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  • Cormac McCarthy, among America’s greatest authors, dies at 89 | CNN

    Cormac McCarthy, among America’s greatest authors, dies at 89 | CNN

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    CNN
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    Cormac McCarthy, long considered one of America’s greatest writers for his violent and bleak depictions of the United States and its borderlands in novels like “Blood Meridian,” “The Road” and “All the Pretty Horses,” died on Tuesday, according to his Penguin Random House publisher Alfred A. Knopf. He was 89.

    McCarthy died of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Knopf said.

    Over a nearly 60-year career, McCarthy – hailed by the late literary critic Howard Bloom as the “true heir” of Herman Melville and William Faulkner – wrote a dozen novels, many of them critically celebrated if not commercial hits, though he would eventually achieve both. For years, he wrote while living on grants, most notably the MacArthur “genius grant,” which he was awarded in 1981.

    Despite accolades, McCarthy remained relatively obscure for much of his career; as recently as 1992, 27 years after his first book was published, the New York Times Book Review said he “may be the best unknown novelist in America.”

    Both before and since, McCarthy was seen and portrayed in the media as reclusive, eschewing the kind of book tours, signings, interviews and lectures other renowned writers would see as professional obligations. But McCarthy famously abhorred talking about his books, which principally featured male characters and profuse violence, as well as sparse punctuation.

    Still, he was a “writer’s writer,” the Times reported, with a cult following and a reputation “far out of proportion to his name recognition or sales.”

    “I never had any doubts about my abilities,” McCarthy told the Times in one of his few interviews. “I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.”

    That obscurity changed with “All the Pretty Horses,” the first installment of his “Border Trilogy,” which became a bestseller and won the 1992 National Book Award, at last marrying the critical acclaim he’d enjoyed with mainstream success.

    His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Road,” which followed a father and son traveling through a post-apocalyptic America, further catapulted McCarthy to popularity, thanks in part to Oprah Winfrey selecting the novel for her book club. McCarthy, in turn, granted Oprah his first and only television interview.

    “The Road” was also one of several of McCarthy’s books adapted for film, most notably the Coen Brothers’ adaptation of “No Country for Old Men,” which won four Academy Awards, including best picture.

    The author was born Charles McCarthy Jr. on July 20, 1933, in Providence, Rhode Island. His family moved when he was still young to Knoxville, Tennessee, where his father was an attorney for the Tennessee Valley Authority. His was a relatively comfortable childhood, one that played out on a plot of wooded land in a large white house with maids.

    “We were considered rich,” he told the Times, “because all the people around us were living in one- or two-room shacks.”

    For all his later literary achievements, McCarthy was not a voracious reader in his childhood or adolescence. It wasn’t until he served in the US Air Force after dropping out of the University of Tennessee that McCarthy began reading extensively, in his barracks while stationed in Alaska, he told the Times.

    He would later move to Chicago, where he finished his first novel and in 1961 married his first wife, Lee Holleman, with whom he had a son. They soon divorced.

    That novel, “The Orchard Keeper,” was published in 1965, after shepherding by the famous Random House editor Albert Erskine, who also edited Faulkner. Erskine, who died in 1993, would go on to edit McCarthy for two decades despite the fact, Erskine admitted to the Times, that McCarthy’s books never sold.

    “Outer Dark” followed in 1968 and “Child of God” in 1973, after a stint in Ibiza and McCarthy’s subsequent return to Tennessee with his second wife, Annie DeLisle. But still, they lived in “total poverty,” DeLisle once said, “bathing in the lake.”

    “Someone would call up and offer him $2,000 to come speak at a university about his books,” DeLisle told the New York Times. “And he would tell them that everything he had to say was there on the page. So we would eat beans for another week.”

    But McCarthy didn’t become a writer to make money, instead “maybe simply, because I can do it,” he told the Maryville-Alcoa Times, a Tennessee newspaper, in 1971. “There are a lot of easier ways to make money. I could sell tickets to people and let them watch while I was run over by a truck.”

    His next novel, “Suttree,” was published in 1979. McCarthy was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship two years later, giving him financial security to focus on writing. McCarthy left DeLisle and used the money to abscond to the Southwest, where he spent the next several years steeped in research for “Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West,” published in 1985.

    The historically based novel – widely regarded as McCarthy’s masterpiece – follows a brutal gang of scalp hunters as they journey across the Southwest, massacring Apache and members of the Mexican Army.

    “All the Pretty Horses” was published in 1992 and was followed over years by “The Crossing” and “Cities of the Plain,” which together comprise “The Border Trilogy” – in all a more idyllic ode to the region that recounted the adventures of two young cowboys.

    “No Country for Old Men” in 2005 received a less positive critical reception than McCarthy’s earlier novels, though its standing improved with time. The book, which the author began as a screenplay, did well as a movie under the direction of Joel and Ethan Coen, with the talents of Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin, as well as Javier Bardem as the fearsome but unforgettable killer Anton Chigurh, a role that won Bardem Academy Award for best supporting actor.

    McCarthy’s attention turned away from the American West for 2006’s “The Road.” The book, dedicated to his then-young son – he had by then divorced and remarried again – was conceived on a trip to El Paso, Texas, he told Winfrey, as he looked out the hotel window one night.

    “I just had this image of these fires up on the hill and everything being laid waste, and I thought a lot about my little boy,” he said, and wrote a couple pages. Revisiting the idea several years later, he realized those pages were the beginning of a book about a man and his son traveling through that ashen landscape while staving off the threat of cannibals.

    The book wrote itself, he said, in a few weeks’ time.

    The ensuing years were quiet ones, with little in the way of new material. By this time, McCarthy was spending much of his time at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, an independent research group of mostly scientists where he eventually became a lifetime trustee.

    McCarthy, whose interest in the sciences was well-documented, enjoyed the company of the physicists, biologists and geologists at the institute, and it was there he was often seen writing on his Olivetti typewriter, working on his next novels, “The Passenger” and “Stella Maris,” released just six weeks apart in 2022.

    The books dealt with the same story from different perspectives and featured a female main character as McCarthy’s dearth of well-developed women protagonists in his writing had long been a point of criticism. After being married three times, he told Oprah, “I don’t pretend to understand women.”

    But he alluded to the twin novels and their story’s female protagonist in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2009, saying, “I was planning on writing about a woman for 50 years. I will never be competent enough to do so, but at some point you have to try.”

    As for the lavish amounts of violence in his work, McCarthy told Vanity Fair in 2005 he didn’t know what resonated with him about that theme, only that he felt death was the principal motif at the heart of all our lives.

    “Death is the major issue in the world. For you, for me, for all of us,” he said. “It just is. To not be able to talk about it is very odd.”

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  • Woman presumed dead found alive in coffin at her wake in Ecuador | CNN

    Woman presumed dead found alive in coffin at her wake in Ecuador | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A 76-year-old woman who was declared dead at a hospital in Ecuador was found to be alive and knocking on her coffin during her own wake in the city of Babahoyo.

    “I lifted up the coffin, and her heart was pounding, and her left hand was hitting the coffin… We called 911 to bring her here to the hospital,” her son Gilberto Barbera said in a video posted on social media.

    In the video, people could be seen waiting and supporting Montoya as emergency services arrived at the scene, taking the 76-year-old woman back to the hospital.

    A state investigation is now underway, according to the Ministry of Public Health.

    It says the woman had been admitted Friday to the hospital with a possible stroke and cardiopulmonary arrest, and after she didn’t respond to resuscitation protocol, a doctor on duty declared her dead.

    The video also goes on to show her hospital tags and then her son, who is shown pleading for an ambulance to arrive.

    The woman’s full name is widely reported to be Bella Yolanda Montoya Castro, corresponding to the initials “B.Y.M.C” used in Ecuador’s Health Ministry statement issued on Sunday.

    It said Montoya was in intensive care at the Martín Icaza Hospital in Babahoyo – the same facility that initially declared her dead. Her current condition is unknown.

    CNN’s calls to the hospital for comment have not been returned.

    The man recording the video later asked the name of the woman, to which someone in the room replied: “Bella Yolanda.”

    The ministry went on to say that, in coordination with the Health Services Quality Assurance Agency, a national technical committee was formed “to initiate a medical audit to establish responsibilities for the alleged confirmation of death.”

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  • Three people found dead in major incident in Nottingham, UK police say | CNN

    Three people found dead in major incident in Nottingham, UK police say | CNN

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    Three people were found dead in the English city of Nottingham on Tuesday in what police called a major incident.

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  • New details emerge about the alleged search history of the Utah mom charged with her husband’s murder | CNN

    New details emerge about the alleged search history of the Utah mom charged with her husband’s murder | CNN

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    CNN
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    “What is a lethal dose of fentanyl” is one of many phone searches that investigators say were made by Kouri Richins, a Utah widow accused of killing her husband before she authored a children’s book about grief.

    The new details on the widow’s alleged search history emerged as part of the prosecution’s case against Richins, 33, who will be in a Park City, Utah, court Monday for a detention hearing. A judge is expected to decide if she should be released or remain in custody pending the outcome of her trial.

    Prosecutors allege she killed Eric Richins, her husband of nine years, with a lethal dose of fentanyl. She faces charges of criminal homicide, aggravated murder and three counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. She has not yet entered a plea.

    The documents released Friday also give insight into Richins’ defense. Her attorneys argue “there is no substantial evidence to support the charges” and say she should be released as she awaits trial.

    Among the details released in the documents are internet searches investigators say were found on Richins’ phone that were described by prosecutors as “incriminating.”

    Some of the articles pulled up through her searches focused on fentanyl, life insurance payments and others relating to police investigations and how data is collected from electronic devices.

    The searches found on Richins’ iPhone include the phrases: “can cops force you to do a lie detector test?” “Luxury prisons for the rich in America,” “death certificate says pending, will life insurance still pay?” “If someone is poisoned what does it go down on the death certificate as,” and “How to permanently delete information from an iPhone remotely.”

    Eric Richins was found dead at the foot of the couple’s bed in March 2022. His wife told investigators at the time that she brought her husband a Moscow Mule cocktail in the bedroom of their Kamas, Utah, home, then left to sleep with their son in his room and returned around 3 a.m. to find her husband lying on the floor cold to the touch.

    About a year to the day after her husband died, Richins published a children’s book, “Are You With Me?” about navigating grief after the loss of a loved one.

    Prosecutors say Richins withdrew money from bank accounts without her husband’s knowledge and tried to change a life insurance policy to make herself the sole beneficiary. They also point to various incidents where she allegedly may have attempted to poison him.

    Meanwhile, her lawyers argue in filings made Friday that Richins had the right to withdraw money from their joint accounts, claim “there is no evidence identifying the computer from which the login was initiated” when the life insurance policy change was attempted, and say she did not attempt to poison him.

    Investigators also detailed a series of illicit fentanyl purchases in the months leading up to her husband’s death, according to the documents. His death was six days after the latest alleged pill delivery, investigators say.

    An autopsy and toxicology report revealed that Eric Richins, 39, had about five times the lethal dosage of fentanyl in his system, according to a medical examiner.

    The defense insists there is no proof their client gave her husband the lethal dose.

    “Law enforcement never identified or seized any fentanyl or other illicit drugs from the Family Home,” her defense lawyers wrote in a motion. Also, “the State has provided no evidence that there was fentanyl found in the home. Nor have they provided any evidence that Kouri gave Eric the fentanyl at issue.”

    Eric Richins is described as a “partier” and someone who “loved a good time,” in the defense motion. “He would consume alcohol and THC in any form,” the document said.

    The defense motion also points to discrepancies in witness testimony, adding that law enforcement told one witness that “if she gave them what they wanted, it would constitute her ‘get out of jail free card,’” the document says.

    Potentially previewing what may be presented in trial, another filing in the case includes allegations that some of Eric Richins’ financial documents may have been forged.

    The professional opinion of Matt Throckmorton – a forensic document examiner who looked at three specific documents relating to durable power of attorney and life insurance – is included in the filings.

    After comparing those documents with dozens of other documents Eric Richins authored, Throckmorton indicated that signatures on the three items in question appear to have been forged.

    “The forgeries in this case are ‘simulated forgeries.’ That is when someone tries to copy, draw or duplicate another person’s characteristics and habits and tries to create a fraudulent signature or set of initials with enough similarities they might get passed off as genuine,” Throckmorton explained.

    “Eric made and requested several unusual to highly unusual choices and provisions to his estate plan,” said attorney Kristal Bowman-Carter, who counseled Eric on estate planning, according to the documents.

    Those unusual requests included that his wife not be designated as his health care agent should one be needed and that his wife and children be provided for, but with the caveat that she should be unable to control the financials. Eric chose his father and sister to be trustees on his family’s behalf, according to the documents.

    Eric sought to “protect the three young sons he and Kouri had together in the long-term by ensuring that Kouri would never be in a position to manage his property after his death,” Bowman-Carter said.

    In a phone conversation the day after Eric’s death, Bowman-Carter explained the trust to Kouri. She said Kouri “became extremely upset. Her behavior (led) me to believe she was learning this for the first time.”

    In an email included in the filings, Richins wrote to police clarifying information about her previous testimony, including a reference to an affair her husband previously had. “Eric’s affair was the same year I ‘moved out,’ the trust was created as well as him looking into a divorce,” she wrote. “Eric and I figured things out like most couples do,” she added.

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  • A father drowned at the Jersey Shore while attempting to save his daughter, police say | CNN

    A father drowned at the Jersey Shore while attempting to save his daughter, police say | CNN

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    CNN
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    A New York firefighter drowned while attempting to save his teenage daughter who had been swept away in rough surf on the Jersey Shore on Friday, authorities said.

    First responders were able to rescue the girl and her father was transported to a local hospital where he was later pronounced dead, according to first responders. He was identified as New York Fire Department firefighter Mark Batista, according to the department.

    “We are heartbroken to learn about the death of Firefighter Mark Batista, who died Friday while swimming at the Jersey Shore,” New York Fire Department spokesperson Amanda Farinacci Gonzalez said in a statement.

    “Firefighter Batista was a dedicated public servant who spent fifteen years serving in the FDNY, as both an EMT and a firefighter. We join his family in mourning his tragic passing.”

    At around 8:30 a.m. Friday, rescuers from the Area Network of Shore Water Emergency Responders Team responded to reports that two swimmers were in distress at the Sylvania Avenue Beach in Avon-by-the-Sea, according to a Facebook post by the interlocal organization. Rescuers were able to quickly find and rescue the teenager in the rough waters but were unable to locate the man, the post said.

    The rescue team launched an hourlong search effort involving rescue swimmers, divers, jet skis boats, and a drone to find the father, according to the Facebook post. At around 10 am, a US Coast Guard helicopter identified a “possible location” for the father and rescue swimmers located him and removed him from the water.

    First responders attempted to administer “lifesaving efforts” to the 39-year-old Teaneck man, who was transported to Jersey Shore University Medical Center where he was pronounced dead, according to the Avon-by-the-Sea Police Department.

    In a Friday Facebook post, the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office urged caution in the water.

    “In the wake of this morning’s unfortunate incident in Avon where a man drowned while trying to rescue his daughter after she was caught in rough surf, we once again caution all to please NOT go in the water when there are no lifeguards on duty,” the sheriff’s office wrote.

    The official cause of death has not yet been released. The Avon-by-the-Sea Police Department is investigating the incident.

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  • As horse racing’s best trainers rake in millions, records show they’ve violated rules aimed at keeping the animals safe | CNN

    As horse racing’s best trainers rake in millions, records show they’ve violated rules aimed at keeping the animals safe | CNN

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    CNN
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    As horse racing’s elite saddle up for the final race of the coveted Triple Crown at New York’s Belmont Stakes, the sport’s top trainers will face off for their share of the $1.5 million purse at the lavish, star-studded event – amid growing scrutiny after a recent spate of horse deaths.

    A CNN analysis of disciplinary records found that the top earning trainers in the sport – whose thoroughbreds win them millions of dollars – have all broken rules meant to keep their horses safe. Trainers slapped with violations have continued racing, pocketing winnings while paying minimal fines.

    Records show that horse racing’s most successful trainers have violated the sport’s rules multiple times over the course of thousands of races across decades-long careers. The violations range from failed drug tests on race day to falsifying a trainer license. At least three of the trainers have horses competing at the Belmont Stakes this weekend.

    Many of the violations center on the use of drugs that could mask pain prior to a race, potentially leading racehorses – bred for speed with spindly legs – to run on preexisting injuries that increase the risk of fatal breakdowns on the tracks. Researchers have found that about 90% of fatal horse injuries involve preexisting issues, such as small fractures that weaken horses’ bones.

    While therapeutic medications are often legal for treating horses, several are banned on race day.

    “If a horse has an anti-inflammatory, it could compromise an inspection,” said Dr. Jennifer Durenberger, a veterinarian with the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, the national regulatory body established in 2020. “It’s one of the reasons we do restrict medications in the pre-race period.”

    In many ways, the violations say more about the sport than the trainers themselves. Historically, drug limits and rules have varied from state to state, and punishments, which typically led to fines of a few hundred dollars, seemed more like slaps on the wrists than true deterrents. Trainers suspended from one racetrack were still able to compete on others.

    Horse racing reform advocates, and even some trainers, say that national standards for drug violations will help with compliance and improve horse safety.

    Trainers and their representatives interviewed by CNN, however, largely dismissed their disciplinary records, citing unaccredited testing labs, sensitive testing which picks up on minute traces of medication and inconsistent rules among tracks that led to mistakes often beyond their control. They also say the violations must be placed in the context of the thousands of races their horses have started.

    It was supposed to be a triumphant comeback for legendary horse trainer Bob Baffert, but his Preakness Stakes win was underscored by tragedy.

    Just hours before a horse he trained, National Treasure, won the second-leg of the Triple Crown last month, Baffert’s powerful bay-colored colt, Havnameltdown, suffered an injury to its fore fetlock, the equivalent of an ankle, during an earlier race that day. A veterinarian deemed the injury “non-operable,” leaving the three-year-old horse to be euthanized on the track. The Maryland Racing Commission is investigating the death.

    During his short life, Havnameltdown earned $708,000 in prize money for his handlers, including Baffert, who has said the horse got “hit pretty hard” by another horse coming out of the starting gate.

    The Maryland race marked Baffert’s anticipated return to a Triple Crown race – the first since his 2021 Kentucky Derby win was disqualified after his horse, Medina Spirit, failed a post-race drug test. Baffert was cited by the state horse racing commission and Churchill Downs handed him a suspension that banned him from the next two Derby races.

    The drug test revealed that Medina Spirit had betamethasone in his system. The drug is legal for horses in Kentucky, but state rules don’t allow any detectable levels on race day. Baffert disputed the test result and appealed the commission’s citation.

    During his suspension, Baffert continued to race at other tracks and claimed his cut of millions in prize money. Months after the Derby, Medina Spirit died while training at California’s Santa Anita Park; the necropsy report was inconclusive.

    Equine deaths are quite common – hundreds die on and off the track annually. The root cause of what can bring down a massive, muscular horse can range from the natural to the exploitive, including being overworked and overdrugged in the quest for winnings.

    But while some deaths are difficult to prevent, the recent spate of tragedies, especially ones like the public euthanasia of Havnameltdown, have cast a dark shadow over the multi-billion-dollar industry.

    In the span of a month, 12 horses died at Churchill Downs, Kentucky’s most prominent track, since the stable opened this season. The track has suspended racing there while the fatalities are investigated.

    Bob Baffert-trained horse Havnameltdown, behind the curtain, had to be euthanized on May 20, 2023, during the sixth race of Preakness Day in Baltimore.

    The deaths sparked public outrage and thrust the industry back into the national spotlight just a week after HISA rolled out regulations that include medication control.

    But that’s done little to assuage critics’ concerns over the treatment of horses in what was once called the sport of kings.

    “All of it sounds really impressive and it’s quite a show, but that’s all it is: A show. Meanwhile, the horses continue to die,” said Patrick Battuello, an advocate who has tracked horse deaths for the last decade. “The killing is built into the system. … In what other sport are the athletes drugged and doped without their consent?”

    Defenders of the sport argue that the number of horse racing deaths have declined in recent years, and that the industry is safer than it ever was. They point to falling annual death counts collected by The Jockey Club, an influential industry organization, which reports the number of horses who die or are euthanized after racing injuries. The group has tallied several hundred racing deaths each year, with 328 in 2022, down from 709 a decade earlier.

    But those numbers don’t include horses who die during training or between races, which critics argue leads to a severe undercounting of deaths in the sport. They also only include thoroughbred horses, not quarter horses and standardbred horses. Battuello has tallied more than 9,500 racehorses that died since 2014, largely based on death records he’s collected from state horse racing commissions – roughly 1,000 a year.

    While the exact rules vary from state to state, trainers are generally required to report horse deaths that occur at racetracks or as a result of injuries sustained during races. Most deaths are categorized as racing-related or training-related.

    In a statement, The Jockey Club argued that its numbers were “the most accurate data possible” and noted that it had different criteria for including racing-related deaths than Battuello.

    The sport’s highest-earning trainers were among those who had the most horses die at racetracks or due to racing injuries, according to a CNN analysis of state records collected by Battuello over the last decade, as well as data from the horse racing website Equibase.

    Some prominent trainers saw far more of their horses die during training than in actual races. CNN’s review found that Todd Pletcher, who’s earned more than any horse trainer in the industry over the course of his career, has trained at least 38 horses whose deaths were reported to state racing commissions since 2014.

    Trainer Todd Pletcher watches a workout at Churchill Downs Tuesday, May 2, 2023, in Louisville, Kentucky.

    More than three-fourths of those deaths were related to training, not racing, according to Battuello’s count – meaning that Pletcher largely avoided the national spotlight shone on deaths that took place during prominent races like the Preakness or Belmont.

    Similarly, four of the seven deceased horses trained by Baffert that CNN documented did not die as a direct result of injuries sustained during races, and thus likely wouldn’t be included in the official tally of deaths counted by The Jockey Club.

    CNN’s review is an undercount of deaths because it only counted deaths reportable to state commissions. The review connected horses to their most recent trainer of record as of their last race – so it’s possible that some of the horses could have moved to a different trainer before their deaths.

    Horse trainers bear the ultimate responsibility for the wellbeing of the horse and adherence to the rules on the track, an industry standard known as the “absolute insurer rule.”

    “We are completely responsible for the horses. When they arrive on the racetrack that day, we’re responsible for what’s going into that horse, whether it’s medication or feed,” said Graham Motion, a 30-year horse trainer in Maryland. “That has to be our responsibility. There’s no other way really to make it work.”

    The most successful trainers in the sport have all been cited for medical or drug violations.

    Pletcher has racked up nine drug-related violations throughout his career. On one occasion, regulators found he broke rules regarding Lasix – known as the “water drug” – which makes a horse urinate and potentially run faster. New regulations have banned the drug – though state commissions can apply for three-year exemptions – while the effect on horse safety is studied, according to HISA.

    Pletcher was suspended for 10 days last month, after a delayed drug test showed that his horse, Forte, had elevated levels of a common pain-reliever and anti-inflammatory drug during a race he won in New York back in September.

    Irad Ortiz Jr. rides Forte to victory during the Breeders' Cup Juvenile race at Keenelend Race Course, on Nov. 4, 2022, in Lexington, Kentucky.

    “Forte came into our care on March 25, 2022, and he has never been prescribed or administered meloxicam,” Pletcher, who did not respond to CNN’s multiple requests for comment, told Bloodhorse.com. “We did an internal investigation and could not find an employee who had used the drug.”

    Records show Pletcher plans to appeal the ruling.

    Baffert, too, was suspended after his horse, Medina Spirit – who placed first in a 2021 race at Churchill Downs – tested positive for an anti-inflammatory. The suspension was one of about two dozen drug-related violations during Baffert’s career; the vast majority included anti-inflammatories like betamethasone and phenylbutazone.

    One of the three highest earning trainers, Steve Asmussen, has been cited for violations of medication rules about 40 times, in many instances finding elevated levels of anti-inflammatories or thyroid medication, according to records from the Association of Racing Commissioners International, an umbrella organization of horse racing regulators. Research has shown thyroid medication in horses can cause cardiac arrythmias and new regulations ban its use in thoroughbreds, including on race day.

    Clark Brewster, an attorney for both Baffert and Asmussen, said the tally of violations from ARCI data paints an unfair picture of his clients because many of those citations involved therapeutic medications that only slightly exceeded allowable limits in the rules, which he said have repeatedly shifted. “These guys are painstakingly trying to get it right.”

    Motion, the veteran Maryland trainer, himself has been cited at least twice in his career for medication violations, once after one of his horses tested positive for methocarbamol – a muscle relaxer that is permissible to treat horses, but not allowed on race day.

    “It was a very difficult time for me. And I fought it. And I almost regret fighting it now,” said Motion, adding that he felt his team “handled the medication the proper way.”

    He said the new rules around when horses need to withdraw from such medication ahead of race day could have prevented this type of incident.

    Trainer Steve Asmussen before the 149th running of the Kentucky Oaks on May 5, 2023, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

    Some therapeutic drugs, including anti-inflammatories, are a big concern for the industry on race day. Before each race, horses are examined by veterinarians to determine their fitness and identify potential ailments. But medication in the horse’s system, like anti-inflammatories, can mask some of those preexisting injuries.

    “The extent [of the preexisting injury] can change dramatically and it can go from something minor to something that is potentially serious, if not life threatening” when a horse bursts onto the track from the starting stall, said Dr. Mary Scollay, chief of science at the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit which oversees the new medication control regulations under HISA.

    New HISA regulations, implemented last month, include strict rules about withdrawal times and allowable medication levels on race day.

    “We want to make sure that there is no lingering effects from that medication that could mask a potential injury that would put that horse at risk to the horse, the rider, the others that are in that race,” said Dr. Will Farmer, equine medical director at Churchill Downs Incorporated. “That’s why we have very strict regulation around use of therapeutics in regards to a race specifically.”

    For decades, a patchwork of local and state rules governed the racetracks in the United States, and trainers found in violation of the rules meant to keep their horses safe have been met with minimal repercussions.

    Pletcher – whose horses have earned more than $460 million in almost 25,000 races – paid $5,000 in fines for drug-related citations over the course of his 27-year career. Baffert and Asmussen were each fined over $30,000 during their decades-long careers, according to records from the racing commissioners association. Those fines are offset by more than $340 million and $410 million in earnings, respectively, according to Equibase.

    What’s more, suspensions only banned trainers from certain tracks, allowing them to continue racing – and pocketing earnings – in other states.

    Since the 2022 New York race where Pletcher’s horse Forte had a post-race positive drug test, the horse won four more competitions for Pletcher, earning his handlers more than $2 million.

    Forte is set to race this weekend and is one of the favorites to win the Belmont Stakes.

    Baffert, too, was able to continue racing after he was hit with the suspension following Medina Spirit’s positive drug test. During that time, Baffert entered hundreds of races on other tracks, competing for purses totaling nearly $125 million, according to Equibase data. In 2022 alone, Baffert’s horses brought in nearly $10 million in prize money.

    A general view at the start during the 145th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.

    The biggest change in the governance of American horse racing was tucked into a 2020 federal spending bill. That proviso ultimately created the national Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, or HISA – a move that, after three previous legislative attempts, found support from federal lawmakers after a particularly deadly season at a California racetrack.

    During the 2018-2019 season, a staggering 56 horses died at one of the most glamorous racetracks in the country, Santa Anita Park, once home to the famous 1940s thoroughbred Seabiscuit.

    The California Horse Racing Board could not determine a common denominator for the fatalities but found that the vast majority of horses that died had preexisting injuries. And, while no illegal substances or procedures were found, many of the horses were on anti-inflammatories and various other medications.

    “Horse racing must develop a culture of safety first,” the California board wrote in its investigative report. “A small number of participants refusing to change will harm the entire industry.”

    Initially a local scandal, the deaths in Santa Anita Park would have national implications. The fatalities led not only to a complete overhaul of racing practices in Santa Anita – improved track maintenance, restrictions on the use of medications, and softer whips on race day – but also to new national rules under the new regulator, HISA.

    As a private entity under the supervision of the Federal Trade Commission, HISA creates uniform regulations and penalties to govern racetracks throughout the country. The latest set of rules, implemented last month, include anti-doping and medication control programs. They also state that any suspension for a rule violation will carry across all tracks under HISA’s jurisdiction.

    HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus said the goal is to ensure that “there is a level playing field, that the horses are treated properly, that there is built-in safety and integrity” in the sport.

    But some pockets of the industry aren’t welcoming the changes – most notably the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, which has questioned the constitutionality of HISA and filed suits arguing regulatory overreach.

    In an annual NHBPA conference held in March, trainers spoke out against HISA citing an increased administrative burden and added costs of higher fees and required veterinary checks.

    “The whole thing is a façade. It’s been all smoke and mirrors,” said Bret Calhoun, a horse trainer and member of the Louisiana HBPA board, according to the Thoroughbred Daily News. “They sold this thing as the safety of the horse. It’s absolutely not about safety of horse. It’s a few people, with self-interest and they have their own personal agenda.”

    There are several lawsuits challenging HISA’s legitimacy and authority in the sport, some backed by the NHBPA, making their way through courts across the country. But while legal battles are fought in the courts, horses keep dying on the tracks.

    Last week, a horse death at Belmont Park meant that there have been fatalities around all three racetracks in the Triple Crown this season.

    “There is risk in any sport. We cannot eliminate risk. We can continue to diminish risk as best we can. We are never going to eliminate a horse getting injured,” said Motion, adding “the most important thing is the welfare of the horse. It’s not winning at all costs. It’s winning with a healthy animal.”

    To identify racehorses who died while being trained by the industry’s highest-earning trainers, CNN combined a list of dead horses compiled by activist Patrick Battuello with data from the horse racing website Equibase.

    Since 2014, Battuello has collected state horse racing commission reports on horse deaths through public records requests and published a list of racehorses who died each year on his website. Most of the horse deaths Battuello has identified are based on state records, although a handful are based on news reports or verbal confirmation he received from racetrack officials.

    CNN matched Battuello’s list of deceased horses with data downloaded from Equibase that listed each horse’s trainer as of its most recent race. For the top three trainers with the highest earnings, Pletcher, Asmussen and Baffert, CNN reviewed the original documents Battuello collected from the commissions, which he provided to reporters.

    Because the Equibase data on trainers is based on each horse’s most recent race, some horses may have moved to other trainers before they died. In a handful of cases, when state death records listed a different trainer for a horse than Equibase does, CNN used the trainer listed in the records.

    CNN’s review only included horse deaths that were required to be reported to state commissions, so it undercounts the total deaths associated with individual trainers. In addition, not all of the dead horses Battuello has documented were able to be reliably matched with Equibase’s data, so additional deaths may also be missing from the review.

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  • Tennessee woman indicted for attempting to hire dark web hitman to kill wife of man she met online | CNN

    Tennessee woman indicted for attempting to hire dark web hitman to kill wife of man she met online | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Tennessee woman was indicted on federal charges after allegedly attempting to hire a hitman to kill the wife of a man she met on a dating site.

    Melody Sasser, 47, of Knoxville, Tennessee, was taken into custody last month for allegedly trying to arrange the murder. She was indicted on “use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire” on June 7th, according to a news release from the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

    According to court documents, Sasser was upset when she found out a man she had met on a dating website got engaged – and she later sought to have his new wife murdered using an online market.

    Investigators in Alabama first learned of the alleged murder-for-hire plot on April 27 after receiving information from a foreign law enforcement agency, according to a criminal complaint filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee on May 11.

    The tip-off from the foreign agency contained messages between a user and administrator of a site on the “dark web” known as Online Killers Market, which “purports to offer ‘hitman for hire’ type services,” the complaint says. The site allows users to submit an “order” for specific services, including “full intended victim details,” according to the complaint.

    Screenshots taken from the site show that the order for the murder-for-hire in Sasser’s case was placed on January 11, according to the complaint.

    The user account “cattree,” which authorities believe belonged to Sasser, describes in detail how she wanted the murder to be handled. “It needs to seem random or accident. or plant drugs, do not want a long investigation,” the user wrote, according to the complaint.

    The user also uploaded a photo of the intended victim, identified only with by the initials J and W in the criminal complaint, and details about her home, vehicle, and work schedule. Authorities believe Sasser used the hiking app “Strava” to track the woman and her husband’s movements, even sharing details on the dark web about a two-mile hike the intended victim had taken. The woman was living in Prattville, Alabama, at the time, according to the complaint.

    Sasser paid for the order through Bitcoin purchases over the span of several months, totaling about $9,750, the complaint states. Authorities matched her Bitcoin purchases at a cryptocurrency ATM to the payments sent by “cattree.”

    As weeks went by after the order was submitted, “cattree” sent follow-up messages to administrators on the Online Killers market website asking why the job was still uncompleted, according to the complaint. She eventually sent more Bitcoin to the administrators to have another purported hitman assigned to the task.

    When authorities informed the victim that there was a threat to her life, she identified Sasser as a possible suspect, according to the complaint.

    The woman told law enforcement that her husband and Sasser were “hiking friends” in Knoxville before he moved to Alabama, the complaint said. The victim said Sasser traveled to the man’s Prattville, Alabama, home unannounced last fall after he told her he was engaged to be married, to which she responded, “I hope you both fall off a cliff and die,” according to the complaint.

    The woman also said that she began receiving “unpleasant phone calls” from someone disguising their voice through an electronic device after Sasser’s unannounced visit and that her car was keyed.

    The woman’s husband told police that he and Sasser met on Match.com. He also said Sasser had helped him plan to hike the Appalachian Trail.

    If Sasser is convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, restitution, and a maximum three-year term of supervised release, according to the US Attorney’s Office.

    CNN has reached out to an attorney listed for Sasser for comment.

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  • Missing children found after 40 days in Amazon survived like ‘children of the jungle,’ Colombian president says | CNN

    Missing children found after 40 days in Amazon survived like ‘children of the jungle,’ Colombian president says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Four young children have been found alive after more than a month wandering the Amazon where they survived like “children of the jungle,” according to Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.

    “Their learning from indigenous families and their learning of living in the jungle has saved them,” Petro told reporters on Friday, after announcing on Twitter that they had been found 40 days after they went missing following a plane crash that killed their mother.

    Petro said the children were all together when they were found, adding they had demonstrated an example of “total survival that will be remembered in history.”

    “They are children of the jungle and now they are children of Colombia,” he added.

    Revealing their discovery earlier in the day, the Colombian president had tweeted an image that seems to show search crews treating the children in a forest clearing, along with the words: “A joy for the whole country!”

    Their grandmother, María Fátima Valencia, said she was “going to hug all of them” and “thank everyone” as soon as they were reunited in their home city of Villavicencio, where they live.

    “I’m going to encourage them, I’m going to push them forward, I need them here,” she said.

    The children, who appear gaunt in the photos, are being evaluated by doctors and will be taken to the town of San Jose del Guaviare. They are expected to receive further treatment in Bogota, the capital, according to Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez.

    “We hope that tomorrow they will be treated at the military hospital,” he said, while praising the Colombian military and indigenous communities for helping find them.

    Petro said the children were weak, needed food and would have their mental status assessed. “Let the doctors make their assessment and we will know,” he added.

    Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, age 13, Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9, Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, 4, and infant Cristin Ranoque Mucutuy were stranded in the jungle on May 1, the only survivors of a deadly plane crash.

    Their mother, Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia, was killed in the crash along with two other adult passengers: pilot Hernando Murcia Morales and Yarupari indigenous leader Herman Mendoza Hernández.

    The children’s subsequent disappearance into the deep forest galvanized a massive military-led search operation involving over a hundred Colombian special forces troops and over 70 indigenous scouts combing the area.

    For weeks, the search turned up only tantalizing clues, including footprints, a dirty diaper and a bottle. Family members said the oldest child had some experience in the forest, but hopes waned as the weeks went on.

    At some point during their ordeal, they’d had to defend themselves from a dog, Petro said.

    He called the children’s survival a “gift to life” and an indication that they were “cared for by the jungle.”

    The Colombian president said he had spoken with the grandfather of the children who said that their survival was in the hands of the jungle which ultimately chose to return them.

    The grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, said he and his wife had endured many sleepless nights worrying about the children.

    “For us this situation was like being in the dark, we walked for the sake of walking. Living for the sake of living because the hope of finding them kept us alive. When we found the children we felt joy, we don’t know what to do, but we are grateful to God,” he said.

    The children’s other grandfather, Narcizo Mucutuy, said he wants his grandchildren to be brought back home soon.

    “I beg the president of Colombia to bring our grandchildren to Villavicencio, here where the grandparents are, where their uncles and aunts are, and then take them to Bogota,” he said.

    Indigenous leader Lucho Acosta, the coordinator of indigenous scouts, credited the “extra effort” of search and rescue teams and local authorities to find the children in a statement on Friday.

    “They all added a little effort so that this Operation Hope could be successful, and we can hope the kids will emerge alive and stronger than before. We have been hoping together with the strength of our ancestors, and our strength prevailed,” he said.

    “We never stopped looking for them until the miracle came,” the Colombian Defense Ministry tweeted.

    During a press conference Friday evening, Petro said he hoped to speak with the children on Saturday.

    “The most important thing now is what the doctors say, they have been lost for 40 days, their health condition must have been stressed. We need to check their mental state too,” he said.

    Petro, who was previously forced to backtrack after mistakenly tweeting that they had been found last month, described the children’s 40-day saga as “a remarkable testament of survival.”

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  • Joran van der Sloot, accused in the US of defrauding Natalee Holloway’s mother, is expected to be flown from Peru to Alabama Thursday | CNN

    Joran van der Sloot, accused in the US of defrauding Natalee Holloway’s mother, is expected to be flown from Peru to Alabama Thursday | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    FBI agents are expected to transfer Joran van der Sloot on Thursday to the US, where he is accused of extorting money from the mother of Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teen who was last seen with the Dutch national and two others 18 years ago in Aruba.

    Agents arrived in Peru – where van der Sloot is imprisoned for the murder of another woman – on Wednesday afternoon, a law enforcement source familiar with the operation told CNN. The team is expected to return to Alabama with van der Sloot on Thursday after he is turned over to US authorities.

    Van der Sloot was indicted in 2010 on US federal charges of extortion and wire fraud in connection with a plot to sell information about the whereabouts of Holloway’s remains in exchange for $250,000, according to an indictment filed in the Northern District of Alabama.

    The missing 18-year-old’s mother, Beth Holloway, wired $15,000 to a bank account van der Sloot held in the Netherlands and through an attorney gave him another $10,000 in person, the indictment states. Once he had the initial $25,000, van der Sloot showed the attorney, John Kelly, where Natalee Holloway’s remains allegedly were hidden, but the information turned out to be false, the indictment states.

    Holloway’s remains have never been found and in 2012, a judge in Alabama signed an order that declared her legally dead.

    Peru initially agreed to extradite van der Sloot to the US to face those charges only after he serves his murder sentence. But last month, the country changed course and agreed to temporarily extradite him to face the US charges, after which he would be returned to Peru, the country’s judiciary said.

    Peru agreed to van der Sloot’s “temporary relocation to the United States, because he is condemned here and he must serve his sentence here,” Justice Minister Daniel Maurate said. “But since the US needs him in order to face trial, and the authorities told us that if he didn’t get there sooner, the case against him could be dropped because the witnesses are elderly.”

    On Wednesday, the superior court in Lima, Peru, ordered van der Sloot to be handed over to FBI agents, according to a statement published on social media on Tuesday.

    “With this resolution, the Judge has completed procedures for the transfer (passive extradition) of Joran Van Der Sloot, who will be prosecuted in the United States of America for the alleged crimes of extortion and fraud against Elizabeth Ann Holloway,” the statement concludes.

    The announcement comes a day after an attorney for van der Sloot filed a habeas corpus petition against his client’s temporary transfer from a Peru prison to the US. Maximo Altez, an attorney for van der Sloot, argued his transfer should be stopped as he had not been notified officially, according to court documents dated June 5.

    The petition seems to contradict previous statements by Altez. On May 30, he told CNN en Espanol his client had agreed to be transferred and he was not expected to submit a habeas corpus application. “I want to go to the US,” van der Sloot told Altez in a letter.

    CNN has tried to reach Altez for further comment.

    Van der Sloot has been held at the Ancón 1 prison in Peru after he was convicted in 2012 of murdering Stephany Flores, 21, in his Lima hotel room. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

    Holloway was last seen alive with van der Sloot and two other men leaving a nightclub in Aruba 18 years ago.

    Police in Aruba arrested and released the three men – van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe – multiple times in 2005 and 2007 in connection with Holloway’s disappearance. Attorneys for the men maintained their innocence throughout the investigation.

    In December 2007, the Aruban Public Prosecutor’s Office said none of the three would be charged and dropped the cases against them, citing insufficient evidence.

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  • FBI agents arrive in Peru for transfer of Joran van der Sloot, suspect in Natalee Holloway case | CNN

    FBI agents arrive in Peru for transfer of Joran van der Sloot, suspect in Natalee Holloway case | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    FBI special agents arrived in Peru on Wednesday for the temporary transfer proceedings of Joran van der Sloot, a law enforcement source familiar with the operation told CNN.

    US federal agents departed Birmingham, Alabama, for Lima on Wednesday morning on an executive jet used for foreign transfer of custody missions, the source said, and the team is expected to return to Alabama with van der Sloot on Thursday after he is turned over to US authorities.

    Van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, is to be temporarily transferred Thursday from Peru to the US to face extortion and fraud charges, Peruvian officials have said.

    The US extortion and wire fraud charges relate to allegations that he extorted money in 2010 from Holloway’s mother by offering bogus information about her daughter’s disappearance.

    Van der Sloot is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in Peru for the 2012 murder of Stephany Flores, 21, in his Lima hotel room. He is currently being held at the Ancón 1 prison in Peru.

    Peru initially agreed to extradite van der Sloot to the US to face the extortion and wire fraud charges only after he serves his murder sentence. But last month, the country changed course and agreed to temporarily transfer him to the US to face the extortion and wire fraud charges, after which he would be returned to Peru, the country’s judiciary said.

    Peru agreed to van der Sloot’s “temporary relocation to the United States, because he is condemned here and he must serve his sentence here,” Justice Minister Daniel Maurate said. “But since the US needs him in order to face trial, and the authorities told us that if he didn’t get there sooner, the case against him could be dropped because the witnesses are elderly.”

    An attorney for van der Sloot argued Monday his transfer to the US should be stopped, but the Lima superior court ordered him to be handed over to FBI agents on Thursday.

    Holloway was last seen alive with van der Sloot and two other men 18 years ago leaving a nightclub in Aruba.

    Police in Aruba arrested and released the three men – van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe – multiple times in 2005 and 2007 in connection with Holloway’s disappearance. Attorneys for the men maintained their innocence throughout the investigation.

    In December 2007, the Aruban Public Prosecutor’s Office said none of the three would be charged and dropped the cases against them, citing insufficient evidence.

    Holloway’s body has not been found. An Alabama judge signed an order in 2012 declaring her legally dead. No one is currently charged in her death.

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  • Opening statements begin in the trial of Parkland school resource officer who stayed outside during shooting | CNN

    Opening statements begin in the trial of Parkland school resource officer who stayed outside during shooting | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The trial of the former school resource officer who remained outside a Parkland, Florida, high school five years ago while 17 people were gunned down inside started in earnest Wednesday, as prosecutors began presenting their opening statement.

    The state has accused retired Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputy Scot Peterson of failing to follow his active shooter training by staying outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018, taking cover for at least 45 minutes while a former student carried out what remains the deadliest high school shooting in US history. Among the slain were 14 students and three staff members; 17 others were injured.

    The case highlights the expectations for officers responding to active shooters as the country faces a seemingly endless scourge of gun violence, with schools such as those in Parkland; Uvalde, Texas; and Newtown, Connecticut, etched in public memory as the scenes of some of the most devastating massacres.

    Peterson has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts – including seven of felony child neglect, three of culpable negligence and one of perjury – and maintains he did nothing wrong. The 60-year-old, who retired as criticism of his alleged failure mounted, has said he didn’t enter the unfolding scene of carnage in the school’s 1200 building because he couldn’t tell where the gunshots were coming from.

    Before the shooting, Peterson was a dedicated and decorated officer who had served for more than three decades, his attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, told CNN.

    “After a 32-year career, this loving husband and father of four went from hero, and in 4 minutes and 15 seconds, he went to criminal,” the defense lawyer said.

    Jury selection began last Wednesday, yielding a panel of six jurors and four alternates tasked with weighing the state’s unusual case, which experts have described to CNN as the first of its kind and a legal stretch.

    The Broward State Attorney’s Office charged Peterson under a Florida statute that usually applies to caretakers, arguing the then-deputy, in his capacity as a school resource officer, was a caregiver responsible for the protection of the high school’s students and staff.

    Peterson was at the school administration building on February 14, 2018, when the shooter opened fire on the first floor of the 1200 building, according to a probable cause affidavit. Peterson got to the building’s east entrance about 2 minutes later, per a timeline in the affidavit.

    Peterson moved about 75 feet away and “positioned himself behind the wall of the stairwell on the northeast corner of the 700 Building” – a third campus structure – the affidavit says, calling it a “position of cover” he held for the duration of the shooting.

    In a blow to both the state and the defense, the judge last week ruled jurors will not make a trip to the scene of the shooting, as the jury in the shooter’s trial did, CNN affiliate WPLG reported. Eiglarsh wanted the jury to see the exterior of the 1200 building, which has been preserved pending the trials of the shooter and Peterson, while prosecutors had wanted jurors to see the building’s interior, too.

    Beyond the child neglect and culpable negligence charges, Peterson was charged with perjury for telling investigators he heard only two or three gunshots after arriving at the scene of the shooting, the affidavit says, while other witnesses said they’d heard more.

    Peterson’s attorney intends to argue, in part, that his client’s confusion about the location of the shooter was reasonable and shared by others at the scene, including members of law enforcement, teachers and students, Eiglarsh told CNN. The lawyer also contends Peterson’s actions at the scene illustrate he was not negligent but reacting as well as he could with the information he had, he said.

    Additionally, Eiglarsh disagrees with the decision to charge his client under the caretaker statute, he told CNN, calling the choice “preposterous.”

    “He’s not a legal caregiver,” Eiglarsh said, acknowledging he understands the argument. “But he’s not a teacher, he’s not a parent, he’s not a kidnapper who’s responsible for the well-being of a child. He’s not hired by the school system.”

    In the past, Peterson and his attorneys have argued the caretaker statute does not apply to him, emphasizing one person is responsible for the deaths and injuries that day: the gunman, then-19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder and was sentenced last year to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a jury declined to unanimously recommend the death penalty.

    That outcome angered and disappointed many victims’ families, including some who see Peterson’s trial as another opportunity for justice.

    “We should not portray or allow the defense team or the deputy who failed to act properly to portray himself as a victim,” Tony Montalto, the father of 14-year-old victim Gina Montalto told CNN before jury selection. “He was charged with keeping the students and staff safe, and he failed to do so.”

    “Regardless of the outcome in the trial,” he said, “I hope he’s haunted every day by the fact that his actions cost lives.”

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  • A ‘once-in-200 years’ heat wave caught Southeast Asia off guard. Climate change will make them more common | CNN

    A ‘once-in-200 years’ heat wave caught Southeast Asia off guard. Climate change will make them more common | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Every day, countless mopeds criss-cross the congested city of Hanoi, in Vietnam, with commuters traveling to work or motorbike taxis dropping off everything from parcels to cooked food and clients.

    One of them is Phong, 42, who starts his shift at 5 a.m. to beat the rush hour, navigating the dense swarm of mopeds and drives for over 12 hours a day with little rest.

    But an unprecedented heat wave that engulfed his country in the past two months has made Phong’s job even more arduous. To get through the heat of the day, he equipped himself with a hat, wet handkerchiefs and several bottles of water – precautions that provided little relief as recorded daytime temperatures soared to more than 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

    The average May temperature in Hanoi is 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit).

    “If I get a heatstroke, I would be forced to suspend driving to recover,” he told CNN. “But I cannot afford it.” 

    Phong, who declined to give his surname, said he carries a tiny umbrella to protect his phone, the main tool he uses for work as a driver for the ride-hailing platform Grab, along with his bike. If the phone breaks, he misses out on much-needed income. “I was worried that the battery would overheat once exposed to the sun,” he said.

    Nearby in the same city, sanitation worker Dinh Van Hung, 53, toils all day cleaning garbage from the bustling streets of Hanoi’s central Dong Da district.

    “It is impossible to avoid the heat, especially at noon and early afternoon,” Dinh told CNN. “Extreme temperatures also make the garbage smell more unpleasant, the hard work is now even more difficult, directly affecting my health and labor.”

    Dinh says “there is no other way” but to change when he starts and finishes his shift.

    “I try to work early in the morning or afternoon and evening,” he said. “During lunch break when the temperature is too high, I find a sidewalk in a small alley, spread out the cardboard sheets to rest for a while and then resume work in the afternoon.” 

    Phong and Dinh are among millions of drivers, street vendors, cleaners, builders, farmers, and other outdoor or informal economy workers across Southeast Asia who were hit the hardest during what experts called the region’s “harshest heat wave on record.” 

    Workers like them make up the backbone of many societies but are disproportionately affected by extreme weather events, with dangerously high temperatures greatly impacting their health and the already precarious nature of their professions.

    April and May are typically the hottest months of the year in Southeast Asia, as temperatures rise before monsoon rains bring some relief. But this year, they reached levels never experienced before in most countries of the region, including tourism hotspots Thailand and Vietnam. 

    Thailand saw its hottest day in history at 45.4 degrees Celsius (114 degrees Fahrenheit) on April 15, while neighboring Laos topped out at 43.5 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit) for two consecutive days in May, and Vietnam’s all-time record was broken in early May with 44.2 degrees Celsius (112 degrees Fahrenheit), according to analysis of weather stations data by a climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera.

    Herrera described it as “the most brutal never-ending heat wave” that has continued into June. On June 1, Vietnam broke the record for its hottest June day in history with 43.8 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit) – with 29 days of the month to go.

    In a recent report from the World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international coalition of scientists said the April heat wave in Southeast Asia was a once-in-200-years event that would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change.

    The scorching heat in Southeast Asia was made even more unbearable and dangerous due to high humidity – a deadly combination.

    Humidity, on top of extreme temperatures, makes it even harder for your body to try and cool itself down.

    Heat-related illnesses, such as heat stroke and heat exhaustion, have severe symptoms and can be life-threatening, especially for those with heart disease and kidney problems, diabetes, and pregnant people.

    “When the surrounding humidity is very high, the body will continue to sweat trying to release moisture to cool itself, but because the sweat is not evaporating it will eventually lead to severe dehydration, and in acute cases it can lead to heat strokes and deaths,” said Mariam Zachariah, research associate in near-real time attribution of extreme events to climate change at World Weather Attribution initiative at Imperial College London. 

    “Which is why a humid heat wave is more dangerous than a dry heat wave,” she told CNN.

    To understand the health risks of humid heat, scientists often calculate the “feels-like” temperature – a single measure of how hot it feels to the human body when air temperature and humidity are both taken into account, sometimes alongside other factors such as wind chill.

    Perceived heat is usually several degrees higher than observed temperature and gives a more accurate reading of how heat affects people.

    CNN analysis of Copernicus Climate Change Service data found that between early April and late May, all six countries in the continental portion of Southeast Asia had reached perceived temperatures close to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) or more every single day. This is above a threshold considered dangerous, especially for people with health problems or those not used to extreme heat.

    In Thailand, 20 days in April and at least 10 days in May reached feels-like temperatures above 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit). At this level, thermal heat stress becomes “extreme” and is considered life threatening for anybody including healthy people used to extreme humid heat.

    Throughout April and May, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia all had several days with potential to cause extreme heat stress. Myanmar had 12 such days – until Cyclone Mocha brought relative relief, but severe devastation, when it made landfall on May 14.

    The April-May heat wave in Southeast Asia caused widespread hospitalizations, damaged roads, sparked fires and led to school closures, however the number of deaths remains unknown, according to the World Weather Attribution report.

     The study found that, because of climate change, the heat was more than two degrees hotter in perceived temperature than it could have been without global warming caused by pollution.

    “When the atmosphere becomes warmer, its ability to hold the moisture becomes higher and therefore the chances of humid heat waves also increase,” Zachariah, one of the authors, told CNN.

    If global warming continues to increase to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), such humid heat waves could occur ten times more often, according to the study. 

    And if emissions continue to increase at the same pace, the next two decades could already see 30 more deaths per million from heat in Thailand, and 130 more deaths per million by the end of the century, according to the UN’s Human Climate Horizons projections.

    For Myanmar that number would be 30 and 520 more deaths per million respectively, for Cambodia – 40 and 270, data shows.

    Extreme weather events also expose systemic inequalities.

    “Occupation, age, health conditions and disabilities, access to health care services, socioeconomic status, even gender – these are all factors that can make people more or less vulnerable to heat waves,” said Chaya Vaddhanaphuti, one of the WWA report’s authors and lecturer at the department of geography at Chiang Mai University in Thailand.

    Marginalized members of society, those without adequate access to healthcare and cooling systems, and those in jobs that are exposed to extremely hot and humid conditions are most at risk of heat stress.

    “It’s important to talk about who can adapt, who can cope, and who has the resources to be able to do this,” Emmanuel Raju, also an author and director of the Copenhagen Center for Disaster Research, said in a press conference on May 17.

    “For those working in the informal economy a lost day means a day lost in wages,” Raju said.

    More than 60% of the employed population in Southeast Asia work in informal employment, and over 80% in Cambodia and Myanmar, according to a 2018 International Labour Organization (ILO) report.

    Farmers and children harvest rice in a field in the southern Thai province of Narathiwat on March 27.

    In late April, Thai health authorities issued an extreme heat alert for the capital Bangkok and several other places across the country, warning people to stay indoors and of heat stroke dangers.

    But for migrant workers like Supot Klongsap, nicknamed “Nui,” who temporarily left his home to work in construction in Bangkok during the pre-monsoon season, staying indoors was simply not an option.

    He said that this year’s hot season was exceptional, causing him to sweat all the time and feel exhausted. “I started to sweat from 8 a.m., and it was difficult to work. I felt very exhausted from losing so much water.”

    Nui, who slept at the construction site, said even the nights were unbearable. “Water coming from the pipe even during nighttime remained very hot just like it was boiled. It was difficult to find comfort.” 

    He said the accommodation for construction workers is roofed and walled with corrugated sheets, and it barely protects from heat. Any access to air-conditioned rooms is a luxury Nui couldn’t afford. “We had to rely on buying ice and adding it to our drinks, our simple way to cool down,” he said.

    A 2021 study found that outdoor workers in developing countries have higher core body temperature than to those working indoors, and they are two to three times more at risk of dehydration, leading to a higher chance of reduced kidney function and other related conditions. 

    Pedestrians use umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun in Bangkok, Thailand, on April 25.

     In Thailand, the government recommends reactive measures, such as staying indoors, hydrating adequately, wearing light-colored clothes, and avoiding certain foods, Chaya told CNN. 

    “But that doesn’t mean that everybody has the same capacity to do so.” 

    The burden of cost often falls on individuals, Chaya said, making it their responsibility to cope with the heat.

    What is needed, he said, is a cohesive international plan that can protect the more vulnerable populations in the face of increasing climate change risks, and proactive measures to prevent potential health issues.

    Governments need to develop large-scale solutions, such as early warning systems for heat, passive and active cooling for all, urban planning, and heat action plans, World Weather Attribution scientists recommended in their report.

    Intensifying heat waves not only affect individuals’ health, but threaten the environment and people’s livelihoods, worsen air quality, destroy crops, increase wildfire risk, and damage infrastructure – so the need for government action plans on heat waves are vital.

     In Yotpieng and Phon villages in northeastern Laos, people’s livelihoods are intimately connected with weather patterns.

     Villagers’ lives here revolve around tea. For centuries, every day at 7 a.m. the tea farmers start collecting leaves, until 11 a.m. when they would bring the harvest back home. The survival of these communities depends on collecting tea leaves to generate income for whole families.

    But this year’s extreme heat is disrupting their ability to work according to their ancient working habits – they had to change from working in the morning to the afternoon during heat waves, and they are worried the quality and quantity of tea leaves will be affected, members of the local community told CNN.

     ”[The] weather is extremely hot for everyone this year and farmers are struggling,” according to Chintanaphone Keovichith, management officer at the Lao Farmer Network.

     “This year the weather is hotter than last year, and the tea leaves are dry,” said tea farmer, Boua Seng.

    The manager of a 1,000-year-old tea processing factory, Vieng Samai Lobia Yaw, said she is worried this year’s tea leaves have not grown enough, which decreases harvest by almost 50% daily.

    This photo taken on May 30 shows a woman watering her rooftop to cool it down in Hanoi, Vietnam.

    “It’s so wasteful – we spend more capital on laborers’ fees but getting less product,” she said.

    For now, tea farmers in Laos have invented solutions to protect their trees. Some have planted large fruit trees, such as peach or plum, to provide shade for tea plantations, while others added more compost to nourish their plants.

    “The tea [trees] in the shade will have a nice green leaf, but the ones without shade will have yellow leaf,” explained tea farmer Thongsouk. “We also collect additional income by selling fruit products.” 

    But they cannot do it alone.

    Without a comprehensive international approach to rapidly reduce planet-warming pollution and to address the interconnected impacts of extreme weather events on individuals, communities, and the environment, the health and economic costs from heat waves will only worsen as the climate crisis unfolds.

    As May turns into June, many are still waiting for some respite.

    “May was the worst month – that’s when the rain usually comes in, but this year [it] still hasn’t arrived yet,” said Chintanaphone.

    Data graphics
    Lou Robinson and Krystina Shveda

    Editing
    Helen Regan

    Photo editing
    Noemi Cassanelli

    Additional reporting
    Kocha Olarn in Bangkok

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  • A mass shooting after a high school commencement ceremony leaves 2 dead, including an 18-year-old graduate | CNN

    A mass shooting after a high school commencement ceremony leaves 2 dead, including an 18-year-old graduate | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A shooting after a high school commencement ceremony in Richmond, Virginia, killed two people Tuesday evening – an 18-year-old man on his graduation day and a man who’d attended the event – and wounded five others, spreading terror among hundreds who were celebrating, police say.

    The gunfire happened in Richmond’s Monroe Park, where graduates and guests were reveling and taking photographs after Huguenot High School held its commencement at a theater across the street, officials said.

    The shooting sent people running in all directions, and a 9-year-old girl was injured by a car that struck her during the chaos, the city’s interim police chief said in a news conference.

    A suspect – a 19-year-old man – was taken into custody after the shooting. Police intend to seek charges of second-degree murder against him, and other charges could follow, Edwards said. The names of the suspect and those killed and injured were not immediately released.

    “This should have been a safe space,” the interim chief, Rick Edwards, said Tuesday night. “It’s just incredibly tragic that someone decided to bring a gun to this incident and rain terror on our community.”

    It’s unclear what motivated the attack. The chief said it was unknown Tuesday whether the suspect is a student.

    “We think the suspect knew at least one of the victims,” the interim chief said, without elaborating.

    Huguenot High’s ceremony was the second Richmond high school commencement to happen Tuesday at Altria Theater, and a third graduation ceremony scheduled there that day was canceled after the shooting, school officials said.

    Though Edwards said the 18-year-old who died had graduated Tuesday, Edwards did not say from which school. The other man who died was a 36-year-old who’d just attended the ceremony, the interim chief said.

    The other gunshot victims were a 14-year-old boy and four men ranging in age from 31 to 58. The 31-year-old had life-threatening injuries as of Tuesday night and the rest did not, Edwards said

    The 9-year-old girl who was hit by a car was being treated at a hospital Tuesday night with non-life-threatening injuries, he added.

    The shooting marks one of at least 279 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.

    The violence added Richmond to a list of communities across the country to grapple with the terror of mass shootings in recent months, including shootings at a mall in Texas, a school in Tennessee, a bank in Kentucky and near a beach in South Florida.

    The shooting happened just before 5:15 p.m. ET, when three off-duty officers who were working security at the ceremony heard gunshots and reported them on their radios, and officers working traffic duty nearby responded, Edwards said.

    “The initial officers indicated there was a barrage of gunfire, but it was over quickly,” he added.

    The suspect fled on foot and was found and detained nearby by security officers with Virginia Commonwealth University, nearby, Edwards said. Monroe Park is part of VCU’s Monroe Park campus.

    Police initially announced detained two people but later said one of them was not involved in the shooting.

    Police seized several guns following the shooting, the interim chief said.

    Turmoil unfolded when the shooting happened, Edwards said.

    “I heard the call come over my radio, and you can hear the chaos and the screaming,” Edwards said.

    “People were having panic attacks, falling on the ground screaming,” Edwards added. “Some people fell. One child was hit by a car.”

    Naomi Wade was outside the Altria Theater selling flowers and teddy bears for the graduates, she told CNN affiliate WTVR. Images of smiling graduates in caps and gowns turned to scenes of panic as gunshots were heard, she said.

    “Everyone literally started running for their lives, trampling each other. Trampled me. Trampled our whole entire stand. It was scary,” Wade said.

    Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney decried the shooting Tuesday and promised whoever was involved would be brought to justice.

    “Is nothing sacred any longer?” Stoney said at a news conference.

    “This should not be happening anywhere,” Stoney said “A child should be able to go to their graduation and walk at their graduation and enjoy the accomplishment with their friends and families.”

    Richmond Public Schools is closing all its schools Wednesday out of an abundance of caution, the system announced on its website.

    The rest of this week’s high school graduations in the district also have been canceled.

    “We’ve been preparing for an event like this. We’ve prepared for it with our partners and hoping that this day would come,” Edwards said. “But it came to Richmond.”

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  • A Black mother of 4 was shot and killed by a neighbor. Her family wants the woman who shot her arrested | CNN

    A Black mother of 4 was shot and killed by a neighbor. Her family wants the woman who shot her arrested | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A mother of four was shot and killed in Florida following a longtime feud with a neighbor who had complained about the victim’s children playing outside, authorities and a family attorney said.

    Deputies responded to a trespassing call Friday night and found one woman suffering from a gunshot wound, Marion County, Florida, Sheriff Billy Woods said in a Monday news conference.

    The victim was identified by family attorneys as AJ Owens.

    The shooter, also a woman, “engaged” with Owens’ children and threw a pair of skates, hitting the children, the sheriff said.

    Following that interaction, one of the children went back inside their home and told their mother, who went to the neighbor’s home “to confront the lady,” the sheriff said.

    According to the shooter, there was “a lot of aggressiveness” from both sides, as well as threats being made, and Owens was ultimately shot through the door, Woods said. She was later pronounced dead at a hospital, authorities said.

    The woman who fired at Owens has been cooperating with law enforcement, the sheriff added. No arrest has been made in the case.

    Authorities have not named the shooter or shared any identifying information. But civil rights attorney Ben Crump, one of the attorneys representing the family, identified her as a White woman, according to a news release from his office Monday.

    In a separate news conference held by Owens’ family attorneys, the victim’s mother said the neighbor who shot her daughter had called the family, including the children, racial slurs.

    The neighbor’s door “never opened,” when Owens, who was Black, tried to confront her, and she was shot through the door, Pamela Dias, the victim’s mother said.

    “My daughter, my grandchildren’s mother, was shot and killed with her 9-year-old son standing next to her. She had no weapon, she posed no imminent threat to anyone,” Dias said.

    “What I’m asking is for justice,” she added. “Justice for my daughter.”

    In Monday’s news conference, authorities pleaded for calm and patience as they investigated the shooting, worked to recover possible video footage and interview the children who witnessed the incident. The sheriff also asked for anyone with information to come forward.

    While responding to criticism about how long the investigation and a possible arrest is taking, the sheriff referenced the state’s “stand your ground” law. The law allows people to meet “force with force” if they believe they or someone else is in danger of being seriously harmed by an assailant.

    “What a lot of people don’t understand is that law has specific instructions for us in law enforcement,” he said. “Any time that we think, or perceive or believe that that might come into play, we cannot make an arrest, the law specifically says that.”

    “What we have to rule out is whether the deadly force was justified or not before we can even make the arrest,” he said.

    Authorities had received reports from the two neighbors dating back to at least January 2021, the sheriff said. Those reports included calls from the shooter complaining about Owens’ children, the sheriff said, adding that it was “children being children,” either being on someone’s property or playing in front of the multiplex.

    “Here’s what I wish: I wish our shooter would have called us instead of taking actions into her own hands. I wish Ms. Owens would have called us, in hopes we could have never got to the point in which we are here today,” he said.

    “Pray for those children. Pray for each and every one of them,” Woods added. “Their life has changed.”

    The sheriff vowed to Owens’ family and friends that his office “is going to do everything to bring justice.”

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  • Major Rail Accidents Fast Facts | CNN

    Major Rail Accidents Fast Facts | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: This timeline is not all-inclusive. Selected rail incidents with at least 200 fatalities are listed, plus US incidents.



    CNN
     — 

    Here’s some background information about major rail accidents since 1900.

    January 1915 – Guadalajara, Mexico: More than 600 people die when a train derails into a ravine during a steep descent.

    May 22, 1915 – Gretna, Scotland: The United Kingdom’s worst rail disaster occurs when three trains collide at Quintinshill, resulting in 227 deaths, many of whom were soldiers of the Royal Scots.

    June 1915 – Montemorelos, Mexico: A military train derails into a canyon, killing more than 300.

    December 12, 1917 – Modane, France: 427 people die when a train carrying more than 1,000 soldiers derails in the French Alps.

    January 16, 1944 – León Province, Spain: A train wrecks in the Torro tunnel, killing more than 500 people.

    March 2, 1944 – Near Salerno, Italy: At least 521 people die from carbon monoxide fumes when a train stalls in a tunnel.

    October 22, 1949 – Poland: More than 200 are killed when the Danzig-Warsaw express derails.

    April 3, 1955 – Guadalajara, Mexico: About 300 die when a night express train derails into a canyon.

    September 29, 1957 – Montgomery, western Pakistan: 250 die when a passenger train collides with a cargo train.

    February 1, 1970 – Buenos Aires, Argentina: The worst train disaster in Argentina’s history occurs when an express train crashes into a standing commuter train, killing 236.

    October 6, 1972 – Saltillo, Mexico: 208 people die after a train traveling at excessive speed derails and catches fire.

    June 6, 1981 – Bihar, India: India’s worst rail accident to date occurs during inclement weather when a train derails and plunges into a river in the state of Bihar, killing 800 and injuring more than 100.

    January 13, 1985 – Near the town of Awash, Ethiopia: The government says that 392 people died when a passenger train derailed while crossing a bridge over a ravine.

    June 4, 1989 – Ural Mountains, Soviet Union: 575 people die when a gas pipeline leaks, causing two passenger trains to explode.

    January 4, 1990 – Sindh province, Pakistan: More than 210 people are killed after the Zakaria Bahauddin Express passenger train crashes into a stationary freight train.

    September 22, 1994 – Tolunda, Angola: 300 die after malfunctioning brakes cause a train to derail and fall into a ravine.

    August 20, 1995 – Firozabad, India: 358 are killed after an express train collides with another train that had stalled after striking a cow.

    October 28, 1995 – Baku, Azerbaijan: A subway fire kills about 300 passengers and injures more than 200.

    August 2, 1999 – India: Brahmaputra Mail train en route to New Delhi slams into the idle Awadh-Assam Express at Gaisal Station in West Bengal, killing 285 and injuring more than 300.

    February 20, 2002 – Egypt: 361 people are killed when a fire breaks out on a train traveling from Cairo south to Luxor.

    June 24, 2002 – Tanzania: A runaway passenger train collides with a freight train and then derails, resulting in 281 deaths.

    February 18, 2004 – Near the town of Neyshabur, Iran: A runaway 51-car chemical train derails and explodes, causing at least 320 deaths and hundreds of injuries to residents in the area.

    December 26, 2004 – Sri Lanka: Between 1,500 to 1,700 passengers aboard the Samudradevi, or Queen of the Sea, train, are believed dead when the tsunami sweeps their train off the tracks.

    June 2, 2023 – Odisha, India: More than 280 people are killed and over 1,000 injured in a three-way crash involving two passenger trains and a freight train in eastern Odisha state.

    March 1, 1910 – Wellington, Washington: An avalanche pushes a passenger train and a mail train into a ravine, killing 96 people.

    July 9, 1918 – Nashville, Tennessee: Considered the worst rail disaster in US history, two passenger trains collide on Dutchman’s Curve, resulting in 101 deaths.

    November 1, 1918 – Brooklyn, New York: At least 90 are killed when a Brighton Beach Train of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company derails inside the Malbone Street tunnel.

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  • Kathleen Folbigg: Mother who served 20 years for killing her four babies pardoned | CNN

    Kathleen Folbigg: Mother who served 20 years for killing her four babies pardoned | CNN

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    Brisbane, Australia
    CNN
     — 

    A woman condemned as Australia’s worst female serial killer has been pardoned after serving 20 years behind bars for killing her four children in what appears to be one of the country’s gravest miscarriages of justice.

    New South Wales Attorney General Michael Daley intervened to order Kathleen Folbigg be freed, based on the preliminary findings of an inquiry that had found “reasonable doubt” as to her guilt for all four deaths.

    Daley told a news conference Monday that he had spoken to the governor and recommended an unconditional pardon, which had been granted, and she would be released from Clarence Correctional Center the same day.

    “This has been a terrible ordeal for everyone concerned and I hope that our actions today can put some closure on this 20-year-old matter,” said Daley, who added that he had informed Craig Folbigg, the babies’ father, of his decision. “It will be a tough day for him,” he said.

    Kathleen Folbigg was jailed in 2003 on three counts of murder and one of manslaughter following the deaths of her four babies over a decade from 1989. In each case, she was the person who found their bodies, though there was no physical evidence that she had caused their deaths.

    Instead, the jury relied on the prosecution’s argument that the chances of four babies from one family dying from natural causes before the age of 2 were so infinitesimally low as to be compared to pigs flying.

    They also noted the contents of her diary, which contained passages that in isolation at the time were interpreted as confessions of guilt.

    As recently as 2019, an inquiry into her convictions found there was no reasonable doubt she had committed the crimes. But another inquiry began last year after new scientific evidence emerged that provided a genetic explanation for the children’s deaths.

    In her closing submissions, Sophie Callan, the lead counsel assisting the inquiry, said that “on the whole of the body of evidence before this inquiry there is a reasonable doubt as to Ms Folbigg’s guilt.”

    She also told the inquiry that in its closing submissions, the NSW director of public prosecutions had indicated she was also “open to the Inquiry to conclude there is reasonable doubt as to Ms Folbigg’s guilt.”

    Folbigg was just 20 years old when she married Craig Folbigg, who she’d met in her hometown of Newcastle on the northern New South Wales coast.

    Within a year she fell pregnant with Caleb, who was born in February, 1989 and lived only 19 days. The next year, the Folbiggs had another son, Patrick, who died at eight months. Two years later, Sarah died at 10 months. Then in 1999, the couple’s fourth and longest lived child, Laura, died at 18 months.

    The police investigation into the deaths of all four children began the day Laura died, but it was more than two years before Folbigg was arrested and charged. By then, the couple’s marriage had fallen apart, and Craig was cooperating with police to build a case against her.

    He handed police her diaries, which prosecutors argued contained the deepest thoughts of a mother tortured by guilt for her role in her children’s deaths.

    Examination of the babies’ remains failed to find any physical evidence they’d been suffocated, but without another plausible reason to explain their deaths, suspicion focused on Kathleen, their primary carer.

    In 2003, as he sentenced Folbigg to 40 years in prison, Judge Graham Barr recalled her troubled past. Folbigg’s father had killed her mother when she was just 18 months old, and she had spent many of her formative years in foster care.

    According to court documents, Barr said Folbigg’s prospects of rehabilitation were “negligible.”

    “She will always be a danger if given the responsibility of caring for a child,” he said. “That must never happen.”

    The death of Laura Folbigg at 18 months triggered the police investigation.

    That initial conviction ruling now stands in stark contrast to the latest inquiry, which looks set to paint a far different picture of Folbigg as a loving mother who was devastated and confused by the successive deaths of her babies.

    As he ordered her release Monday, Daley distributed a memorandum of the findings by retired judge Tom Bathurst, who said after reviewing the evidence he was “unable to accept … the proposition that Ms Folbigg was anything but a caring mother for her children.”

    In the case of the two girls – Sarah and Laura – Bathurst found there was a “reasonable possibility” a genetic mutation known as CALM2-G114R “occasioned their deaths,” and that Sarah may have died from myocarditis, inflammation of the heart, identified during her autopsy.

    In the case of Patrick, who had an unexplained ALTE, an apparent life-threatening event, when he was 4 months old and died at 8 months, Bathurst found that it’s possible his death was caused by an underlying neurogenic disorder.

    During Folbigg’s 2003 trial, the prosecution used “coincidence and tendency” evidence to allege that Folbigg had also killed Caleb. In other words, that having been allegedly responsible for the deaths of three children, it was likely she killed him, too.

    However, Bathurst found that the reasonable doubt over Folbigg’s role in his siblings’ deaths meant that the prosecution’s case against her for Caleb’s murder “falls away.”

    Kathleen Folbigg walks into the New South Wales Supreme Court in Sydney May 19, 2003.

    In relation to her diaries, Bathurst said the “evidence suggests they were the writings of a grieving and possibly depressed mother, blaming herself for the death of each child, as distinct from admissions that she murdered or otherwise harmed them.”

    Bathurst also expressed doubts about evidence from Craig Folbigg, who had claimed his wife had been “ill-tempered” with their children and had “growled at them from time to time.”

    “The balance of evidence … (was) that she was a loving and caring mother,” wrote Bathurst, whose full report will be released at a later date.

    Folbigg’s case has been compared to that of Lindy Chamberlain, who swore a dingo took her baby Azaria from the family’s campsite at Uluru in 1980.

    The case polarized public opinion and Chamberlain was jailed before evidence emerged that she was telling the truth.

    In 1986, Azaria’s matinee jacket was found half-buried in the dirt, prompting officials to free Chamberlain, later known as Chamberlain-Creighton. Two years later, a court overturned her conviction, and in 2012 a coroner ruled that a dingo was indeed to blame for Azaria’s death.

    Like Chamberlain-Creighton, Folbigg’s release from prison could be the start of a long process to clear her name.

    Daley told reporters Monday that Folbigg’s pardon only meant she did not have to serve the rest of her sentence, and that it would be up to the Court of Criminal Appeal to quash her convictions.

    He said it was too early to talk about compensation, as that would require Folbigg to initiate civil proceedings against the New South Wales government, or to approach it seeking an ex-gratia payment.

    Daley acknowledged that after 20 years of believing Folbigg’s guilt, some people may not accept her innocence.

    “There will be some people who have strong views. There’s nothing I can do to disavow them of those views, (and) it’s not my role to do that,” he said.

    But he suggested the events of the past two decades should elicit some compassion for a woman who has lost so much.

    “We’ve got four little bubbas who are dead. We’ve got a husband and wife who lost each other. A woman who spent 20 years in jail, and a family that never had a chance. You’d not be human if you didn’t feel something,” he said.

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  • Student graduates on the day his father’s body is recovered from the Davenport apartment building collapse | CNN

    Student graduates on the day his father’s body is recovered from the Davenport apartment building collapse | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Branden Colvin Jr. walked the stage at his high school graduation Saturday to rounds of applause and shouts of “we love you.”

    But one person wasn’t there to join in the celebration.

    Authorities told Colvin Jr.’s family Saturday afternoon the body of his father, Branden Colvin Sr., had been recovered from the rubble of the partially collapsed apartment building in Davenport, Iowa.

    “He’s proud of me. He is the reason I was even able to have enough strength to walk across the stage,” Colvin Jr., 18, told CNN. “I walked across that stage today knowing my dad is proud of me and will forever be proud of me.”

    It was a sad resolution to a painful week of waiting for the family of the elder Colvin, who had been missing since the six-story apartment building partially collapsed May 28.

    Following the incident, the younger Colvin slept on the pavement near the building site and refused to leave the scene, even as officials warned the rest of the building could come crashing down at any time.

    “I haven’t slept. I have been out here three days, at night, all night, just waiting for anything,” Colvin Jr. told CNN earlier in the week.

    Colvin Jr. wasn’t sure he would be able to bring himself to attend the graduation ceremony, he told CNN before his father’s body was found.

    “We had finals this week, Tuesday, and I tried to go to school. As soon as I walked in, I just broke down, and I was just crying,” he said. “So, I don’t know if I am going to be able to go to my graduation.”

    He said he longed to hear his father’s voice.

    “I love how much he talks. Before, it was annoying. But now, I just miss him,” he said.

    Now he’s grappling with the reality of his father being gone.

    “I never thought I would lose my dad,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “I’ll never understand this.”

    At least nine survivors were rescued from the building rubble in the days following the collapse. Ryan Hitchcock and Daniel Prien, who, like Colvin Sr., lived in the fallen section of the building, are still unaccounted for.

    Officials say they were likely home at the time of the collapse and are asking the public for any information about their whereabouts.

    “If you have specific information that can confirm this or indicate otherwise, please call 563-326-6125,” Davenport’s city government posted on Facebook.

    An urban search and rescue team from nearby Cedar Rapids is at the site, transitioning from rescue to recovery mode, authorities said at a Friday morning news conference.

    The family of Ryan Hitchcock supports the city’s plans to carefully take down the rest of the building to prevent further harm, relative Amy Anderson said.

    “Ryan wouldn’t want anyone else to put their lives at risk,” Anderson said at a news conference Tuesday.

    “I don’t discount that he could be trapped under there miraculously,” she said. “But we don’t want to see any more families lose their lives or anybody else be injured in trying to remove that rubble and have anything fall.”

    The daughter of Daniel Prien told CNN she will continue to fight for her father until he is found.

    Prien, 60, is a formerly homeless veteran who was placed in the apartment building with the help of a local organization assisting the homeless population, daughter Nancy Prien-Frezza said.

    “I do not want them to demolish the building until the missing are found or confirmed to not be there,” Prien-Frezza said. “He’s a very sweet and loving person. He should not and will not be dismissed because of his situation, so I’ll fight to find him and get justice for him.”

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  • Overseas Hong Kongers carry Tiananmen’s torch as vigils to remember massacre victims are snuffed out back home | CNN

    Overseas Hong Kongers carry Tiananmen’s torch as vigils to remember massacre victims are snuffed out back home | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Hong Kongers living overseas are helping to keep the flame of remembrance alive for the victims of China’s Tiananmen massacre as authorities in a city that once hosted huge annual vigils continue to stamp out dissent.

    Until recently Hong Kong was the only place within China where large-scale gatherings each June 4 were tolerated to remember the moment in 1989 when the Communist Party sent tanks in to violently quell peaceful student-led democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

    But the annual candlelight vigils have been silenced the last three years in the wake of pandemic restrictions and Beijing’s ongoing political crackdown in Hong Kong, which was upended by its own huge democracy protests in 2019.

    This year is set to be no different. Victoria Park, the site that used to hold the vigils, is again open after three years of coronavirus pandemic closures.

    But it is hosting a fair put on by pro-Beijing associations whilst many of those who once organized the city’s Tiananmen commemorations languish in jail or have fled abroad.

    As a result, it is overseas where the most concerted commemorations were taking place for the 34th anniversary.

    Protests, vigils and exhibitions are planned in multiple cities around the world including in Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Europe, the United States and Canada bolstered by a growing cohort of Hong Kongers who have chosen to move overseas.

    “I think it’s sad to say that what Beijing and Hong Kong are doing is trying to erase history and the memory,” said Kevin Yam, a former lawyer in Hong Kong, who will be attending a ceremony in Melbourne, Australia, where he now resides.

    “For those who can still remember, we have the obligation to let the world know that we have not forgotten,” he told CNN.

    01 tiananmen sq museum

    A new museum in New York is a vivid example of how Tiananmen commemorations are going global.

    On Friday, Zhou Fengsuo and Wang Dan, two former student leaders who took part in the 1989 Tiananmen protests and now live in the United States, unveiled a June 4th Memorial Exhibit on 6th Avenue.

    The display includes items collected from those who survived the massacre including newspapers chronicling the event, a blood-stained shirt from a former journalist and a decades-old printer used by protesters that was sneaked out of China.

    Zhou said the idea to create a New York exhibition began five years ago but the closure of Hong Kong’s own June 4 museum by authorities in 2021 “added to the urgency”.

    “Hong Kong has been carrying the torch for commemorating the Tiananmen massacre, keeping the legacy alive. When the museum was shut down, with the Hong Kong alliance’s leaders in prison, we knew it was a critical moment,” he said.

    “We have to continue here in the United States.”

    The 2,200-square-feet venue in New York can host up to 100 guests at a time, with schools and universities already reaching to request for a tour, Zhou said, adding they have raised enough funding to keep it running for “many years”.

    The June 4 museum newly opened in New York displays a printer used by student protesters in 1989 prior to the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

    Thirty four years ago, Beijing sent in People’s Liberation Army troops armed with rifles and accompanied by tanks to forcibly clear the square where students were protesting for greater democracy.

    No official death toll is available, but estimates range from several hundred to thousands, with many more injured.

    Authorities in mainland China have always done their best to erase all memory of the Tiananmen massacre: Censoring news reports, scrubbing all mentions from the internet, arresting and chasing into exile the organizers of the protests, and keeping the relatives of those who died under tight surveillance.

    The censorship has meant generations of mainland Chinese have grown up without knowledge of the events of June 4.

    But Hong Kong was different.

    Thousands gathered at a candlelit vigil in Hong Kong on June 4, 2017, to mark 28 years since China's bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown.

    Somber and defiant vigils were an annual political cornerstone, first under colonial British rule and then after the city’s 1997 handover to China. Every June 4, come rain or shine, tens of thousands of people would descend on Victoria Park with speakers demanding accountability from the Chinese Communist Party for ordering the bloody military crackdown.

    But Hong Kong’s political culture has changed drastically in the aftermath in 2019’s huge and sometimes violent democracy protests.

    Beijing responded with a sweeping national security law that outlawed most dissent. Leading democracy activists, including key Tiananmen vigil figures, have been jailed, critical newspapers shuttered and the political system overhauled to ensure only “patriots” are allowed.

    Authorities banned the vigil in 2020 and 2021 citing coronavirus health restrictions – though many Hongkongers believe that was just an excuse to clamp down on shows of public dissent.

    Last year, the park remained in darkness again, barricaded off on all sides with police stopping and searching passersby to “prevent any unauthorized assemblies which affect public safety and public order, and to prevent the risk of virus transmission due to such gatherings,” according to a government statement.

    The Hong Kong Alliance, the group behind the past vigils, has disbanded with three leading figures in jail facing national security charges.

    In the run up to this Sunday’s anniversary, authorities made clear commemorating Tiananmen this year would not be tolerated.

    Security secretary Chris Tang – a former police chief – said he expected some might use “this very special day” to advocate Hong Kong independence and subvert state power, acts banned by the new national security law.

    “But I want to tell these people that if you carry out these acts, we will definitely take decisive action,” he warned, adding: “You will not be lucky.”

    Hong Kong police maintained a heavy police presence around the park on the anniversary’s eve, deploying multiple police coaches and even an armored vehicle at one point.

    Police officers take away a member of the public into a police van in the Causeway Bay area on the eve 34th anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square massacre in Hong Kong.

    A handful of artists and activists defied warnings and turned up either at the park or surrounding streets on Saturday evening to make private commemorations with floral tributes and banners, only to be quickly intercepted and taken away by officers.

    A police spokesman said four people were arrested on suspicion of disorderly behavior in public or carrying out acts with seditious intent as of Saturday. Police said some individuals had protest props bearing allegedly “seditious” wording. Four others were brought in for further investigation, police added.

    Richard Tsoi, former secretary for the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance, said he planned to commemorate the event either at home or at a private location.

    “Definitely there will be not be large-scale commemoration activities. Whether one can mourn in public without breaking the law is also a question,” said the ex-organizer, who used attend every vigil in the past.

    Several hundred of 200,000 pro-democracy student protesters face to face with policemen outside the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square 22 April 1989 in Beijing.

    Throughout Hong Kong physical reminders of the Tiananmen massacre, including a famous “Pillar of Shame” statue that used to stand in the city’s oldest university, have been dismantled in recent years.

    Yet last month a replica of the “Pillar of Shame” was erected in Berlin, with the help of its original Danish artist Jens Galschiot and a prominent Hong Kong activist now living in Germany. The artist also provided more than 40 giant banners printed with an image of the pillar to 18 cities for their commemoration events, including Los Angeles and Boston.

    Another pillar was unveiled in Norway last year.

    “It is true that the commemorations around June 4th have expanded and become more global since it has become impossible to do anything in Hong Kong,” he told CNN.

    People hold candles as they walk near the Victoria Park after police closed the venue where Hong Kong people traditionally gather annually to mourn the victims of China's Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, in the Causeway Bay district on June 4, 2021 in Hong Kong.

    Hong Kongers, Zhou says, are playing a key role in keeping Tiananmen remembrance alive overseas,

    “Since last year, many places have seen record numbers in attendance largely because of Hong Kong immigrants,” he said.

    Many Hong Kongers have left for overseas with the city’s population dropping from 7.41 million to 7.29 million last year.

    In Britain – where more than 100,000 Hongkongers have since settled after London offered an easier pathway to citizenship two years ago – about a dozen marches and vigils are slated to take place throughout June 4 across the country, from Nottingham and Manchester, a popular destination for Hong Kong immigrants.

    In London, marchers will gather at Trafalgar Square before marching to the Chinese embassies, where a vigil will be held.

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  • Son and 8-year old grandson of former Red Sox star George ‘Boomer’ Scott found dead in apparent murder-suicide | CNN

    Son and 8-year old grandson of former Red Sox star George ‘Boomer’ Scott found dead in apparent murder-suicide | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The son and 8-year-old grandson of a former Boston Red Sox player were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide in their Massachusetts home Friday as authorities searched for clues about the boy’s mother – who was reported missing more than four years ago, according to local officials.

    Police found the bodies of George Scott III and his son, Dante Hazard, at their New Bedford home after a relative couldn’t reach Scott and asked authorities to do a welfare check Friday morning, according to a news release from the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office.

    Scott is the son of the former Boston Red Sox player George “Boomer” Scott, according to Gregg Miliote, a spokesperson for the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office.

    Scott played first base for the Red Sox from 1966 to 1971 then again from 1977 to 1979, winning three of his eight career Gold Glove Awards with the team, according to the MLB. He died in 2013 at age 69.

    The discovery of his son and grandson comes only weeks after a search warrant was executed at the same home in connection to Dante’s mother, who remains missing.

    Scott “appears to have killed the boy with a sharp object before taking his own life,” according to the district attorneys office. Officials are waiting for more details from the medical examiner’s office on the deaths, the release said.

    Lisa Hazard, Dante’s mother, has been missing for more than four years, according to a list of missing persons cases on the district attorney’s website. The office said in the news release that Scott is considered a “person of interest” in her disappearance.

    In March 2019, Hazard, who was 28 at the time, went missing after leaving Scott’s home. She was supposed to leave to go to a drug rehabilitation center, according to the district attorney’s office. She hasn’t been seen since.

    Detectives investigating her disappearance executed a search warrant at Scott’s residence – the same home where he and his son were found dead – last month, the release states. Her missing persons case is ongoing and the search warrant has been sealed by the court, according to the release.

    CNN has reached out to the New Bedford Police Department for more information.

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  • More than 230 killed, 900 injured in three-train crash in India | CNN

    More than 230 killed, 900 injured in three-train crash in India | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    More than 200 people were killed and hundreds injured when three trains collided in India on Friday in one of the worst train crashes in recent history.

    Two passenger trains and a goods train collided in the city of Balasore in eastern Odisha state, according to state chief secretary Pradeep Jena.

    At least 233 people died and 900 were injured in the impact, Jena said on Twitter.

    The death toll is expected to rise as teams carry out a colossal rescue operation, Jena said during a news conference.

    Images from the scene showed rescuers attempting to find survivors in a damaged rail carriage. Video footage also showed upturned coaches littered across train tracks, and people climbing a mangled train carriage.

    Friday’s rescue effort included more than 115 ambulances and several fire service units, say authorities. About 500 units of blood were collected overnight with 900 units currently in stock, Jena wrote on Twitter.

    “This will help in treating the accident victims. I’m personally indebted and grateful to all the volunteers who’ve donated blood for a noble cause,” he wrote.

    The cause of the catastrophic crash has yet to be determined, Jena told CNN affiliate News18, emphasizing that the current focus is on ongoing rescue operations.

    “We are only working (at) sending additional doctors, ambulances, buses, so all those things we are doing so we have not thought of asking what happened, how it happened,” he said.

    The deadly collision occurred after one passenger train collided into coaches of an already derailed passenger train that had tossed into the opposite track, Indian authorities said.

    Both trains then derailed.

    “An unfortunate accident took place between Coromandel Express, a goods train and another passenger train near Bahanaga railway station in Balasore district,” Jena said.

    “Around 7 p.m., 12841 Coromandel Express, which runs between Shalimar and Chennai, around Balasore, 10 to 12 of its coaches derailed and tossed over to the opposite track. After some time, another train, which runs between Yesvantpur and Howrah, dashed into those derailed coaches, which resulted in the derailment of its three to four coaches,” Railway Spokesperson Amitabh Sharma told reporters.

    The Coromandel travels through India’s east coast, between West Bengal’s capital Kolkata to the South Indian city of Chennai.

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his condolences on Friday. “Distressed by the train accident in Odisha. In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families. May the injured recover soon. Rescue ops are underway at the site of the mishap and all possible assistance is being given to those affected,” he wrote.

    India’s extensive rail network suffers from aging infrastructure and poor maintenance – factors that are often responsible for accidents.

    The death toll from Friday’s crash has already surpassed that of an infamous crash in 2016 – one of the deadliest in recent years – when over 140 people were killed in a derailment in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

    In 2021, some 16,431 people were killed in nearly 18,000 railway accidents across the country. “Majority (67.7%) of railway accident cases were reported (as) ‘Fall from trains /collision with people on track,” according to a 2021 report by the National Crime Records

    Local authorities say rescue teams have been dispatched to the site of the crash, and efforts include more than 50 ambulances and several fire service units.

    Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said he will visit the site of the accident on Saturday morning to review the situation, the department said.

    The families of those killed on Friday will receive $12,136, India’s Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology has announced, with lesser amounts available to people who were injured in the crash.

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