UNITED STATES
Stuck bear cub rescued
Wildlife biologists in Connecticut had to rescue a bear cub that got its head stuck in a plastic container, state wildlife officials said. The misadventure happened on June 23 when a mother bear with three cubs knocked over a garbage can in the town of Harwinton in Litchfield County, and one of the cubs stuck its head in a clear plastic jar that had spilled out. “Given the warm weather and tight fit of the container, it was important to try and free the cub quickly,” the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s Fish and Wildlife Division wrote on Facebook. Wildlife biologists waited for the cub to come down from the tree it was perched in, and then tranquilized it and removed the container. The bear was unhurt and quickly found its mother waiting nearby, the wildlife officials said.
MEXICO
Four bound bodies found
The bound bodies of four people were found on Friday in the burned-out wreckage of a helicopter in Gulf coast Hustaeca region, along with signs indicating they were killed by a drug gang, authorities said. The killings were the second act of grisly violence in a month in the region, once popular among tourists. Prosecutors in the northern state of San Luis Potosi said the private helicopter was normally used to transport tourists. They said the craft did not appear to have crashed, but rather had apparently been intentionally set afire.
SYRIA
Israel hits coastal village
Israel carried out an airstrike on a coastal Syrian village near the Lebanon border yesterday morning, Syrian state media reported. Two people, including a woman, were wounded. State news agency SANA said Israeli warplanes flying over northern Lebanon fired missiles toward several chicken farms in the village of Hamidiyeh south of the coastal city of Tartus. SANA said two people were wounded in addition to material damage. The attack happened hours before Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amirabdollahian was scheduled to arrive in Damascus to meet top Syrian officials.
INDIA
‘Masterminds’ captured
Police made fresh arrests in the case of the execution of a Hindu tailor in Rajasthan, a murder that stoked unease between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority, leading to a clampdown on protests and the Internet to prevent tensions escalating. Three senior police officials yesterday said that two Muslim men based in the northwestern state were held for planning the tailor’s murder last week in his shop in Udaipur. “We have now arrested the two masterminds and previously we had arrested two men who committed the heinous crime,” Udaipur police official Prafulla Kumar said.
UNITED STATES
Three deputies killed
Three law enforcement officers were killed and five wounded in eastern Kentucky when a man with a rifle opened fire on police attempting to serve a warrant, authorities said. Police took 49-year-old Lance Storz into custody late on Thursday night after an hours-long standoff at a home in Allen, a small town in the hills of Appalachia. An emergency management official was also injured and a police dog was killed, the arrest citation said. The responding officers encountered “pure hell” when they arrived on the scene, Floyd County Sheriff John Hunt told reporters on Friday afternoon. “They had no chance,” he said.
‘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
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
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