5 Treated after Stabbing in South London, 1 Man Arrested

A drone view of London's Shard skyscraper with the Canary Wharf financial district in the background in London, Britain March 3, 2024. REUTERS/Yann Tessier/File Photo
A drone view of London's Shard skyscraper with the Canary Wharf financial district in the background in London, Britain March 3, 2024. REUTERS/Yann Tessier/File Photo
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5 Treated after Stabbing in South London, 1 Man Arrested

A drone view of London's Shard skyscraper with the Canary Wharf financial district in the background in London, Britain March 3, 2024. REUTERS/Yann Tessier/File Photo
A drone view of London's Shard skyscraper with the Canary Wharf financial district in the background in London, Britain March 3, 2024. REUTERS/Yann Tessier/File Photo

Five people have been treated following a stabbing Thursday morning in south London, according to London’s Ambulance Service.

London’s Metropolitan Police said that a man was arrested following the stabbing in Croydon, which British media reports said happened near an Asda supermarket. Authorities didn’t provide a motive for the stabbing, and it wasn’t immediately clear if the man who was arrested was among the five injured, The AP reported.

The ambulance service said that one person was taken to a major trauma center in London and four other people were hospitalized.

“We sent a number of resources to the scene, including ambulance crews, a paramedic in a fast response car, an incident response officer, members of our Tactical Response Unit and London’s Air Ambulance,” the service said.

London's Metropolitan Police said that “officers attended alongside the London Ambulance Service to treat five injured people who were taken to hospital," adding that "their injuries are thought to be non-life-threatening.”

The violence came on the same day that a teenager faced sentencing for fatally stabbing three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed summer dance class in the northwestern English town of Southport.



Thousands Protest the Rise of German Far Right Ahead of Feb. 23 General Election

Participants hold lights during a rally against the far right at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, 25 January 2025. (EPA)
Participants hold lights during a rally against the far right at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, 25 January 2025. (EPA)
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Thousands Protest the Rise of German Far Right Ahead of Feb. 23 General Election

Participants hold lights during a rally against the far right at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, 25 January 2025. (EPA)
Participants hold lights during a rally against the far right at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, 25 January 2025. (EPA)

Thousands of Germans on Saturday protested in Berlin and other cities against the rise of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party ahead of a Feb. 23 general election.

At Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, participants lit up their phones, blew whistles and sang anti-fascist songs, and in Cologne, protesters carried banners denouncing AfD.

An opposition bloc of Germany’s center-right parties, the Union, led by Friedrich Merz, is leading pre-election polls with AfD in second place.

Merz said Friday that his party will bring motions to toughen migration policy — one of the main election issues — to parliament next week, a move seen risky in case the motions go to a vote and pass with the help of AfD.

Merz had earlier vowed to bar people from entering the country without proper papers and to step up deportations if he is elected chancellor. Those comments came after a knife attack in Aschaffenburg by a rejected asylum-seeker left a man and a 2-year-old boy dead and spilled over into the election campaign.

Activists including the group calling itself Fridays for Future dubbed the Berlin rally the “sea of light against the right turn.” They hope it will draw attention to the actions by the new administration of US President Donald Trump and to the political lineup ahead of Germany’s election.

A protester in Cologne, Thomas Schneemann, said it was most important for him to “stay united against the far right.”

“Especially after yesterday and what we heard from Friedrich Merz we have to stand together to fight the far right,” Schneemann said.

The protests took place while AfD was opening its election campaign in the central city of Halle on Saturday. Party leaders Alice Weidel, AfD's candidate for chancellor, and Tino Chrupalla were expected to speak to an audience of some 4,500 people.

Weidel again received the backing of Elon Musk, who addressed the rally remotely, but she has no realistic chance of becoming Germany’s leader as other parties refuse to work with AfD.