in trouble. Undeterred, and determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, they began to investigate. “Then they all realized ... it must have been Route the Capuchin monkey,” a social media post by the sheriff’s office said. “Apparently, Route had picked up the zoo’s cell phone ... which was in the zoo’s golf cart ... which is used to travel around the zoo’s 40 acre [16.2 hectare] site.” Capuchins are particularly inquisitive creatures, who enjoy poking and pressing objects they pick up. “And that’s what Route did ... just so happened it was in the right combination of numbers to call us,” the office said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the