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      3 People Found Dead in Baja California

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      Mexican authorities recovered three bodies as a search went on for two Australian tourists and a U.S. citizen who disappeared while on vacation.A dayslong search for three missing tourists who disappeared near a surfing town close to the U.S.-Mexico border continued on Friday as the authorities said that they had located three bodies.Two Australian brothers and their friend, a U.S. citizen, had been on vacation surfing and camping along the coast near the Mexican city of Ensenada when they disappeared on Saturday.The state’s attorney general, María Elena Andrade Ramírez, said in a news conference on Thursday that prosecutors were investigating three people related to the case but that crucial time had passed since the disappearance of the three men.“Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the last few days that they were reported missing,” Ms. Andrade Ramírez told reporters. “So, that meant that important hours or time was lost.” A U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Friday that the authorities were aware of reports of a U.S. citizen missing in Baja California but declined to provide further details.Kira Boyd, a public affairs officer for the F.B.I.’s San Diego Field Office, confirmed in an email that three people were found dead near the town of Santo Tomás but did not specify whether they were the missing tourists.“We are assessing every tip,” Ms. Boyd said. “If credible, we will pursue those leads with rigor.”In 2022, 192 American citizens died in Mexico, State Department figures show, but most of those deaths were accidents or suicides. Only 46 were ruled as homicides.The big waves in Baja California have long attracted throngs of surfers and travelers, many of whom have dealt with rising crime rates for nearly two decades.But record levels of violence have hit the state in recent years. Government data shows that Baja California currently holds first place in vehicle theft and second place in homicides, most of which are related to drug dealing or organized crime, Mexico’s secretary of defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, said this year.An official familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly said a white pickup truck that the missing tourists had been traveling in was found charred near La Bocana beach in Santo Tomás. Other belongings and pieces of evidence were also being analyzed, the official added.The swift effort to find the tourists was a rare exception in a country where nearly 100,000 people remain missing, according to the latest count provided by Mexican officials in March.A majority of cases remain unsolved. Family members and volunteers are left on their own to follow up on leads, but the presence of cartels and a lack of support from the authorities make searching a dangerous mission. More

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      Dozens of Children Kidnapped in Nigeria Are Released, Officials Say

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      The military of the West African nation, which is plagued by kidnappings largely driven by demands for ransom payments, said 137 children had been freed in the country’s north.Dozens of Nigerian schoolchildren who were kidnapped this month have been released, officials said on Sunday. The Nigerian military said that 137 children had been freed by security forces in the northwest of the country.The children were abducted on March 7 from their school in Kuriga, a small town in the state of Kaduna, the latest in a long series of kidnappings that have plagued Africa’s most populous nation. The exact number of children taken from Kuriga remains murky.The state’s governor, Uba Sani, announced the return of the children, but he did not provide additional information on the circumstances of the abduction or of their release.Nigeria’s military said in a statement that 76 girls and 61 boys had been freed in the northern state of Zamfara, and were being taken back to Kaduna. The military did not confirm the total number of children abducted on March 7, or provide further details about the operation.Residents had told the local news media that armed men kidnapped the students just after they had finished their morning assembly and taken them into a nearby forest.The episode evoked memories of the 2014 abduction of 276 schoolgirls in the town of Chibok by Boko Haram, an Islamist armed group, which shocked the nation and prompted outrage abroad. Many of the girls were released, reportedly in exchange for ransoms, but 98 of them are still missing, according to Amnesty International.On Sunday, Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, thanked the military for securing the children’s release and said that his administration was trying to ensure “that our schools remain safe sanctuaries of learning, not lairs for wanton abductions.”Days before the children were abducted, about 200 people were kidnapped in Nigeria’s Borno state, officials said. The state is at the center of the Boko Haram insurgency. The victims, who had ventured into the countryside to collect firewood when they were abducted, have not been returned yet.More than 3,600 people were reported kidnapped in Nigeria last year — the highest number in five years, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. But the figure could be higher given that many abductions are not reported.The kidnappings are mainly driven by a quest for ransom payments, according to the Nigerian analysis firm SBM Intelligence, which can be paid in cash but also in food or medicine. They are a feature of all of the conflicts ravaging the West African nation, including Islamist insurgencies, separatists movements and piracy, SBM Intelligence said.“The scourge of banditry, kidnapping and other forms of insecurities must be decisively tackled to restore peace and stability to our beloved nation,” the Alumni Association of the National Institute, part of a Nigerian research center, said in a statement on Sunday. More

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      In Russia, Knowing That Her Son Is Dead, and Waiting for Him Anyway

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      She watched, distressed, as Aleksei was sent off to war. Now, 14 months after he died in eastern Ukraine, Yulia Seleznyova holds a sliver of hope for a miracle.When Yulia Seleznyova walks around her home city in Russia, she scrutinizes everyone passing by in the hope that she will lock eyes with her son Aleksei.She last heard from him on New Year’s Eve 2022, when he sent holiday greetings from the school in eastern Ukraine that his unit of recently mobilized soldiers was using as a headquartersThe Ukrainian military hit the school with U.S.-supplied HIMARS rockets on New Year’s Day. Russian authorities acknowledged dozens of deaths, though pro-Russian military bloggers and Ukrainian authorities estimated that the real number was in the hundreds.Aleksei was not recognized in the official death toll because not a single fragment of his body was identified in the rubble after the strike. Ms. Seleznyova was left with nothing to bury, and, she says, no closure. But it has also left a small shred of hope for a miracle.“I still go around town sometimes, with my eyes wide open, thinking maybe he’s sitting somewhere, but he doesn’t remember us, but maybe we’re there in his subconscious mind,” Ms. Seleznyova said in an interview late last year in her one-room apartment in Tolyatti, an industrial city on the Volga River that is home to Russia’s largest car manufacturer.“Sometimes I think maybe he lost his memory and even got married somewhere in Ukraine, but he doesn’t remember us,” she said. “That he’s just shellshocked.”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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      Child’s Remains Found Encased in Concrete, Prompting Search for 2 Missing Children

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      The police declined to say what the connection was between the child whose remains were found in a storage unit in Pueblo, Colo., and two children last seen in 2018.The remains of a child were found encased in concrete in a storage unit in Pueblo, Colo., last month, and the police said Thursday that they were searching for two other children last seen in 2018 as part of the homicide investigation.The grisly discovery was made on the morning of Jan. 10 at a storage facility downtown, the Pueblo Police Department said in a statement.The police said they were called to the facility, about 45 miles south of Colorado Springs, after a person found a metal container “filled with hardened concrete.” A search of the container revealed the remains of a child.The authorities said they were now searching for two children, Jesus and Yesenia Dominguez, who were last seen more than five years ago. Jesus would now be about 10 years old, and Yesenia would be 9, the police said. They would not provide information about how the two children might be connected to the child whose remains were found or to the homicide investigation.The Pueblo County Coroner will identify the remains, the police said. The coroner’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon.Sgt. Franklyn Ortega of the Pueblo Police Department said by phone that while no report had been filed regarding the two missing children, the police had been called on to make welfare checks for the children but could never locate them.When asked why the police had not then inquired further about the children’s whereabouts, Sergeant Ortega said that there were “custody issues” regarding the children, and that he could not provide further details. He said that the police had questioned two people of interest regarding the homicide, but that they did not have anyone in custody. More

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      Greece Continues Search for Migrants After Crowded Ship Capsizes

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      The authorities revised the official toll of the deadly shipwreck down by one, to 78, but there are fears that hundreds of people may be missing.The grim search by Greek authorities for migrants after the country’s deadliest shipwreck in years moved into a second day on Thursday, though the prospects of finding survivors was slim and hundreds were feared to be missing after their fishing ship capsized about 50 miles off the coast.Scores of bodies were recovered from the sea and 104 people were rescued on Wednesday, after their vessel foundered in the Mediterranean Sea, off the southern coast of Greece, five days after setting sail from Libya bound for Italy.As several vessels helped gather the bodies from the sea, the Greek Shipping Ministry lowered the number of confirmed deaths by one, to 78, on Thursday morning after a count at the port of Kalamata, but the full toll is believed to be much higher.Survivors have told Greek officials that as many as 500 people were aboard, according to a Shipping Ministry official, who spoke on a condition of anonymity in keeping with the ministry’s past practice.Panagiotis Nikas, the regional governor for the Peloponnese region, told Greek news outlets on Wednesday that some survivors had suggested as many 750 passengers were on the ship, adding that the claim was being checked.Photographs of the vessel, a fishing trawler, taken by a Greek Coast Guard helicopter on Tuesday showed it to be hugely overcrowded with people none of whom appeared to be wearing life vests.Emergency workers rushed some survivors on stretchers to a nearby tent to receive medical aid.Hellenic Coastguard, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA C-130 transport plane aided the search overnight, according to the ministry, launching flares into the night sky to illuminate the sea and trace any survivors, but no one was found.Officials have conceded that any hopes of finding additional survivors, or even victims, are remote, because the boat sank in one of the deepest spots of the Mediterranean, where the seabed is at a depth of 4,000 meters, or about 2.5 miles.Nevertheless, the efforts continued on Thursday. “There is no plan to stop the search,” Nikolaos Alexiou, a spokesman for the Greek Coast Guard, told state television. “We’re continuing and the search will broaden.”The survivors will be moved to a state camp in Malakasa, north of Athens, as soon as processing by coast guard officials has been completed, the migration ministry said. The authorities were questioning several people from the ship who were believed to be smugglers, state television reported.The survivors, all men, are believed to be from Syria, Egypt and Pakistan. It remained unclear how many women and children might be among the missing.The tragedy unfolded as Greece is preparing for a general election on June 25, and it has prompted political leaders to suspend campaigning as a caretaker government announced three days of national mourning.The migration issue is already very sensitive in Greece, especially in light of the government’s tactics aimed at deterring migration, an approach that has widespread support but has been roundly criticized by rights groups.Greece is a major destination for migrants trying to make their way to Europe, and the sinking was the deadliest such episode off its coast since before 2015, when 70 people died after a boat carrying migrants sank near the island off Lesbos, according to the International Organization for Migration. More

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      Barry Morphew Pleads Guilty to Casting Missing Wife’s Ballot for Trump

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      Prosecutors in April dropped a first-degree murder charge against Barry Morphew, whose wife, Suzanne Morphew, disappeared in May 2020.The husband of a Colorado woman who has been missing for more than two years pleaded guilty on Thursday to casting her mail-in ballot for Donald J. Trump during the 2020 election, telling F.B.I. agents, “I figured all these other guys are cheating.”The man, Barry Morphew, 54, was given a sentence of one year of supervised probation but avoided jail time after pleading guilty to one count of forgery, a felony, in district court in Chaffee County, according to court records.The outcome in the voter fraud case marked the latest twist in the mystery of what happened to Suzanne Morphew, who disappeared in May 2020 after going for a bike ride near her home in Salida, Colo.The missing person’s case has generated national headlines. Prosecutors charged Mr. Morphew with first-degree murder last year, but then, in April, they dropped all charges against him related to her disappearance after a judge imposed sanctions on them for violating discovery rules. Mr. Morphew maintained his innocence as prosecutors accused him of killing his wife after learning that she had been involved in an extramarital affair.The body of Ms. Morphew, a mother of two who was 49 when she vanished, has not been found.About five months after she was reported missing, her mail-in ballot for the 2020 election arrived at the clerk’s office in Chaffee County, about 100 miles west of Colorado Springs, according to an arrest warrant.Election officials contacted the sheriff’s office, which took a photograph of the ballot and seized it as evidence. A space for the voter’s signature was blank, but Mr. Morphew wrote his name on a line for legal witnesses to sign ballots. The ballot was dated Oct. 15, 2020.When F.B.I. agents asked Mr. Morphew why he had returned his missing wife’s ballot, he told them, as detailed in the warrant, “Just because I wanted Trump to win.”Mr. Morphew told investigators that he didn’t know he was not authorized to cast a ballot for his wife.“I just thought, give him another vote,” he said, referring to Mr. Trump. “I figured all these other guys are cheating. I know she was going to vote for Trump anyway.”Iris Eytan, a lawyer for Mr. Morphew, said in an interview on Friday that her client had mistakenly assumed that when he became the legal guardian for his wife after her disappearance, it extended to voting.“He believed that because he could sign legal documents for her, that the ballot, similarly, was under his authority,” Ms. Eytan said. “So he was following her wishes. He did not sign her name. He signed his name on the witness line. So he didn’t, in any way, intend to deceive the clerk of the court.”Ms. Eytan said that instead of prosecuting Mr. Morphew for voter fraud, the authorities should be focused on the search for Ms. Morphew.“Barry’s life is shattered,” she said. “Her disappearance is not linked to him. He’s looked at and treated like a killer.” More