U.K. woman dies 8 days after poisoning
LONDON -- A woman who was poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent in southwest England died Sunday, eight days after police think she touched a contaminated item that has not been found.
London's Metropolitan Police force said the case has become a homicide investigation after 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess died in a hospital in Salisbury. She and her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, 45, were admitted June 30. Rowley remains in critical condition.
Police said tests showed the pair were exposed to Novichok, the same type of nerve agent used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury in March. Police suspect Rowley and Sturgess handled an item from the first attack, which Britain blames on Russia. Moscow denies involvement.
Prime Minister Theresa May said she was "appalled and shocked" by Sturgess' death.
"Police and security officials are working urgently to establish the facts of this incident, which is now being treated as murder," May said.
Ex-Brazil president again ordered freed
SAO PAULO -- A Brazilian appeals judge issued two rulings Sunday ordering that former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva be released from jail, part of a back-and-forth of conflicting judicial decrees.
Judge Rogerio Favreto, the duty judge of the Fourth Federal Regional Tribunal, first ordered da Silva freed early Sunday. The judge who originally convicted da Silva, Judge Sergio Moro, responded by ordering police to hold off on the release order, and two legal analysts said that order superseded Favreto's.
But Favreto responded by ordering police a second time to act on his order, threatening to punish anyone who did not comply. However, Judge Joao Pedro Gebran Neto, who is the judge handling da Silva's case at the regional federal court, stepped in and ordered da Silva be kept in jail.
Da Silva began serving a 12-year sentence on a corruption conviction in April.
Monterrey, Mexico, area logs 15 killings
MONTERREY, Mexico -- An unusually violent night around the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, including a string of attacks on bars, left at least 15 dead and nine wounded, authorities said Sunday.
The Nuevo Leon state prosecutor's office reported in a statement that 12 people died in six bar attacks overnight in the municipalities of Monterrey, Guadalupe and Juarez. A man and a 14-year-old boy were also shot dead in their car on a highway, and in the city of Linares, a man was killed in a clash between rival gangs after a "quinceanera" coming-of-age party at a private home.
No arrests were announced.
The deadliest shooting came shortly after midnight inside the Rancho Viejo restaurant and bar on Monterrey's eastern outskirts. Five male customers and a waitress were listed as dead, and two people were wounded in an attack that the prosecutors office said was carried out by two men in a red SUV or pickup and was attributed to organized crime.
Haiti protests strand U.S. aid volunteers
Volunteer groups from several U.S. states are stranded in Haiti after violent protests over fuel prices canceled flights and made roads unsafe.
Church groups from South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Alabama are among those that haven't been able to leave, according to newspaper and television reports.
Some flights were resuming Sunday afternoon, according to airline officials and the flight tracking website FlightAware. American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein said in an email that two flights bound for Miami and one for New York had taken off Sunday afternoon.
But even getting to an airport could be risky, U.S. officials warned. The U.S. State Department issued an alert Sunday urging its citizens on the island to shelter in place and not to go to an airport unless they have confirmed their departing flight was taking off.
Chapin United Methodist Church in South Carolina posted online Sunday that its mission team is safe but stranded. Marcy Kenny, assimilation minister for the church, told The State newspaper that the group is hoping the unrest will abate enough for them to make it to the airport.
"They're just waiting for things to die down a little bit," Kenny said.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
A Section on 07/09/2018