CHINA
Van plows into students
Authorities say two students and a teacher were killed when a van plowed into a crowd outside a school on the outskirts of Beijing. The Pinggu District Government says the incident happened early yesterday as students were arriving for class at Machangying Elementary School. District spokesman Zhang Yiyang says the van’s driver apparently lost control and plowed into students and others arriving at the school gates. Authorities say at least 20 people were injured, 19 of them students.
THAILAND
Customs agents seize turtles
Customs have found 451 turtles worth 1 million baht (US$33,000) stashed in suitcases offloaded from a passenger flight from Bangladesh, the latest seizure of live creatures at Bangkok’s bustling Suvarnabhumi airport. Turtles of varying sizes worth about 2,000 baht apiece in Thai markets, and seven false gavials, a type of freshwater crocodile worth 10,000 baht each, were found yesterday in small bags packed into cases after authorities received a tip that a known trafficker was on his way to the country. The alleged trafficker, a Bangladeshi national, did not collect the luggage and fled on arrival in Bangkok, customs officials said.
JAPAN
Butterfly harassment studied
One kind of female butterfly mates only once in its life — and then closes its wings to avoid “harassment” when pursued by persistent and unwanted males, a researcher said. Observations of the Small Copper Butterfly, a colorful orange and black butterfly, showed that some females closed their wings when males flew by, but only when they were males of their own species, said Jun-Ya Ide, an associate professor at Kurume Institute of Technology in Fukuoka. “When we looked into why, the males were courting the females. They do this very stubbornly, so the females sometimes try to get away — or prefer to stay unobserved,” he added.
AUSTRALIA
Cigarettes going ‘green’
The grass is always greener, as they say, and so are cigarette packets. In Australia, at least. The country’s MPs are set to back plans to render cigarette packets olive-green, supposedly because it’s a dull, unappealing color that will put off potential smokers. But will it work? Perhaps. Green-branded firms — BP, Starbucks and Carlsberg, to name three — may be successful, but are hardly adored. Everyone hates BP, everyone loves to hate Starbucks and Carlsberg is forced to beef up its brand with the hopeful slogan: “Probably the best beer in the world.” Coincidence? Possibly not.
AUSTRALIA
Wrongfully jailed given cash
A deaf-mute who spent 15 years in jail after being wrongly convicted of murdering a Perth socialite in 1959 was yesterday awarded a A$425,000 (US$451,000) ex gratia payment. Darryl Beamish, now 69, was convicted of killing Jillian Brewer with a tomahawk and pair of scissors and initially sentenced to hang, but the ruling was commuted to jail, where he languished for 15 years. He was ultimately cleared of the crime in 2005 on his sixth appeal when the Court of Criminal Appeal finally accepted a 1964 confession to Brewer’s murder by one of the country’s most notorious serial killers, Eric Edgar Cooke. Cooke, nicknamed “The Night Caller,” terrorized Perth from 1959 to 1963, murdering eight people.
UNITED STATES
Man tracks stolen laptop
California police have returned the stolen laptop of a man who tracked its location using software that also sent him photographs of another man using it in bed, among other images. Joshua Kaufman, of Oakland, says he retrieved the laptop on Wednesday, a day after police arrested the 27-year-old man in the photographs. Muthanna Aldebashi is being held on a charge of suspicion of possessing stolen property. Kaufman says a burglar broke into his apartment on March 21 and stole the laptop. He says he activated theft-tracking software that tracked its location and took screenshots and photographs of its user. He says he took the data to police, but had no luck getting them to help, so he posted the photos online. He says police contacted him after his efforts went viral.
UNITED STATES
Actor’s daughter guilty
The estranged daughter of actor Billy Bob Thornton has been found guilty of aggravated manslaughter of a child in Orlando, Florida. Prosecutors say 32-year-old Amanda Brumfield was convicted on Friday last week. She will be sentenced next month. She was acquitted of first-degree murder and aggravated child-abuse charges. Authorities say Brumfield killed her best friend’s daughter during an overnight stay in October 2008. Brumfield says one-year-old Olivia Madison Garcia was trying to climb out of a playpen and hit her head. Prosecutors say it’s impossible that a fall from that height caused a 9cm fracture on the back of the girl’s skull and the bleeding and swelling found in her brain.
ANTIGUA
Crime spree trial begins
Two men went on trial on Wednesday for an alleged crime spree in July 2008 that included killing a British couple on their honeymoon. A prosecutor told the 12-member jury he would present DNA and other physical evidence against Avie Howell and Kaniel Martin. The trial began with witnesses that included friends of the defendants who claimed to have seen them together after Catherine and Benjamin Mullany of Wales were shot during an apparent robbery. Howell and Martin are also charged with killing Jamaican shopkeeper Waneta Anderson Walker and are expected to face a later trial in two other homicides.
UNITED STATES
‘Wal-Mart of Weed’ opens
Seeking to capitalize on Arizona’s newly enacted medical marijuana law, a California-based company on Wednesday opened a superstore-sized weGrow garden center in Phoenix catering to those who want to cultivate their own cannabis. The store offers about 2,000 products, including soil, grow lights and irrigation trays, specially designed for effective marijuana growing, Mann said. A doctor is on site to furnish eligible patients the initial medical approval needed to apply to the state health department for cards authorizing them to legally grow and use marijuana for medical treatment.
UNITED STATES
Daycare worker indicted
A grand jury has indicted a woman who had fled to Nigeria on felony murder charges in the deaths of four children in a fire at her Houston home day care. Jessica Tata had already been charged with murder for the Feb. 24 fire that also injured three children. The 23-year-old was previously indicted on two counts of reckless injury to a child and three for abandoning a child. Tata remains jailed on bonds totaling US$1.1 million. Authorities believe she left the children in her care alone while she went shopping and the fire was ignited by a stove-top burner left on.
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
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the