RUSSIA
Bomb squad defuse sex toy
Anti-terrorist bomb squad experts were called to a post office in the northwest to make safe a package from which a strange ticking sound was coming, local police said on Monday. They found a vibrator. The incident took place at Petrozavodsk in the Republic of Karelia and followed a call from a postal worker who had identified a suspect package, a police spokeswoman said. The sex toy had apparently been turned on “by accident.” Nerves are on edge after an attack in January on the Moscow Domodedovo Airport left 37 dead. Two suicide bombers killed 40 in March 2010 in the Moscow Metro.
UNITED STATES
Dolphin jumps onto boat
A dolphin weighing around 300kg jumped onto the deck of a boat, injuring a woman in South Florida. Isles of Capri Fire Department spokesman Keith Perry said a charter boat captain called emergency services on Sunday afternoon after the dolphin jumped on the boat and landed on one of his passengers. The woman suffered a sprained ankle. Her name was not available. Officials from fire department, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Collier County Sheriff’s Office used an immobilizing board and a rope to push the dolphin back into the water.
UNITED KINGDOM
Clergymen collared
Officials have charged two clergymen for allegedly arranging about 200 fake marriages to help bypass immigration laws. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Reverend Brian Shipsides and Reverend Elwon John are charged for facilitating the marriages, mostly between EU and non-EU residents, at All Saints Church in London. CPS lawyer Andrew Hadik said on Monday there is sufficient evidence to prosecute the men “for conspiring to facilitate entry and to obtain indefinite leave to remain in the UK in breach of immigration law.” Shipsides and John were suspended from their Church of England duties shortly after their arrests last year by Border Agency officials and police.
UNITED STATES
Harry Baals a no-go
A new government building in Indiana may officially be called Citizens Square, but to some not-so-square citizens it will always be the Harry Baals Government Center. Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry announced the new city and county government center’s name on Monday. The most popular choice for the building in an online poll was the “Harry Baals Government Center.” The second-place finisher was “Thunder Dome.” The former mayor pronounced his name “balls,” although his descendants pronounce their name “bales” (baylz). Fort Wayne officials previously said the city wouldn’t name the building after Baals because they were worried the name would be ridiculed.
UNITED STATES
Firm recycles fetid fish
The massive fish die-off in a Southern California marina is a boon for a Mojave Desert composting firm that is recycling the stinking haul for use as fertilizer. Trucks took about 75 tonnes of rotting sardines to Victorville’s American Organic site in the first four days of the cleanup at King Harbor in Redondo Beach. The American Organic general manager told the Victorville Daily Press that the fish would be used as fertilizer. Biologists said critically low oxygen levels in the water caused the sardines to suffocate on March 7.
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
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
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