HONG KONG
Pricey painting goes missing
A painting that was auctioned for HK$28.8 million (US$3.7 million) on Monday has gone missing, police said, with media reports yesterday suggesting cleaners may have inadvertently thrown the artwork out. The 2012 painting Snowy Mountain by Chinese artist Cui Ruzhuo (崔如琢) was reported missing by Chinese auctioneers Poly Auction on Tuesday afternoon after the auction on Monday, police said. Ming Pao reported that police had checked CCTV footage at the Grand Hyatt hotel, where the auction took place, which showed cleaners removing the painting. That raised fears that the painting had been sent out with the garbage to the city’s landfill. Gladis Young, director of communications at the Grand Hyatt hotel, said hotel staff were not involved because organizers of events involving valuable items usually hired external staff to deal with security and handling goods.
ITALY
Berlusconi faces social work
A government agency has asked a court whether former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi can serve a one-year sentence for tax fraud by working in a center for the elderly, judicial sources said on Tuesday. The 77-year-old has dominated politics in Italy for decades, but was expelled from the Senate in November last year after being convicted for tax fraud at his Mediaset television network. A four-year sentence was commuted to one. At a hearing today, judges are due to begin deliberating whether Berlusconi, who denies the tax fraud charge, should serve his time under house arrest or by doing social work. Prison was always unlikely because of the media mogul’s age and the non-violent nature of the crime. According to the proposal by the social services agency deposited with the court, Berlusconi would work just one day a week at the elderly center, judicial sources said.
NORWAY
Police hunt man’s identity
Police on Tuesday put out a public appeal to help identify a central European man who was found in the snow suffering from amnesia, yet understands five languages. The man in his mid-20s was found “helpless in the snow” on an Oslo street in the middle of December last year, a statement said. “The man did not possess any form of identification and did not remember his name, origin, how he ended up in Norway or any other details of his life,” it said. Police said a broad Interpol search to identify the man, who now calls himself John Smith, had so far yielded no results. The man is 1.87m tall, speaks very good English and understands Czech, Slovak, Polish and Russian.
UNITED KINGDOM
Cop charged over images
A police officer from the squad tasked with guarding the prime minister’s Downing Street residence has been charged with sharing obscene images via his mobile phone, prosecutors said on Tuesday. The Diplomatic Protection Group (DPG) controls access to Downing Street and Scotland Yard, the police headquarters in London, and protects government ministers, former prime ministers and visiting heads of state and government. “Following a review of the evidence, we have concluded that James Addison, a police constable in the DPG, should be charged with 11 offenses,” Jenny Hopkins of the Crown Prosecution Service said. It is alleged that between February and June last year, he distributed “moving images via his mobile telephone” of an indecent nature. The maximum punishment for such an offense is a fine, up to three years in jail, or both. Addison is due to appear at in court in London on April 23.
UNITED STATES
Woman in topless rampage
A bare-breasted woman wearing only bikini bottoms was observed by security cameras vandalizing a Florida McDonald’s. In the video, which went viral on Tuesday, the woman is seen shoving cash registers onto the floor, overturning a drinks dispenser and throwing items at staff before helping herself to ice cream. Sandra Suarez, 41, entered the McDonald’s in Pinellas Park on March 24 and when an employee asked her to put on some clothes, she refused and became destructive, according to a police report obtained by the Tampa Bay Times. “She destroys it,” Pinellas Park police spokesman Sergeant Adam Geissenberger told the newspaper. The police report said she caused about US$10,000 in damage. Suarez was taken to a local hospital and was charged with felony criminal mischief and resisting arrest.
UNITED STATES
Drug complainer arrested
A Texas woman who complained to police that a drug dealer sold her a bad batch of marijuana that did not pack much of a punch has been arrested, police said on Tuesday. Evelyn Hamilton, 37, was jailed on Friday after also telling police in Lufkin, Texas, that the dealer refused to give her a refund. She was later released on US$500 bail for a drug paraphernalia charge. She had in her possession a bag with a small amount of pot, Lufkin Police Sergeant David Casper said. The person Hamilton said was the dealer has not been arrested. “We had no actual link to them at the time,” Casper said. A day after her release, the woman was again taken into custody, this time on a public intoxication charge, Casper said.
UNITED STATES
Boys check in WWI shells
Baggage screeners at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport have discovered two World War I artillery shells in checked luggage that arrived on a flight from London. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says the bags belonged to a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old who were returning from a school field trip to Europe. TSA spokesman Jim McKinney says a bomb disposal crew determined the shells were inert and no one was ever in danger. The teens told law enforcement they obtained the shells at a French World War I artillery range. It was not clear how. The teens were questioned, but not charged.
URUGUAY
Convicts can get marijuana
Prisoners will be able to use marijuana if a doctor says it will benefit their health. Drug czar Julio Calzada said on Tuesday that any inmates with doctors’ orders will be prescribed marijuana to improve their physical or mental health. Meanwhile, Social Development Minister Daniel Olesker told a medical marijuana symposium in Montevideo that medicinal pot will be incorporated into the country’s public health system, alongside acupuncture and homeopathic remedies.
ARGENTINA
Human-traffickers sentenced
A court has handed down tough sentences of 10 to 22 years in prison to 10 defendants accused of kidnapping and forcing into prostitution a young woman whose disappearance raised global awareness about people-trafficking. The search for Marita Veron continues. The court ruled in provincial Tucuman after a new trial was ordered following not-guilty verdicts for all the defendants. Brothers Jose and Gonzalo Gomez received 22 years for kidnapping Veron. The others received lesser sentences.
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number