Briefs
Beijing protest quelled
Chinese police have detained 67 people for ‘‘disturbing social order’’ after a rare large-scale protest in the capital, Beijing, complaining that the government was unfairly targeting a charity. State news agency Xinhua said police had detained executives from a company called Shanxinhui, accusing them of operating a pyramid scheme and duping people out of money in the name of raising funds to help the poor. Investors in the company said they attended the protest to complain that Shanxinhui had been dealt a huge injustice and had genuinely helped a lot of poor people.
Militant gets long sentence
One of two men convicted in the first of several trials stemming from a 2014 standoff led by renegade rancher Cliven Bundy against federal authorities in Nevada was sentenced yesterday to 68 years in prison for his role in the armed confrontation. Gregory Burleson, 53, of Phoenix, Arizona, was found guilty in April of threatening and assaulting federal officers, obstruction of justice, and firearms offences. The uprising at Bundy’s ranch near Bunkerville, 120 kilometres northeast of Las Vegas, grew out of a dispute in which federal agents seized Bundy’s cattle over his refusal to pay fees for grazing his livestock on government land. The standoff became a rallying point for right-wing militants who challenge the US government’s authority in the region. Two more groups of defendants, including Bundy and his sons, are scheduled to stand trial later this year and next.
Tick makes meat sickening
A tick whose bite causes a severe allergic reaction in its victims when they eat red meat is spreading north through North America. The lone star tick transfers a carbohydrate called alpha-gal to victims’ blood in its saliva. Alpha-gal is present in beef, pork and lamb and is digested by meat eaters, but when it shows up in the bloodstream the body develops antibodies against it, and these are triggered when the patient next eats meat. People as far north as Tennessee and Ontario have reported intense itchiness and anaphylactic reactions.