UNITED STATES
Chocolate plant blast kills 2
An explosion at a chocolate factory in Pennsylvania on Friday killed two people and left nine people missing, authorities said. Several other people were injured by the explosion at the R.M. Palmer Co plant, said West Reading Borough Police Chief Wayne Holben, who did not confirm the exact number of injured. The explosion just before 5pm sent a plume of black smoke into the air, destroying one building and damaging a neighboring building that included apartments. “It’s pretty leveled,” West Reading Borough Mayor Samantha Kaag said of the explosion site. “The building in the front, with the church and the apartments, the explosion was so big that it moved that building four feet forward.” The cause of the blast in the community about 96km northwest of Philadelphia was under investigation, Holden told reporters.
MEXICO
Court suspends elections bill
The Supreme Court on Friday suspended a controversial electoral reform bill after it was slammed by the country’s political opposition as an “attack” on democracy ahead of next year’s polls. The bill, which had been approved last month by lawmakers mostly from the ruling party, slashes the budget of the electoral commission — a key independent institution mandated to safeguard elections. Tens of thousands of people have protested the bill, which they say weakens the commission and tips the balance of power in the upcoming polls in favor of the ruling party. Court said that Judge Javier Laynez had “accepted the suspension requested by the National Electoral Institute concerning all the articles of the decree that are contested.” It granted the suspension because of the “possible violation of the political and electoral rights of citizens,” it said.
UNITED STATES
Haitian pleads guilty
Dual Haitian-Chilean citizen Rodolphe Jaar, one of several men accused in the 2021 murder of Haitian president Jovenel Moise, on Friday pled guilty to charges related to the assassination, court documents show. Jaar, 50, admitted before a judge that he provided “material support and resources” knowing that they would be used to kidnap and kill the president, his plea statement says. Jaar, a businessman, is the first among 11 people charged by US prosecutors in south Florida with a role in planning the assassination. The 53-year-old Haitian leader was gunned down on July 7, 2021, by Colombian mercenaries at his private residence in Port-au-Prince. His security detail did not intervene.
UNITED STATES
Migrants die in train car
Two migrants were found dead and at least 10 were hospitalized on Friday after police in South Texas received a call that they were “suffocating” in a freight train traveling near the US-Mexico border. Border Patrol was informed of the phone call and stopped the train, the Uvalde Police Department said in a statement. Union Pacific railroad said in a statement that the people were found in two cars on the train traveling east from Eagle Pass bound for San Antonio: 12 in a shipping container and three in a hopper car. The two people who died were in the shipping container, it said. Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez told the San Antonio-Express News that dispatchers received a 911 call about 3:50pm from an unknown person seeking help. “We’re still trying to determine if it was from someone inside the car,” Rodriguez said. “We’re assuming it was from inside one of the cars.”
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
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