A car has ploughed through a pedestrian area in the western German city of Trier, killing four people including a nine-week-old baby, police say. The driver, a 51-year-old local man, has been arrested. The prosecutor said the suspect had drunk a significant amount of alcohol. Authorities said they were not working on the assumption that the incident was politically or religiously motivated.

The city’s mayor described the scene as “horrible”.  Witnesses said people screamed in panic and some were thrown in the air by an SUV travelling at high speed in Trier’s Brotstrasse and Simeonstrasse streets towards the city’s famous Roman gate, the Porta Nigra. The incident happened at around 13:45 local time (12:45 GMT), and the suspect drove for 1km (0.62 miles) “hitting people at random on his way” before being stopped by a police car, Trier police spokesman Karl-Peter Jochem said earlier. Among the victims were two women, aged 25 and 73, a 45-year-old man and the baby.(BBC)…[+]

A Danish court has jailed two brothers for 14 years for murdering a friend on the holiday island of Bornholm last summer. The killing of Phillip Mbuji Johansen, who had a Danish father and Tanzanian mother, had stirred fears of racism. However, no charges of hate crime were brought, even through prosecutors said they could not rule it out. Magnus and Mads Moeller were found to have inflicted a prolonged and brutal attack on their victim. They were found to have inflicted 39 separate wounds on their 28-year-old victim on 23 June. Johansen’s legs were broken and he suffered burns, stab wounds and brain damage in a sustained bout of violence that lasted at least 15 to 20 minutes, the court ruled. The brothers had beaten him with a wooden pole and a bottle, stabbed him with a knife and pressed a knee against his neck. The forensic pathologist said she had never seen such severe injuries.(BBC)…[+]

Children under 16 with gender dysphoria are unlikely to be able to give informed consent to undergo treatment with puberty-blocking drugs, three High Court judges have ruled. The case was brought against Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which said it was “disappointed” but immediately suspended such referrals for under-16s. The NHS said it “welcomed the clarity” the ruling would bring. One of the claimants, Keira Bell, said she was “delighted” by the judgment. Ms Bell, 23, from Cambridge, had been referred to the Tavistock Centre, which runs the UK’s only gender-identity development service (GIDS), as a teenager and was prescribed puberty blockers aged 16. She argued the clinic should have challenged her more over her decision to transition to a male as a teenager. In a ruling, Dame Victoria Sharp, sitting with Lord Justice Lewis and Mrs Justice Lieven, said: “It is highly unlikely that a child aged 13 or under would be competent to give consent to the administration of puberty blockers.(BBC)…[+]