PUERTO RICO
Protesters seek marriage amendment
Hundreds of people marched through San Juan on Saturday to demand that the governor approve a constitutional amendment stating that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid. The protesters walked from the U.S. territory’s seaside Capitol building to the governor’s mansion in historic Old San Juan. It was the second march in the past three months. A similar march in February drew an estimated 200,000 people. The protest comes as legislators conduct hearings on legislation that would outlaw discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation and extend a domestic violence law to gay couples.
SYRIA
Government airstrike kills at least 20
A Syrian government airstrike on a town in the country’s northwest killed at least 20 people Saturday, shattering store fronts, setting cars ablaze and sending a giant plume of black and gray smoke into the sky. The air raid struck the town of Saraqeb in Idlib province, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group. The Observatory said three children were among the 20 people killed in the attack.
PERU
Bus plunges into Andean river
Police in Peru say a passenger bus has plunged off an Andean highway into a river, killing at least 27 people. Officer Victor Paez of the La Libertad highway police said the cause of Saturday’s crash was not clear, although he said there have been heavy rains in the area. The victims of the crash included three doctors, two nurses and several rural school teachers. Forty-three passengers were aboard the bus when it left the town of Huamanchuco headed toward the regional capital of Trujillo.
MEXICO
4-year-old found in El Salvador
A 4-year-old girl who vanished from her home near Mexico City on April 1 has been found alive and well in El Salvador, officials said Saturday. Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said Valeria Hernandez de Jesus was discovered wandering on a street in Sonsonate, El Salvador. Sonsonate is about 750 miles from the Mexico City suburb of Texcoco, where the girl’s parents reported her missing. Authorities did not say how the girl wound up in the city, but said she was in “perfect health” and Mexico hopes to return the girl to her family as soon as possible.
POLAND
Giant statue of John Paul II unveiled
A giant statue of the late Pope John Paul II was unveiled Saturday in southern Poland. Archbishop Waclaw Depo unveiled the statue of the Polish pontiff in Czestochowa, the home of this predominantly Catholic nation’s most famous pilgrimage site, the Jasna Gora monastery. The white fiberglass figure rises about five stories, more than 45 feet, on a hill overlooking the city. It was funded by a businessman, Leszek Lyson, in gratitude for what he believes was an intervention by the late pontiff in saving his drowning son. John Paul died in 2005.
PUERTO RICO
Premier turtle nesting site protected
Puerto Rico’s governor on Saturday signed a law to protect a swath of land along the island’s northeast coast that is a top U.S. nesting site for the world’s largest turtle species. The law ends a 15-year fight that environmentalists and celebrities, including actor Benicio Del Toro, had waged against developers eager to build hotels, golf courses and luxury homes in an area fringed by palm trees and turquoise waters.
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