INDIA
Building collapse kills 15
Rescuers using backhoes and shovels searched for survivors yesterday under a massive pile of broken concrete and dust left when a residential building under construction collapsed, killing at least 15 workers. Authorities suspected dozens more may have been trapped under the rubble, but were still trying to determine how many workers were on the site when the five-story structure crumpled on Saturday afternoon in the state of Goa. Witnesses reported seeing at least 40 laborers. At least 10 people were pulled out alive overnight, but the chance of finding survivors was dwindling. By yesterday morning the death toll had reached 15. Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar pledged to crack down on those responsible. Police began investigating both the building company and city officials who approved the building’s construction on a patch of marshland in Canacona.
FRANCE
Drowned teen’s mom sues
A couple who in 2012 passed by a drunk 19-year-old student who was later found drowned are now being sued by the student’s mother — a former police officer — for failing to provide assistance. Sylvie Zecca said she wanted to make an “example” of the young couple for allegedly breaching a law which requires persons to provide assistance to someone in danger. Her son, Vincent Zecca, went missing after a boozy night in Bordeaux in March 2012. His body was pulled from the Garonne River three weeks later. Police determined he drowned accidentally after drunkenly slipping into the river. Zecca said she had been given access to the police file and decided to sue a young couple who told investigators they had come upon her “very drunk, near comatose” son and “instead of helping him, laughed at him, filmed him with a smartphone and let him leave.”
FRANCE
Custody row ends in deaths
A man jumped out of the window of his ninth-floor apartment with his three-year-old son after torching the child’s mother, police said on Saturday. The tragedy occurred on Friday in Chenove near the Burgundy city of Dijon. The 25-year-old father was killed on the spot, the toddler died of his wounds soon after and the mother was fighting for her life in hospital with severe burns, prosecutor Marie-Christine Tarrare said. Investigators and relatives said the man doused his former partner with a flammable liquid and set her alight after a row erupted over the child’s custody.
UNITED KINGDOM
Viking treasure discovered
A Celtic treasure looted by the Vikings more than 1,000 years ago has been discovered in the storerooms of the British Museum in London. An ornate, gilded disc brooch dating from the eighth or ninth century is being described as a “staggering find.” It had been concealed in a lump of organic material excavated from a Viking burial site in Lilleberge, Norway, by a British archeologist in the 1880s and acquired by the British Museum in 1891.
UNITED KINGDOM
Jet with printed parts flies
A Tornado fighter jet fitted with metal components created on a 3D printer undertook a successful test flight last month, defense company BAE Systems said yesterday. The plane was equipped with a 3D-printed protective cover for the cockpit radio, a protective guard for the landing gear and support struts on the air intake door, the firm said. It said some of the parts cost less than £100 (US$165) to make and had the potential to save hundreds of thousands of pounds.
RUSSIA
Putin plays ice hockey
A day after a run on the Sochi ski slopes, President Vladimir Putin on Saturday roped in his Belarussian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko for a friendly match against former ice hockey champions at the host city of next month’s Winter Olympics. The two presidents’ team won the game against stars, including Soviet-era champion Alexander Yakushev, as Putin chalked up yet another action stunt to his name. Putin has burnished a hardman image by ensuring that his leisure activities such as fishing and horse-riding bare-chested and flying do not go unnoticed by the media.
UNITED STATES
Film producer Zaentz dies
Film producer Saul Zaentz, winner of best picture Oscars for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus and The English Patient, has died at age 92, US media reported on Saturday. Zaentz died due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease at his home in San Francisco on Friday, his nephew Paul Zaentz told the Los Angeles Times. Zaentz, who began in the music business before moving into films, was known for producing highbrow movies, and even ran his independent film production company from Berkeley — near San Francisco — to keep a distance from Hollywood. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) won five Oscars, including best director for Milos Forman. Zaentz and Forman teamed up again for Amadeus (1984) about the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The movie won eight Oscars, including best picture, best director and best actor for F. Murray Abraham. The English Patient (1996) won nine Oscars, including best picture and best director.
UNITED STATES
Pedophile minister ‘addicted’
A former Lutheran minister from North Carolina says he suffered from sex addiction when he molested young girls during a 2009 mission trip to Haiti. The Charlotte Observer reported on Friday that Larry Michael Bollinger recounted in US District Court in Charlotte his years of frequenting adult book stores and prostitutes during his 33 years as a minister at various churches. Federal prosecutors accused Bollinger of traveling to Haiti for illicit sexual conduct with two minor girls, one 11 and the other 12. He pleaded guilty last year. A spokesman for the Lazarus Project said Bollinger had worked as a mission coordinator at the Christian charity for a several years before his dismissal.
UNITED STATES
Cuomo proposes medical pot
New York would become the 21st state to allow medical use of marijuana under an initiative New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will unveil this week. Cuomo plans to use administrative powers rather than legislative action to allow a limited number of hospitals to dispense marijuana for certain ailments. He will formally announce his plans in his state of the state speech on Wednesday. The New York Times first reported Cuomo’s plan on Saturday. It represents an about-face by Cuomo, who had previously opposed medical marijuana.
UNITED STATES
Seagal mulls governor run
Former action-movie star Steven Seagal says he is considering a run for Arizona governor. The Marked for Death actor told KNXV-TV that he is considering a shot at the state’s highest office and has had a talk about the bid with the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in the country, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Seagal made the comments while talking about his newly released reality series Steven Seagal — Lawman: Maricopa County.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of