HONDURAS
Hernandez announces run
Former first lady Ana Garcia de Hernandez on Tuesday said that she would contest the presidential elections next year, with the announcement just days after her husband’s conviction for trafficking cocaine into the US. “I have decided to launch my pre-candidacy for the presidency of the republic for the National Party,” Hernandez wrote on X in Spanish. The lawyer, whose husband, Juan Orlando Hernandez, served as president from 2014 to 2022, said that she would begin a “crusade for justice” in his defense after he was found guilty of drugs and arms trafficking by a New York federal court on Friday last week.
UNITED STATES
Biden, Trump advance
President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump on Tuesday each won enough delegates to clinch their party nominations in this year’s presidential race, all but assuring a rematch. The results in four statewide elections were essentially a foregone conclusion as Biden and Trump had already seen off all primary challengers. Biden crossed the threshold of 1,968 Democratic delegates needed when he won Georgia, while Trump’s victory in Washington helped him secure the 1,215 delegates needed to earn the Republican nomination.
UNITED STATES
Kennedy unveils top picks
Robert Kennedy Jr on Tuesday told the New York Times that National Football League quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura are at the top of his list as he seeks a running mate for his independent presidential bid. Many states require independent candidates to name a running mate before they can seek access to the ballot, a factor driving the early push for Kennedy to make a pick.
UNITED STATES
House blast claims two
A massive explosion killed two people and destroyed a house in the Pittsburgh area near the Ohio River, authorities said on Tuesday. Aerial images from the scene in Crescent Township in the northwest Pittsburgh suburbs showed smoking ruins with the structure reduced to rubble and some large pieces lodged in trees above. Allegheny County emergency dispatchers said that the blast was reported shortly before 9am. The blast was “severe, absolutely extreme” and “you could feel it in your chest,” Crescent Township Fire Department Chief Andrew Tomer said. Tomer and others at the fire department saw “a column of white smoke up in the air followed by a thick column of black smoke,” he said. The explosion “completely leveled” the home, with arriving units reporting “fire throughout the foundation” and fire along the hillside, Tomer said. The blast also damaged at least two other homes, he said. A private gas well and two propane tanks on the scene were secured, he said. The cause of the explosion was under investigation.
CHINA
Explosion kills two people
A suspected gas explosion at a restaurant yesterday killed two people and injured 26 during rush hour, causing severe damage to buildings, state media reported. The blast occurred just before 8am in a residential area in Hebei Province’s Sanhe, China Central Television said. The explosion was suspected to have been caused by a gas leak at a fried chicken shop, state media reported. “I heard a great big bang ... which scared me stiff,” a seller at a local market said. “Outside, I saw clouds of black smoke.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in
REGIONAL TENSIONS: China boosted spending on its military for the 29th straight year, raising it by 6% to US$296bn, while Taiwan spent US$16.6bn, an 11% increase Global military expenditure recorded its steepest increase in over a decade last year, reaching an all-time high of US$2.4 trillion as wars and rising tensions fueled spending across the world, researchers said yesterday. Military spending rose across the globe with particularly large increases in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). “Total military spending is at an all-time high ... and for the first time since 2009, we saw spending increase across all five geographical regions,” SIPRI senior researcher Nan Tian said. Military spending rose by 6.8 percent last year, the