Tech tycoon, defence attorney, and Morgan Stanley banker among those missing in freak yacht sinking
By: Kelvin Chan
LONDON (AP) — A super yacht that sank Monday off the Sicilian coast during a storm left six passengers missing, including British tech kingpin Mike Lynch and some of his inner circle, who were gathered to celebrate his victory in a long-running legal trial.
Lynch was acquitted in June in a U.S. fraud case and was apparently aboard the Bayesian with some of the people who stood by him throughout the ordeal. Another member of Lynch’s legal team who wasn’t aboard, Reid Weingarten, said the outing was intended in part as a celebration of the acquittal.
Israel recovers bodies of 6 hostages from Gaza as Blinken tries to advance cease-fire deal
By: Julia Frankel
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said Tuesday that it recovered the bodies of six hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that started the war in Gaza, as U.S. and Arab mediators tried to advance an agreement to halt the fighting and release scores of other militant-held captives.
The military said its forces recovered the bodies in an overnight operation in southern Gaza, without saying when or how the six died. A forum for hostage families said they were kidnapped alive. Hamas says some captives have been killed and wounded in Israeli airstrikes.
An Israeli airstrike on Tuesday killed at least 10 people at a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City, in what the military said was a precise strike on a Hamas command center. Another strike killed a mother and her five children in central Gaza.
The recovery of the remains is a blow to Hamas, which hopes to exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners, an Israeli withdrawal and a lasting cease-fire. But it was also likely to increase pressure on Israel’s government to reach a deal to free dozens of hostages who are still believed to be alive.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is on his ninth visit to the region since the start of the war, said Monday that Netanyahu has accepted a proposal to bridge gaps in the cease-fire talks, which have dragged on for months, and called on Hamas to do the same.
Hamas has accused the United States of embracing Israeli demands and trying to impose them on the militant group. There still appear to be wide gaps between the two sides, including Israel’s demand for lasting control over two strategic corridors in Gaza, which Hamas has rejected.
Haitian ex-President Martelly hit with U.S. sanctions, accused of facilitating drug trade
By: Fatima Hussein
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. imposed sanctions on the former president of Haiti, Michel Joseph Martelly, Tuesday following accusations that he abused his influence to facilitate drug trafficking into the U.S. and sponsored gangs that have contributed to instability in the Caribbean country.
The Treasury Department’s acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Bradley T. Smith, said the action “emphasizes the significant and destabilizing role he and other corrupt political elites have played in perpetuating the ongoing crisis in Haiti.”
Haiti is engulfed in gang violence while peaceful protesters are tear-gassed by police as they call on law enforcement to help them stop the gangs that have been violently seizing control of neighbourhoods.
Hundreds of police officers from Kenya have arrived in Haiti for a UN-backed mission led by the East African country to deal with the gangs.
Army and police missed chances to intervene before Maine mass shootings, final report says
By: Patrick Whittle And David Sharp
LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Both the Army Reserves and local police missed out on opportunities to intervene in a gunman’s psychiatric crisis and seize weapons from the spiralling reservist responsible for the deadliest shootings in Maine history, according to the final report released Tuesday by a special commission created to investigate the attacks, which killed 18 people.
The independent commission, which held more than a dozen public meetings, heard from scores of witnesses and reviewed thousands of pages of evidence, cited shortcomings by police for failing to take the gunman’s weapons and by the Army Reserves for failing to provide proper care for the 40-year-old gunman, Robert Card.
The commission, created by Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, announced its conclusions at Lewiston City Hall, less than 3 miles (5 kilometres) from the two sites where the shootings took place Oct. 25, 2023.
The 215-page report reiterated the panel’s conclusion from an interim finding in March that law enforcement had authority under the state’s yellow flag law to seize the shooter’s guns and put him in protective custody weeks before the shootings. But it also said the Army Reserves also should have done more, as well, to ensure care and deal with the weapons.
Obama returning to DNC to make the case for Kamala Harris
By: Bill Barrow
CHICAGO (AP) – Barack Obama was days shy of his 43rd birthday and months from being elected to the U.S. Senate when he stepped onto a Boston stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
A state lawmaker from Illinois, he had an unusual profile to be a headline speaker at a presidential convention. But the self-declared “skinny kid with a funny name” captivated Democrats that night, going beyond a requisite pitch for nominee John Kerry instead to introduce the nation to his “politics of hope” and vision of “one United States of America” not defined or defeated by its differences.
Kerry lost that November to Republican President George W. Bush. But Obama etched himself into the national consciousness, beginning a remarkable rise that put him in the Oval Office barely four years later. And now, eight years removed from the presidency, Obama returns Tuesday night to the Democratic convention as the elder statesman with a different task.
Speaking in his political hometown of Chicago, the nation’s first Black president will honour President Joe Biden’s legacy after his exit from the campaign while making the case for another historic figure, Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s poised to be a significant moment as she takes on former President Donald Trump in a matchup that features the same cultural and ideological fissures Obama warned against two decades ago.
Kenyan man being held over the discovery of dismembered female bodies escapes from police custody
By: Evelyne Musambi
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A suspect who police said confessed to killing 42 women and was being detained over the discovery of dismembered bodies in Kenya’s capital has escaped from police custody, officials said Tuesday.
Mohamed Amin, the head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, said Collins Jumaisi Khalusha escaped along with 12 other inmates of Eritrean nationality who had been arrested for being in the country illegally.
Acting police inspector general Gilbert Masengeli said disciplinary measures have been taken against eight officers, including the area and station commanders and officers who were on duty.
A police report said the inmates escaped early Tuesday morning after they cut through wire mesh in the cell and scaled the perimeter wall. The escape was discovered as breakfast was being taken into the cell.
Khalusha, 33, was being detained at the police station after a court allowed detectives seven more days to investigate his alleged crimes before charging him.
Khalusha was arrested in July after 1
A magnitude 5.3 earthquake rattles Pakistan and Kashmir
ISLAMABAD (AP) — A magnitude 5.3 earthquake shook parts of Pakistan and the Himalayan region of Kashmir early Tuesday, panicking residents. There were no immediate reports of damage, officials said.
The epicentre of the quake was in southwestern Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim region that is divided between neighbouring India and Pakistan, both of which claim it in its entirety.
According to the National Seismic Monitoring Centre in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, the depth of the tremors was 20 kilometres (12 miles). Shaking was felt across much of Pakistan, including Islamabad, some areas in the eastern Punjab northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces bordering Afghanistan.
A magnitude 7.6 quake in 2005 killed thousands of people in Pakistan and Kashmir.
