■ United States
Worker survives nail gun
A Los Angeles construction worker had six nails driven into his head in an accident with a high-powered nail gun, but doctors said on Wednesday they expect him to make a full recovery. Isidro Mejia made his first public appearance on Wednesday since the April 19 accident that left him with nails embedded in his face, neck and skull. He told reporters in Spanish from his wheelchair that he does not remember much about the accident, but is grateful to be alive. Mejia, 39, was building a home when he fell from the roof onto a co-worker who was using the nail gun on the second floor, Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Mark Newlands said. Three nails penetrated Mejia's brain, and one entered his spine below the base of his skull.
■ United States
Cool change aids firefight
Firefighters got help from cooler weather and diminishing winds as they tried to contain three wildfires in Southern California. The fire by Wednesday had burned more than 8,800 hectares and destroyed at least 14 homes. Thousands of people remained evacuated from their homes as the two largest fires burned grass and low-lying scrub in Riverside County, an inland region east of Los Angeles. But high temperatures over 38 degrees Celsius and strong wind gusts that fanned the flames early in the week had abated.
■ United States
Driver leaves slippery trail
Hundreds of liters of cooking oil collected spilled from a truck, causing vehicles to skid and slip across a Palm Beach County, Florida, roadway. Officials closed a half a kilometer of the road for nearly seven hours on Wednesday while they used cat litter, sand and cement to clean up the greasy surface. "It was like walking on ice," said one policeman, who added the area smelled like french fries. The spill occurred because the driver for a reprocessing company that collects used oil from restaurants failed to secure a valve -- and made several turns as he drove away from a restaurant, oblivious to the trail of oil he was leaving behind.
■ United Kingdom
Craving for chocolate
A woman with an apparently insatiable sweet tooth stunned staff at a British shop when she bought more than 10,000 chocolate bars and had them loaded into her chauffeur-driven limousine. The woman asked staff at a north London Woolworths branch for every single Mars bar in stock -- 10,656 of them packed in 220 boxes -- and paid for them in cash with £50 notes, a store spokesman said. The total bill was £2,131. "It was very, very strange but nobody thought to ask her why she wanted so many," the spokesman said.
■ United States
All for Smoochie
A 44-year-old woman who told police she robbed a string of banks to raise money to pay for surgery for her cat pleaded not guilty to larceny in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Monday. Catherine Kaczanowski, who was arrested last month, said she set off on her crime spree after learning her stray cat Smoochie had a cancerous tumor and needed surgery.
■ Hong Kong
Opposition slams Tung
Pro-democracy lawmakers yesterday accused Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) of blocking democratic development by imposing guidelines on political reforms. ``All those guidelines are in fact obstacles to democracy,'' said opposition lawmaker Frederick Fung (馮檢基), referring to the nine reform guidelines Tung recommended in a report that Beijing recently endorsed. Fung introduced a motion in the Legislative Council on Wednesday to reject the guidelines but Pro-Beijing and big-business lawmakers voted down the nonbinding motion with a 33 to 22 vote. On Wednesday, opposition lawmakers also attacked Tung for failing to consult the public before submitting his report.
■ Pakistan
Hijacking plot uncovered
Intelligence agents have uncovered a plot by a small band of terrorists to hijack and possibly blow up a plane bound for the United Arab Emirates, prompting Pakistan to put its airports on "red alert," according to Pakistan's prime minister. Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali said that authorities believe a group of about four to six people wanted to hijack a plane and blow it up. There was no indication when the plot was due to be carried out or if it involved al-Qaeda. Jamali would not speculate on whether the hijackers were Pakistanis or foreigners. "Hijackers have no nationality," he said.
■ China
Lion mauls girl
A 10-year-old girl was seriously injured after being mauled by a lion cub at a Chinese wildlife park that allows visitors to walk among the animals, state media said yesterday. The girl, named Yuanyuan, was with her mother and at least 20 others who entered an area of the Wuhan Forest Wildlife Park which is open to tourists but has no barriers to separate them from the lions, Xinhua news agency said. "We were walking in the middle of the crowd and two lions were lying on our left and a younger one was on our right," the girl's mother, Cao Hong, was quoted as saying. They had walked a few hundred paces when the lion cub suddenly pounced on the girl.
■ China
Internet cafes closed
China has shut down more than 8,600 unlicensed Internet cafes since February, many of them for admitting juveniles in violation of the law, the official Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday. "Any such place allowing juveniles to enter or allowing unhealthy information to spread through the Internet will face rigid, severe penalty," Xinhua said. China also bans Internet cafes within 200m of primary and high schools, on fears that Web surfing could expose children to pornography or get them hooked on online video games.
■ Singapore
Toilets rated
When finicky tourists in Singapore hear nature's call, they'll know where to go. The city-state is publishing maps pinpointing its 500 cleanest public toilets in its drive to wipe dirty lavatories off the face of the island, an official said yesterday. The toilet maps will indicate the cleanest and best-equipped restrooms for the benefit of tourists and shoppers, said Jack Sim, a founding member of the Singapore-based World Toilet Organization and president of the Restroom Association of Singapore. Singapore started rating public lavatories in its ``Happy Toilet'' campaign last June -- using a five-star system similar to that used to grade hotels.
■ Spain
Investigation gets support
Spain's Socialist Party, which holds the majority of seats in the parliament, said on Wednesday that it will back a parliamentary investigative commission into the March 11 terror railway bombings in Madrid. "There will be a commission with the aim to avoid a similar catastrophe happening again," said Diego Lopez Garrido, a Socialist spokesman. He gave no further specific details regarding when it could be set up or who could be called to testify. The Socialists hold 164 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies, 12 short of majority. But some small, mainly regional, parties holding a total of 19 seats have also said they support an investigation.
■ United States
Angry people let off steam
Licensed mental health professionals are steamed over a Maine entrepreneur who charges angry people US$1.99 a minute to listen to them rant and rave over the telephone. Philip Doyen receives between 10 and 20 phone calls a week to Vent-Line, a service he launched in February that allows callers to blow off steam -- at a price. But some professional counseling services aren't happy about Doyen's business and are urging prosecutors to investigate whether he is breaking any state laws, the Portland Press Herald reported on Tuesday. Doyen, who works as a computer repairman when not operating Vent-Line, says he has dozens of customers along the US East Coast.
■ Canada
Sex kitten causes catcalls
Debate in Canada's parliament degenerated into shouts and catcalls on Wednesday when an opposition legislator committed what others saw as the sin of mispronouncing an Italian movie star's name. Jason Kenney of the Conservatives claimed that a former government minister had been "rubbing shoulders with aging Italian sex kitten Gina Lollobreegeeda" -- whose name is in fact Gina Lollobrigida. "It's Gina Lollobrigida, idiot!" bellowed Human Resources Minister Joe Volpe, prompting Kenney to say he was sorry for "offending the aging sex kitten community." Speaking afterward, Volpe made an apology of his own. "I'm sorry I called him an idiot. I should have referred to him as an imbecile," he said.
■ Canada
June 28 likely poll date
Prime Minister Paul Martin is likely to call a federal election for June 28 even though his ruling Liberals are still suffering the effects of a patronage scandal, officials and legislators said on Wednesday. Liberal sources said Martin had ditched plans for a June 14 election, because the party's platform was not ready and because he hopes the Liberals will keep climbing in the polls. Martin's support crashed to 35 percent after a report showed C$100 million (US$73 million) in government funds had been funneled to advertising firms tied to the Liberals.
■ The Netherlands
Genocide charge defended
Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic signaled a clear intent to commit genocide through his approval of widescale atrocities against Muslims in Bosnia, UN prosecutors argued in a brief released on Wednesday. The brief was in response to a motion to dismiss genocide charges against Milosevic for lack of evidence. The prosecutors acknowledged they had no smoking gun to prove genocide, but they said Milosevic's genocidal intent was evident from "a pattern of conduct."
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing