The world at a glance . . . Americas

Shaken up

An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale rattled the middle of the U.S. from Kansas to Georgia last week, and continued aftershocks this week have some wondering if “the big one” is coming. The quake, centered about 15 miles north of Mount Carmel, Ill., along the New Madrid fault line, caused no serious injuries or property damage. But some seismologists worry that the shocks could trigger a bigger quake that could topple bridges spanning the Mississippi River. “We could see something in the next few years or even the next few months,” said University of Quebec geophysicist Allessandro Forte. Earthquakes radiating from the New Madrid fault, which runs along the Mississippi Valley, killed thousands in 1811 and 1812.

El Paso, Texas

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Illegal immigration innovation: U.S. border police this week discovered an illegal immigrant trapped in a makeshift trolley underneath a bridge connecting El Paso and Juarez, Mexico. The 5-by-5-foot trolley, made of wire mesh in a metallic frame, ran on rubber wheels that slotted neatly into two I-beams supporting the bridge. Border agents discovered Rafael Corvalan, a native of Chile, on the trolley after a wheel broke and he got stuck mid-crossing. Corvalan told police that he and four others paid a smuggler $400 each to ride the trolley across the border, lying on their backs and pushing themselves along with their legs. “It is very ingenious of them,” said Border Patrol supervisor Victor Lujan.

Chesterfield, S.C.

Student bomb plot foiled: A high school senior was accused of plotting to bomb his school, after his parents intercepted a 10-pound crate of ammonium nitrate addressed to their son and notified police. Ryan Schallenberger, 18, was charged with possessing explosive equipment, which police say he could have assembled into bombs in minutes. Police also found Schallenberger’s diary, in which he detailed his plans to bomb his school and expressed admiration for the perpetrators of the Columbine school massacre. Schallenberger left an audiotape meant to be found after the plot was carried out. Police didn’t reveal its content, but Chesterfield Police Chief Randall Lear said Schallenberger apparently was seething with anger. “He seemed to hate the world,” Lear said. “He hated people different from him—the rich boys with good-looking girlfriends.”

Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.

Gates scolds Air Force: In a rare public rebuke, Defense Secretary Robert Gates this week scolded the Air Force for not doing enough to help the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a speech at Maxwell Air Force Base, Gates specifically complained that getting the Air Force to send unmanned surveillance aircraft to war zones was “like pulling teeth.” Gates has been pushing the Air Force for months to send more Predator drone aircraft, which can engage enemy soldiers without risking the lives of U.S. personnel. Officers “stuck in old ways of doing business” have resisted the shift to unmanned aircraft, Gates said. Gates, who served in the Air Force in the 1960s as a young officer, urged the officers in his audience to challenge conventional wisdom. “Dissent is a sign of health in an organization,” Gates said.

Refugees drown

The bodies of 14 Haitians, 12 of them women, were found floating off the coast of the Bahamas this week, the U.S. Coast Guard said. Three migrants who had been in the same capsized speedboat were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard, which had mounted a rescue operation after fishermen in nearby waters reported hearing people screaming. The survivors said that about 25 people had been on the craft. At least 61 people drowned last year attempting to escape Haiti. Authorities are braced for a new wave of “boat people” from Haiti, as that impoverished nation has been convulsed in recent weeks by rioting over soaring food prices.

Washington, D.C. spy

Spy nabbed: The FBI this week charged a retired U.S. military engineer with passing top-secret military information to Israel. Ben-Ami Kadish, a U.S. citizen who worked at a military arsenal in Dover, N.J., was charged with passing information on nuclear weapons, missiles, and fighter jets from 1979 to 1985. FBI agents said Kadish’s Israeli contact also received classified information from Jonathan Pollard, the former American intelligence analyst who is serving a life sentence for passing secrets to Israel. Authorities said Kadish was not motivated by money. “Kadish said he believed providing classified documents would help Israel,” the complaint said.

Montreal

Hockey riot: Hockey fans burned police cars and vandalized shops this week, after the Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins in the first round of the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup playoffs. What started as a peaceful celebration, with thousands of revelers thronging the streets of Montreal, turned into mayhem after midnight, when several hundred rioters began setting fires and throwing rocks. “One minute we were all hanging out and celebrating and then all hell broke out,” said Jean-François Hotte, a witness. At least 16 police cars were burned or smashed, and 16 people arrested. The last big hockey riot in Canada was in 1994, after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the New York Rangers.

Mexico City

Immigrants send home less: The slowing U.S. economy has started to take its toll on Mexico. Cash sent by Mexican workers in the U.S. to their families back home in Mexico dropped sharply over the past year, the Mexican government said this week. Paradoxically, economists said the reduced cash flow could spur increased illegal immigration to the U.S. “It is a vicious, perverse circle,” Mexican demographer Juan Manuel Padilla told The Washington Post. “Work opportunities here are nonexistent, so this is going to cause more migration to the United States—even though it is getting harder to find work over there.”

Quito, Ecuador

Anti-U.S. backlash: Citing excessive U.S. influence, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has purged his top security officials. Correa this month fired his defense minister, army chief of intelligence, and commanders of the army, air force, and joint chiefs, charging that his country’s intelligence services were “totally infiltrated and subjugated to the CIA.” He said top officials had shared intelligence about Colombian rebels with Colombia, a U.S. ally, against his wishes. “I, the president of the republic, found out about these operations by reading the newspaper,” Correa said last week. “This is not something we can tolerate.”

Asuncion, Paraguay

Ex-bishop is president: A former Catholic bishop was elected president of Paraguay this week, ending six decades of power by the conservative Colorado Party. Fernando Lugo, who resigned from the priesthood three years ago, saying he wanted to do more to help the poor, took 41 percent of the vote in a three-man race. “Today we proved that the little guy also is capable of prevailing,” he said. Lugo, 56, is a proponent of liberation theology, a South American branch of Catholicism that encourages activism for the poor. The movement is strong in Paraguay, where one-third of the people live on less than $2 a day. Lugo says he is not a leftist in the mold of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or Bolivia’s Evo Morales. Rather, he calls himself a centrist and says Paraguay should “follow its own path.”