Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
US-Canadian couple were kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012
After release Boyle was cleared of abusing Caitlan in Canada
The FBI has offered a $1m reward for the arrest and prosecution for those responsible for the kidnapping of US citizen Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle, eight years ago in Afghanistan.
The offer of a reward for their captors is the latest twist in the protracted saga of Coleman and Boyle, who were the subject of intense media scrutiny following their dramatic rescue in 2017 – and a subsequent trial over allegations of abuse by Boyle.
The Calgary zoo will be returning two giant pandas on loan from China because a scarcity of flights due to Covid-19 has caused problems with getting enough bamboo to feed them.
Er Shun and Da Mao arrived in Calgary in 2018 after spending five years at the Toronto zoo and were to remain in the Alberta city until 2023.
Japan expected to ease state of emergency in many regions; Russia has second highest number of infections; Wuhan mass testing begins; follow the latest updates
Morning/evening/whatever-it-is-where-you-are everyone. This is Simon Burnton taking on the live blog for the next few hours. If you have seen any stories that deserve our attention, or if you have any tips, comments or suggestions for our coverage then please let me know by sending me a message either to @Simon_Burnton on Twitter or via email. Thanks!
Today I leave you with something a little different – a Ghanaian pallbearer and his band of merry, morbid men, who have become the unofficial mascots of the pandemic in countries around the world:
At least 35 people have died in Mexico after drinking methanol, the latest in a series of mass bad-alcohol poisonings since the country banned beer sales and many towns banned the sale of liquor.
At least 20 people died of presumed methanol poisoning in the town of Chiconcuautla in the central state of Puebla. State authorities said they had closed the stores where the suspect liquor had been sold, and seized about 50 gallons (200 liters) of it.
Donald Trump has ratcheted up his “Obamagate” conspiracy theory to implicate Joe Biden and other former White House officials in what critics say is a desperate attempt to distract from the coronavirus pandemic.
Taiwan confirmed no new Covid-19 cases for the fifth consecutive day on Tuesday, keeping the country’s total at 440, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).
At a daily press briefing, the health minister and head of the CECC, Chen Shih-chung, said it was also the 30th straight day that no domestically transmitted infections had been recorded in Taiwan, CNA reports.
The United Kingdom’s Covid-19 death toll topped 38,000 at the start of the month, including suspected cases, by far the worst official toll yet in Europe, according to official data published on Tuesday.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said it recorded 34,978 Covid-19 related deaths as of 1 May in England and Wales.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that another 1,064 people have died and 18,106 new infections have been detected, taking the totals to 80,820 and 1,342,594, respectively.
Parts of Mexico that have been spared the worst of the epidemic could reopen as soon as 17 May – a date some health experts worry is too ambitious as the country still hasn’t carried out widespread testing or enforced strict quarantine.
Jorge Alcocer told reporters that roughly 300 of Mexico’s more than 2,400 municipalities would likely to be reopened, depending on assessments from the health authorities. The rest of the country is projected to reopen at the end of month – with school returning 1 June – according to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who will unveil plans on Wednesday for “returning to a new normalcy”.
They cannot know [which cities to open] because if a sample is not representative at the state level, would it be much less representative at the municipal level … It’s a national sample. Nothing more.
With violence against women endemic in the country, new initiatives are desperately needed but slow to arrive
Lucas da Silva* sits in a cell while he waits to hear from the court what will happen to him.
The 33-year-old is not in a prison, but at Casa da Mulher Brasileira (“house of the Brazilian woman”), a centre for survivors of violence in Campo Grande, central Brazil, that is open 24/7.
Human rights groups concerned over expanding the role of the armed forces as the country’s homicide rate reaches new high
Human rights groups in Mexico have expressed disquiet over a presidential decree expanding the role of the armed forces in public security – a reflection of the country’s worsening violence and the failure to properly prepare and equip a police force able to take on powerful criminal organisations.
Authorities in Nogales, Sonora, are hoping to reduce chances of bringing the virus over from Arizona, one of the states most affected
Fears of foreigners bringing infectious disease into the country. Enhanced border checkpoints. And the use of disinfectant spray to sanitize human beings.
These aren’t notes from one of Donald Trump’s freewheeling press conferences. The United States’ troubled response to the coronavirus pandemic is such that the Mexican border city of Nogales, Sonora, has set up “sanitizing tunnels” to disinfect people leaving the US through Nogales, Arizona.
The Royal Canadian Mounted police said on Monday that they were carrying out a “psychological autopsy” on Gabriel Wortman, who carried out the worst shooting in the country’s history.
As the author of Room, a story about a mother and child held captive for years in a garden shed, Emma Donoghue mapped the mental toll of extreme confinement long before coronavirus lockdowns.
Her character Ma endured boredom, frustration, anguish and worse – yet somehow created a rich, nurturing environment for her son.
The last of Newfoundland’s Beothuk was thought to have died in 1829 but new research indicates the bloodline did not die out – as Mi’kmaq tradition has always maintained
When a woman named Shanawdithit succumbed to tuberculosis in Newfoundland nearly 200 years ago, it was widely believed that her death marked a tragic end to her people’s existence.
For centuries, the Beothuk had thrived along the rocky shores of the island, taking on a near-mythical status as descendants of the first people encountered by Norse explorers in what is now Canada. But their population was devastated by decades of starvation and diseases, and when she died in 1829, Shanawdithit was believed to be the last of her line.
Caracas has accused Colombia and US of plotting to overthrow president Maduro; says military found abandoned vessels in Orinoco river
Venezuela’s military says it has seized three abandoned Colombian light combat vessels that soldiers found while patrolling the Orinoco river on Saturday, several days after the government accused its neighbour of aiding a failed invasion plot.
In a statement, the defence ministry said the boats were equipped with machine guns and ammunition, but had no crew, adding they were discovered as part of a nationwide operation to guarantee Venezuela’s “freedom and sovereignty”.
Supreme court decision hailed as victory for LGBT community
Brazil’s supreme court has overturned rules that limit gay and bisexual men from donating blood in a decision considered a human rights victory for LGBT+ people in the country.
The move came as more nations review restrictions on blood donations imposed during the 1980s HIV/Aids crisis, with some countries applying blanket bans, some have waiting periods after gay sex, and others – like Italy – having no limitations.
The biggest threat to Brazil’s ability to successfully combat the spread of the coronavirus and tackle the unfolding public health crisis is the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, according to the British medical journal The Lancet.
In an editorial, The Lancet said his disregard for and flouting of lockdown measures was sowing confusion across Brazil, which reported a record number of Covid-19 deaths on Friday, and is fast emerging as one of the world’s coronavirus hot spots.
One virus; 18 ways of seeing the world. Covid Latam is a collective project documenting the coronavirus pandemic as it unfolds across Latin America. Photographers – 9 men and 9 women – are working in 13 countries: Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Cuba and Mexico to document the unfolding story of the pandemic through the Covid Latam instagram account
Macarena Santelices has praised the ‘good side’ of the 1973-90 dictatorship in which over 300 women were raped under torture
Chile’s rightwing president, Sebastián Piñera, has prompted a firestorm of criticism after naming an open supporter of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship as the country’s new minister for women’s rights and gender equality.
Controversy over the appointment of Macarena Santelices – who is also the dictators’s great-niece – has focused on a 2016 interview in which she praised the “good side” of the 1973-90 dictatorship in which more than 3,000 people were murdered or disappeared by security forces and many thousands more imprisoned and tortured.
A policy of making men and women leave their homes on alternate days during lockdown in Bogotá is fuelling violence towards the transgender community by the police and the public, activists say.
The mayor of the Colombian capital, Claudia López, announced last month that women were permitted to go outdoors for essential tasks on even-numbered days and men on odd-numbered days, in an effort to limit numbers on the streets.