■PAKISTAN
Avalanche survivors rescued
Rescue workers using sticks and spades have recovered seven survivors from a huge avalanche that slammed into a remote village, police and officials said yesterday. A massive wall of snow struck the small village of Bagroodara wedged into a mountain in the Kundian valley, where heavy snow and treacherous winter weather prevented rescuers from reaching the stricken area quickly. Police and local officials said the confirmed death toll could rise to 30, with 17 bodies retrieved and 13 people still buried under the snow and believed to have died. Local residents were the first to arrive on the scene, but police arrived more than 24 hours after the avalanche slapped into the poorly developed region, senior police officer Mohammad Ilyas said in Dasu. The village is in Kohistan district, about 220km north of the capital Islamabad. “They were ill-equipped, but using local tools like spades and sticks residents joined police and recovered seven people alive,” Ilyas said.
■PORTUGAL
Court upholds book ban
The detective who led the initial investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has lost his attempt to overturn a ban on a book in which he claims the toddler’s parents were involved in her disappearance. Goncalo Amaral had sought to appeal against an injunction banning further sales of the book, imposed last September after Kate and Gerry McCann claimed his book, A Verdade da Mentira (The Truth of the Lie) defamed them by suggesting their account of Madeleine’s disappearance was false. In a statement, the couple said that they were “very pleased and relieved” that the court had upheld the ban following a two-month hearing.
■UNITED STATES
Happiness cuts disease risk
Leading a happy life means you are less likely to develop heart disease, research published on Thursday said. The team behind the study — who believe it is the first to show an independent relationship between positive emotions and heart disease — said it could have major implications for improving people’s health, suggesting it might be possible to help prevent the condition by boosting people’s good feelings. The researchers followed 1,739 healthy adults over 10 years, assessing their risk of heart disease and measuring symptoms of depression, hostility and anxiety, as well the degree of expression of positive emotions, known as “positive affect.” The team, from the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, found that over the decade, increased positive affect led to a lowering of risk of heart disease by around a fifth at each point on a five-point scale measuring levels of happiness, ranging from “none” to “extreme.” There are several possible explanations, lead researcher Karina Davidson said. Happier people may have longer periods of rest or relaxation, which puts less pressure on their bodies’ automatic reflex activities. They may also recover more quickly from stressful events and spend less time reliving them.
■UNITED STATES
Binging negates benefits
While research has linked moderate drinking to better heart health, a new study suggests that those benefits disappear when drinkers add the occasional binge to the mix. Pooling data from 14 previous studies of moderate drinkers, researchers found that those who drank heavily every so often were 45 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease — where plaque buildup in the heart arteries impedes the flow of blood and oxygen.
■CANADA
Lightfoot very much alive
Gordon Lightfoot is very much alive despite reports on Thursday that said the legendary 71-year-old singer-songwriter had died while on a North American tour. Lightfoot — whose hits include The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Sundown and Carefree Highway — was said to have been pronounced dead by a prank message posted on the Twitter micro-blogging service, the Web site of the Globe and Mail newspaper said. Reports of his death spread quickly on radio, television and news Web sites. Lightfoot was reached by telephone by Toronto’s CP24 news station and said he was informed of his death by a report he heard on his car radio as he drove to his office. “Everything is good,” he told CP24. “I don’t know where it come from, it seems like a bit of a hoax. I was quite surprised to hear it myself ... I feel fine.”
■UNITED STATES
Mayor seeks new aldermen
Help wanted: registered voter with a conscience for position on the Chicago City Council. Salary US$110,556 a year. Ex-felons need not apply. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley decided to take a different approach to fill two vacancies on the city’s 50-member city council, posting a notice on the city’s Web site listing qualifications for the job. Candidates should be registered voters, have lived in the ward for a least a year and provide three letters of recommendation attesting to their community involvement. No current politicians, tax delinquents or anyone convicted of any “infamous crime, bribery, perjury or other felony” need apply. One vacancy was created when the previous office-holder pleaded guilty to illegally accepting favors from a developer. Daley has indicated that he is fed up with the high rate of malfeasance.
■UNITED STATES
New test for cancer patients
A personalized blood test can tell whether a patient’s cancer has spread or come back, offering a better way to see if treatments are working, US researchers said on Thursday. Having a test that can detect tumors in the blood could help doctors customize cancer treatments, offering more aggressive therapy to some patients, while sparing others from unneeded chemotherapy or radiation.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of