TIJUANA, Mexico — Massive gun battles broke out between suspected drug traffickers who fired at each other while speeding down heavily populated streets of this violent border city early Saturday, killing 13 people and wounding nine. All of the dead were believed to be drug traffickers, possibly rival members of the same cartel who were trying to settle scores, the attorney general of Baja California state said. Police recovered 21 vehicles, many with bullet holes or U.S. license plates; a total of 54 guns; and more than 1,500 spent shell casings at various points in the city where the battles broke out, officials said.
Scotland: Gas hoarding feared
The British government on Saturday urged drivers not to hoard gasoline, saying there was plenty to go around despite a looming strike at a Scottish oil refinery that has raised fears of fuel rationing. The 48-hour strike over pension issues, due to begin today at the Grangemouth oil refinery in central Scotland, is expected to disrupt energy supplies and hinder delivery of Britain’s North Sea oil. Gas stations in and around Edinburgh were limiting gas purchases to $40 per visit Saturday, and lines of cars formed beside some pumps.
Brazil: Amazon activist slain
An Amazon farmer who received death threats after reporting illegal logging to authorities was shot to death as he left his house, Brazilian media reported Saturday. Emival Barbosa Machado, 50, was shot three times Friday in the eastern city of Tucurui, the Globo TV network said. Machado had often reported illegal logging and shipments of lumber in Para, a largely lawless state where American nun and rain forest defender Dorothy Stang was killed in 2005.
China: DVD pirate gets jail term
A Beijing court has handed down the first jail sentence in the Chinese capital for copyright infringement, state media reported Saturday. Xinhua News Agency said Zhou Cheng, 40, was jailed for one year and fined about $1,430 by the Chaoyang District People’s Court on Friday. The Beijing Daily newspaper said Zhou was the first counterfeiter to be jailed for copyright infringement in the city. Previously, DVD pirates were ordered to pay minimal fines.
Morocco: 55 die in factory inferno
A fire roared through a mattress factory Saturday, killing 55 people and injuring a dozen others, the official news agency reported. Most of the deaths occurred on the building’s third floor where women sew, according to a 29-year-old worker who managed to escape. “We ran to the door. It was blocked, to the elevator, it was blocked. Then … the lights went out,” the worker said.
Syria: Turks broker peace talks
Turkey’s prime minister flew to Damascus Saturday and said he was trying to restart direct talks between Syria and Israel, stepping up his nation’s behind-the-scenes efforts to negotiate a peace deal between the longtime enemies. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spent five hours in Syria meeting with President Bashar Assad and discussing Turkish efforts to mediate a deal. Assad said his meeting with Erdogan “focused on means to activate the process of just and comprehensive peace.”
Louisiana: Plea in noose threats
A teenager pleaded guilty in Alexandria Friday to using nooses to threaten marchers after the “Jena Six” rally last year, federal prosecutors said. Jeremiah Munsen, 19, of Colfax, could get up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine, authorities said. Sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 15. On Sept. 20, Munsen and a juvenile from Dry Prong hung nooses off the back of a pickup truck and drove around Alexandria near a crowd waiting for buses that would take them back to Tennessee after one of the nation’s largest civil rights demonstrations.
Connecticut: One missing in apartment blaze
A fast-moving fire in Norwich destroyed a large apartment complex early Saturday, and authorities were looking for one person unaccounted for. Authorities have confirmed the locations of all but one of the nearly 150 residents, a fire battalion chief said. The wreckage was still too hot by late morning to allow the use of arson dogs or cadaver dogs, officials said. The cause of the fire remained unclear, but officials were treating the blaze as suspicious.
Massachusetts: Downtown flood
A pre-dawn water main break Saturday turned streets in Boston’s financial district into rivers, forced the shutdown of a subway station and cut off natural gas service. Water cascaded down three streets after the 12-inch main ruptured. The State Street subway station was closed early Saturday, but train service was not interrupted. Several residential and commercial customers in the area lost gas service, officials said.
From Herald news services
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
