(NEW YORK) — A bus crash in Mestre, a suburb near Venice, and on Italy’s mainland, left 21 dead and 18 injured on Tuesday, according to Italian officials.
The bus, which was carrying passengers to a campsite in Marghera, fell off of an overpass, police said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The accident happened in the Mestre and Marghera neighboring districts of Italy, near the city of Venice.
Many of the injured, who were rescued in an evacuation operation which lasted until 9:30 p.m. local time, were listed as code red, indicating they were in critical condition. The 18 injured passengers were taken to five hospitals in Veneto, officials said.
“A huge tragedy struck our community this evening,” Mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, said in a post on X after the crash. “I immediately ordered the city to mourn, in memory of numerous victims who were on the fallen bus.”
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered her “condolences to the families of the victims and those injured in the serious accident in Mestre,” in a post on X Monday night.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella also called Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro “to express his condolences for the very serious tragedy of Mestre,” the official account of the Italian president posted on X.
The accident impacted the local railway network, shutting it down for a time, though services were later restored, officials said. Traffic in the area was impacted, according to a post on X from the City of Venice.
“The operations to secure the area will last all night,” the City of Venice said in the post.
(DUBAI, United Arab Emirates) — A 21-year-old New York City college student has been sentenced to prison time in the United Arab Emirates over an altercation at a Dubai airport, an advocacy group said.
Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, a student at Lehman College in the Bronx, was sentenced to one year in prison after being accused of “assaulting and insulting” Dubai International Airport customs officials, according to Detained in Dubai, an advocacy organization that supports foreign nationals who have been detained and prosecuted in the United Arab Emirates.
De Los Santos was traveling back to New York from a trip to Istanbul with a friend when she had a 10-hour layover in Dubai on July 14, according to Detained in Dubai. While going through security, a security officer asked the student, who recently had surgery, to remove a medical waist trainer suit she wears around her waist, stomach and upper chest, the group said.
De Los Santos complied and repeatedly asked the female customs officers for help to put the compressor back on to no avail, according to Detained in Dubai. While calling out to her friend for help, she “gently touched” the arm of one of the female officers “to guide her out of the way” of the security curtain, De Los Santos told Detained in Dubai.
De Los Santos was detained for touching the female customs office, signed paperwork in Arabic and was allowed to leave the airport, according to Detained in Dubai. Upon returning for her flight to the U.S., she was told she had a travel ban issued against her, the group said.
On Aug. 24, judges ordered her to pay a fine of 10,000 dirhams (about $2,700) but customs officials appealed the sentence, according to Detained in Dubai. She was sentenced to a year in prison, the advocacy group said on Monday.
“They either want her in jail or they want to pressure her into making a compensatory payment to them,” Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, claimed in a statement last month. “The government of Dubai should stop this type of corruption by banning government employees from being able to accept out-of-court settlements for criminal complaints,” but does not mention the risk of detention.
The State Department said they are “aware of the sentencing” of De Los Santos.
“The department is in communication with her and her family and we’re going to continue to monitor her case and be involved,” State Department principal deputy spokesperson Verdant Patel said at a press briefing Tuesday.
ABC News did not immediately receive a response from Dubai authorities seeking comment on the matter.
According to Detained in Dubai, the appeals process could take months. Detained in Dubai is calling for De Los Santos’ immediate release, as well as urging the State Department to revise its travel warnings to “include the risk of false allegations and extortion scams.” Currently the State Department’s advisory warns Americans to “exercise increased caution in the United Arab Emirates due to the threat of missile or drone attacks and terrorism.”
De Los Santos’ mother contacted Detained in Dubai after learning about Tierra Allen’s case, the group said. The Texas resident was charged in Dubai for allegedly verbally accosting a rental car agent in April and was issued a travel ban while awaiting trial, according to Detained in Dubai. Her criminal charges were ultimately dropped and the travel ban lifted, and she was able to return to the U.S. in August, according to Detained in Dubai.
(LONDON) — A 16-year-old girl’s alleged assault at the hands of Iran’s “morality police” is renewing criticism of the regime more than one year after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini sparked nationwide protests.
Armita Geravand, a student, was hospitalized in Tehran after an alleged encounter with police officers in a metro station southeast of the city on Sunday, journalists and human rights observers said.
Geravand is now in a coma, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reported Tuesday.
Islamic Republic officials deny there was an encounter between police and Geravand, claiming the girl fainted “due to low blood pressure.”
The news of Geravand’s hospitalization began spreading Sunday when London-based Iranian journalist Farzad Seifikaran wrote on X that the teen and her friends were stopped by police for allegedly not wearing headscarves. Seifikaran claims police pushed the girl down, she hit her head and fell unconscious.
A statement from Tehran’s metro authority denied a physical assault had happened. CCTV footage released by the agency, which appeared to be edited, shows a group of teenage girls stepping onto a train car without wearing headscarves. One of the girls is then taken out of the car appearing to be unconscious. After a jump cut in the footage, emergency first responders arrive and take the unconscious girl away.
On Monday, Maryam Lotfi, a journalist with Iranian newspaper Shargh Daily was reportedly arrested by security guards after she went to the hospital where Geravand is being treated, the newspaper reported. Shargh Daily later reported that Lotfi was freed that night. There is heavy security at the hospital, the news outlet reported.
The incident comes over a year after the 22-year-old Amini was arrested by the morality police for allegedly not fully complying with the obligatory hijab rules. During her detainment, Amini mysteriously fell into a coma and then died in the hospital.
Her tragic death triggered bloody nationwide protests which swept over the country for months. Tens of thousands were arrested and over 500 people were killed in the protests as Iran Human Rights group reported in April. Protests against the regime also erupted in Paris, Istanbul and other cities around the world.
At least seven Iranian men who allegedly participated in the protests have been executed by the regime. Many women in the country continue their civil disobedience by not wearing obligatory headscarves in public spaces.
Some on social media expressed concern that the 16-year-old might be another Mahsa Amini.
“The story they [the regime] has made up for Armita Geravand is completely similar to the story of Mahsa Jina Amini. ‘Her pressure dropped and her head hit somewhere, and she is still in a coma,'” activist Soran Mansournia wrote on his X account quoting the regime’s defense. Mansournia’s brother was killed four years ago after participating in another round of nationwide protests at the time.
The Islamic Republic News Agency published an interview on Tuesday with a couple identified by the news agency as Geravand’s parents.
“As they say, her blood pressure has dropped,” her mother says.
Many observers claim the video is a “forced confession” by the parents. No video from inside the train car or from the doorway where Geravand enters the train has been released yet.
(LONDON) — The City of Light is battling an infestation of bedbugs as it prepares to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Videos recently posted on social media purportedly show the tiny, bloodsucking insects crawling on public transport in Paris and even in Charles de Gaulle Airport.
With the Olympic Games less than a year away, Paris Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire has called on French authorities to organize a conference with stakeholders to come up with an “action plan.”
“Faced with the scourge of bedbugs, we must act!” Grégoire said in a social media post last Thursday. “This is a public health problem where all stakeholders must be brought to the table. It is up to owners and insurers to cover the costs of getting rid of these pests.”
French Transport Minister Clement Beaune announced via social media last Friday that he would “bring together transport operators” this week to discuss what’s being done to “reassure and protect” passengers.
Bedbugs are not new to the French capital, but the issue has become widely publicized in recent weeks as the city gears up for the world’s largest sporting event. In an interview on French public radio channel France Inter on Tuesday morning, French Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau tried to ease concerns, saying: “There is no reason for general panic. We are not invaded by bedbugs.”
More than one in 10 households across France was infested by bedbugs between 2017 and 2022, according to a report published in July by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES).
“Contrary to popular belief, their presence does not indicate a lack of cleanliness, and anyone can fall victim to an infestation in their home,” the report states. “The upsurge in bed-bug infestations in recent years has been due in particular to the rise in travel and the increasing resistance of bed bugs to insecticides.”
ANSES recommends using non-chemical methods to exterminate bedbugs, such as dry-heat treatment or freezing, rather than chemical products, which the agency warns can cause poisoning, increase resistance to insecticides and contribute to polluting the environment.
Bedbugs feed solely on the blood of humans and other animals while they sleep, and tend to hide in mattresses and bed frames during the day. The wingless, reddish-brown insects can be carried in clothing and luggage, when traveling or buying second-hand bedding, furniture and clothes, according to ANSES.
Bedbugs can be found in every part of the world and are not known to spread disease. Although their presence has traditionally been seen as a problem in developing nations, bedbugs have recently been spreading rapidly in parts of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(TAMAULIPAS, Mexico) — Eleven people have died following a roof collapse at a church in Mexico on Sunday, according to local authorities. Everyone else has been removed from the debris, Mexican officials said Monday.
The collapse, which trapped between 30 to 40 people, happened at the Iglesia Santa Cruz Church, a Catholic church in Madero, Tamaulipas, Mexico, Mexican officials confirmed to ABC News. A baptism was being celebrated at the time with approximately 100 in attendance.
Seven adults and three children were among the dead. A total of 60 people were injured, with 23 still in the hospital on Monday.
Following the tragic accident, the Tamaulipas Government released a statement confirming the church collapse and an initial total of seven fatalities, which later increased to 10.
“Today at 2:18 pm, there was a collapse of the roof of the church of the Holy Cross in Cd. Madero, presumably due to a failure in its structure, security and civil protection corporations arrived at the scene, in addition to the municipal authorities that since that moment are taking care of the situation,” the statement read.
“Following this accident, unfortunately the death of 7 people is confirmed, in addition, 10 people have been rescued who are injured and have been transferred to hospitals, 3 to the Civil Hospital and the remaining 7 to the General Hospital Dr. Carlos Canseco. Debris removal continues for rescue efforts,” the statement continued.
“Governor Américo Villarreal Anaya, has instructed the General Secretary of Government, the coordinator of Civil Protection of the State and the authorities of the Health sector, to head to the scene of the events to coordinate the work and personally attend to the affected families.”
Federal and state security forces, civil protection and rescue corporations are on site, according to officials.
(NEW YORK) — Pope Francis suggested it may be possible to bless same-sex unions in a newly public response to cardinals who questioned the pope’s affirmation of the LGBTQ community in the Catholic Church.
In the July letter, which is written in Spanish, he reaffirmed that “the Church has a very clear understanding of marriage: an exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to procreation,” according to the Vatican News.
However, he advocated for “pastoral charity.”
“The defense of objective truth is not the only expression of this charity; it also includes kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness and encouragement. Therefore, we cannot be judges who only deny, reject and exclude,” he said, according to Vatican News.
He added that “pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or more persons, that do not convey a mistaken concept of marriage.”
New Ways Ministry, an LGBTQ Catholic outreach group, said in a statement that though his statement is not “a full-fledged, ringing endorsement of blessing their unions,” it is a significant advancement in the inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics in the Church.
In August, Pope Francis called on the hundreds of thousands gathered before him to yell that the Catholic Church is for “todos, todos, todos” — everyone, everyone, everyone.
When asked if “todos” included the LGBTQ community, he said that though the Church has its laws, it is still a place for everyone, including the LGBTQ community.
Pope Francis has also criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality.
News of the Pope’s comments come two days before the start of a major three-week meeting at the Vatican to discuss the state of the Catholic Church and its future. The three-week synod, or meeting, starts at the Vatican on Wednesday, Oct. 4 and will run until Oct. 29.
During this period, more than 450 people from around the world — cardinals, bishops, clergy, religious and laypeople — will take part in the worldwide gathering.
The meeting will address some hot-button issues like the role of women in the church and the inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community. A number of advocacy groups are expected to come to Rome and the Vatican to gain attention for their cause throughout the synod. These groups represent issues such as ending clergy abuse, the women’s ordination conference and more.
Some Church watchers are calling this Synod on Synodality a historical event, while some conservative church leaders and commentators have speculated that the gathering could cause harm to the Church and undermine Catholic teaching.
LGBTQ advocates applauded the decision.
“Pope Francis’ response is both unprecedented and compassionate and continues to urge every Catholic and leader toward acceptance and recognition of LGBTQ people,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD president and CEO.
About 71% of Americans think same-sex marriage should be legal, matching the high Gallup recorded in 2022. Public support for legally recognizing gay marriages has been consistently above 50% since the early 2010s.
The synod will begin with a mass with new cardinals in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Wednesday.
(LONDON) — Virtually the entire ethnic Armenian population of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh has fled, with the last buses carrying refugees having left on Monday, according to Russia’s peacekeeping force deployed there.
More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians left the enclave in the last week, according to local officials, abandoning their homes after Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, recaptured the region with a military offensive just over a week ago.
The exodus has emptied the enclave in what Armenia has condemned as “ethnic cleansing.”
A television news crew from Al Jazeera showed the region’s capital, known to Armenians as Stepanakert, completely deserted. The city, which had a population estimated at more than 50,000, appeared now to be a ghost town. The Al Jazeera crew showed the city’s central square abandoned and strewn with empty chairs, used by people waiting for evacuation.
Before Azerbaijan’s offensive, the enclave’s population was estimated at 120,000. But a spokesperson for the Karabakh Armenians’ unrecognized state’s emergency services ministry on Sunday said only a tiny handful of people now remained in the enclave.
Azerbaijan’s authoritarian president, Ilham Aliyev, announced plans for Nagorno-Karabakh’s reintegration into his country, signaling he intended to quickly restore strong control over it.
The region will now be overseen by special representative offices to Azerbaijan’s president and security will be handled by Azerbaijan’s interior ministry, Aliyev said. Azerbaijan’s currency, the manat, would be reintroduced.
Aliyev said the equality of rights and freedoms, including security, would be guaranteed for all residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, and it would be permitted to use Armenian there. He also pledged that religious freedoms would be guaranteed, and cultural and religious monuments protected.
The pledges appeared to ignore the fact that the enclave’s Armenian population had already fled. The Armenians fleeing have said they don’t believe Azerbaijan’s guarantees of their rights and fear they would face persecution.
A United Nations mission also arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh Sunday to assess humanitarian needs, but it faced heavy criticism from local ethnic Armenian authorities who said they were far too late, given the civilian population was no longer there.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been at the center of a bloody conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan for decades. Internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, it had been home to an ethnic Armenian population for centuries. As the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 1980s into the early 1990s, Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians tried to break away from Azerbaijan, declaring independence.
A bloody war, in which Armenia aided the separatists, saw hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani civilians also driven out of the region and ended with ethnic Armenians controlling most of Nagorno-Karabakh with their own unrecognized state.
But Azerbaijan reopened the conflict in 2020, starting a full-scale war that decisively defeated Armenia and ended with a truce deal brokered by Russia, which deployed peacekeepers to enforce it.
Two weeks ago, after blockading the enclave for nine months, Azerbaijan launched a new offensive, swiftly defeating the ethnic Armenian authorities in two days. The enclave’s population started fleeing shortly afterward to Armenia.
There has been little international response to the crisis. Western countries, including the U.S. and France, have expressed concern and called for Azerbaijan to protect the rights of the Armenians. The Biden administration announced $11.5 million in humanitarian aid and dispatched the high-profile head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Samantha Power, to the region last week.
Richard Giragosian, the director of the Regional Studies Center based in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, said the international response was “too little too late” and had set a “dangerous precedent.”
“[This was] a seeming vindication of the use of force over diplomacy,” Giragosian told ABC News by phone. “A military victory of authoritarian power over a struggling democracy.”
But he said it had also shown the West has little influence over Azerbaijan. “What we see is Azerbaijan simply does not care about Western threats, pronouncements, and at the same time, the West has little leverage over Azerbaijan,” Giragosian said.
Armenia’s defense ministry on Monday also accused Azerbaijani forces of opening fire on a car carrying food to an Armenian border post near the village of Kut.
Azerbaijani forces are likely to move into Nagorno-Karabakh’s now-empty capital, which it calls Khankhendi, in the next few days.
Russia’s peacekeeping contingent said a joint Russian-Azerbaijani patrol came under sniper fire inside Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, but that there were no casualties.
A meeting of representatives from Azerbaijan and the Karabakh Armenian leadership will take place for the first time in the capital in the “near future,” the news agency of the enclave’s unrecognized Armenian state reported Monday.
(TAMAULIPAS, Mexico) — Ten people have died following a roof collapse at a church in Mexico on Sunday, according to local authorities.
The collapse, which trapped between 30 to 40 people, happened at the Iglesia Santa Cruz Church, a Catholic church in Madero, Tamaulipas, Mexico, Mexican officials confirmed to ABC News. A baptism was being celebrated at the time with approximately 100 in attendance.
Seven adults and three children were among the dead. A total of 60 people were injured, with 23 still in the hospital on Monday.
Following the tragic accident, the Tamaulipas Government released a statement confirming the church collapse and an initial total of seven fatalities, which later increased to 10.
“Today at 2:18 pm, there was a collapse of the roof of the church of the Holy Cross in Cd. Madero, presumably due to a failure in its structure, security and civil protection corporations arrived at the scene, in addition to the municipal authorities that since that moment are taking care of the situation,” the statement read.
“Following this accident, unfortunately the death of 7 people is confirmed, in addition, 10 people have been rescued who are injured and have been transferred to hospitals, 3 to the Civil Hospital and the remaining 7 to the General Hospital Dr. Carlos Canseco. Debris removal continues for rescue efforts,” the statement continued.
“Governor Américo Villarreal Anaya, has instructed the General Secretary of Government, the coordinator of Civil Protection of the State and the authorities of the Health sector, to head to the scene of the events to coordinate the work and personally attend to the affected families.”
Federal and state security forces, civil protection and rescue corporations are on site, according to officials.
(LONDON) — Pro-Russia hackers have claimed responsibility for a cyber attack that crashed the British royal family’s website over the weekend.
The website, royal.uk, went down for over an hour on Sunday morning due to a denial-of-service attack, a tactic for overwhelming a machine or network to make it unavailable, a royal source told ABC News.
The source said the website was not hacked because no access was gained to systems or content. It was unclear who was responsible fort the denial-of-service attack, according to the source.
There was no official comment on the matter from Buckingham Palace.
A pro-Russia hacktivist group that calls itself Killnet claimed to be behind what it described as an “attack on paedophiles,” apparently referring to Britain’s Prince Andrew, Duke of York, who was accused of sexually abusing an American woman when she was 17, claims the prince has denied.
Killnet has been active since at least 2022, around the time that Russia launched an invasion of neighboring Ukraine. The group has become known for its distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against countries supporting Ukraine in the ongoing war, especially NATO members, according to an analyst note released earlier this year by the Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“While KillNet’s DDoS attacks usually do not cause major damage, they can cause service outages lasting several hours or even days,” the note states. “Although KillNet’s ties to official Russian government organizations such as the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) or the Russian ForeignIntelligence Service (SVR) are unconfirmed, the group should be considered a threat to government and critical infrastructure organizations including healthcare.”
Sunday’s cyberattack came days after Britain’s King Charles III voiced support for Ukraine during a speech at the French Senate in Paris. He referred to Russia’s “military aggression” as “horrifying.”
“Together, we are unwavering in our determination that Ukraine will triumph and our cherished freedoms will prevail,” Charles said in his remarks on Sept. 21.
The British monarch has spoken out against Russia’s war in Ukraine previously several times.
(TAMAULIPAS, Mexico) — Seven people have died following a roof collapse at a church in Mexico on Sunday, according to local authorities.
The collapse, which trapped between 30-40, happened at the Iglesia Santa Cruz Church, a Catholic church in Madero, Tamaulipas, Mexico, Mexican officials confirmed to ABC News. A baptism was being celebrated at the time with approximately 100 in attendance.
Following the tragic accident, the Tamaulipas Government released a statement confirming the church collapse and the total of fatalities.
“Today at 2:18 pm, there was a collapse of the roof of the church of the Holy Cross in Cd. Madero, presumably due to a failure in its structure, security and civil protection corporations arrived at the scene, in addition to the municipal authorities that since that moment are taking care of the situation,” the statement read.
“Following this accident, unfortunately the death of 7 people is confirmed, in addition, 10 people have been rescued who are injured and have been transferred to hospitals, 3 to the Civil Hospital and the remaining 7 to the General Hospital Dr. Carlos Canseco. Debris removal continues for rescue efforts,” the statement continued.
“Governor Américo Villarreal Anaya, has instructed the General Secretary of Government, the Coordinator of Civil Protection of the State and the authorities of the Health sector, to head to the scene of the events to coordinate the work and personally attend to the affected families.”
Federal and state security forces, civil protection and rescue corporations are on site, according to officials.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
