Hosni Mubarak is out of prison but not quite free – A US Soldier faces sentencing for an atrocity in Afghanistan – Northern Ireland charges a lawmaker for praising the proposed deaths of the leaders of a rival political party – And we’ve got the super scary sinkhole video, swallowing entire trees as if they were French Fries.

Egypt’s former military ruler Hosni Mubarak has been flown out of a prison to a military hospital, where he will be kept under guard throughout his trials on charges of corruption and complicity in the killing of demonstrators during the protests that toppled him in 2011.  Egyptian law limits pre-trial detention to two years, and because his prior conviction was overturned, he gets out of jail; but because the country is in a state of emergency, he does not get his freedom.

The US Soldier who pleaded guilty to murdering 16 Afghan civilians, including women and children, a year ago apologized for the first time for his “act of cowardice” at his sentencing hearing at a US military base.  But 40-year old Staff Sergeant Robert Bales but could not explain why he committed the atrocities.  A six-member military jury is deciding whether his life sentence should include the chance of parole.

India’s Foreign Ministry is playing down reports that Chinese troops entered the Northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh last week and camped out for four days.  This follows another incursion in April, in which Chinese soldiers had to be asked to leave Indian Territory in the Ladakh region.  Both areas are claimed by both countries and they fought a brief border war over them in 1962. 

Zimbabwe’s 89-year old President Robert Mugabe took the oath of office for a fifth time, following an election that critics say was horribly skewed.  The opposition boycotted the ceremony.  Britain says the election results were not “credible” and many western nations already have economic sanctions on Zimbabwe because of Mugabe’s excesses and human rights violations over the years.

A Northern Ireland lawmaker appeared in court to face charges of making a “grossly offensive” comment on her Facebook page, in which Ruth Patterson said a deadly attack on Sinn Fein Party leaders “would have done a great service to Northern Ireland.”  The 57-year old later issued an apology.  Patterson is a Unionist politician and the summer has been marked by an increase in loyalist paramilitary and mob violence in Northern Ireland.

The head of Chile’s elections commission has resigned, after admitting he took part in one of Latin America’s most shameful episodes in the 1970s:  As a young soldier, Juan Emilio Cheyre gave the children of two Left-Wing activists to an Argentine military family.  The activists were murdered as part of Operation Condor, in which the fascist dictatorships in the South American Cone cooperated in brutally suppressing dissidents, with the backing of the US.  Survivors of the Augusto Pinochet regime had demanded Cheyre’s resignation.

A gruesome discovery east of Mexico City, authorities say several bodies found in a shallow grave may be those of twelve youths abducted from a club in a popular entertainment area in Mexico City in May.  It’s believed the young people were somehow involved in a dispute between drug lords.  But the disappearances shocked the nation, because this sort of drug violence typically happens in the frontiers and boondocks, not in the upscale areas of the Capital.

A sinkhole beneath a Louisiana Bayou took just seconds to swallow up a group of trees, which didn’t just fall over but instead went straight down; At least 250 meters.  The sinkhole has been widening for more than a year and has forced the evacuations of 350 residents.  Louisiana is suing a Texas company that operated a salt dome cavern for storing hazardous materials that collapsed, causing the sinkhole.   Louisiana and Texas share a reputation for lax safety and environmental regulations.  This is why Louisiana and Texas can’t have nice things.