Police settle Gray death with £4.2m

UNITED STATES: The parents of Freddie Gray reached a $6.4 million (£4.2m) settlement with the city of Baltimore on Tuesday, nearly five months after their 25-year-old son was fatally injured in police custody, sparking days of protests and rioting.

The deal is among the largest settlements in custody death cases in recent years.

His spine was injured on April 12 in the back of a prisoner transport van. He died in hospital a week later.

Journalist sacked for kicking refugees

HUNGARY: A camera­woman for a private television channel was fired late on Tuesday after videos of her kicking and tripping up migrants fleeing police, including a man carrying a child, spread in the media and on the internet.

In separate videos, Petra Laszlo is seen kicking a girl and tripping up the man and child as hundreds of migrants, many of them Syrian refugees, broke away from police on Hungary’s southern border with Serbia.

Bishop of bling let off the hook

GERMANY: The Catholic Limburg diocese will not open church law proceedings or examine possible compensation claims against its former bishop, who was removed by Pope Francis amid a scandal over his new €31 million (£22.5m) residence.

The diocese said earlier this year that it had raised the issue with the Vatican, though it didn’t file any formal complaint against the so-called “bishop of bling” Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst.

Two hurt in blast at munitions factory

CZECH REPUBLIC: A huge explosion of gunpowder in an ammunition factory yesterday injured two workers.

Fire brigade spokeswoman Vendula Horakova said in the afternoon that firefighters had only just got control of the blaze, which broke out after 353 tons of powder exploded in the early morning in the Policske Strojirny factory east of Prague.

Factory parts were found up to 200 yards away.

Anti-gay wedding clerk released

UNITED STATES: Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who was jailed last week for refusing to issue marriage licences to gay couples, was released from prison yesterday having purged her contempt of court, according to a judge.

Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her when she refused to issue them marriage licences.

Judge Bunning ordered Ms Davis to issue the licences and the Supreme Court upheld his ruling.

But Ms Davis refused, saying she could not betray her conscience or her god.

Ton of cocaine found en route to Mexico

COLOMBIA: Authorities seized around a ton of cocaine disguised as printer ink and bound for Mexico on Monday.

Officers at Bogota’s El Dorado airport were tipped off when a drug-sniffing Labrador detected the narcotics hidden in 48 boxes of a cargo shipment bound for a company in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

Colombia is the largest supplier of cocaine to the US and much of the narcotic reaches US streets through Mexican cartels.

Coalition kills 20 Indians on boat

YEMEN: Two boats carrying 20 Indian crew members were bombarded by aircraft while sailing between Somalia and Yemen, India’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

A day earlier the Yemeni coastguard had reported that the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Shi’ite rebels had bombed more than five boats off the coast.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said that 13 crew members were alive and seven missing.

Colorado halts weed tax over obscure rule

UNITED STATES: Colorado’s tax law is forcing the state to suspend taxes on recreational marijuana for one day — September 16.

A 10 per cent sales tax and 15 per cent excise tax will go uncollected.

Colorado’s Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights requires voter approval for new taxes.

But the law requires that any new taxes be waived and refunded if overall state collections exceed projections given to voters.