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.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
RSS