INDIA
‘Witch’ beaten to death
A woman has been tortured and beaten to death by her in-laws on suspicion of being a witch and practicing black magic, police said on Monday. Police in the central state of Chhattisgarh said relatives attacked the 55-year-old widow on Sunday after claiming her witchcraft had caused her nephew’s ill health. “Chilli powder was put in her eyes, ears and private parts, and they thrashed her severely, because of which she died,” Bemetara District Police Chief Narendra Khare said. The district is 125km west of the state capital, Raipur. Khare said the victim’s brother-in-law, his wife and other relatives of her late husband confronted her over the sick boy, demanding that she reverse whatever “black magic” had caused the illness. When she protested her innocence, the relatives attacked her with sticks, and punched and kicked her in front of her 28-year-old son. He later took her to hospital, where she was declared dead. Twelve people, including the brother-in-law and five women, have been arrested over the incident, the Press Trust of India reported.
ESTONIA
Teacher shot dead by teen
A 15-year-old student shot and killed his teacher during class on Monday, the first known school shooting in the Baltic nation. Four other students were in the classroom at Paalalinna School in the town of Viljandi, police spokeswoman Tuuli Harson said. She said the shooter was apprehended and no one else was injured in the early-afternoon attack at the school of 450 students. Government officials said the victim was a 56-year-old female teacher of German. Police said they had no details about a possible motive. The Postimees reported that the shooter had recently started posting pictures of guns and war on his Facebook account. The paper said one picture included text in English that read: “Don’t judge me ’cause I’m quiet. No one plans a murder out loud.” Another one said: “You inspire my inner serial killer.”
KOSOVO
Journalist stabbed in office
A journalist was stabbed at his desk on Monday by a man apparently unhappy with the way he had been portrayed in a report, police said. Milot Hasimja was attacked at the private Klan Kosova TV headquarters in Pristina, a police spokesman said. “The attacker was immediately arrested,” spokesman Baki Kelani added. The channel’s editor-in-chief, Gazmend Syla, told reporters that the journalist was at his desk when the attacker entered his office and stabbed him in the neck. Local media reported that the attacker was allowed to enter the office after he had asked to talk to Hasimja, apparently unhappy with a feature the journalist did on him. Hasimja was hospitalized with three stab wounds, but his life is not in danger.
FRANCE
Clown arrested near Paris
A 14-year-old dressed as a clown was arrested on Monday near Paris for attempting to attack a woman, as a phenomenon of evil clowns terrorizing passers-by continued to spread. Complaints have poured in over “armed clowns” wreaking havoc in various parts of the country. The phenomenon has even prompted anti-clown vigilantism, forcing police to step in to try and quell the hysteria. On Monday, a woman who had just got out of her car in Chelles near Paris called police, saying two clowns — one of whom was armed with a fake axe — had attacked her, a source said. They escaped when a passer-by armed with a baseball bat tried to stop them and one of them was detained when police spotted him, white makeup still all over his face.
NIGERIA
Name proves apt
A man who cheated the hangman at the gallows has been freed after 19 years on death row, Amnesty International said Monday. Thankgod Ebhos, 54, was dragged to the gallows and watched four fellow death-row inmates being hanged in June last year, saved only because prison officials realized that his sentence by a military tribunal called for him to be shot by a firing squad. Human rights lawyers filed an appeal noting he had been convicted while the country was under a military dictatorship notorious for unfair trials and torturing confessions from prisoners.
A court of the Economic Community of West African states in June ruled that Ebhos should be freed. Amnesty said he had been released from jail on Friday last week on orders of the governor of Kaduna State, where he had been convicted of armed robbery.
UNITED STATES
Kidnapper sentenced
A woman who faked a pregnancy, kidnapped her infant nephew from his Wisconsin home, and left him alone in frigid temperatures last winter was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in federal prison, according to court records. Kristen Smith, of Aurora, Colorado, had been found guilty in July of kidnapping by a federal jury in Wisconsin. She left Kayden Powell, who was less than a week old, wrapped in blankets in a tote bag 320km away from his home in Beloit in February. He was found alive and well a day later behind a gas station in Iowa. Prosecutors in Wisconsin believed Smith faked being pregnant after they found a prosthetic pregnancy belly in her car and Facebook postings in which she claimed to be pregnant.
UNITED STATES
Suspect invited victims
The alleged shooter whose gun rampage in a Seattle-area school left three people dead invited five friends to lunch before opening fire on them, police said on Monday. The suspect, widely identified as Jaylen Fryberg, killed one person and injured four others in the cafeteria shooting on Friday last week before taking his own life. One of those injured died on Sunday in a Los Angeles-area hospital. “The only pre-planning of the event that detectives are able to confirm is that the shooter had arranged for a meeting of friends during lunch in the cafeteria,” a police statement said. “A witness confirms that the five victims were seated at the table when the shooter opened fire, striking the victims before turning the gun on himself,” it added. Fryberg used text messages to invite his victims, media reports said.
UNITED STATES
Park rangers seeking artist
National Parks rangers on Monday looking for a graffiti “artist” who has defaced some of the nation’s most prized landmarks, including Yosemite and Death Valley. In theory it should not be difficult, since the miscreant — reportedly an artist named Casey Nocket from New York — posted her work on Instagram. Her account on the photograph-sharing Web site has been deleted, but not before various media outlets including the San Francisco Chronicle got hold of it, publishing exchanges in which she shamelessly defends her work. “It’s art, not vandalism. I am an artist,” she wrote, cited by the Denver Post. In all, she reportedly left her mark in 10 national parks, including Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. The case has already drawn over 10,000 signatures on a White House “We the People” petition, which calls for authorities to “pursue the most serious of charges for these offenses.”
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