Joshua Wong, leader of the student movement, delivers a speech as protesters block the main street to the financial Central district, outside the government headquarters building in Hong Kong October 1, 2014. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
In Hong Kong, greater meaning in Tiananmen vigil
HONG KONG — Hong Kongers are planning to hold a candlelight vigil night to mark the 1989 student-led Tiananmen Square protests.
The annual event on Thursday night takes on greater meaning for the city’s young after last autumn’s pro-democracy demonstrations sharpened their sense of unease with Beijing.
For the first time in the event’s quarter-century history, some student groups won’t be taking part and will instead hold their own memorials.
It’s a sign of the emerging rift between young and old over Hong Kong identity that took root during the Occupy Central protests.
The vigil is the only large-scale public commemoration of the victims on Chinese soil.
Hundreds and possibly thousands of unarmed protesters and onlookers were killed when tanks and soldiers entered central Beijing on June 3-4, 1989.
More bodies found in hull of cruise ship
JIANLI, China (AP) — More bodies have been pulled from the wreckage of a Chinese cruise ship, but there’s been no sign of any survivors after rescuers cut holes into the overturned hull.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV says the death toll from Monday’s capsizing in the Yangtze River now stands at 65, but more than 370 others are feared dead. Only 14 are known to have survived.
Rescuers cut holes in three places _ near the bow, middle and stern. After checking each location, the workers are welding the removed sections of the hull back on and sealing them to maintain the ship’s buoyancy and balance.
At the same time, divers are working in three shifts underwater to search the ship’s cabins one by one.
Boston man talked of a beheading, killing officers
BOSTON — The FBI says a knife-wielding man killed by terror investigators had planned to behead an unidentified victim, then changed his mind and said he wanted to kill police officers.
Usaama Rahim was killed Tuesday after authorities said he lunged at investigators who approached him to question him.
David Wright, a relative of Rahim’s, was ordered held Wednesday on a charge of conspiracy with intent to obstruct a federal investigation. The FBI says Rahim told Wright on Tuesday that he planned to begin trying to randomly kill police officers.
Boston Police said an anti-terror task force of FBI agents and police confronted Rahim on a sidewalk and fatally shot him when he refused to drop his knife.
Defence awaits chance to rebut psychiatrist
CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Defence attorneys in the Colorado theatre shooting trial will face new challenges when they try to counter 22 hours of sometimes chilling videotaped interviews of James Holmes.
The interviews led state-appointed psychiatrist William Reid to conclude that Holmes was mentally ill but legally sane during the July 20, 2012, attack that killed 12 people and wounded 70 others.
Prosecutors have shown the videos and questioned Reid over a week. Defence attorneys will have a chance to cross-examine him starting Thursday.
But beyond countering the legal issues presented in Reid’s testimony, experts say defence attorneys will have to overcome the powerful emotional impact the video could have on jurors.
Joseph Rice, of the California-based Jury Research Institute, says defence attorneys could try to show that Holmes’ demeanour in the video is more proof of his severe mental illness.
Judge could set date in Hernandez murder trial
BOSTON — Lawyers for former New England Patriots player and convicted murderer Aaron Hernandez are due in court in Boston, where a judge could set a date for his double murder trial.
Hernandez is not expected to attend Thursday’s hearing. He is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted of killing of an acquaintance in 2013.
In Boston, Hernandez is accused of killing two men over a spilled drink at a nightclub in 2012.
He’s also accused of shooting a witness to the killings in the face, leaving him for dead.
Hernandez has pleaded not guilty.
In court papers unsealed Wednesday, Hernandez’s lawyer says he wants an inquiry into what he says is a juror’s “exposure to significant extraneous matter.” A hearing is set for next week.
Police probing crash of Niagara Falls-bound bus, truck
TOBYHANNA, Pa. — State police are trying to determine why a tractor-trailer collided on an eastern Pennsylvania highway with a charter bus taking Italian tourists to Niagara Falls, killing three people and critically injuring four others.
Officials say the bus driver and two other bus passengers were killed in Wednesday morning’s crash on Interstate 380 in the Pocono Mountain region.
The bus had departed from New York and was about a quarter of the way to its first destination when police say it collided with a tractor-trailer that had crossed into oncoming traffic.
More than a dozen people were injured and taken to four hospitals. An official says most had mild to moderate injuries.
Perry to seek 2016 GOP presidential nomination
ADDISON, Texas — A senior adviser to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry says he’s again running for president.
The senior adviser tells The Associated Press that Perry will announce to supporters in Dallas on Thursday that he’s in the race for the Republican nomination. The adviser requested anonymity to speak ahead of the formal announcement.
Four years ago Perry launched his presidential campaign as an instant front-runner.
He was a proven job-creator with solid conservative credentials, formidable fundraising prowess and perhaps enough cowboy swagger to take Republicans by storm.
Then he flamed out just as fast, due to a stumbling debate performance in which he forgot the name of one of the federal agencies he wanted to close.
Pipeline that spilled oil on California coast badly corroded
LOS ANGELES — A preliminary government report has found that a pipeline rupture that spilled an estimated 101,000 gallons of crude oil along the Central California coastline occurred along a badly corroded section that had worn away to a fraction of an inch.
The findings released Wednesday by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said investigators estimated that corrosion at the break site had degraded the pipe wall thickness to 1/16 of an inch.
The report noted repairs had been made to the pipeline because of corrosion after 2012 in an area near the break.
The spill on May 19 blackened beaches near Santa Barbara with crude oil and created a 9-mile slick in the Pacific Ocean.
The line where the break occurred is shut down indefinitely.
Shipping company fined for oily discharge in Alaska
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A German shipping company on probation for dumping oily water off California in 2013 was sentenced Wednesday to pay $750,000 for a repeat offence in Alaska.
Prosecutors said Wednesday that a ship belonging to Herm. Dauelsberg GmbH & Co. KG discharged 1,780 gallons of oily water in U.S. waters during a trip from China.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Feldis also says personnel aboard the 617-foot Lindavia presented false records to the U.S. Coast Guard when the ship docked Feb. 11 at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians Islands.
Companies are required to maintain oil water separators that filter petroleum products out of water dumped overboard.
Prosecutors say ship operators knew the Lindavia was leaking heavy fuel oil into a cargo hold. Feldis says they pumped oily water from the cargo hold into 55-gallon drums on the main deck and then overboard.
