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3 July 2023 The mayor of a small Mexican town has married an alligator in an ancient prosperity ritual.  He was seen kissing the animal, whose mouth was closed The seven-year-old crocodile, nicknamed 'princess', is thought to represent a deity associated with the earth.  Her marriage to a local leader symbolizes the union of mankind with God. This tradition is thought to date back centuries to the Chontal and Huave indigenous communities in the state of Oaxaca.  "It is a union of two cultures. A union of the Huave and the Chontales," Mayor Victor Hugo Sosa told reporters. Olivia Perez, the woman who was in charge of decorating the crocodile with a 'wedding' dress, says: 'For us, the crocodile represents many things because she is a queen. A princess who brings water, a good harvest and rain

Johnson and Johnson baby powder containing taic has been banned with immediate effect by the Ministry of Health and Child Care due to the ingredient’s propensity to cause cancer. Health inspectors were instructed to destroy or return any Johnson & Johnson baby powder goods they found in local markets by Air Commodore Dr. Jasper Chimedza, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Child Care. This development follows news that Johnson and Johnson, an American multinational corporation, had assumed the responsibility of paying US$8.9 billion to the medical industry in compensation for claims that the company’s baby powder was contributing to cancer on April 18, 2023, according to Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC). It also comes at a time when the company was facing over 40 000 lawsuits in the US alleging that baby powder contaminated with asbestos caused ovarian cancer or mesothelioma. But Johnson & Johnson did not attribute the switch to that controversy, calling ...

Reuters Copyright: Reuters Five days after a fatal three-train crash killed 275 people in India, nearly 100 bodies remain unclaimed.  The accident on Friday evening in the state of Odisha involved two passenger trains and a freight train. More than 1,000 injured were taken to hospital for treatment.  Many families say they are still searching for their loved ones.   The worst railway accident in India is the worst accident of this century. The accident saw a passenger train leave the track after it mistakenly entered a track near the main line and collided with a freight train that was parked there.   Its damaged carriages hit the rear carriages of the second passenger train heading in the other direction. More than 3,000 passengers are thought to have been traveling on the two trains, with reports saying they were both full.  Desperate family members of passengers from Odisha and other states have been thronging the hospital, seeking information about their lov...

MOSCOW - Several Russian radio stations were hacked and played a fake President Vladimir Putin speech announcing an invasion from Kyiv's troops and emergency measures in three regions bordering Ukraine, the Kremlin said Monday. LIVE Search FILE: Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his speech during the Victory Day military parade in Red square in Moscow, Russia, Monday, May 9, 2022. On June 5, 2023, Moscow said fake Putin messages declaring an emergency were a  The MIR radio station said the hacking, which it called "an absolute fake and a provocation," had lasted around 40 minutes. The fake message, still circulating on social media, said that "Ukrainian troops armed to the teeth by NATO and with Washington's consent and support have invaded the Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk" territories. The voice, very similar to Putin's, also announced martial law, general mobilization and the evacuation of civilians in those three regions. "This was indeed ...

The candidate of the ruling party, Bola Tinubu, has been declared the winner of the controversial presidential election in Nigeria. The 70-year-old veteran politician won 36% of the vote, official results show. His main rival Atiku Abubakar got 29%, and Labor's Peter Obi 25%.  Their parties initially dismissed the election as a fraud, and called for a repeat. Mr Tinubu is one of Nigeria's richest politicians, and he based his campaign on his record of rebuilding the largest city of Lagos when he was governor. However, he was defeated in the city by Mr. Obi, a foreigner who mobilized the support of many young people, especially urban ones, and shook the two-party system in the country. Mr Tinubu won many other states in his native south-west, where he is known as the mastermind and godfather of Nigerian politics. He campaigned for the presidency under the slogan: "It's my turn". President Muhammadu Buhari is stepping down after two terms in office, marked by a decl...

Connecticut state lawmakers have voted to exonerate 12 people more than 370 years after they were convicted of witchcraft in the American colonial region. Eleven of the 12 suspects were hanged after trials that the state Senate now admits were "unfair". This action by the senate follows a generations-long campaign aimed at clearing the names of those wrongly accused of being witches. Dozens of people were killed for witchcraft in the United States in the 17th Century. On Thursday, the Connecticut Senate voted 33-1 to exonerate those convicted in trials that took place in the state in the mid-1600s. The senator who voted against the measure, Rob Sampson, said he believed it was wrong "to dictate what was right or wrong about periods of the past that we have no knowledge of". "I don't want to see bills that rightly or wrongly try to paint the United States as a bad place with a bad history," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. "I want u...

Ukraine is ready to launch its long-expected counter-offensive against Russian forces, one of the country's most senior security officials has told the BBC. Oleksiy Danilov would not name a date but said an assault to retake territory from President Vladimir Putin's occupying forces could begin "tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week". He warned that Ukraine's government had "no right to make a mistake" on the decision because this was an "historic opportunity" that "we cannot lose". As secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine,  Mr Danilov is at the heart of President Volodymyr Zelensky's de facto war cabinet. His rare interview with the BBC was interrupted by a phone message from President Zelensky summoning him to a meeting to discuss the counter-offensive.

The governor of Russia's Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, says a group of Ukrainian soldiers have crossed the border and entered his territory, which is north of Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv. "The reconnaissance group of the armed forces of Ukraine has entered the district of Gayvoron. Russian military forces together with the border forces, the National Guard and the FSB are taking the necessary measures to eliminate the enemy," he said on Telegram  . Videos circulating online  appear to show military vehicles - including a US-made Humvee of the type used by Ukraine - entering Russia's Gayvoron checkpoint on the border with Ukraine. The BBC has confirmed the location shown in the videos by comparing the specific buildings shown in them with those on  publicly available satellite images showing the checkpoint. We've also confirmed they were uploaded earlier today using software that checks them against videos on the internet - it couldn't find anythi...