A prominent Colombian senator is shot and wounded at a Bogota campaign rally
His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it an 'an unacceptable act of violence.'
The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, his party said.
Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay covered in blood, apparently with a head wound, being held by several people. So far, no official report has been released on the senator's condition.
The suspected shooter has been captured, Bogotá Mayor Carlos Galán said on the social platform X. But the federal government said it was offering a reward for the capture of those responsible.
Uribe Turbay is a right-wing senator and the son of a journalist who was kidnapped and killed during one of the most violent periods in the country, which has been ravaged by a drug war. He is considered a possible presidential candidate in Colombia's election in May 2026.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
5 hours ago
- BBC News
Ballymena riots: What's changed in the County Antrim town two months on?
It's been two months since scenes of hate and violence erupted on the streets of Ballymena, County Antrim – and the after effects are still evident weeks homes remain boarded up on Clonavon Terrace, which bore the brunt of rioting described by the police as "racist thuggery".The target of much of the aggression was the town's Roma (Gypsy) community and other foreign nationals. Some who fled say they are not coming back."Locals live here" posters, which first appeared by residents trying to protect their homes from being attacked, are still affixed to front windows on Queen Street. For some, the eight weeks since the rioting has seen a change in Ballymena – North Antrim MP Jim Allister said there had been "an exodus of largely Roma and some other eastern Europeans"."It has transformed the feel in the area. There's no longer people standing around our street corners here," he told The State of Us for others, they're still protesting, albeit organisers write online that their aim is to protect women and girls in the community from "Roma gangs". We tried to speak to people at a gathering last week to hear more about their concerns but were asked to is also still fear among the communities targeted by the violence, with BBC News NI finding that people from or close to ethnic communities affected largely do not want to speak is understood that up to 60% of Roma people in Ballymena left during the riots, some to other parts of Northern Ireland and others returning to home countries such as Bulgaria and not yet clear how many will return. How the riots reverberated in Ballymena Gary Lamont, who is from the area where the riots erupted, understands why people took to the streets and also why people would describe them as racist - but, in his view, this "doesn't reflect the problem"."There was so much immigration into this area literally overnight in a way that the area just could not cope."He said people felt their voices were not being heard by local agencies and politicians, with meetings and engagement "fizzling out".As far back as 2018, there has been reports of tension in Ballymena over the influx of Roma people. The spark that lit the fuse in June came after a protest over an alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl. Two 14-year-old boys, who spoke in court through a Romanian interpreter, deny charges of attempted peaceful protest was held in support of the girl and her family, but crowds poured onto the streets and disorder broke out over several nights, spreading to other towns such as Larne and almost a week of rioting, more than 60 PSNI officers were injured and 53 people, aged between 12 and 56 were arrested – 46 have been charged. Jim Allister, the town's MP, told hosts of The State of Us podcast Tara Mills and Declan Harvey that while the violence was wrong, it had transformed the area."Historically this was a very settled part of town. It changed in recent years." Available data shows a mixed picture. Northern Ireland was described as the "least diverse" part of the UK, according to research published by the Northern Ireland Assembly earlier this year. Based on international migration, only 3.4% - or 65,600 – of Northern Ireland's population are from a minority ethnic figures from 2021 show that population density in the area around Clonavon Terrace was approximately 51 times the Northern Ireland average, and four times the average for Ballymena as a whole. It also recorded that 14% of people living in the wider area around Clonavon Terrace were changing demographics led to issues with integration and language barriers, as well as suspected criminality by some, said Mr Lazar, chief executive of UK-wide Roma-led charity Union Romani Voice, has said while some within the Roma community commit crimes - much like in all communities - it is for the police to deal with those has called for more to be done to protect members of the Roma community in Northern Roma community member in County Armagh, who reported being threatened by a man wielding a knuckle-duster, told BBC News NI he and others were living in fear. Housing and deprivation driving 'frustrations' According to Allister, HMOs (houses of multiple occupation), in which large numbers of people share a home, are a major factor behind the increase in the Roma MP said they had become a "big problem in the area" and were "largely unregulated"."There are ways of ducking and diving through the rules," he said."The further you get from Belfast, HMOs seem to be largely uncontrolled."The Register of Houses in Multiple Occupation across Northern Ireland is managed centrally by Belfast City Council - it told BBC News NI it was "not aware of any unlicensed HMOs in Ballymena"."Any concerns regarding unlicensed HMO usage in any location in NI are investigated by the NIHMO (Northern Ireland Houses of Multiple Occupation Unit)," it added. Others have pointed to a lack of political leadership, deprivation and housing issues for the underlying Laverty, a community worker in the town, said "political negligence" and a lack of public services has led to "socioeconomic deprivation"."People have been left with no other option but to blame something that they've been made to feel fearful of," she Laverty said the violence and anger was an outlet for some people's frustrations but "wasn't an adequate representation of the majority" of people in the have criticised the ongoing protests' purported aim to protect women and Crory, from the Women's Resource and Development Agency, said women and children were among those harmed during the riots. She said people should look at individual perpetrators of violence rather than "whole groups of people". "If there's a problem with intimidation in the area, it's not connected to the racial background of the person who's allegedly doing it."Ms Crory said of the 28 women murdered in Northern Ireland in the last five years "if there were no immigrants in this country, that number would be 27".She said there were greater resources than ever before to address violence against women and girls now."When somebody says they're protecting women and girls... make sure their motivations are as pure as they say they are, and if they really are that pure, there are things that you can do." It's clear that Ballymena will be feeling the aftermath of June's violence for some time to come."There are many, many victims in all of this," said Gary Lamont."Most of all those who have been put out of their homes, the police, those injured officers, the landlords, all of that. "But there's also those young people's lives. They are going to be particularly heavily punished going by what we hear."For Demi Laverty, the violence should be a wake-up call."If young men and people from our country have been made to feel so disillusioned in regards to political representation and feeling like their voices haven't been adequately represented... that fear and that anger's gonna spill into other things."
Daily Mail
11 hours ago
- Daily Mail
The Olympic snowboarder's obsession with white powder that left him with a facelift and a $10M bounty on his head
He once carved his name into Canada 's Olympic snowboarding history, slaloming down mountains and shredding fresh powder on the world stage. Now, Ryan James Wedding's name is etched on a different list - the FBI 's Ten Most Wanted - accused of trafficking another kind of white powder. In September 2024, the 43-year-old was among 16 people charged in Operation Giant Slalom, accused of running a billion-dollar cocaine smuggling network spanning from Colombia, through Mexico, and into the US and Canada. Prosecutors say Wedding - who is otherwise known as 'El Jefe' and 'Public Enemy' - is the alleged leader of the network and has orchestrated multiple drug-related murders, showing a 'callous disregard' for human life. He is believed to be hiding in central Mexico, using cartel connections to stay beyond the reach of federal authorities. The FBI said last week there is 'some evidence' Wedding may have recently undergone cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance and further evade detection - but any likeness to the clean-cut Olympian he once was vanished long before he went under the knife. In March, Wedding was added to the FBI's list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. He was last spotted in 2024 (above), but is believed to have undergone plastic surgery Wedding has been on the run since at least 2015, when he was named in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's (RCMP) two-year Operation Harrington, which uncovered schemes to import cocaine into Canada and resulted in charges against more than a dozen suspects. Case files show Wedding - then living in Montreal - introduced himself to an undercover agent as a cocaine importer and discussed shipments of up to 2,205lbs by boat from the Caribbean to Newfoundland. The deal was called off, but three months later, the French Navy seized 467lbs of the drug near Antigua, triggering raids across Canada and 15 arrests. According to the RCMP, the group had planned to move 15 tons of cocaine. Wedding faced five charges and an arrest warrant was issued; however, he is believed to have fled Canada before police could snare him. Harrington files cast him as a senior partner in the operation, overseeing encrypted deals under multiple code names, though the precise scope of his role remains unclear. He has been considered a fugitive of justice ever since. Then came the DOJ indictment last fall, alleging that Wedding and his supposed right-hand man, fellow Canadian Andrew Clark, led the billion-dollar ring while living in Mexico. Investigators have publicly linked the pair to four killings in Ontario but have hinted at more orchestrated hits across North America. The FBI is offering up to $10million for information that leads to his arrest Prosecutors say the pair ordered the November 2023 killing of Jagtar Singh, 57, and Harbhajan Kaur, 55 - a mistaken-identity hit on a visiting couple from India. Their daughter, shot 13 times and miraculously alive, recalled: 'I heard my mother's last screams. After that, there was complete silence. Only the noises of gunshots.' In April 2024, Clark allegedly sent a hit list to a gunman known as 'Mr. Perfect' - 'Blow this guy's top off,' he wrote, offering $100,000. Soon after, 29-year-old Randy Fader was shot dead in his Niagara driveway. Mr. Perfect was arrested in Toronto two weeks later with 9mm rounds and a white iPhone showing encrypted chats with Clark and additional targets. Clark, 34, was arrested in Guadalajara in October 2024 and now awaits trial in California with several co-defendants. Wedding and a handful of his alleged cronies remain on the run. He has been charged with eight felonies, including three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. Authorities believe Wedding is living in Mexico, under the protection of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel. US authorities are offering $10million for information leading to his arrest. FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller told the Toronto Star on Sunday that investigators believe Wedding may have recently had cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance. 'There is some evidence that he may have undergone plastic we urge the public to be flexible when considering his appearance,' Eimiller said. The FBI has not revealed what modifications they believe Wedding has undergone, nor what their evidence entails. The last confirmed sighting of Wedding was captured by the FBI in 2024. A photograph from the sighting, first shared publicly in March, shows the hulking, six-foot-three, 240-pound disgraced athlete with short hair and a mustache, wearing a blue LA Dodgers cap and a $1,300 Louis Vuitton T-shirt. Eimiller said that Wedding has been 'sophisticated' in his ability to evade authorities. The 2024 sighting contrasts sharply with a photo the FBI released of Wedding's driver's license a decade earlier, showing him with a bushy brown beard, long curly hair, and a receding hairline. The hunt spans agencies across the US, Canada, Mexico and Colombia, with Interpol support. Authorities have seized nearly two tons of cocaine and more than $3.2 million in cryptocurrency. Prosecutors have alleged that Wedding is still actively trafficking drugs from the shadows, alleging in March 2025 that his network was flooding North America with five tons of fentanyl a month. Authorities warned he has access to 'a network of hitmen', ready to do his bidding at a moment's notice, meaning anyone who crosses him could be in danger. One such adversary was Montreal-born Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, who had recently become a key witness in the investigation into the Wedding web, but was assassinated in Medellin, Colombia, on January 31. As The Star first reported, Garcia met Wedding in prison in 2011 while they were both serving time for drug-related offenses. They worked together for more than a decade before Garcia turned on Wedding in 2023, agreeing to help authorities dismantle his criminal operation. Wedding's fall from the Olympic slopes into the darkest depths of the criminal underworld has been a dizzying downhill run, leaving those who were once closest to him unable to see where - or why - he veered off course. He was born into a family of skiers in Thunder Bay, Ontario, a small working-class town on Lake Superior. His father was a competitive skier, his uncle had represented Canada, and his grandparents ran a grassroots ski club. Most of Wedding's time was spent out on the slopes before he could even read. Going to the Olympics felt like a surefire destiny, childhood friends told Rolling Stone in 2009. 'He had no fear,' said Bobby Allison, former national champion ski racer. 'A lot of kids, they say they want to go fast, but they don't really want to go fast. They hold something back, because there's a little bit of fear there of falling. Ryan had none of that.' Wedding eventually traded his ski poles for a snowboard and won the first race he ever entered at the age of 12. Three years later, Wedding was selected to join the Canadian national team and began competing all over the world. Then, at the age of 20, Wedding got his first taste of stardom when he qualified to compete at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. He finished in a disappointing 24th place in the parallel giant slalom - but his future looked bright. Friends say it was shortly after enrolling at Simon Fraser University near Vancouver that Wedding's shine started to dim. He told his father he had plans to reinvent himself as a stockbroker or engineer, but as his sporting career faded, his hunger for glory was replaced by a growing taste for wealth, status, and risky pursuits. In the early 2000s, Vancouver was home to the most profitable marijuana trade in North America. It was also a hotbed for gang activity, with rival dealers gunning each other down in the streets and in nightclubs as they tussled over turf and fought to corner the market. Wedding took up a job as a bouncer at a nightclub and began brushing shoulders with gangsters and attending cocaine-fueled parties. After two years, he decided to drop out of college and told his father he was interested in real estate. Wedding borrowed $250,000 from his father to buy a home that he flipped for a six-figure profit. Wedding spent the money on a new condo in the Vancouver area and filled its garage with a Hummer, a Ducati, a BMW, and snowmobiles. Friends were suspicious about Wedding's suddenly lavish spending, but he would shrug off their concerns, assuring them his real estate ventures were booming. Police, too, grew suspicious and, in 2004, started investigating him, believing Wedding was running a marijuana-growing operation on a friend's farm. It was said they were making so much money they were hauling out trash bags full of cash. In the summer of 2006, police raided the grow-op and discovered loaded guns in a locked safe, 6,800 marijuana plants, and 86 pounds of dried weed. The total haul was estimated to be worth $10million. However, with no conclusive evidence linking Wedding to the operation, he was never charged. Two years later, Wedding wouldn't be so lucky. After losing nearly $1million in a botched cocaine deal and a failed real estate scheme, he travelled to California looking for a score. There, he brokered a deal to move 53lbs of cocaine. However, it was a sting and he was arrested and later convicted of conspiracy to distribute drugs, which carried a minimum sentence of 10 years. Wedding - who cut an imposing figure behind bars - successfully negotiated a lesser sentence of 48 months after appealing to the judge: 'As an athlete, I was always taught that there are no second chances, and well, I'm here asking for exactly that.' It was during his time serving that sentence that Wedding first met Clark, who was also serving time for drug-related offenses, and many other minor players in the Mexican drug market. One former FBI agent told Rolling Stone: 'We really did just turn him into a much better drug dealer than he ever was.' Upon his release, police said in 2024 that Wedding allegedly went back to trafficking and built his 'prolific and ruthless organization.' How long he can stay hidden remains an open question. In the meantime, all his family can do is wonder what happened to the promising young athlete they once knew. 'You can have every opportunity and still take the wrong path,' his mom said in 2009. 'But it doesn't mean you're a bad person.' Sixteen years later, the FBI disagrees. 'Wedding went from shredding powder on the slopes at the Olympics to distributing powder cocaine on the streets,' Assistant Director of the FBI's LA Field Office, Akil Davis, said in March 2025.
Daily Mail
13 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Children run for cover as gunman opens fire near bus stop
A woman was killed and terrified children scrambled for cover after a gunman opened fire near a school bus stop in Louisville, Kentucky . The violence erupted at around 8am on Wednesday and saw a nearby elementary school placed on lockdown. The Louisville Police Department told Daily Mail that the woman who was shot was taken to University Hospital, where she died from her injuries. She has not been named. A 15-year-old was arrested soon after the shooting in connection with the incident. The department said in a statement: 'It is unacceptable that people simply trying to go to school must fear for their safety because of a teenager who clearly has no regard for others, especially innocent children.' The shooting occurred near to a bus stop, located near to the Coleridge-Taylor Montessori Elementary School and Central High School. Reports from the scene described frantic children running to safety amid the chaos. The elementary was briefly placed on lockdown following the shooting, but it has since been reopened. Early reports indicated that up to three shooters may have been involved, but the Louisville Police Department told Daily Mail that was not accurate. The department said it is working with local authorities to help 'students and families who are trying to process and cope with the impact of this violence.' The incident comes just days after another shooting occurred near the same location on West Chestnut Street on August 7.
