UNITED STATES
Lottery winners lay low
Three ticket holders with a claim on a record US$1.6 billion Powerball jackpot were laying low on Thursday, their identities officially still a mystery even as lottery officials revealed the retailers in California, Florida and Tennessee that sold them the lucky tickets. Each of the winning tickets is worth US$528.8 million to the holders, lottery officials said in California, one of 44 states plus Washington and two US territories that sold millions of Powerball tickets. The winning numbers appeared on tickets sold in three stores: a 7-Eleven convenience store in Chino Hills, California, a Publix supermarket in Melbourne Beach, Florida, and Naifeh’s Food Mart in Munford, Tennessee.
MEXICO
Two bodies found
The country’s attorney general said two bodies were found in the past few days in Guerrero state where 43 students disappeared in September 2014. Arely Gomez said investigators have begun the forensic process of identifying the skeletal remains. She said on Thursday that the remains were found in the area between Cocula and Iguala, the city where the students disappeared while hijacking buses in a confrontation with police. The government said the police, in conjunction with a local drug cartel, killed the students and burned them in a huge pyre. An international commission discredited that account and the attorney general’s office continues the search for the students.
AZORES
Rare hurricane forms
Hurricane Alex formed in the Atlantic near the Azores on Thursday, becoming the first such storm in January in nearly 80 years, US forecasters said. The US National Hurricane Center said the storm was packing winds of 140km per hour as it moved toward the Azores. At around 9pm GMT, Alex was about 560km south of the archipelago, the center said. Hurricane warnings have been issued in the central portion of the Portuguese island chain, in the eastern Atlantic. The center said it was the first time a hurricane has formed in January in the Atlantic since 1938.
GUATEMALA
TV comic becomes president
Jimmy Morales, a former TV comic elected Guatemala’s new president on a wave of public revulsion against widespread graft, took office on Thursday in a ceremony attended by leaders from the Americas. Invitees to the swearing-in included US Vice President Joe Biden, and the presidents of Mexico, Ecuador and most Central American nations. Spain’s former king Juan Carlos also attended. “Not tolerating corruption or theft, that is something we can do and what we are going to do from the first day,” Morales, 46, said as he accepted the presidential sash.
FRANCE
British ex-soldier fined
A French court has convicted a British ex-soldier of endangerment for trying to sneak a four-year-old Afghan girl into Britain, but dropped a tougher smuggling charge and handed him a suspended fine. The conviction on Thursday appeared to be a symbolic punishment and a victory for Rob Lawrie, who apologized for what he called an “irrational” move. He was given a suspended 1,000 euro (US$1,090) fine. That means he does not have to pay the money, but it goes on his criminal record in France. Lawrie, who has been volunteering with migrants in Calais, was caught in October trying to take the girl to relatives in Britain, at her father’s request.
THAILAND
Yingluck trial begins
Ousted prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra went on trial yesterday over a costly rice subsidy policy that could see her jailed for a decade, as the ruling junta seeks to ward off a political comeback by her family. Yingluck, the country’s first female prime minister, was booted from office by a court days before coup leader General Prayuth Chan-ocha seized power in May 2014. She faces charges of negligence over a multi-billion-dollar rice subsidy scheme which paid farmers up to twice the market rate for their crop.
CAMBODIA
CI touts elephant program
Rare footage of an elephant herd roaming through Cambodia’s biggest forest sanctuary signals the success of a 14-year conservation program and raises hopes for the endangered species’ survival, an environment group said yesterday. The camera trap footage, taken in the spectacular and remote Cardamom Mountains, shows 12 elephants, including young, grazing and lumbering through the forest. Conservation International (CI) released the footage yesterday as it launched a trust fund that aims to secure long-term funding for the program in the Cardamoms, one of Southeast Asia’s most biodiverse areas.
SOUTH KOREA
Defense officials meet
Ministry of Defense officials discussed North Korea’s latest nuclear test with their Chinese counterparts yesterday, as pressure intensified on Beijing to take a tougher line with ally Pyongyang. The director-level defense talks are held every year, but were completely overshadowed this time around by the North’s fourth nuclear test last week, which triggered global condemnation and the promise of fresh UN sanctions. “China expressed its willingness to take part in adopting a UN Security Council sanctions resolution,” the head of the delegation, Yoon Soon-ku, told reporters afterward. “China reiterated that it thoroughly rejects the North’s nuclear development and nuclear testing,” Yoon said.
SOMALIA
Al-Shabaab attack base
Heavily armed fighters from the Islamic extremist group al-Shabaab attacked a base for African Union peacekeepers in the southwest yesterday, blasting their way into the compound and exchanging fire with peacekeepers, military official Ahmed Hassan said. Dozens of al-Shabaab fighters started a complex attack on the military base, which is run by Kenyan troops who are part of the African Union force in the town of El-Ade, Hassan said. The attack started with a suicide car bomb, and then heavy gunfire was heard as militants stormed into the base, he said.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
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