CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Police in North Carolina have charged a 33-year-old man with critically injuring another person in a stabbing on a Charlotte commuter train, just a few months after a Ukrainian refugee riding one of the city's trains was killed in an unrelated knife attack.
Oscar Solarzano, 33, was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon and other crimes stemming from the Friday afternoon attack in which he wielded a large knife, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said in a news release.
Police said the victim suffered a stab wound and was hospitalized in critical but stable condition.
Solarzano was being held in jail Saturday without bond. A magistrate judge said in a court filing that the suspect was in the U.S. illegally and had previously been deported. He faced a hearing Monday morning in Mecklenburg County District Court.
An arrest warrant filed in a North Carolina court says Solarzano appeared to be intoxicated and was slurring his words when he challenged the victim to a fight.
Online court and jail records did not list an attorney for Solarzano.
The attack comes less than four months after a 23-year-old woman from Ukraine was killed on a Charlotte commuter train in an apparently random assault captured on video. The victim, Iryna Zarutska, had been living in a bomb shelter in Ukraine before coming to to the U.S. to escape the war, her relatives said.
A suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., has been charged first-degree murder for Zarutska's killing in a North Carolina state court, and was also indicted in federal court on a charge of causing death on a mass transportation system.
This undated booking photo provided by the Mecklenburg County, N.C., Jail shows Oscar Solarzano, who was charged with stabbing a man on a light-rail train in Charlotte, N.C., on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (Mecklenburg County, N.C., Jail via AP)
FILE - A Charlotte Area Transit System light rail departs a station, Sept. 8, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco, File)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — An explosion outside a local police station in the western Mexican state of Michoacan Saturday killed at least two people and wounded seven, local and federal security officials said.
The explosion came as the federal government has stepped up security activities in the state, sending in additional troops after two recent high-profile assassinations.
Hector Zepeda, commander of the Coahuayana community police, said Saturday the blast killed two of his police officers and that civilians were among the wounded. He said remains of some of the victims were found scattered in the area of the explosion, which also damaged nearby buildings.
“With this operation (from the federal government) a lot of marines came,” Zepeda said. “We stopped doing patrols because the operation is going on.”
The community police, which patrol various rural communities, are a remnant of the civilian vigilante forces that took up arms more than a decade ago to defend communities from drug cartels, and then were formalized by the state.
Coahuayana is near the Pacific coast in western Michoacan and the border with the state of Colima, a stronghold of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Saturday’s explosion happened while Michoacan Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla was in Mexico City to celebrate with President Claudia Sheinbaum the anniversary of their Morena party’s arrival in power seven years ago.
Ramírez Bedolla and Sheinbaum have been criticized for the deteriorating security situation in Michoacan where numerous drug cartels are fighting to control territory, terrorizing locals.
At least three of the six drug cartels that the Trump administration designated as terrorist organizations — Jalisco New Generation, United Cartels and The New Michoacan Family — operate here, in addition to a slew of homegrown armed splinter groups, some supported by the Sinaloa Cartel.
Explosives dropped from drones, buried as mines or planted alongside roadways are increasingly employed by criminal groups operating in the state. Last year, some 3,000 explosive devices were seized in the state compared to 160 in 2022. So far this year, there have been more than 2,000, according to the state security agency.
Michoacan is a key importer of chemical precursors for synthetic drugs. In the last two months, 17 drug laboratories were dismantled by Mexican authorities there. The state also produces avocados exported to the U.S. and is a major producer of limes, sectors extorted by cartels for years.
The state government said Saturday in a statement that an “explosive device” was responsible, but did not provide details. Images circulating online showed a completely burned out vehicle.
Last month, Sheinbaum sent 2,000 troops — on top of the 4,300 permanent ones and 4,000 in neighboring states – to Michoacan following the killings of an outspoken representative of the lime growers and a popular mayor standing up to the cartels.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addresses supporters during a celebration marking the seven years of the Fourth Transformation movement, or 4T, initiated by former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in the Zócalo of Mexico City, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
FILE - Michoacán State Governor Alfredo Ramirez Bedolla, left, and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum attend a presentation of the new security strategy against violence for the state of Michoacan, at the National Palace in Mexico City, Nov. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Claudia Rosel, File)
