UNITED STATES
Intruder dies in chimney
A suspected burglar who attempted to enter a California home through the chimney died on Saturday after the homeowner lit a fire without realizing the intruder was inside, police said. The man appeared to have climbed into the chimney during the night while the owner was away and then became stuck, according to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office. The owner of the home in Huron lit a fire in his fireplace on Saturday afternoon, but then heard a man yelling inside the chimney as the house filled with smoke, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. The homeowner tried to extinguish the flames, but firefighters who dismantled the chimney during a rescue effort found the suspect dead inside, the sheriff’s office said. The deceased man was identified by the coroner’s office as Cody Caldwell, aged 19. The cause of death was determined to be smoke inhalation and burns.
UNITED STATES
Student admits to smuggling
A Canadian college student caught at a border checkpoint in August last year with 51 live turtles in his pants pleaded guilty to six smuggling charges on Tuesday in the US District Court in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Kai Xu, 27, of Windsor, Ontario, admitted to smuggling or trying to smuggle more than 1,600 turtles of different species out of the US from April last year until his arrest in September last year. Each of the six counts carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. In August last year, Xu crossed the US-Canada border into Detroit and was watched by US agents as he picked up a package at a parcel center and appeared to transfer items before heading back to the border, according to a criminal complaint. When he passed back through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, Xu was stopped by Canadian Border Services Agency officials, who found and seized 41 live turtles taped to his legs and 10 hidden between his legs, the complaint said.
UNITED STATES
Thief steals jewels at show
A modern-day Grinch made off with more than US$1 million in jewels from a store in a chic Santa Fe marketplace during the city’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony, police said on Tuesday. Santa Fe police detective Abe Maes said the suspect was caught on surveillance video looking into the front windows of the Divas Diamonds and Jewels store on Friday last week during the tree lighting, which draws hundreds of visitors each year to the Santa Fe Plaza. “It looks like the male suspect cased the store, then took advantage of the crowds during the tree lighting ceremony,” Maes said, adding that the man took jewelry from a display case.
UNITED STATES
Ghost town goes on sale
Just in time for holiday shopping, an entire South Dakota ghost town, complete with its own watering hole, is on sale for US$250,000, a real-estate agent said on Monday. The roughly 2.5 hectare town of Swett includes a tavern, three-bedroom house and a former tire shop about 160km southeast of Rapid City, South Dakota. Realtor Stacie Montgomery said potential buyers have expressed interest from the US and beyond since she first listed the property for sale in June last year, although several written offers fell through and she has since dropped the price from US$399,000 to US$250,000. One of those offers included a call from a Russian movie production company that wanted to film there, she said. Swett’s population peaked at 40 residents in the 1940s when it had a post office and grocery store.
SWEDEN
Size matters, clinic says
Forget reassurances to insecure teens: A Stockholm youth health clinic is handing out special measuring tapes to young men and asking them to size up their penises. The clinic, which caters to youths up to age 23, on Monday said that the initiative was aimed at turning around declining condom use in the country and making sure young men buy the right size condom to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. The specially designed measuring tape, which measures circumference and not length, was to be handed out free of charge at the clinic from Tuesday. “A common reason for a condom slipping off or breaking during sex is that you’ve bought the wrong size... You have to measure the circumference of the penis when erect, not the length,” a male nurse at the clinic, Eddie Sandstrom, said in a podcast on its Web site. Sandstrom told reporters that other awareness campaigns had not succeeded in getting more people to use condoms. “Gonorrhea is on the rise, and the number of chlamydia cases is not falling, despite many awareness campaigns,” he said.
LATVIA
Crooks blow themselves up
Police on Tuesday assured the public that a pre-dawn blast in the capital, Riga, was not a terrorist attack, but a botched attempt to blow up and rob an ATM by filling it with natural gas. The incident, which left one of the suspected robbers dead and the other one in critical condition, occurred at about 4am in the suburb of Bolderaja. A counterterrorism unit quickly established that the blast was related to criminal ineptitude, not terrorism. Police chief Andrejs Grisins told reporters that the blast appeared to have happened before the gang could pump all the gas into the ATM. As a result, the gas cylinder the two were carrying blew up by accident.
GERMANY
Police probe zoo violence
Police on Tuesday said they were investigating the death of a penguin in the Dortmund Zoo, just weeks after a sea lion was mysteriously found dead in its enclosure. The zoo had informed police on Monday that three Humboldt penguins had gone missing, before later finding one of them “dead with injuries” in the flamingo enclosure. The other two penguins remain missing, police said, adding that they were investigating if there had been a “theft of the penguins or whether there had been a violation of the animal welfare act.” Officers have also not ruled out the possibility that the birds simply escaped. The zoo said it would carry out an autopsy on the penguin yesterday, but the latest disappearances came just weeks after a sea lion was found dead in its enclosure. “This is one in a series of similar incidents this year,” the zoo said in a statement. Three pygmy marmosets — the world’s smallest monkeys — and two dwarf agoutis — a type of rodent — were stolen in August, the zoo said, adding that it had since installed security around the clock.
SOUTH AFRICA
Woman tries to sell baby
A mother on Monday pleaded guilty in court to having tried to sell her baby on the Internet for 5,000 rand (US$348), the online news service News24 said. “I admit that my actions were wrongful, unlawful and intentional. I have no defense,” the 20-year-old woman was quoted as saying by News24. Police said the woman was arrested in October following a tip-off from a member of the public who said that a baby was being sold on the Web site Gumtree. She was freed on bail and placed under house arrest.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At 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
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese