AP
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Police in northwestern Germany on Sunday said several people were injured when a car left the road and the car headed out on a trampoline, plunging into the roof of a barn on that side.

Police said the car first collided with a parked vehicle in the town of Bohumte, breaking through the hedge and running into the garden where the boy was attacked.

The car then went over uneven ground, apparently flowing out into the air, crashing into the roof of an adjacent barn, about 3 meters (10 feet) of roof.

The boy was seriously injured, a police statement said.

The driver was an unidentified 42-year-old man and his wife was also seriously injured.

Two sons, 11 and 12, and a 13-year-old passenger were also on board.

Dozens of firefighters, dozens of ambulances and two rescue helicopters were among the emergency services deployed accordingly.

Images from the scene showed rescuers slashing through the roof, showing the wreckage of the playground where cars had flown.

The car had to be removed from the roof by a crane and was taken by police.

An investigation was underway.

CNN
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Pakistani police have made multiple arrests after several people were said to have been murdered in the daytime on the orders of tribe elders who had formed “illegal” relationships in the country’s latest so-called “honor killings.”

Last month, the murders in southwestern Balochistan highlight the shocking and enduring nature of such crimes in parts of Central and South Asia, where families and community members believe they can restore “honor” through bloodshed.

Balochistan Prime Minister Safraz Bhuguti said at least 11 people have been arrested since the video of the incident went viral on social media recently.

Graphic video of the murder shows dozens of men surrounding several vehicles in the desert.

Her head, wrapped in a shawl, can be seen walking slowly in front of one of the cars, as the group watches, as the man follows her.

“You’re just allowed to fire at me. There’s nothing else,” she can hear the man say in the local language, Brahvi, before he lifts his pistol and shoots her at close range.

The woman stands after two shots and collapses only after the third, the video shows. The video then captures more gunshots.

Another video shows bloody bodies of a man and a woman lying side by side.

CNN cannot independently verify video reliability. Police told CNN they believe the footage shows the murder being investigated.

Police reports seen by CNN show that the man and woman were killed because they were allegedly engaged in a relationship deemed “illegal” by local tribal leaders.

Police reports say leaders have issued a verdict to enforce them.

In Pakistan, honor killings remain unrestrainedly common, with hundreds of cases reported each year, but experts believe the actual numbers are much higher due to underreporting.

These murders are usually carried out by relatives, often by family and village leaders who believe that women have brought “shame” to their families.

The deeply rooted patriarchal norms that equate family honor with women’s behavior, cultural acceptance, and weak law enforcement allows perpetrators to act with near immunity.

In recent years, a series of well-known so-called honor killings have made headlines in Pakistan, eliciting domestic and international condemnations, highlighting the persistence of practice.

In 2016, social media star Qandeel Baloch was murdered by his brother in what is called an “honor killing.” Baroque has gained fame and notoriety in essentially conservative and patriarchal Pakistan with her bold, cocky, and increasingly political social media posts.

Her murder sparked national protests and encouraged changes to the country’s so-called “honor killing” laws. Honorary murders are currently sentenced to life in prison, but changes in the law do not eliminate crime.

According to data from the Pakistan Human Rights Commission (HRCP), at least 335 women and 119 men were killed in so-called “honor killings” last year alone.

Balochistan Prime Minister Bhuguti called the latest murder suspect “unbearable” and “a blatant violation of social values and human dignity.”

CNN
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The leader is a former supermarket manager who founded his party on YouTube during the depths of the coronavirus pandemic and campaigned for Trump’s message “Japanese First.”

Sansate, Japan’s fast-growing right-wing populist party, has now become an unlikely winner of this weekend’s parliamentary election.

According to public broadcaster NHK, Sansate was inspired by other populist right-wing groups that have surged in recent years, and bagged 14 seats for Japanese senators.

That may not sound much in the 248-seat room, but it shows that the party’s message resonates with some of the Japanese people.

The surprising success has put pressure on Prime Minister Isba and his ruling Liberal Democrats, losing a majority in both the House and upper houses after Sunday’s election.

Isba faces a call to resign, and he has resisted so far.

Sanseito’s rise is particularly noteworthy given its unusual origins. Party leader Sohei Kamiya founded the group in 2020 by “gathering people on the internet” and then gradually began to gain seats at local rallies, he said in a speech earlier this month. As of Monday, its YouTube channel has over 460,000 subscribers.

It gained traction during the symbiotic pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and global elite conspiracy, Reuters reported.

However, in the preliminary stages of the Senate election, it became well known for its “Japan’s first” campaign. This focuses on overtourism complaints and influx of foreign residents.

It was an increasingly sensitive issue. The world’s fourth largest economy has traditionally been strict with immigration, but in recent years it has been rapidly aging and working hard to combat the fertility rate to attract more international tourists and foreign workers.

And it worked.

Japan’s foreign population has jumped from 2.23 million to 3.77 million over the past decade, but still accounts for only 3% of the total population of over 120 million.

The number of tourists continues to break new records. However, it caused a town problem that was overwhelming by visitors. Visitors behave badly and drain water-like resources from the country’s famous hot springs.

Some people believe that there are too many foreigners in Japan today. The government recently formed a new task force to address this issue.

Sanseito exploited these frustrations on its “Japan’s first” platform, along with other complaints about stagnant wages, high inflation and cost of living.

“Living for Japanese people is becoming more and more difficult now,” said Kamiya, a former supermarket manager and English teacher, in a speech in July. He cited the lack of economic growth and the widening gap between wealth.

“A growing number of foreigners are coming (to Japan),” he warned. He added that he doesn’t care about tourists, but he argued that relying on cheap foreign labor would harm Japanese wages, and that foreign workers who can’t find good jobs would increase crime.

The party supports the upper limit of foreigners in each town or city, supports more restrictions on immigration and benefits available to foreigners, making it difficult to naturalize as citizens.

Sanseito also drives a health system that comes from stronger security and prevention laws, greater tax cuts, renewable energy and vaccines.

It encourages greater defensive capabilities and warns that Japan needs “deterrent” while pursuing long-term denuclearization, as it is “surrounded” by nuclear-armed states.

Kamiya also has the US Donald Trump Magazine movement and AFD (German Alternative) Party and Reformed Britain.

According to Reuters, Joshua Walker, head of the US-based nonprofit Japan Association, said:

“That’s the weakness of LDP and Isba more than anything,” he added.

Many criticize Sansate’s platform as xenophobic and discriminatory. Prior to the election, he attempted to soften some of the party’s more controversial ideas and attract more female voters, according to Reuters.

However, he won the winning tone after the election results, Reuters reported. “The public has come to understand that the media is wrong and that Sansate was right,” Kamiya said.

As a result, the Isba Union remains on a very unstable ground.

He has already lost strong control of the House in October, and the LDP has lost a majority for the first time in 15 years. This is an exciting responsibilities from Japanese voters to the ruling party for many years.

At a press conference on Monday, Isbah called the Senate, causing a harsh judgment against the LDP and apologised to his party. He said the party will continue to control alongside its coalition partners and will work with other political parties on important issues.

Earlier on Sunday, Isba told NHK he intends to remain as prime minister and party leader, citing a tariff talk with the US.

Japan is one of many countries facing 25% tariffs since August 1 under Trump’s latest measures. At a press conference Monday, Isba said he wanted to talk to Trump as soon as possible to find a solution.

CNN’s Asada Yumi Yumi contributed the report.

CNN
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Ecuador’s most infamous drug Kingpin was handed over to the United States a month after being recaptured after a prison escape that caused a wave of violence across the country.

According to Ecuadorian prison authorities, Jose Adolfo Macias, known as “Fito,” was transferred from the largest prison in the port city of Guayaquil to the city’s airport and handed over to the US authorities who arrived early to carry out the replacement process.

According to the city’s aviation agency, a US Department of Justice plane arrived in Guayaquil around 12:45pm local time and departed with the gang leader after 2pm. National Media Outlet TC Television reported that the plane arrived at the plane at 12:30pm and left at 2:12pm.

Photos released Sunday by Ecuadorian prison authorities showed Macias wearing a bullet vest as he was escorted by shorts, a T-shirt, helmet and several heavily armed national police agents.

Since at least 2020, Macias has led a powerful Los Coneros criminal organization. This accused the US of delivering and distributing multiple tons of cocaine from Ecuador to other countries.

Macias was charged in Brooklyn Federal Court in April with seven counts of drug trafficking and gun smuggling.

In January 2024, Macias escaped from the Guayaquil prison, where he was sentenced to 34 years in prison for murder and drug trafficking.

His escape unleashed a wave of violence in Ecuador. This included no live acquisition from a gang that raided popular television stations and took their crew hostage while they were airing. Shortly afterwards, President Daniel Novore declared an internal armed conflict, designating Los Ceneros and 21 other criminal groups as terrorist groups.

He was captured last month by Ecuadorian authorities in hiding for over a year. Authorities found him in a basement bunker by a mansion in Manavi. The villa was equipped with a home gym, marble walls, and a game room.

In court documents filed Sunday in the Eastern District of New York, prosecutors demanded that he be held custody until his trial.

The same document said Macias was handed over to the United States “for the sole purpose facing prosecution.”

Alexei Schacht, a lawyer for the US Macias, told CNN that his client will be in Brooklyn Federal Court on Monday without specifying a time for the hearing.

If convicted, Macias faces living behind bars, sentenced to a 10-year minimum sentence in prison.

CNN
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China Brain Tech rivals Musk’s Neuralink

China Brain Tech rivals Musk’s Neuralink

01:35

“I want to eat” appeared in Kanji on a computer at a public hospital in Central Beijing. The term was formed from the idea of a 67-year-old woman with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The video demonstration shot by Beijing Radio and TV stations in March was part of a clinical trial that included five patients, including five patients implanted with a coin-sized chip called Beinao-1, a wireless so-called brain computer interface (BCI), but the technology led by US scientists says experts are catching up quickly.

Luo Minmin, director of China’s Brain Institute (CIBR) and the lead scientist behind the trial, said there was a “very powerful” need for BCI technology, and was “overwhelmed” in response to requests from potential patients.

“The patient said this feels very pleasant so that he could gain or recover control of his (his) muscles,” he told CNN in May in a rare interview in his lab, an hour’s drive from Beijing Xuanwu Hospital, where the trial took place.

Luo said the technology shows “high accuracy” in deciphering signals from a patient’s brain and converting the signals into text-voice or machine movements. His team plans to speed up human trials by implanting chips in another 50-100 patients over the next year.

“We hope to be able to move through this process faster,” he said. “If it has proven safe and effective, it can be used clinically worldwide.”

As of May, Beinao-1 says that five patients, the same number of patients, have implants, as Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Syncron, another US company whose investors include Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, has been tested with 10 patients, six in the US and four in Australia.

Maximilian Liesenharbor, a professor of neuroscience at Georgetown University, told CNN that China is progressing despite not being involved in Beinao’s trial, but began later than the US.

“China has certainly shown the ability to not only catch up, but also be competitive and actually start, driving the field in some regions,” he said. “Excitingly, there is a lot of research activities in both countries because they recognize the potential of BCI.”

The brain technology market is worth around $2.6 billion last year and is expected to increase to $12.4 billion by 2034, according to a market research firm Priority Survey. However, in both China and the US, the technology is far more than cash.

China’s leader Xi Jinping has been hoping to transform his country into a scientific economic powerhouse. In March, he wrote in state-owned media that the tech industry has become the “frontline” and “major battlefield” of global competition. His ambitions sparked concern in the United States, leading to an ongoing technological warfare, especially in the semiconductor industry.

CIBR was co-founded in 2018 by the Beijing Municipal Government and several local governments, about two years after Elon Musk established Neuralink near San Francisco.

In 2023, CIBR incubated a private company named Neucyber Neurotech to focus on brain technology products such as Beinao-1. Luo, also the startup’s chief scientist, gave CNN a rare access to the lab in May.

For years, ALS patients in their 60s were unable to express themselves.

“She’s awake, she knows what she wants, but she couldn’t speak up,” the scientist said. “Following the port, she can speak simple sentences very accurately through the system.”

All BCI researchers need to address a balance between risk and effectiveness.

Riensenhuber places the chips in Dura Mater, the outer layer of tissue that covers and protects the brain and spinal cord, in order to capture better signals, using more invasive methods. However, these methods require high-risk surgery.

“It’s interesting to see that Neucyber appears to be able to get enough information, even through Dura, to allow for the decoding of certain words,” he said.

The test of ALS patients, which began in March, marked the third trial of Beinao-1 tip in humans. These trials constituted what the developers described in a press release as “the first batch of semi-invasive implants of wireless BCI in the human brain.” As of May, a total of five tests and two more were being conducted.

Amidst growing geopolitical tensions, comparisons between the US and China’s technological breakthroughs are common. Brain Computer Interface technology first began in the United States in the 1970s.

Decades later, the Obama administration launched its “Brain Initiative” in 2013, investing more than $3 billion to fund more than 1,000 neuroscience and technology projects, according to the National Institutes of Health.

New York-based Synchron was the first company to begin human testing in July 2021. Three years later, the new BCI system developed at UC Davis Health translated brain signals from ALS patients into speech, achieving 97% accuracy. In the same year, the mask company completed its first human trial, allowing participants to control computer mice with brain implants.

China was launched with Brain Tech only in the 1990s, but is progressing rapidly. In 2014, Chinese scientists presented ideas for national projects on Brain Tech in line with similar efforts in the US and Europe, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology. Two years later, Brain Tech was mentioned in the country’s five-year plan. It outlines China’s national priorities and goals.

“Neuroscience is new in China,” said Lily Lin, a former research assistant at one of China’s top neuroscience research units from 2021 to 2023.

Last year, the government issued the first ethical guidelines for research in this field. At the local level, city governments in Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities provide support to brain technology companies, from research and clinical trials to commercialization.

Riesenhuber and other researchers from Georgetown University published a study on BCI development in China in 2024, saying that efforts from Chinese researchers are “compared to refinement” with US and UK researchers.

“We found that China’s non-invasive BCI research is comparable to studies in other scientifically developed countries, working to overcome obstacles to greater fidelity, throughput and wider use,” according to the issue’s explanation. “China’s invasive BCI research, historically behind its non-invasive efforts, has been increasing its pace and approaching global standards of refinement.”

Luo, who has worked in both countries, says the US is a “front runner” of both invasive and non-invasive brain technology. But comparing Beinao-1 with Neuralink is like seeing “apples and oranges.”

The two systems differ not only in the implant location, but also in the type of brain signals recorded and the way data is transmitted. Chinese chips record a wider range of brain regions and reduce the accuracy of each neuron.

“Overall, I don’t think these two products have a competitive or exclusive relationship,” Luo added. “The ju umpire hasn’t been out yet, so it’s still not clear which route will ultimately benefit patients.”