UNITED STATES
Flight diverted on sick pilot
An American Airlines flight from Phoenix, Arizona, to Boston was diverted to Syracuse, New York, on Monday morning after the captain became ill and later died, according to an airline spokeswoman. Andrea Huguely said Flight 550 left Phoenix at 11:55pm local time and was diverted mid-flight, landing shortly after 7am EDT. She said that after the flight’s captain was stricken, the first officer safely landed the airplane with 147 passengers and five crew members onboard. Details of the medical emergency and the identity of the deceased pilot were not immediately released. It also was not clear when the pilot died.
SWEDEN
Henning Mankell dies at 67
Best-selling Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell, whose detective character Kurt Wallander became a worldwide phenomenon, has died at 67 after a battle with cancer, his publisher said on Monday. Mankell, who first revealed he had cancer in January last year, “died in his sleep early this morning” in Gothenburg, his publisher Leopard said on its Web site. Mankell’s collection of dark novels about Swedish police inspector Wallander brought the author international fame after it was made into a television series by the BBC starring Oscar-nominated actor and director Kenneth Branagh. Mankell, who shared his time between Sweden and Mozambique, published more than 40 novels, plays and children’s books, selling about 40 million copies around the world.
NORWAY
Cactuses at risk of extinction
Almost a third of cactuses are at risk of extinction because of threats including illegal trade and a spread of farms in arid areas, making the spiny plants among the most vulnerable species, scientists said on Monday. The study said 31 percent of 1,478 types of cactus assessed were at risk of extinction — a higher rate than the 25 percent of mammals or 12 percent of birds that are rated as vulnerable to dying out because of human pressures. As a group of plants or animals, cactuses were the fifth-most threatened behind cycads, amphibians, corals and conifers, the study said.
UNITED STATES
California allows euthanasia
California became the fifth state to allow physician-assisted suicide, after the governor on Monday signed a controversial bill letting terminally-ill patients seek a doctor’s help to end their lives. Governor Jerry Brown, in a statement, said he consulted members of the Catholic Church, which is opposed to measure, as well as physicians, before making the decision. The bill makes California the fifth state to allow assisted suicide after Montana, Oregon, Washington and Vermont. A New Mexico judge last year approved assisted suicide, but his decision was later struck down by an appeals court.
UNITED STATES
Boy shoots girl over puppies
An 11-year-old eastern Tennessee boy was in custody for murder on Monday for shooting and killing an eight-year-old female neighbor with a shotgun, because she would not show him her puppies, authorities said. The unidentified boy was talking to three girls who were outside his mobile home on Saturday evening and asked one of them if he could see her two new puppies, but the girl refused, according to Jefferson County Sheriff G.W. McCoig. The boy retrieved his father’s 12-gauge shotgun, shot the girl in the chest from the window, and then threw the weapon outside by the girl’s body, McCoig said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not