Official: No video of 11 missing in Mexico City

Official: No video found showing abduction of 11 people missing from Mexico City bar

Associated Press -

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Surveillance video reviewed so far by police hasn't shown a mass abduction of 11 young people who have been missing in Mexico City for more than a week, an official in the city prosecutor's office said Monday.

The official said investigators still had several more hours of footage to review but they hadn't found any scenes of gunmen kidnapping the group as described by a witness.

Police also found no find evidence of a mass abduction or violence inside the after-hours bar cited by the witness, the official said.

The official agreed to talk about the case on condition his name not be revealed because he wasn't authorized to discuss an investigation still in progress.

A man who said he escaped the mass abduction from the bar on May 26 told authorities that masked men with large guns and SUVs kidnapped the group in broad daylight.

The man talked to authorities when he accompanied one of the missing's relatives to file a report, but authorities haven't been able to locate him since then, the official said.

No other witnesses have come forward, authorities have said.

The bar is on a narrow street surrounded by towering office buildings just off the city's busy Paseo de la Reforma. The bar is also a short walk from the federal police building and the U.S. Embassy.

But no one saw anything that Sunday at around 10 a.m. when the abduction supposedly happened and when nearby Reforma was full of people gathering for a 5-kilometer foot race, the city's weekly urban bike ride and an international culture fair that had just opened the day before.

Mexico City Interior Secretary Hector Serrano said Monday that the bar had previously been shut down by authorities but an injunction allowed it to reopen.

About 140 arrested in NC during NAACP protest

About 140 protesters arrested during NAACP protest outside North Carolina Legislative Building

The Rev. William Barber, left, of the NC NAACP and Pastor Mary Petty of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, center, wave at a rally on Halifax Mall as the Monday protests are held at the General Assembly in Raleigh, NC on Monday, June 3, 2013. More than 100 people have been arrested in the largest demonstrations yet in the state chapter of the NAACP's campaign against the Republican-led General Assembly. Police estimate that roughly 1,000 people attended a rally late Monday afternoon behind the Legislative Building on Halifax Mall. Hundreds later entered the building, with those intending to get arrested wearing green wrist bands. (AP Photo/The News & Observer, Chris Seward) MANDATORY CREDIT

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- About 140 people have been arrested during the latest weekly demonstration led by the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP against the state's Republican-led General Assembly.

Police estimate that roughly 1,000 people attended a rally late Monday afternoon behind the Legislative Building. Hundreds later entered the building, with those intending to get arrested wearing green wrist bands.

Those arrested were taken away in plastic bindings. They bring the total arrested in the weekly demonstrations to about 300. The rallies have taken place nearly every Monday since April.

Hundreds more waited outside to cheer on those arrested as they were transported to a detention facility.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has spearheaded demonstrations to protest cuts to social programs, changes to voting laws and other issues championed by the GOP.

Minn. cheerleader accused of prostituting girl

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A suburban Minneapolis high school cheerleader is accused of prostituting a younger student by creating an online ad and taking her to see potential customers, pocketing $60 in one case.

Montia Marie Parker, 18, of Maple Grove, faces felony charges of sex trafficking and promoting prostitution. She is scheduled to appear in court June 12.

Parker was a senior at Hopkins High School when she allegedly set up a Backpage.com ad for a 16-year-old, driving her to an apartment to have oral sex with a man, and taking the $60 the girl made. Authorities allege Parker and the girl drove to another home the next day, but left after the man refused oral sex.

The girl's mother called police after reading text messages between her daughter and Parker on the girl's cellphone, the Star Tribune (http://bit.ly/18M0InW ) reported.

Parker's attorney did not immediately return a phone message left by The Associated Press on Tuesday evening. A home phone listing for Parker could not be found.

The 16-year-old had mentioned to others that she was trying to make some money. Parker sent the girl a Facebook message and text message about how she could make money having sex, requesting that the girl send her photos of herself, the charges allege.

Parker posted the photos on Backpage.com, listing her phone number as the contact, the charges said. On March 5, the girls left school and went to an apartment building. When the younger girl returned to the car, she gave Parker the $60 and Parker deposited it into her own bank account, according to the complaint.

The next day, Parker pretended to be the girl's mother and called the school to get her excused, the charges said. The girls left school and went to a home where the girl was directed to have sex with a man. She refused.

"You'll be fine — I didn't drive up here for nothing, and eventually you will need to have sex," Parker told the girl, according to the complaint. The girl told the man she wouldn't have intercourse with him but would give him oral sex. The man refused and Parker drove the girl back to Hopkins High School, according to the complaint.

The girl's mother checked her daughter's cellphone after noticing changes in her daughter's behavior and hearing that she had an unexcused absence from school.

Minneapolis Lt. Kim Lund, president of the Minnesota Juvenile Officers' Association, said authorities have noticed more cases within the last five years involving teen girls using Backpage.com. However, Lund said, it's unusual to have a case involving a teen prostituting a fellow teen; most human trafficking cases involve adult men or women contacting teens.

Parker admitted to police that she had created the ad and told them she received "a lot of calls" related to it, according to the complaint. She's free on $50,000 bond.

Hopkins High School's last day of classes is Thursday, but school officials said they acted immediately after learning of the charges. The school has about 1,800 students.

"In responding to this incident, we followed our discipline and safety policy, which includes permanently removing a student from campus," the district said in a statement.

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NC governor urges end to weekly NAACP protests

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina's Republican governor and a Democratic prosecutor are urging an end to the near-weekly demonstrations inside the state legislative building that have been organized by the NAACP to protest the GOP-led legislature's conservative policies.

Gov. Pat McCrory said Tuesday that while feedback and lawful demonstrations are welcome, unlawful demonstrations are not, and cost resources. He told reporters he has no desire to meet with the protesters.

"I am pleased that it's been non-violent," said McCrory, a former Charlotte mayor who took office in January. "I'm very pleased with the way the authorities have handled it, in a non-violent manner."

In a separate interview, Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby said the more than 300 arrests since April are pulling police officers away from fighting real crime and threatening to overwhelm the already overburdened courts in the state capital.

The latest protests inside the legislative building Monday night led to 151 arrests, the largest tally so far. More than 1,000 other demonstrators stood outside cheering as those handcuffed were loaded onto buses for the short ride to the nearby county jail.

Though the NAACP initiated the protests, their ranks have been swelled by left-leaning clergy, doctors, advocates for the disabled and others protesting cuts to social programs, changes to voting laws and other issues championed by Republicans. Protesters are also rankled that state lawmakers have decided to forego expanding Medicaid to cover 500,000 people through 2016, even though it would be mostly federally funded.

In November, GOP wrested control of both houses of the General Assembly away from Democrats for the first time since Reconstruction. McCrory is the state's first Republican governor in 20 years.

Those arrested for trespassing and other misdemeanors are unlikely to face jail time, Willoughby said, with the likely penalties limited to fines and community service. The first batch is set to appear in court to enter pleas later this month.

Though he sympathized with the political goals of the protesters, Willoughby questioned whether the arrests of scores of people are having the desired impact.

"Get a parade permit and go down and protest in front of the building," the prosecutor suggested. "While these folks may be well-meaning, I don't know that getting arrested is doing anything to further their agenda. I'm just being pragmatic. How is this helping the cause?"

NAACP leaders, who point to the national media coverage the demonstrations are starting to attract, say the protesters will return next week.

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Associated Press writer Christopher Kardish contributed to this story

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Ecuador oil spill pollutes Amazon tributary

Ecuador resumes pumping after oil spill, but crude enters waters of Amazon tributary

Associated Press -

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) -- Ecuador's state oil company resumed pumping through the country's main pipeline on Tuesday, four days after it was damaged by a landslide. But crude spilled by the accident reached tributaries of the Amazon River and polluted drinking water for a regional capital far downstream.

Petroecuador issued a statement saying pumping resumed at 9:15 a.m. (1415 GMT) through the Trans-Ecuador pipeline and it said the flow should be back to normal within hours. Closure of the line had forced Petroecuador to accelerate three 360,000-barrel shipments of oil for China to free storage space.

A rain-caused landslide on Friday ripped up a 100-meter (100-yard) long stretch of the line near the Reventador volcano.

The company said it did not know how much of the 420,000 gallons (1.6 million liters) of crude oil that spilled had reached the Quijos river, a waterway popular with whitewater rafting enthusiasts.

But enough flowed from the Quijos into the Coca and Napo rivers downstream that the regional capital of Coca had to shut down its drinking water system and Ecuador's government alerted Peru and Brazil, which are along the course of the Napo as it heads toward the Amazon.

In Coca, an urban area of about 80,000 people at the confluence of the Coca and Napo rivers, Mayor Ana Rivas told the Sonorama radio station that the accident "has left us without water because the river we take potable water from is contaminated. The people are indignant because there is no water to drink."

Petroecuador has distributed bottled water to the city and Rivas said officials were using tankers to collect water from an uncontaminated stretch of river.