UNITED STATES
Mine accident probed
Investigators on Friday were trying to figure out what led to an elevator accident inside a former Colorado gold mine that killed a tour guide, injured four others and left a separate group of 12 people trapped for six hours at the bottom of the tourist attraction 305m beneath the surface. The elevator was descending into the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine on Thursday in the mountains near Colorado Springs, when at about 152m down, the person operating the elevator from the surface “felt something strange” and stopped it, Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said. The elevator was still operable, and those on board were brought back up within 20 minutes, he said, adding that the elevator’s door was damaged. The exact circumstances of the death of Patrick Weier, 46, were not disclosed, but the sheriff said he died because of the elevator’s mechanical issue.
FRANCE
Paris adopts anti-sexism law
Filmmakers looking to shoot on the iconic streets of Paris would have to promise to fight sexism, discrimination and sexual violence on set under a regulation adopted on Friday by city lawmakers. The regulation, due to take effect on Jan. 1 next year, requires production companies seeking a permit to film in the capital to sign a charter pledging to promote gender balance on set, train crews against sexism and fight gender discrimination and violence. Companies would also have to put special measures in place to protect those involved in shooting sex scenes — a side of the industry that has been transformed since the #MeToo movement exploded in 2017.
UNITED KINGDOM
Creepy parent killer jailed
A woman who murdered her parents and then lived for four years alongside their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home was on Friday sentenced to life imprisonment and told she would not be eligible for parole for 36 years. Virginia McCullough, who spent her parents’ money and went to great lengths to cover her tracks with family and friends through a web of lies, had pleaded guilty to murdering her parents in June 2019 at a previous hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court in southeast England. Judge Jeremy Johnson said at the sentencing hearing that McCullough’s actions represented a “gross violation of the trust that should exist between parents and their children.” In September last year, McCullough, 36, admitted to poisoning her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks and that a day later she beat her 71-year-old mother Lois McCullough with a hammer and fatally stabbed her.
UNITED STATES
Kayak turtle smuggler caught
A woman from Hong Kong on Friday pleaded guilty to attempting to smuggle 29 eastern box turtles, a protected species, across Vermont’s Lake Wallace into Canada by kayak. Wan Yee Ng, 41, was arrested on the morning of June 28 at an Airbnb in Canaan as she was about to get into an inflatable kayak with a duffle bag, according to a Border Patrol agent’s affidavit filed in federal court. Royal Canadian Mounted Police had notified agents that two other people, including a man who was believed to be her husband, had started to paddle an inflatable watercraft from the Canadian side toward the US, court documents showed. The agents found 29 live eastern box turtles individually wrapped in socks in her duffle bag, the affidavit states. The turtles are known to be sold on the Chinese black market for US$1,000 each, it said.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate