Nation & World Glance
U.S. student freed after week held in China over taxi dispute
BILLINGS, Mont. — An American university student is free following a weeklong detention in China for allegedly injuring a taxi driver who was roughing up his mother during a fare dispute, in a case that drew objections over the student’s treatment from U.S. lawmakers.
Guthrie McLean, a student at the University of Montana, was released from a detention center in Zhengzhou early Monday, according to his mother, Jennifer McLean, a teacher who lives in the central Chinese city.
“We are very, very very, very happy,” Jennifer McLean wrote in an email to The Associated Press. She said the release — at 2 a.m. local time when her son was delivered to her doorsteps — came as a surprise after she’d twice been told to anticipate a release only to be disappointed.
“They have not finished the process completely, but we are hopeful it will go smoothly from here on,” she said.
The release followed an agreement with Chinese authorities to drop any charges against Guthrie Mclean, according to Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines.
Israeli security Cabinet meets to review policy at shrine
JERUSALEM — Israel’s security Cabinet met Sunday to review a decision to install metal detectors at a contested Jerusalem holy site, following a week of escalating tensions with the Muslim world, mass prayer protests and Israeli-Palestinian violence.
The ministers met amid mounting controversy at home, with some critics saying the government had acted without sufficiently considering the repercussions of introducing new security measures at the Holy Land’s most sensitive shrine and the epicenter of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.
In a possible spillover of the tensions, three people, including an Israeli, were wounded by gunfire Sunday in a residential building in the heavily fortified Israeli embassy compound in Jordan’s capital. A Jordanian man later died of his wounds, a security official said.
Man seeking dropped cellphone falls in building trash chute
WASHINGTON — A man looking for a dropped cellphone ended up in a stinky situation, tumbling into a building’s trash chute where he had to be rescued.
Washington, D.C., Fire Spokesman Vito Maggiolo says the man was throwing out trash at an apartment building when he thought he dropped the cellphone in the chute. Maggiolo says the man leaned in to check and fell inside.
Maggiolo says the man was able to call 911 from inside the trash chute around 3 a.m. Sunday, though it wasn’t clear what phone he used. A video posted online shows firefighter rescue crews pumping fresh air down the chute to the man through a hose. They eventually hauled him out using a harness. Maggiolo says the man didn’t appear hurt and was released on the scene.