Police fire tear gas to disperse anti-government protesters in Hong Kong, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Vincent Thian/AP)
A pro-democracy protester was shot and at least 30 were arrested as violent clashes rocked Hong Kong streets Tuesday while China celebrated the 70th anniversary of communist rule.
Beijing marked National Day and "national rejuvenation" with a military parade and fireworks, but in Hong Kong tens of thousands of demonstrators held a "national grief" march. Some black-clad protesters clashed with police who fired water cannons and tear gas into the crowd.
Fires burned on Hong Kong streets, many subway stations were closed and many shops were shuttered as police warned residents to remain in their homes.
President Donald Trump lauded Chinese President Xi JinPing but made no mention of Hong Kong in a brief tweet Tuesday: "Congratulations to President Xi and the Chinese people on the 70th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China!"
In Hong Kong, video recorded by a student group appeared to show several protesters hurling objects at pursuing riot police. One officer drew his gun and fired, and a protester collapsed as the others fled.
“The so-called National Day is a day for mourning. We are mourning those who sacrificed for democracy in China,” former lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan told the South China Morning Post. “It’s 70 years of suppression. We mourn that, and we also condemn the fact that the Hong Kong government together with Chinese government denied the people of Hong Kong the right to democracy.”
Police Senior Superintendent Yolanda Yu Hoi-kwan said police were "saddened" that an 18-year-old man was shot near his left shoulder.
"A large group of rioters attacked police officers," she said. "As an officer felt his life was under serious threat, he fired a round at the assailant to save his own life and his colleagues’ lives."
She added that protesters have been repeatedly warned to stop breaking the law.
"The police force really did not want to see anyone being injured, so we feel very sad about this," she said, adding that "We will strictly enforce the law." (AP)
Riot police arrive after protestors vandalize in Hong Kong, Sept. 29, 2019. (Photo: Vincent Yu/AP)
A black-clad protester wearing goggles and a mask stomps on a burning Chinese flag in Hong Kong, Sept. 28, 2019. (Photo: Vincent Thian/AP)
A protester throws a tear gas round back at police during the demonstration in Hong Kong, Sept. 29, 2019. (Photo: Kin Cheung/AP)
Marching anti-government protesters are seen through a glass with peeled off posters, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019, in Hong Kong while the celebration of the People's Republic's 70th anniversary is taking place in Beijing. (Photo: Vincent Yu/AP)
Anti-government protesters vandalize a MTR public transport station in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. In a fearsome escalation of violence, Hong Kong police shot a protester at close range in the chest Tuesday, leaving the teenager bleeding and howling on the ground. (Photo: Kin Cheung/AP)
An anti-government protester's umbrella lies on the ground after a clash with police in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Vincent Yu/AP)
Police detain an anti-government protester in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. Thousands of black-clad protesters marched in central Hong Kong as part of multiple pro-democracy rallies Tuesday urging China's Communist Party to "return power to the people" as the party celebrated its 70th year of rule. (Photo: Felipe Dana/AP)
A black-clad protestor stands inside a vandalized government office building in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Felipe Dana/AP)
A row of motor-cycles go up in flames as anti-government protesters clash with police in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Felipe Dana/AP)
Police detain an anti-government protester in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Felipe Dana/AP)
A black-clad protestor stands by graffiti on the wall in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Felipe Dana/AP)
A protestor kicks back an exploded tear gas shell in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Felipe Dana/AP)
A mask hangs at the entrance of a closed public transport station in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Felipe Dana/AP)
Anti-government protesters march past police headquarters in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP)
Anti-government protesters wearing masks march past police headquarters in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP)
Anti-government protesters set fire to block traffic in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP)
A black-clad protestor splashes water on the face of a woman after police fired tear gas shells in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP)
Protestors take cover in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. A Hong Kong police official says a pro-democracy protester was shot when an officer opened fire with his revolver during clashes. (Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP)
Anti-government protesters vandalize photographs of Chinese President Xi Jinping as they march in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Vincent Yu/AP)
Anti-government protesters waving U.S. flags march in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Vincent Yu/AP)
Anti-government protesters wearing masks march in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Vincent Yu/AP)
Police fire tear gas at anti-government protesters at Shatin, Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Kin Cheung/AP)
Anti-government protesters make fire to block traffic as they clash with police in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Vincent Thian/AP)
Black-clad protestors hold gasoline bombs in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Vincent Thian/AP)
Protestors sit on a littered street in Hong Kong, Oct. 1, 2019. (Photo: Vincent Thian/AP)
A ranking House Republican is formally asking the Justice Department to broaden its investigation to include President Trump’s conduct during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
President-elect Biden has ordered up a shock-and-awe campaign for his first days in office to signal, as dramatically as possible, the radical shift coming to America and global affairs, his advisers tell us. The plan, Part 1 ... Biden, as detailed in a "First Ten Days" memo from incoming chief of staff Ron Klain, plans to unleash executive orders, federal powers and speeches to shift to a stark, national plan for "100 million shots" in three months. Get smarter, faster with the news CEOs, entrepreneurs and top politicians read. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here. * A federal mask mandate on government property and for interstate travel — Biden's "100 Day Masking Challenge." * Expand neighborhood access by activating local pharmacies, working directly with both independent drugstores and massive chains. * Reimburse states for deploying the National Guard to support vaccinations, and provide additional FEMA assistance.The plan, Part 2 ... Biden plans a $2 trillion stimulus/coronavirus plan plus the following executive orders to symbolize and solidify a substantial shift here and abroad: * Rescind the travel ban on several predominantly Muslim countries. * Rejoin the Paris climate accord. * Extend pandemic-related limits on evictions. * Order federal agencies to find ways to reunite children split apart from their families after crossing the border.The big picture: Watch for Biden to wrap everything, even tangential ideological priorities, under the banner of the coronavirus, in hopes of speeding up legislative action and picking up some Republican votes. * Biden privately says he has a small window to get the vaccination rollout right and the economy recovering. Otherwise, he'll fall victim to liberals who find his actions too timid, and Republicans who find them too liberal. Be smart: sign up FREE for the most influential newsletter in America.
Scientists say Colombia must cull its so-called “cocaine hippos” that roam the Magdalena river basin as they are breeding voraciously and are an increasing menace. The marshlands of Colombia have been home to these giant mammals since they were illegally imported in the late 1980s by the notorious drug lord, Pablo Escobar. When he was shot dead in 1993, the Colombian government took control of his extravagant estate, including his personal zoo. Most of the animals were shipped away, but four hippos were left to fend for themselves in a pond, and now there are dozens of them living in the wild. Although nobody knows exactly how many there are, estimates put the total number between 80 and 100, making them the largest invasive species on the planet. Scientists forecast that the number of hippos will swell to almost 1,500 by 2040. They conclude, that at that point, environmental impacts will be irreversible and numbers impossible to control. “Nobody likes the idea of shooting a hippo, but we have to accept that no other strategy is going to work,” ecologist Nataly Castelblanco-Martínez told The Telegraph.
A 1st Armored Division soldier at Fort Bliss, Texas has been charged with sexually assaulting three women over the past year, including a fellow soldier who was found dead a year on New Year's Eve.
The Trump administration early on Saturday carried out its 13th federal execution since July, an unprecedented run that concluded just five days before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who is an opponent of the federal death penalty.
Fanny Mergui has no doubt: Moroccan Jews "are already packing their suitcases" to board direct flights to Israel after the kingdom normalised ties with the Jewish state.
President Trump is known for going off script, but his premature presidential election victory declaration in the early hours of the morning on Nov. 4 wasn't a completely spur-of-the-moment decision, Axios' Jonathan Swan reports.In the first installment of a reported series on Trump's final two months in office, Swan writes that Trump began "choreographing election night in earnest" during the second week of October following a "toxic" debate with President-elect Joe Biden on Sept. 29 and a bout with COVID-19 that led to his hospitalization. At that point, Trump's internal poll numbers had reportedly taken a tumble, Swan notes.With that in mind, he reportedly called his first White House chief of staff, a stunned Reince Priebus, and "acted out his script, including walking up to a podium and prematurely declaring victory on election night if it looked like he was ahead." Indeed, in the lead up to Election Day, Trump reportedly kept his focus on the so-called "red mirage," the early vote counts that would show many swing states leaning red because mail-in ballots had yet to be counted. Trump, Swan reports, intended to "weaponize it for his vast base of followers," who would go to bed thinking he had secured a second-term, likely planting the seeds of a stolen election. Read more at Axios. > As I've been writing, the plan was to steal the election all along. Fantastic reporting here. https://t.co/k8C73o8vH7> > -- Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) January 16, 2021More stories from theweek.com 5 more scathing cartoons about Trump's 2nd impeachment Trump's vaccine delay is getting suspicious Biden's inaugural address expected to push unity, optimism
The US claimed on Saturday that staff at a Chinese virology laboratory became sick with a Covid-like illness in autumn 2019, months before the coronavirus spread widely from Wuhan. In a long-awaited document from the state department, the Trump administration called for an investigation as it published dubious accusations that a possible "laboratory accident" at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) may be the source of the global pandemic. The claims were dismissed by analysts who insist the disease came from a naturally occurring event. In a statement late on Friday claiming to reveal "undisclosed information", the state department said it "has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case, with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illnesses." The statement also said that the lab had been carrying out research on a bat coronavirus similar to the Sars-CoV-2 strain that spread globally and that the lab had collaborated with China's military on publications and secret projects. Some experts were nonplussed by the announcement. "Zero details given," noted Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at Scripps Research, rating the statement as "an F". The fact that Wuhan was home to the world's leading coronavirus research facility before it became known as ground zero for the pandemic has led to speculation that the virus could have originated in the lab.
People throughout the San Francisco Bay area on Saturday night reported feeling a magnitude 4.2 earthquake that hit the region. The earthquake hit 8:01 p.m and had an epicenter about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) southeast of Aromas, a town of about 2,650 people that straddles Monterey and San Benito counties, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The San Jose Mercury News reported that social media activity indicates that the earthquake was felt not only in the counties near where it was centered, but at least as far as San Francisco and Contra Costa counties.
Guatemalan security forces used sticks to beat back a migrant caravan early on Sunday after thousands of people set off from Honduras for the United States this week, just as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to enter the White House. Between 7,000 and 8,000 migrants have entered Guatemala since Friday, according to Guatemala's immigration authority, fleeing poverty and violence in a region hammered by the coronavirus pandemic and back-to-back hurricanes in November. However, around 3,000 Guatemalan security officials mustered in the village of Vado Hondo in eastern Guatemala to hold up the caravan, leading to the clashes on Sunday morning.
Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) on Friday called for the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol last week to be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” saying those who participated in the unrest that left five dead were “terrorists attacking this country’s constitutionally-mandated transfer of power.” Sasse’s comments come after the Department of Justice said in court documents that the rioters breached the Capitol with the intent to “capture and assassinate elected officials.” In a memo requesting that “QAnon shaman” Jacob Anthony Chansley be kept in detention, Justice Department lawyers in Arizona wrote that “strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions at the Capitol” show that the intent was to harm elected officials. Sasse said it would be “wrong” of “rage-peddlers” to “try to whitewash the attack on the Capitol, saying that a few bad apples got out of control.” “Every American needs to understand what the Department of Justice has just made public: Investigators have strong evidence to suggest that some of the rioters who stormed the United States Capitol planned to kidnap and possibly assassinate the Vice President,” he said. “These men weren’t drunks who got rowdy — they were terrorists attacking this country’s constitutionally-mandated transfer of power,” he added. “They failed, but they came dangerously close to starting a bloody constitutional crisis.” He concluded: “They must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The FBI is investigating widespread calls for violence across the country and every American has an obligation to lower the temperature.” Last week, before the House impeached President Trump for a second time on an “incitement of insurrection” charge, Sasse had vowed to consider any articles of impeachment against Trump that came before the Senate. “The House, if they come together and have a process, I will definitely consider whatever articles they might move,” Sasse said in an interview with CBS. “I believe the president has disregarded his oath of office…what he did was wicked.”
China on Saturday finished a five-day construction project on a 1,500-room hospital as clusters of COVID-19 spread in Beijing and the surrounding provinces.The state of play: The facility is the one of six hospitals with a total of 6,500 rooms in the works in Nangong, the Xinhua News Agency said Saturday per AP reporting. They are all expected to be completed next week.Get smarter, faster with the news CEOs, entrepreneurs and top politicians read. Sign up for Axios Newsletters here. * China reportedly put roughly 28 million people on lockdown this week in the the Hebei provincial capital of Shijiazhuang.By the numbers: China has reached a 10-month high for COVID cases and on Friday reported 168 cases. * Yes, but: The numbers remain far below the infection levels the nation saw last February, when China reached a record high of approximately 15,000 daily cases. * The country has reported more than 97,000 cases and over 4,700 deaths as of Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins university data. * It remains possible that China — the site of the original coronavirus outbreak — has been underreporting its cases.What they're saying: The Chinese government has blamed the surge on food imports and travelers visiting the country. * The new cases "are all imported from abroad. It was caused by entry personnel or contaminated cold chain imported goods," the National Health Commission said in a statement, per AP. The big picture: The WHO agreed last May to a call from over 110 countries to lead an independent review of the global coronavirus response after China backed the move following clashes with Australia, which had earlier advocated for a sweeping inquiry.Go deeper... Timeline: The early days of China's coronavirus outbreak and cover-upBe smart: sign up FREE for the most influential newsletter in America.
Scotland's fishermen have told Boris Johnson his Brexit trade deal leaves them with the "worst of both worlds" amid export delays and collapsing market prices. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the Scottish Fishermen's Federation (SFF) said the industry was facing "mounting financial losses" and the only way to ensure a fair price was a 72-hour round trip to land catch in Denmark. Elspeth Macdonald, the trade group's chief executive, said there was "huge disappointment and a great deal of anger about your failure to deliver on promises made repeatedly to this industry." She accused him of having "spun a line" about a 25 per cent uplift in the UK's quota and demanded urgent details of promised compensation for the disruption. Her concerns were echoed by Scotland's seafood processors, who said ministers in both London and Edinburgh need to "get a grip" of the long delays exporters are facing. A third of fishing boats in Scotland are tied up at harbours and the industry is estimated to be losing £1 million per day. Exporters warned they face possible bankruptcy amid a suspension of road deliveries due to border delays. Transport company DFDS stopped exports last week after delays in getting new paperwork introduced following the expiry of the Brexit transition period for EU border posts in France. It aims to resume the service on Monday. Paperwork has to be approved before consignments can be sent to DFDS's warehouse in South Lanarkshire and then on to English Channel ports. In her letter to the Prime Minister, Ms McDonald said: "Many fishing vessels are tied to the quay wall.” She added: "This industry now finds itself in the worst of both worlds. Your deal leaves us with shares that not only fall very far short of zonal attachment, but in many cases fail to ‘bridge the gap’ compared to historic catches, and with no ability to leverage more fish from the EU, as they have full access to our waters. "This, coupled with the chaos experienced since 1st January in getting fish to market means that many in our industry now fear for their future, rather than look forward to it with optimism and ambition."
Lottery players have another chance to win big next week since there were no winners of the top prize for both the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots in their most recent drawings. The Powerball jackpot grew to an estimated $730 million after no one matched all five numbers and the red ball in the drawing on Saturday night. If a lottery player strikes big in the next Powerball drawing on Wednesday, it would be the fifth-largest jackpot ever in the United States.
