North America

June 25 (Reuters) - Hikers have found human remains in Southern California's Mount Baldy wilderness, the mountainous area where British-born film actor Julian Sands went missing in January, local authorities said late on Saturday.

The hikers contacted Fontana Station officials at about 10 a.m. on Saturday to report the discovery of the body, which was taken to the coroner's office for identification, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

(AP) --- The U.S. Navy said Sunday that it won’t be using a large piece of salvage equipment that it had deployed to the effort to retrieve the Titan submersible.

The Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System had the capability of lifting an intact Titan back to the surface. The U.S. Coast Guard announced on Thursday that debris from the submersible had been found roughly 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the Titanic in North Atlantic waters.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemalans voted Sunday to elect a new president and vice president as well as fill all congressional seats and hundreds of local posts after one of the most tumultuous electoral seasons in the Central American nation’s recent history.

Many Guatemalans expressed disappointment with their presidential choices after three opposition candidates were excluded by authorities. A large number of null ballots were expected, and experts said it could depress turnout.

NEW YORK (AP) — Salman Rushdie, Cheryl Strayed, Carl Hiassen and Ibram X. Kendi are among hundreds of authors who have endorsed an announcement by the American Library Association and the Association of American Publishers that calls attention to the 70th anniversary of a Freedom to Read Statement issued by book publishers and librarians during the height of the McCarthy era.

SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) — A 51-year-old woman and a 19-year-old man were slain and a dozen others wounded during a shooting at a large street party in Michigan that was promoted on social media.

The shooting occurred around midnight Saturday in Saginaw, about 102 miles (164 kilometers) northwest of Detroit, state police said.

Police initially said about 200 people were in the area of the party and that officers had been dispersing the crowd prior to the shooting, MLive.com reported.

22 June 2023; MEMO: A US army veteran has been sentenced to 55 years in prison for the murder of an Afghan refugee after he shouted Islamophobic slurs at the victim, Anadolu Agency reports.

After a three-day trial, Dustin Passarelli was convicted in the Mid-western US state of Indiana of the murder of Mustafa Ayoubi, 32, with additional time for using a firearm.

23 June 2023; MEMO: The United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has condemned the Israeli settlers' attacks on Palestinian property, describing them as "acts of terrorism".

In a statement issued by his office, Guterres said the settlers' terrorist acts included "acts of sabotage and arson of land, property and schools in Palestinian villages around Nablus and Ramallah."

WASHINGTON, June 24 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Over the past two decades, global reservoirs have become increasingly empty despite an overall increase in total storage capacity due to the construction of new reservoirs, according to a new study published by Nature Communications.    

Using satellite data from over 7,000 global reservoirs, Texas A&M researchers found that while total storage capacity has increased, the filling rate is lower than expected.

June 23 (Reuters) - Canadian safety officials on Friday opened an investigation into the undersea implosion of a tourist submersible that killed all five people aboard while diving to the century-old wreck of the Titanic, raising questions about the unregulated nature of such expeditions.

A debris field from the submersible Titan was found at the bottom of the North Atlantic on Thursday by a robotic diving vehicle deployed from a Canadian search vessel, ending an intense five-day international rescue effort.

WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) - Pakistan on Friday criticized the United States and India after President Joe Biden met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House and both leaders called on Pakistan to ensure its territory was not used as a base for militant attacks.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said a joint U.S.-Indian statement was "unwarranted, one-sided, and misleading". The reference to Islamabad in it was "contrary to diplomatic norms," it said.