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    Dozens Are Killed in Two Bus Crashes in Pakistan

    One of the accidents killed 12 people who were returning from a religious pilgrimage to Iraq, officials said.At least 37 people, including a dozen who were returning from a religious pilgrimage in Iraq, died Sunday in two unrelated bus crashes in Pakistan, officials said.Though the causes were under investigation, the accidents highlighted road safety in a country that experts say is known for poor road conditions, lax traffic enforcement and fatal crashes.The first accident occurred in the southwestern province of Balochistan, where a bus carrying pilgrims returning from Iraq plunged into a ravine on a coastal highway.Twelve people were killed and 23 were injured, according to rescue officials, who said the accident was probably caused by speeding or brake failure.Every year, at least 50,000 Pakistanis travel to Iraq to commemorate the Shiite holiday of Arbaeen.The second accident occurred in Kahuta, near the northern city of Rawalpindi. A bus drove into a ditch, killing all 25 people on board, including four women and a child, according to Farooq Butt, a rescue official.One injured man was pulled from wreckage but died on the way to the hospital, Mr. Butt said.Officials said the cause of the accident was not yet known. In a statement, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief over the loss of life.Unsafe road conditions, insufficient traffic enforcement and neglected vehicle maintenance often lead to accidents in the country.“Poor enforcement, untrained traffic officers and unsafe vehicles make things worse,” said Syed Kaleem Imam, a former police inspector general.The crash in Balochistan came less than a week after 28 Pakistani pilgrims died in a bus accident in Iran. Twenty-three others were injured, 14 of them critically, according to Pakistani Embassy officials in Tehran. More

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    Knife Attack in Germany Kills at Least 3 at Solingen Festival

    The attack took place in Solingen during a celebration of the 650th anniversary of the city’s founding.The attack took place in a central square in Solingen, Germany, during a festival celebrating the town’s 650th anniversary.Andreas Rentz/Getty ImagesA person armed with a knife killed at least three people at a city fair in the western German city of Solingen on Friday night, according to the police. The attacker, who escaped, also severely wounded five others. Officers were looking for a suspect.Local news outlets reported that a lone attacker had turned on the crowds during the fair celebrating the 650th anniversary of the city’s founding.“This evening, we are all in shock, horror and great sadness in Solingen,” Tim Kurzbach, the city’s mayor, said in a post on Facebook. “We all wanted to celebrate our city’s anniversary together and now we have to mourn the dead and injured.”So far, the motive for the attack is unclear. More

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    Scott Bloomquist, Champion Dirt-Track Driver, Dies at 60

    Styling himself as a rebel, he won more than 600 races and nine championships in a 40-year career.Scott Bloomquist, a superstar dirt-track racer who won more than 600 races and whose car bore the image of a skull and crossbones, died on Aug. 16 when the vintage single-engine plane that he was piloting crashed into a barn close to the airstrip on his family farm near Mooresburg, Tenn. He was 60.The Federal Aviation Administration said that Bloomquist was the only person aboard the vintage Piper J-3 aircraft. In a statement confirming the death, Scott Bloomquist Racing posted a statement that described him as “one hell of a wheel man” and said, “Whether you cheered for him or booed for him, you still made noise, and Scott loved you all equally for that.”Bloomquist, whose car bore No. 0 and a skull-and-crossbones image, dueled with Tim McCreadie (No. 39) at the World of Outlaws late-model series championship in Concord, N.C., in 2014.David Allio/Icon Sportswire — Corbis, via Getty ImagesBloomquist was considered one of the greatest drivers on the circuits where he raced. He won nine championships, including four with the United Dirt Track Racing Association’s Hav-A-Tampa Series, three with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and one with the World of Outlaws.Tony Stewart, the three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, owns the Eldora Speedway dirt track in Rossburg, Ohio, where Bloomquist won four elite World 100 races. Bloomquist, Stewart said in a statement, was “probably the smartest guy I’ve ever been around when it come to dirt racing.”Stewart, who has raced on dirt tracks, added, “What he could do behind the wheel of a racecar was matched by the ingenuity he put into building his racecars.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Mike Lynch, Tech Mogul Acquitted of Fraud, Dies at 59

    The British entrepreneur, who was found not guilty of fraud charges in the sale of his company to Hewlett-Packard, was celebrating his acquittal when his yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily in a storm.Mike Lynch, a British software mogul who was once celebrated as a top technology leader — only to spend more than a decade defending himself against accusations that he orchestrated one of the biggest frauds in Silicon Valley history — died on Monday after his yacht sank off the coast of Sicily. He was 59.An official in the Italian city of Palermo confirmed on Thursday that Mr. Lynch’s body had been recovered by divers.Twelve guests and 10 crew members were onboard the yacht, the Bayesian, when it went down during a violent storm. Mr. Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was rescued, along with nine crew members and six passengers. Six bodies have been recovered and one person is still missing, Mr. Lynch’s daughter Hannah Lynch.Mr. Lynch’s death came two months after he was acquitted in federal court in San Francisco of criminal fraud charges, tied to the $11 billion sale of his company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. The takeover, widely regarded among investors as one of the worst deals in history, led HP to accuse Mr. Lynch of deception.U.S. prosecutors charged Mr. Lynch with more than a dozen counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the deal, with a potential sentence running to about two decades in prison.Emergency services search for survivors after a yacht sank off the coast of Sicily on Monday.Alberto Lo Bianco/, via LaPresse, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    80-Year-Old Seattle Dog Walker Is Killed in a Carjacking, Police Say

    The great-grandmother struggled with a man inside her car before being forced out and then struck by the vehicle, the police said. Her dog was later found dead in a recycling bin.An 80-year-old Seattle woman who worked as a neighborhood dog walker was killed on Tuesday morning when a man got into her car, forced her out, struck her with the vehicle and drove off with her dog, which he later killed with a knife, the police said.The woman killed in what the authorities said was a random attack was Ruth Dalton, a great-grandmother who the police said was “well-loved.”She was in her Subaru in the Madison Valley neighborhood with at least two dogs inside just before 10 a.m. Tuesday when a man got in from the passenger side, officials with the Seattle Police Department said at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon. The two struggled, and the moving car went off the road onto a grassy area.Nearby drivers stopped their cars and ran to help Ms. Dalton, the police said.One bystander backed away when the man pulled out a knife, but he returned with a stick or bat to help Ms. Dalton, the police said. By the time the bystander had run back to Ms. Dalton’s car, the man had already forced her out. The carjacker put the Subaru into reverse, crashed into two vehicles, struck Ms. Dalton and drove off, the police said.Others who were nearby rendered first aid to Ms. Dalton, and emergency workers with the Seattle Fire Department provided medical treatment, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.A memorial was created for Ruth Dalton, a dog walker who was killed during a carjacking in Seattle.Ivy Ceballo/The Seattle Times, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Divers Find 2 Bodies From Yacht That Sank Off Sicily

    The discovery came after the vessel sank this week in what some witnesses described as a waterspout, or a small tornado, during a violent downpour. No names were immediately released.After three days of searching the hull of a sailing yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily, divers on Wednesday recovered the bodies of two passengers who were believed to have been trapped inside their cabins when the vessel went down, officials in Sicily said.The yacht, the Bayesian, with 12 crew members and 10 passengers, was caught in what some witnesses described as a waterspout, essentially a small tornado on water, during a sudden and violent downpour in the pre-dawn hours of Monday.The recovery of the two bodies was confirmed by Salvatore Cocina, head of Sicily’s civil protection agency. What looked like a green body bag was lifted from a vessel in Porticello, Sicily, on Wednesday afternoon and loaded onto a waiting ambulance as a large group of rescuers stood by in their uniforms.On the dock, a crowd of reporters and bystanders watched on in near complete silence, as a church bell tolled in the background.Although 15 people made it to safety and the yacht’s cook was confirmed dead, the fate of the remaining six people, including a British tech entrepreneur, Mike Lynch, had been formally unresolved until the update on Wednesday.In addition to Mr. Lynch, the remaining people who had been identified as missing by the authorities were his daughter Hannah; Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International; his wife, Judy Bloomer; Christopher J. Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance; and his wife, Neda Morvillo.Mike Lynch in 2011. Pool photo by Ben GurrThey were part of a group of people celebrating a legal victory for Mr. Lynch, who was acquitted in June of fraud charges tied to the sale of his company, Autonomy, to the tech giant Hewlett-Packard.The body of the yacht’s cook, Recaldo Thomas, who held Canadian and Antiguan citizenship, was recovered earlier from the water, the Sicilian civil protection agency said.Deep sea divers with the Vigili del Fuoco, Italy’s firefighting corps, were able to reach the bodies after dealing with what Luca Cari, their spokesman, described as “very difficult” conditions.The yacht had settled on its side, about 165 feet below the surface, and divers could only remain underwater for a limited amount of time. To complicate matters, they had to navigate through broken furnishings and electrical wiring that blocked the tight spaces inside the hull. More

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    3 More Victims of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Found With Gunshot Wounds

    Officials are exhuming bodies to learn more about the victims of one of the worst racial attacks in U.S. history.Three victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, whose remains were exhumed along with those of eight others, were found to have gunshot wounds, investigators announced on Friday, in the latest findings from research about one of the worst racial attacks in U.S. history.G.T. Bynum, the mayor of Tulsa, Okla., announced in 2018 that the city would begin searching for and analyzing the bodies of victims of the massacre to learn more about their identities and causes of death.Between 36 and 300 people are thought to have died during the massacre, officials have said, however only 26 death certificates were issued in connection to it.“The people that we are searching for, our fellow Tulsans, they’re not just names in history,” Mr. Bynum said at a news conference on Friday. “These are our neighbors who were murdered in horrible ways.”Investigators are looking for “simple wooden caskets” that fit a variety of parameters that could indicate a possible victim of the massacre, according to Kary Stackelbeck, a state archaeologist.“Two of those gunshot victims display evidence of munitions from two different weapons, meaning that those two individuals were shot with at least two different kinds of arms,” Dr. Stackelbeck said. “The third individual who is a gunshot victim also displays evidence of burning.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Four Arrested in Killing of ‘General Hospital’ Actor

    The police said they arrested three men on murder charges in the fatal May 25 shooting of Johnny Wactor, 37, in Los Angeles. A fourth person was also charged.The authorities have arrested four men in the killing of “General Hospital” actor Johnny Wactor, who was shot dead in May as three men attempted to steal the catalytic converter from his vehicle in downtown Los Angeles.The Los Angeles Police Department on Thursday announced the arrests of Robert Barceleau, Leonel Gutierrez and Sergio Estrada. All three men are 18 and from Los Angeles County. They will face murder charges.They were arrested Thursday and were being held on $2 million bond, jail records show. A fourth man, Frank Olano, 22, was arrested on an accessory charge for helping at least one of the suspects evade the authorities.Mr. Wactor was gunned down at around 3:25 a.m. on May 25 when he returned to his parked vehicle after finishing a shift at a downtown Los Angeles bar where he worked. The 37-year-old came across three men who were in the middle of stealing his car’s catalytic converter.“When Wactor arrived at his vehicle, he was confronted by three individuals who had Wactor’s vehicle raised up with a floor jack and were in the process of stealing the catalytic converter,” the police said. “Without provocation, the victim was shot by one of the individuals.”The actor was walking with a co-worker and initially thought that his car was being towed, his mother, Scarlett Wactor, told ABC7 news.She added that one of the persons “looked up, he was wearing a mask, and opened fire.”Mr. Wactor was transported to the hospital by emergency workers where he was pronounced dead.The three men were able to get away in a stolen sedan, the police said in August.Mr. Wactor was known for appearing in more than 160 episodes of the soap opera “General Hospital” as the character Brando Corbin. He also appeared in other shows, including “Westworld” and in one episode of “Criminal Minds,” according to IMDb.Catalytic converter thefts have become more common across America in recent years.The emissions-control devices contain rare and expensive metals like palladium and rhodium, making them a hot target for thieves.In a Thursday evening phone call, Ms. Wactor said she was glad to hear that the arrests had been made and said she hoped the men are convicted.“It’s a great early birthday present for Johnny,” Ms. Wactor said.Her son, she said, would have been 38 on Aug. 31. More