Mexico City: Mother’s Day party ends with shootout

A group of masked gunmen opened fire on a Mother’s Day party in northern Mexico, killing 11 people and injuring eight others, state police said Saturday.

Shortly after 11:30 p.m. Friday, a group of 20 masked men carrying assault rifles and dressed in military fatigues barged into the party at a home in the village of Santiago de la Ajoya, 40 miles north of the Pacific resort city of Mazatlan, police said. The village is in the state of Sinaloa.

The motive behind the attack was not immediately clear. Police were looking for the assailants Saturday.

Taiwan: Thousands rally for independence

Former President Lee Teng-hu argued for Taiwanese independence from China as thousands of people marched Saturday in Taipai, demanding the island’s official name be changed from the Republic of China to Taiwan.

About 8,000 people took part, many wearing purple headbands that said in Chinese: “The parade for Taiwan’s correct name.” Large banners read, “We are Taiwanese” and “We love Taiwan; we hate the Republic of China.”

China has repeatedly threatened to attack if Taiwan should try to move toward independence.

London: Curtain falls on ‘Cats’ After 21 years, all that’s left are the memories.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats” had its final performance Saturday at the New London Theatre, where the longest-running musical opened in 1981.

Since then, it has played to more than 8 million people in London alone. The show’s Broadway run ended in September 2000 after a nearly 18-year run.

Germany: School-shooting teen buried in private service

A German teen who killed 16 people in Erfurt before taking his own life in one of the world’s worst school shootings was privately buried Saturday at an undisclosed location, police said.

Only close family attended the burial of Robert Steinhaeuser, who went on a shooting spree in the Johann Gutenberg Gymnasium high school on April 26, said a spokesman for Erfurt Police who declined to be named. He gave no further details.

The shooting last month shook Germany and prompted Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to call for tighter gun laws, including raising the minimum age for acquiring firearms for recreational use from 18 to 25.

Steinhaeuser had permits for both the pump-action rifle that he carried into the school and the pistol he used to carry out the shootings. The 19-year-old had been kicked out of school in October for forging a doctor’s note.

Netherlands: Car explodes in front of politician’s home

An explosion on Saturday ripped apart a car parked in front of the house of a Brunssum politician in the southern Netherlands, five days after the leader of a national political movement was shot to death.

No one was injured in the blast, which severely damaged a car belonging to the wife of a J. Steiner, a city alderman.

Police said the explosive may have been a grenade.

The attack came five days after Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated in a parking lot.