UNITED STATES
Alligator bite victim charged
A Florida airboat captain whose hand was bitten off by a 2.7m alligator faces charges of feeding the animal. Collier County Jail records show 63-year-old Wallace Weatherholt was charged on Friday with unlawful feeding of an alligator and later posted a US$1,000 bond. Weatherholt was attacked on June 12 as he was giving an Indiana family a tour of the Everglades. The family said Weatherholt hung a fish over the side of the boat and had his hand at the water’s surface when the alligator attacked. Wildlife officers tracked and euthanized the alligator. Weatherholt’s hand was found, but could not be reattached. A criminal investigation followed because feeding alligators is a second-degree misdemeanor.
UNITED STATES
Zoo has sixth panda cub
A 20-year-old giant panda, Bai Yun, has given birth at the San Diego Zoo, setting a record. Officials say it is the sixth cub born at the zoo and the most at a breeding facility outside of China. In a blog post, zoo officials said Bai Yun immediately scooped the cub into her arms and comforted the newborn. Because of Bai Yun’s advanced age, the pregnancy was considered high-risk, but zookeepers said mother and baby are doing fine. The sex of the cub will not be known for several months.
COLOMBIA
FARC release pilots
Leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas released two civilian helicopter pilots they were holding hostage to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the group said on Sunday. The pilots, who were kidnapped on July 10, were taken to the city of Popayan, 650km southwest of Bogota, where they will meet with relatives, the ICRC said in a statement. The pilots, identified as Juan Carlos Alvarez and Alejandro de Jesus Ocampo, were handed to representatives of ICRC and a local human rights group in Cauca Province, the ICRC said. The rebels captured the pilots when their helicopter made an emergency landing in a football field in the village of El Plateado. The rebels said that the helicopter had been flying surveillance.
UNITED STATES
Site sued for underage sex
Three Washington state teenagers who say they were sold online for sex have sued the Web site Backpage.com, a popular online portal for escort services, accusing the site’s owners of enabling their exploitation. Two 13-year-old girls from Pierce County and one 15-year-old from King County, filed the lawsuit on Friday in Pierce County Superior Court, the News Tribune of Tacoma reported on Sunday. Seattle attorney Liz McDougall, who represents Backpage’s corporate owners, said the lawsuit will not pass legal muster. The lawsuit alleges that photographs of the underage girls in skimpy garb appeared on ads on the site, paid for by their pimps. It accuses the owners of doing nothing to prevent it.
FIJI
Ex-PM guilty of graft
Former prime minister Laisenia Qarese was found guilty of abuse of office yesterday in a long-running corruption case dating back to the early 1990s. Qarese, who became prime minister in 2000 and was ousted in a military coup six years later, was convicted on nine charges of abuse of office and failing to discharge his duty in a case brought by the nation’s anti-corruption watchdog. Qarese, who pleaded not guilty, will be sentenced today and could face up to four years in jail. The conviction renders him ineligible to contest national elections to be held in 2014.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
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