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.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS