UNITED KINGDOM
The Strangelove suite
It has no windows — but offers unrestricted views of Armageddon. Northern Ireland is selling its Cold War-era nuclear bunker, an underground installation with room for 235 beds that sellers imagine could be transformed into a tourist attraction or blast-proof storage facility. For £575,000 (US$835,403), the successful buyer could acquire a 4,300m2 grass-topped building discretely situated on 1.51 hectares of rolling fields northwest of Belfast. The facility includes a conference room and broadcasting suite. Its existence was a state secret until 2007.
UNITED STATES
Photo booth captures thief
A photo booth snapped several photographs of a man who allegedly stole US$75 out of the booth at the Funway Amusements arcade and bowling alley in Batavia, Illinois. Police distributed the photographs on Thursday and asked the public to call if they recognize the suspect. “With this machine, if you try to manipulate or damage it in any way, it snaps a picture of you, which is odd because it’s a photo machine,” Batavia police detective Kevin Bretz said. “I don’t think he paid for the pictures,” Bretz said.
UNITED STATES
Sea lion takes a seat
A skinny sea lion pup with a taste for the finer things in life on Thursday turned up inside a fancy San Diego restaurant, where it settled down into a booth. The malnourished mammal appears to have arrived at The Marine Room after sauntering down a ramp from the beach and going through a door left open by a cleaning crew, Chef Bernard Guillas said. The early morning guest quickly made an impression on the establishment’s staff, as the female pup climbed into a booth “almost like she wanted to have dinner,” the chef said. However, the pup was hardly given a chance to get comfortable. A rescue team from the SeaWorld San Diego theme park was called in to pull the mammal from the booth. It was then taken to SeaWorld for care, tourist center spokesman David Koontz said. The lethargic pup is eight months old and weighs only 9kg, less than half the normal size for its age, Koontz said.
ITALY
Boss cleared over ‘humor’
An Italian man accused of groping female colleagues is not guilty of sexual harassment because he was driven by an immature sense of humor rather than a desire for sexual gratification, a court in Sicily ruled. The ruling drew wide condemnation. The court said it was proven he had behaved as the women alleged, but acquitted him nonetheless. The judges said the contact was not “lascivious” and the boss was not touching his staff for sexual pleasure. “Objectively, it was brought on by an immature and inappropriate sense of humor, mixed in with a veiled abuse of power and an albeit improper way of establishing hierarchical relationships in the office,” the court said.
UNITED STATES
Musician Maurice White dies
Maurice White, the founder and leader of Earth, Wind & Fire, has died. White died at home in Los Angeles on Wednesday, his brother Verdine White said. He was 74. A former session drummer, White founded Earth, Wind & Fire in the late 1960s. The group went on to sell more than 90 million albums worldwide. The band’s many hits included September, Shining Star, a cover of The Beatles’ Got to Get You Into My Life and Boogie Wonderland. The band won six Grammys and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.
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
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
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