GUYANA
Impostor beat students
A man posed as a government official to take over Golden Grove High School in a rural community in the east of the country, where he beat students with a cane and leather belts and arbitrarily changed school hours, police said on Friday. The 22-year-old man pulled off his ruse for two weeks until suspicious teachers finally called the Ministry of Education, police commander Gavin Primo said. Primo did not identify the suspect, who used three different names. The head teacher and other teachers initially accepted the man’s claim that he had been sent by the ministry to run the school, but they became suspicious when he began using different names and they noticed his poor grammar and spelling. Primo said the suspect would be charged with multiple counts of assault and with impersonating a government official.
UNITED STATES
Dad plays ninja
Police said a man from Scottsdale, Pennsylvania, left his sleeping four-year-old son home alone while he went outside and pretended to be a ninja warrior. Online court records show 28-year-old Ross Hurst has applied for a public defender, but has yet to be appointed one. The Daily Courier of Connellsville reported that Hurst was charged on March 3 after police found him outside at about 1:30am dressed all in black and “playing ninja” on a borough street. Police said Hurst told them his mother was watching the child, but the boy’s grandmother said she was never asked to babysit. Hurst faces a preliminary hearing on March 30 on a charge of endangering the welfare of a child.
CHINA
Bob Dylan concert approved
The culture ministry has confirmed that music legend Bob Dylan will be allowed to play in Beijing. The ministry said in a brief statement that Dylan must perform “strictly according to an approved program.” Dylan will be allowed to play in Beijing from March 30 to April 12, the ministry said, without mentioning if the singer would also be granted permission to perform in Shanghai. Beijing-based promoters Gehua-LiveNation said last week that Dylan, who turns 70 in May, would play in Beijing’s Workers’ Gymnasium on April 6 and then hold a concert at the Shanghai Grand Stage on April 8.
AFGHANISTAN
Buddha plans opposed
UNESCO has said it is against the reconstruction of one of two giant 1,500-year-old Buddha statues dynamited by the Taliban in the central Bamiyan Valley 10 years ago. So is the country’s government. UNESCO assistant director-general for culture Francesco Bandarin said the agency had asked for a feasibility study for reconstructing the smaller Buddha, which several German scientists are promoting. However, Bandarin told a briefing yesterday that the study “doesn’t change our position on the reconstruction, which we think is not feasible” and would unnecessarily divert resources from other priorities at the vast site in the valley.
UNITED STATES
Bra monkey turns heads
A woman turned a few heads when she walked into a rural Virginia courthouse with a tiny monkey clad in a pink-and-white dress tucked in her bra. The woman brought the palm-sized marmoset to Amherst County Courthouse on Thursday for a hearing in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. Officials apparently didn’t notice the monkey until the woman went to an office to complete some paperwork.
UNITED STATES
Toxin found in sardines
Researchers say the millions of sardines that were found floating dead in a Southern California marina this week tested positive for a powerful neurotoxin. University of Southern California biologist David Caron said on Friday that high levels of domoic acid were found in the fish scooped from the Redondo Beach marina. He said critically low oxygen levels in the water caused the sardines to suffocate, but it’s possible the toxin distressed them off the coastline and caused them to crowd into the marina.
UNITED STATES
Songwriter Hugh Martin dies
Hugh Martin, the composer-songwriter whose works included Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and The Trolley Song, died on Friday. He was 96. He died from natural causes at his home in Encinitas, California, Martin’s niece Suzanne Hanners said. Martin and songwriting partner Ralph Blane co-wrote such catchy tunes as Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, The Trolley Song and The Boy Next Door from the musical Meet Me in St Louis. Martin, who hailed from Birmingham, Alabama, also crafted songs for several other film and Broadway musicals, including Best Foot Forward, Make a Wish, High Spirits and Hooray for What.
UNITED STATES
Mystery satellite launched
An unmanned Delta 4 rocket has lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The liftoff at sunset on Friday following a delay because of concerns over winds. It hoisted a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office. The reconnaissance office is keeping mum about the purpose of the satellite. It was the third rocket launch from Florida’s Space Coast in just over two weeks. Space shuttle Discovery blasted off on its final mission on Feb. 24. Then the Air Force sent a secretive, unmanned space plane into orbit on March 5. The X-37B, resembling a mini-shuttle, is supposed to land back on Earth, but authorities are not saying when. It’s the second experimental vehicle of its type to fly in space.
UNITED STATES
Gay marriage bill falls flat
A bill to legalize gay marriage in Maryland fell short Friday after supporters failed to find enough votes to overcome Republican opposition and misgivings by some Democrats in the deeply Catholic state. A final vote had been expected in the House, but the overwhelmingly Democratic chamber’s leaders instead withdrew it. A confluence of factors helped fracture Democratic support, including a split among black lawmakers, the opposition of some churches and trouble for some freshman lawmakers in determining what their constituents wanted. House Speaker Michael Busch said Democrats would try again next year.
UNITED STATES
Mel Gibson given probation
Hollywood actor/director Mel Gibson was ordered to do 16 hours of community service, pursue domestic violence counseling and serve three years’ probation in a deal on Friday to end a row over alleged abuse of his ex-partner. The embattled actor pleaded no contest in a Los Angeles court to a charge of battery against his former girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, in return for a sentence that does not include jail time. He was ordered to undergo a one-year domestic violence counseling program, which he began in January, do community service with a children’s care group and pay a US$400 fine in the plea bargain agreed to end the dispute.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was