Venezuela: Bank hostages freed
Gunmen who held more than 30 hostages inside a Venezuelan bank for over 24 hours fled in an ambulance and were caught Tuesday along a roadside, where they surrendered and freed their last five captives. The arrests ended an ordeal that began Monday morning with a botched bank robbery in Altagracia de Orituco, southeast of Caracas. The hostage standoff at the Banco Provincial branch was the longest in at least a decade in Venezuela. In the final hours, some hostages inside the bank held up signs in the windows with desperate pleas for help and used cell phones to call their relatives.
Mexico: Marine detention order
Mexican officials have ordered police to arrest a U.S. Marine suspected of killing a pregnant fellow Marine and fleeing to Mexico, a U.S. Embassy official said Tuesday. That could lead to his extradition or deportation to the United States. Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean is being sought on an indictment charging first-degree murder of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, who had accused Laurean of rape. Lauterbach’s charred remains were found this month with those of her fetus in a fire pit in Laurean’s back yard in Jacksonville, N.C.
China: Snow snarls holiday exodus
Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers desperate to get home for the Chinese New Year on Feb. 7 shivered in the cold outside train stations Tuesday as the worst winter storms in 50 years paralyzed China. One of the world’s biggest annual mass movements of humanity — a record 178.6 million people, more than the population of Russia — were expected to travel by train for the holiday. The extreme weather showed no signs of letting up Tuesday, with cities blacked out, highways closed because of treacherous conditions and trains canceled.
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