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Gunmen kill Mexico city counciller during basketball game

Gunmen kill Mexico city counciller during basketball game

The Sun19 hours ago
MEXICO CITY: Gunmen burst into a sports hall in central Mexico and shot dead a local government official attending an amateur basketball game on Saturday, local authorities said.
Families and children had gathered at the sports center in the violent state of Guanajuato, where Ignacio Alejandro Roaro, a city council secretary in Apaseo el Grande, was killed.
The city council 'strongly condemns the treacherous, despicable, and cowardly attack that occurred this Saturday, in which our colleague and friend, city council secretary Ignacio Alejandro Roaro, lost his life,' it said in a statement.
Local media said an armed man had been arrested.
Guanajuato is a thriving industrial hub and home to several popular tourist destinations, but it is also Mexico's deadliest state due to gang turf wars, according to official homicide statistics.
In June, 11 people were shot dead and about 20 others injured in a shooting targeting a neighborhood party in Irapuato, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Apaseo el Grande.
A month earlier, 17 bodies were found by investigators in an abandoned house in Irapuato.
Much of the violence in Guanajuato is linked to conflict between the Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of the most powerful in the Latin American nation.
Guanajuato recorded more than 3,000 murders last year, the most of any Mexican state and accounting for 10.5 percent of the cases nationwide, according to official figures. – AFP
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Australian woman found guilty of triple murder with toxic mushrooms
Australian woman found guilty of triple murder with toxic mushrooms

Sinar Daily

time35 minutes ago

  • Sinar Daily

Australian woman found guilty of triple murder with toxic mushrooms

MORWELL - An Australian woman murdered her husband's parents and aunt by lacing their beef Wellington lunch with toxic mushrooms, a jury found Monday at the climax of a trial watched around the world. Keen home cook Erin Patterson hosted an intimate meal in July 2023 that started with good-natured banter and earnest prayer -- but ended with three guests dead. Throughout a trial lasting more than two months, Patterson maintained the beef-and-pastry dish was accidentally poisoned with death cap mushrooms, the world's most-lethal fungus. But a 12-person jury on Monday found the 50-year-old guilty of triple murder. She was also found guilty of attempting to murder a fourth guest who survived. The trial has drawn podcasters, film crews and true crime fans to the rural town of Morwell, a sedate hamlet in the state of Victoria better known for prize-winning roses. Newspapers from New York to New Delhi have followed every twist of what many now simply call the "mushroom murders". On July 29, 2023, Patterson set the table for an intimate family meal at her tree-shaded country property. This photo taken on June 17, 2025 shows people in a Melbourne laneway walking past a mural by street artist Jarrod Grech of Erin Patterson, an Australian woman accused of murdering three members of her husband's family with a toxic mushroom-laced beef Wellington lunch. - (Photo by WILLIAM WEST / AFP) Her lunch guests that afternoon were Don and Gail Patterson, the elderly parents of her long-estranged husband Simon. Places were also set for Simon's maternal aunt Heather and her husband Ian, a well-known pastor at the local Baptist church. Husband Simon was urged to come but he declined because he felt "uncomfortable". In the background, Patterson's relationship with Simon was starting to turn sour. The pair -- still legally married -- had been fighting over Simon's child support contributions. Patterson forked out for expensive cuts of beef, which she slathered in a duxelles of minced mushrooms and wrapped in pastry to make individual parcels of beef Wellington. Guests said grace before tucking in -- and prayed once more after eating -- with Heather later gushing about the "delicious and beautiful" meal. Death cap mushrooms are easily mistaken for other edible varieties, and reportedly possess a sweet taste that belies their potent toxicity. - 'Not survivable' - The guests' blood was soon coursing with deadly amatoxin, a poison produced by the death cap mushrooms known to sprout under the oak trees of Victoria. Don, Gail and Heather died of organ failure within a week. "It was very apparent that this was not survivable," intensive care specialist Stephen Warrillow told the trial. Detectives soon found signs that Patterson -- herself a true crime buff -- had dished up the meal with murderous intent. Patterson told guests she had received a cancer diagnosis and needed advice on breaking the news to her children, prosecutors alleged. But medical records showed Patterson received no such diagnosis. The prosecution said this was a lie cooked up to lure the diners to her table. She also lied about owning a food dehydrator which police later found dumped in a rubbish tip. Forensic tests found the appliance contained traces of the fatal fungi. "I agree that I lied because I was afraid I would be held responsible," Patterson told the trial. A computer seized from her house had browsed a website pinpointing death cap mushrooms spotted a short drive from her house a year before the lunch, police said. - 'Super sleuth' - Death caps are the most lethal mushrooms on the planet, responsible for some 90 per cent of all fatalities due to consuming toxic fungi. Baptist preacher Ian Wilkinson was the only guest to survive, pulling through after weeks in hospital. He told the court how guests' meals were served on four gray plates, while Patterson ate from a smaller orange dish. But he could not explain why Patterson wanted him dead. Patterson was a devoted mother-of-two with an active interest in her tight-knit community, volunteering to edit the village newsletter and film church services. She was also a well-known true crime buff, joining a Facebook group to chew over details from infamous Australian murders. Friend Christine Hunt told the jury Patterson had a reputation as "a bit of a super sleuth". Patterson said the meal was accidentally contaminated with death cap mushrooms, but maintained through her lawyers it was nothing more than a "terrible accident". "She didn't do it deliberately. She didn't do it intentionally," defence lawyer Colin Mandy told the trial. "She denies that she ever deliberately sought out death cap mushrooms." The trial heard from doctors, detectives, computer experts and mushroom specialists as it picked apart the beef Wellington lunch in forensic detail. Confronted with countless hours of intricate expert testimony, it took the jury a week to judge Patterson guilty. She will be sentenced at a later date. - William West

Visa's 24/7 war room takes on global cybercriminals
Visa's 24/7 war room takes on global cybercriminals

The Star

timean hour ago

  • The Star

Visa's 24/7 war room takes on global cybercriminals

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US tariffs to kick in Aug 1, barring trade deals
US tariffs to kick in Aug 1, barring trade deals

Sinar Daily

time2 hours ago

  • Sinar Daily

US tariffs to kick in Aug 1, barring trade deals

The president told reporters Sunday he had signed about a dozen letters to inform countries of rate hikes, to be sent out on Monday. 07 Jul 2025 11:29am US President Donald Trump steps on stage to deliver remarks at the Salute to America Celebration at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines on July 3, 2025. - (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) WASHINGTON - US tariffs will kick in on Aug 1 if trading partners from Taiwan to the European Union do not strike deals with Washington, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday. The rates will "boomerang back" to the sometimes very high levels that President Donald Trump had announced on April 2 -- before he suspended the levies to allow for trade talks and set a July 9 deadline for agreements, Bessent told CNN. Bessent confirmed comments by Trump to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday in which he also cited a new deadline: "Well, I'll probably start them on Aug 1." The president told reporters Sunday he had signed about a dozen letters to inform countries of rate hikes, to be sent out on Monday. "I think we'll have most countries done by July 9, either a letter or a deal," Trump told reporters Sunday, adding that some deals have already been made. Standing at his side, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed tariffs would kick in on Aug 1, "but the President is setting the rates and the deals right now." The tariffs were part of a broader announcement in April where Trump imposed a 10 percent duty on goods from almost all trading partners, with a plan to step up these rates for a select group within days. But he swiftly paused the hikes until July 9, allowing for trade talks to take place. Countries have been pushing to strike deals that would help them avoid these elevated duties. So far, the Trump administration has unveiled deals with the United Kingdom and Vietnam, while Washington and Beijing agreed to temporarily lower staggeringly high levies on each other's products. Bessent said the administration was "close to several deals." "I would expect to see several big announcements over the next couple of days," he said. But he would not say which countries he was referring to, adding: "I don't want to let them off the hook." - 'Maximum pressure' playbook - Aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump said sending notices would be much easier than "sitting down and working 15 different things... this is what you have to pay, if you want to do business (with) the United States." Bessent pushed back at CNN host Dana Bash's assertion the administration was using threats rather than negotiations, and denied that Trump was setting a new deadline with the Aug 1 date. "It's not a new deadline. We are saying, this is when it's happening. If you want to speed things up, have at it. If you want to go back to the old rate, that's your choice," he said. He said the playbook was to apply "maximum pressure" and cited the European Union as an example, saying they are "making very good progress" after a slow start. EU and US negotiators are holding talks over the weekend, and France's finance minister said Saturday he hoped they could strike a deal this weekend. Other countries were still expressing unease, however. Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Sunday he "won't easily compromise" in trade talks with Washington. And BRICS leaders of fast-growing economies meeting in Rio de Janeiro raised "serious concerns" that the "indiscriminate" import tariffs were illegal and risked hurting global trade. When probed about worries that steep levies could feed into broader US inflation, Bessent said there was a difference between "inflation and one-time price adjustments." "Inflation is a generalised monetary phenomenon. We're not going to see that. And thus far, we haven't even seen the one-time price adjustments," Bessent told Fox News Sunday. - AFP More Like This

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