UNITED STATES
Burglar caught napping
A suspected burglar planning to rob a Florida home stole a little nap instead and ended up in handcuffs, officials said on Wednesday. The man fell asleep in a home during a suspected burglary on Monday, the local sheriff’s department told reporters. A cleaning lady at the house, outside the town of Sarasota, found the suspect and called police. Authorities took photos of the man, identified as Dion Davis, 29, before placing him under arrest.
UNITED KINGDOM
Records book updated
The 60th Guinness World Records book released in London yesterday reflects on six decades of record-breaking, while widening the oddball hall of fame. Entrants include Californian Nick Stoeberl, possessor of the world’s longest tongue at 10.1cm. In Japan, Akiko Obata has the largest collection of plastic foods, with more than 8,000 items — including giant plastic burgers, donuts and dishes of everything from soup to desserts filling her apartment.
UNITED STATES
Guilty plea in terror aid case
A 19-year-old Colorado woman pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiring to help the Islamic State extremist group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant, after she was detained while trying to travel to Syria, US federal prosecutors said. Shannon Conley, who lived in the Denver suburb of Arvada, appeared before US district court judge Raymond Moore and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. After meeting an Islamic State member online, she had planned to join him in Syria, the plea agreement said, but FBI agents arrested her on April 8 at Denver International Airport before she could board a flight to Turkey. Conley was engaged to the Islamic State member, identified as Yousr Mouelhi in court documents. She had planned to help al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Syria and to fight if needed, prosecutors said.
UNITED STATES
Actor Richard Kiel, 74, dies
Richard Kiel, the towering actor best known for portraying steel-toothed villain Jaws in a pair of James Bond films, has died. He was 74. Kelley Sanchez, director of communications at Saint Agnes Medical Center in Fresno, California, confirmed on Wednesday that Kiel had died at the hospital. Kiel’s agent, Steven Stevens, also confirmed his death. Both declined to provide further details. The 2.135m performer played the cable-chomping henchman who tussled with Roger Moore’s Bond in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me and 1979’s Moonraker. The role was an iconic one Kiel could never escape. “To this day, I go out in sunglasses and a hat because people will shout ‘Hey, Jaws!’ at me from across the street,” he told the Daily Mail this year. “The only way I can explain it is that he’s like the Road Runner, which Coyote keeps trying to blow up, but he keeps going.” Born in Detroit, Kiel began appearing in TV shows and films in the 1960s. He published an autobiography in 2002 called Making It Big in the Movies.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
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