Parents in Mexico agonize over missing teens, pray they're not among 53 tractor-trailer victims: "It was his decision and his own dream"
CBSN
Clutching rosaries, residents of the mountain village of San Marcos Atexquilapan, Mexico stared at photographs of three of their own atop the altar at the local church, praying that teenagers Jair, Yovani and Misael were not among the 53 migrants who perished inside a stifling trailer in Texas.
The wait for confirmation has been agonizing for families from Mexico to Honduras. Now they hope for what before would have been dreaded -- capture by the Border Patrol, even hospitalization -- anything but the solemn finality that has been trickling out family by family across the region.
Then again, at least they would know. For now parents re-read last messages, swipe through photos, wait for a phone call and pray.
Southern Gaza Strip — In a rare moment of access to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, CBS News visited a critical aid distribution center on Wednesday just inside the Gaza Strip, near the Karem Shalom border crossing from Israel. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza after more than a year of the Israel-Hamas war remains dire.
Moscow — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday made a rare admission of failings by his powerful security agencies over the Ukraine-orchestrated killing of a senior general in Moscow. Lt. General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian military's chemical and biological weapons unit, was killed by a bomb planted in a scooter in Moscow on Tuesday, the boldest assassination claimed by Kyiv since the start of the conflict.
A judge in France on Thursday found the former husband of Gisèle Pelicot, who admitted to drugging and raping her repeatedly over the course of almost a decade and inviting dozens of other men to assault her as well, guilty of aggravated rape. He was given the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Moscow — Former Royal Ballet star Sergei Polunin, famous for his tattoos of Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Wednesday announced that he plans to leave Russia. The Ukrainian-Russian dancer was one of the most prominent stars who backed Russia's unilateral 2014 annexation of Crimea and its military assault on Ukraine. He was rewarded with prestigious state posts.