World news in brief
Farmworker arrested after seven killed in latest mass shooting
A “disgruntled” mushroom farmworker, 67, has been arrested for killing seven coworkers in a mass shooting in Half Moon Bay – leaving California reeling from its third mass shooting in as many days.
Chunli Zhao, who worked for decades at one of the two sites where the shooting unfolded, was arrested on Monday afternoon after he was spotted sitting in his car outside a local sheriff’s office. The mass shooting unfolded just before 2.30pm on
Monday, with seven victims killed across two agricultural business locations – a mushroom farm and a trucking facility.
The gunman shot dead four victims and wounded a fifth at the Mountain Mushroom Farm, and shot another three victims dead at Concord Farms located around two miles away, according to authorities. The eighth victim was airlifted to hospital. Investigators are still working to determine which shooting took place first. The governor of California Gavin Newsom was in Monterey Park meeting with the victims of Saturday’s mass shooting when he learned about the shooting at Half Moon Bay.
“At the hospital meeting with victims of a mass shooting when I get pulled away to be briefed about another shooting. This time in Half Moon Bay. Tragedy upon tragedy,” he tweeted. The Half Moon Bay area shooting comes on the heels of a mass shooting over the weekend in southern California where 11 were killed and numerous injured during lunar new year celebrations outside of Los Angeles.
Pterosaur with more than 400 teeth found in Germany
A new species of dinosaur with more than 400 teeth which ate in a similar way to ducks and flamingos has been discovered in Germany. The fossil of the nearly complete Balaenognathus maeuseri, part of the pterosaur family, was discovered accidentally in a Bavarian quarry while scientists were excavating a large block of limestone containing crocodile bones.
The research was led by Professor David Martill of the University of Portsmouth, Hampshire, and involved palaeontologists from England, Germany and Mexico. Prof Martill said: “The nearly complete skeleton was found in a very finely layered limestone that preserves fossils beautifully.
“The jaws of this pterosaur are really long and lined with small, fine, hooked teeth, with tiny spaces between them like a nit comb. The long jaw is curved upwards like an avocet and at the end it flares out like a spoonbill. There are no teeth at the end of
its mouth, but there are teeth all the way along both jaws right to the back of its smile.
“What’s even more remarkable is some of the teeth have a hook on the end, which we’ve never seen before in a pterosaur ever.”
Rare marsican bear’s death mourned in Italy
Italy was mourning the death of a rare brown bear yesterday that made international headlines when it broke into a bakery and feasted on biscuits. The marsican bear, which had been named Juan Carrito, was killed after it was hit by an Opel Corsa car on a mountain road near the town of Castel di Sangro in central Italy on Monday evening.
“There are no words to express our sadness at what has happened,” the national park of Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise said on Instagram. “Juan Carrito was a problematic bear but in the park we did everything ... to give him a chance and allow him to remain free.”
The 150kg bear was captured last year and taken to a more remote region after his bakery break-in but the four-year-old liked to return to his old haunts in search of food. Before the accident, he had been spotted over the weekend in a ski resort, Italy’s Rai news reported. There are believed to be only around 50 marsican bears left in Italy. Reuters
Indian students fight to screen banned BBC Modi documentary
Student groups across India are silently protesting the government ban on a two-part BBC documentary series that examines prime minister Narendra Modi’s relationship with Muslims, the country’s largest minority group. Despite the threat of disciplinary action by varsity authorities, student bodies are readying to screen the documentary that was blocked and labelled a “propaganda piece” by the Indian government.
Students from the University of Hyderabad screened the first part of the documentary titled India: The Modi Question on
Sunday inside its campus, leading to authorities launching a crackdown against them.
The series investigates Mr Modi’s role in the 2002 riots in Gujarat, his home state of which he was the chief minister at the time, which led to the death of more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. After the BBC released the documentary in the UK, the Indian government was quick to use emergency powers to block its broadcast. The series was not aired in India but has been circulating on Twitter and YouTube and file-sharing websites.
The government issued orders to both platforms to block any content related to the BBC series using emergency powers under the country’s information and technology law. India’s foreign ministry has alleged the documentary has “bias, lack of objectivity, and frankly a continuing colonial mindset”.
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