■ GERMANY
Farmer attacks police cars
A farmer angry with police for trying to confiscate his tractor wrecked three patrol cars and evaded capture for seven hours before an elite unit managed to arrest him, a police spokesman said on Wednesday. The farmer was pulled over for driving his tractor without a license, despite previous warnings. The officers called in three patrol cars before asking the farmer to get out of his vehicle. He refused and proceeded to ram the cars with his tractor, making full use of its attached muck spreader and hydraulic fork. Officers were only just able to scramble out of harm's way. The farmer then drove into a forest, where he eluded a manhunt involving two helicopters and an armored car for seven hours.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Superman replaces 4Real
A couple is looking to call their newborn son Superman -- but only because their chosen name of 4Real has been rejected by the government registry. Pat and Sheena Wheaton say they will get around the decision by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages by officially naming their son Superman but referring to him as 4Real, the New Zealand Herald newspaper has reported. The Wheatons decided on the name after seeing the baby for the first time in an ultrasound scan and realizing their baby was "for real."
■ MAURITANIA
Slavery criminalized
The national assembly late on Wednesday adopted a law criminalizing slavery for the first time. The practice has persisted in certain parts of the north African country despite its official abolition in 1981. Under the new law, voted for unanimously, people convicted of acts of slavery will risk between five and 10 years in prison. Slavery in its original form has become rare in the country but still exists in many communities, especially in the countryside. No official statistics exist on the number of people reduced to slavery in the country.
■ RUSSIA
South Pole journey planned
The explorer who made an epic descent to the North Pole seabed last week hopes to make an expedition to the South Pole around the end of this year, a member of his staff said on Wednesday. Artur Chilingarov, a 67-year-old explorer and member of parliament, hopes to go to the South Pole "sometime in the period from December to February," an adviser to Chilingarov, Konstantin Zaitsev, said. Although it was too early to provide details of the expedition, Zaitsev said it was unlikely to be organized by the main state body behind last week's North Pole descent, the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.
■ UKRAINE
Man officially tallest
A giant veterinary surgeon from the northwest has been declared the tallest living human by Guinness World Records, the book's publisher said on Wednesday. "Guinness World Records has announced the new tallest man in the world as ... Leonid Stadnyk of Ukraine who was found to be 2.57m in 2006," spokeswoman Amarilis Espinoza said. In next year's edition of the book Stadnyk will replace Bao Xishun, a native of Inner Mongolia, China, who is 2.36m tall, she said. Stadnyk is believed to suffer from a rare condition caused by a tumor on the gland that stimulates the release of growth hormones.
■ UNITED STATES
Man hides monkey in hat
A man smuggled a monkey onto an airplane, stashing the fist-size primate under his hat until passengers spotted it perched on his ponytail, an airline official in New York said. On a flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to New York's LaGuardia airport, people around the man noticed that a marmoset had emerged from underneath his hat, Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Alison Russell said. The man's journey had begun in Lima, Peru. "Other passengers asked the man if he knew he had a monkey on him," Russell said. The monkey spent the remainder of the flight in the man's seat and behaved well, Russell said. LaGuardia airport police were waiting for the man and his monkey when the plane landed, and he was taken for questioning. It was unclear if he would face any criminal charges.
■ COLOMBIA
Cross-dressing killer caught
A cross-dressing suspected Colombian hitman just wasn't feminine enough to pull it off. Police said the 27-year-old suspect, identified only as "Chucho," was a killer for Colombia's Norte del Valle cocaine cartel and in order to lie low disguised himself as a woman. The suspect -- wanted for the killing of a salesman in May -- operated in southwest Narino province in a wig and dress "planning terrorist acts against the security forces," police said in a statement released on Wednesday. The suspect was nabbed when he and his male partner checked into a posh hotel, posing as a couple on a holiday. But locals weren't convinced and tipped off police about the strange couple. "It was the way he moved, the shape of the hair he was using, all of this prompted suspicions," regional police chief Colonel Fernando Jimenez said.
■ UNITED STATES
Skull shocks auction buyer
A woman who bought a box sight-unseen at an unclaimed property auction in Phoenix, Arizona, got a shock when she opened it and found a human skull, police said. The woman turned the skull over to police, who said it was relatively clean and do not believe foul play was involved. Phoenix police spokesman Sergeant Joel Tranter said officials were investigating where it came from. "There's no indication the skull is connected to a crime," Tranter said. "It's possible it was part of a medical display."
■ COLOMBIA
Navy finds drug submarine
The navy seized a 20m submarine that likely was used to haul tonnes of cocaine on part of its journey to the US, officials said on Tuesday. No drugs were found or arrests made when the fiberglass submarine was discovered on Sunday in a swampy mangrove about 10km off the northernmost point of Colombia's Caribbean coast. The blue-colored, diesel-powered vessel had sophisticated communications systems and was capable of carrying up to 10 tonnes of cocaine, said Rear Admiral Roberto Garcia Marquez, head of the navy's Caribbean fleet.
■ UNITED STATES
Nude jogging priest nabbed
A Catholic priest faces an indecent exposure charge after jogging in the nude about an hour before sunrise. The Reverend Robert Whipkey told police he had been running naked at a high school track in Frederick, Colorado, and did not think anyone would be around at that time of day, a police report said. He told officers he sweats profusely if he wears clothing while jogging. "I know what I did was wrong," he said in the report.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese