World briefs

CHINA An actor becomes the latest Chinese celebrity to face drug charges in a wave of detentions that an official says is one of China’s sternest crackdowns on illegal drug use in two decades. Gao Hu, who had a small part as a soldier in Zhang Yimou’s 2011 movie “The Flowers of War,” was detained by police for possession and use of marijuana and methamphetamine, official media and police say.

VIETNAM A disaster official says flash floods triggered by heavy rains have killed six people, including five in a family in northern Vietnam.

BANGLADESH The owner of a Bangladesh ferry that sank earlier this month with more than 100 people dead or missing is arrested after weeks in hiding, officials say. Forces from the anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion raided a house in the southeastern district of Chittagong, where suspect Abu Bakar Siddique had been hiding since the overloaded ferry M.V. Pinak sank on Aug. 4, police said.

PHILIPPINES A commuter train rams through a concrete barrier at the end of the line and rolls into a busy intersection, injuring scores of passengers and damaging vehicles. Rescuers removed dozens of injured people from the train’s front car after the accident in Pasay city in metropolitan Manila. Many suffered fractures and bruises, hospital officials said, but there were no reports of any deaths from the accident, which caused a huge traffic jam.

INDONESIA The body of a 62-year-old American woman is found stuffed inside a suitcase on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, and authorities arrest her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend in relation to the death.

N KOREA The wife and three children of an Ohio man charged with “anti-state” crimes in North Korea apologize to the nation’s people and government and ask for mercy, saying the family is struggling to get by without their sole breadwinner. Jeffrey Edward Fowle has told the AP he fears his situation will get much worse when he goes on trial, saying, “the horizon for me is pretty dark.” His wife says she has asked President Barack Obama to intervene.

JAPAN The Japanese economy shrank at an annual pace of 6.8 percent in the second quarter after spending got slammed by a sales tax hike that kicked in from April, government figures show. Japan’s gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, also contracted 1.7 percent during the April-June period from the previous quarter.

USA Actor and comedian Robin Williams, who made no secret of his decades-long struggles with depression and substance abuse, killed himself by fashioning a noose out of a belt and hanging himself, authorities said yesterday. His personal assistant found him dead in a bedroom. A pocketknife was nearby and Williams also had superficial cuts on his wrists. A final ruling will be announced after toxicology reports and interviews with witnesses are complete.

USA The police chief in a Missouri city where a police officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager said Tuesday he’s holding off on publicly identifying the officer because of death threats. In Ferguson, a predominantly black city of about 21,000 residents, violent protests broke out following the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. President Barack Obama, who is vacationing on the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard, called on people to comfort each other “in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.”