UNITED STATES
Shark attacks 68-year-old
A shark on Wednesday bit a 68-year-old man several times in waist-deep water in North Carolina, officials said, in the seventh attack in the state’s coastal waters in less than three weeks. The man received wounds to his rib cage, lower leg, hip and both hands as he tried to fight the animal off, local emergency official Justin Gibbs said. The attack happened at about noon at a beach on Ocracoke Island, he said. “The individual was actually located right in front of the lifeguard tower when it occurred,” said Gibbs, who said witnesses reported the shark was about 2m long.
GERMANY
Robot crushes contractor
Human error led to the death of a contractor setting up a robot at a Volkswagen production plant, the automaker said on Wednesday. The man died on Monday in Baunatal, about 100km north of Frankfurt, Volkswagen spokesman Heiko Hillwig said. The 22-year-old’s team was setting up a stationary robot when it grabbed and crushed him against a metal plate, Hillwig said. Initial conclusions indicate that human error was to blame, he said.
ITALY
Man jailed for trafficking
A court on Wednesday found a Tunisian man guilty of trafficking migrants and sentenced him to 18 years in prison for contributing to a 2013 shipwreck that killed 366 people, a judicial source said. A court in Agrigento, Sicily, convicted Khaled Bensalem, 36, of causing the 2013 shipwreck and the deaths of the mainly Eritrean passengers, and of aiding illegal immigration, the source at the Agrigento prosecutors’ office said. The disaster near the southern island of Lampedusa was one of the worst recorded in decades.
UNITED STATES
Leland Yee pleads guilty
A former California state senator has pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge in an organized crime and public corruption case centered in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Leland Yee (余胤良) entered the plea on Wednesday and could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced in October. The FBI arrested Yee and 19 others last year during a series of raids, one of which targeted a Chinese fraternal organization. Yee was accused of soliciting and accepting bribes in exchange for providing help from the state capital, Sacramento. The FBI also alleged that the Democrat conspired to connect an undercover agent with an international arms dealer in exchange for campaign contributions.
UNITED STATES
Drummer denied bail
Journey drummer Deen Castronovo, 50, was high on methamphetamine and hallucinating when he was arrested two weeks ago in Oregon and accused of misdemeanor assault and menacing, his attorney said on Wednesday during a bail hearing. Castronovo’s attorney, Jeffrey Jones, asked a judge to set his bail at US$50,000. Castronovo was released on bail after he was arrested on June 14 and ordered to stay away from a woman who has accused him of rape. Despite the order, prosecutors said Castronovo has texted the woman 122 times and called her 35 times since posting bail, with his messages swinging between contrition and threats. He faces felony charges including sexual abuse. Marion County Circuit Judge Channing Bennett denied bail. “My finding is he has no regard for the court’s order,” Bennett said. “I do find he is a danger to the victim.”
AUSTRALIA
Shark attacks surfer
A 32-year-old surfer was critically injured yesterday by a shark in the same coastal town where a Japanese tourist was killed in February, police said. The man was surfing with two friends at Light House Beach in Ballina, a tourist town about 600km north of Sydney, when he was bitten by a shark, “suffering significant injuries to his lower legs,” a police statement said. Friends of the victim, whose name has not been released, helped him to shore before he was flown by helicopter 100km north to Gold Coast Hospital, police said. Police have released no details about the shark.
CAMBODIA
Ex-leaders begin appeals
Two former Khmer Rouge leaders yesterday began appeal hearings against their landmark convictions last year for crimes against humanity which saw them handed life sentences by a UN-backed court. “Brother No. 2” Nuon Chea, 88, and ex-head of state Khieu Samphan, 83, were the first top leaders of a regime responsible for the deaths of up to 2 million people to be jailed. However, their lawyers appealed, with Nuon Chea’s team accusing the court of a string of errors and the judges of failing to remain impartial due to their personal experiences under the communist regime from 1975 to 1979. Appeal judgements are expected during the first quarter of next year.
BANGLADESH
Police foil militant attack
Police yesterday said they had arrested 12 suspected militants and foiled an attack planned for the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The Rapid Action Battalion also seized explosives and other bomb-making materials during raids on Wednesday on the militants’ hideouts in the capital, Dhaka, spokesman Major Maksudul Alam said. The militant group had been planning an unspecified attack after Eid al-Fitr, which celebrates the end of Ramadan, Commander Mufti Mahmud Khan, the most senior battalion spokesman, told reporters. “They have selected a madrasah in [the northern district of] Bogra for training,” he said.
AUSTRALIA
HIV risk for dental patients
Up to 11,000 dental patients yesterday were urged to see their doctors amid fears that they might have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis due to hygiene breaches at clinics in Sydney. New South Wales (NSW) Health said 12 dentists from four clinics were accused of poor cleaning and equipment sterilization practices and advised patients to get blood tests for HIV as well as hepatitis A, B and C as a precaution. While NSW Health Director of Health Protection Jeremy McAnulty said no cases had been found so far and the risk of transmission was low, there was concern about people who had undergone invasive procedures.
CHINA
Ten Koreans die in accident
A bus carrying a group of South Koreans fell off a highway bridge in the northeast, killing 10, officials said yesterday. The incident took place on Wednesday after the vehicle left Jian and was about halfway to its destination of Dandong, which borders North Korea, Xinhua news agency said. South Korean officials said 26 South Koreans were on the bus as part of a 140-person delegation of mainly government employees. They were on a tour of historical sites, including places where Korean independence fighters resisted Japan’s colonial rule before the end of World War II, officials from the South Korean Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was