TURKEY
Bootleg alcohol kills 28
Twenty-eight people have died after drinking bootleg versions of raki in what appears to be the country’s worst-ever bout of alcohol poisoning, media said on Thursday. The death toll has been steadily climbing over the past two weeks, with scores of people being admitted to hospital in Istanbul complaining of vomiting, dizziness, headache and loss of eyesight. The victims had all consumed raki that health authorities believe had been infused with lethal quantities of methanol. Fourteen people were arrested on Saturday last week, charged with involuntary homicide for producing or supplying the spiked booze, and police have launched a nationwide crackdown, seizing thousands of bottles.
AUSTRIA
Cash shredded before death
An 85-year-old woman cut almost 1 million euros (US$1.1 million) into tiny pieces in an apparent attempt to spite her heirs, authorities said on Thursday. After the woman died, the 950,000 euros, as well as savings accounts books, were found shredded on her bed, prosecutors said. State prosecutor Erich Habitzl confirmed the discovery — first reported in the Kurier daily — but said that there was nothing he could do for the relatives. “The damage of the money in the woman’s property is not a criminal matter, so we have not begun any investigation,” Habitzl said. However, Kurier reported that the central bank said it would replace all the cash. “If the heirs can only find shreds of money and if the origin of the money is assured, then of course it can all be replaced,” a bank official told the newspaper.
UNITED STATES
School attack ‘not terrorism’
A student who stabbed and hurt four people at the University of California, Merced before being shot by police appears to have been motivated by personal animosities unrelated to terrorism or a political agenda, officials said on Thursday. The suspect, identified as 18-year-old Faisal Mohammad, on Wednesday stabbed two students in a classroom before fleeing and wounding a staff member and construction worker. He was pursued by police, who shot and killed him. The FBI carried out a comprehensive check on both the suspect and his family, but “found nothing other than his criminal behavior,” Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said.
BRAZIL
Prison mouse mule busted
Police busted jail inmates who had trained a mouse to move cocaine and marijuana by tying them to its tail, an official said on Thursday. Officers spotted the rodent with a hook tied to its tail during a routine inspection on Friday last week, said Gean Carlos Gomes, director of the facility in Tocantins. “He was so tame he let his head be stroked,” Gomes said. “Then the officers noticed that the mouse was going from cellblock A to cellblock C. The prisoners had tied a wire to its tail and were using it to carry drugs and other objects, such as a mobile telephone chip.” The mouse has been released in a nearby forest.
IRELAND
Menstrual cycles tweeted
Women are tweeting details of their menstrual cycles to Prime Minister Enda Kenny to call for a repeal to the nation’s restrictive abortion laws. “Since we know how much the Irish state cares about our reproductive parts, I think it’s only fair that the women of Ireland let our leader @EndaKennyTD know the full details of our menstrual cycle,” comedian Grainne Maguire said in a tweet this week to launch a campaign that has gone viral.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion