INTERNATIONAL
El Salvador has first murder-free day in three years
No one was murdered in El Salvador on Saturday, April 14, making it the country’s first homicide-free day in nearly three years. The Central American country is plagued by violent drug gangs.
“After years when the number of murders reached alarming levels of up to 18 per day, we saw not one homicide in the country,” President Mauricio Funes said in a statement released on Sunday. The murder-free day was the first recorded since leftist Funes took office in June 2009.
According to Reuters, at the beginning of Funes’ term, the country had an average of 12 murders a day.
According to the United Nations data, El Salvador has recently tallied a homicide rate of 66 per 100,000 people — one of the highest in the world (reuters.com).
NATIONAL
Strike at Hostess threatens Ho Hos and Twinkies
Hostess Brands, the ever-reliable provider of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, heads to court this coming Tuesday (April 24) in an effort to throw out its union contracts.
The company is asking the bankruptcy court in White Plains, N.Y., to tear up labor agreements, which would, among other things, allow Hostess to change how it funds union pensions.
The company filed for bankruptcy in January, its second time filing for bankruptcy since 2004.
Both management and the unions agree that the company is unlikely to survive a strike (money.cnn.com).
INTERNATIONAL
Norweigian killer Breivik pleads not guilty
The Norwegian anti-Islamic gunman who massacred 77 people, Anders Behring Breivik, said in court on Tuesday, April 17, that his shooting spree and bomb attack was “sophisticated and spectacular” and that he would do the same thing again.
Breivik, 33, pleaded not guilty and said he was defending his country by setting off a car bomb that killed eight people at government headquarters in Oslo last July, then shooting another 69 individuals at a youth summer camp organized by the ruling Labour Party.
“The July 22 attacks were preemptive attacks to defend the Norweigian people,” said Breivik (reuters.com).