HAITI
Parliament backs PM choice
Parliament on Friday approved the interim leader’s second nominee for prime minister, taking a critical step toward concluding postponed elections. The lower house Chamber of Deputies voted in favor of Enex Jean-Charles serving as a transitional government’s prime minister with a 78-1 vote. Two deputies abstained. The Senate unanimously ratified Jean-Charles’ policy statement late on Thursday. President Jocelerme Privert chose the US-educated administrative law professor and veteran presidential adviser earlier this week after his first choice, economist Fritz Jean, was rejected by a majority of deputies.
UNITED STATES
Colleges report hate hack
Several colleges across the nation are investigating after a rash of anti-Semitic fliers began printing from their network-connected printers or fax machines. The fliers began to appear on Thursday at institutions including Princeton University; Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island; the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “Princeton attaches great importance to mutual respect and we deplore expressions of hatred directed against any individual or group,” the university’s vice provost for institutional equity and inclusion Michele Minter said in a statement. Robert Trestan, director of the New England office of the Anti-Defamation League, said a white-power group appears to have hacked into university printers. He said that was a new tactic for such a group. The fliers are addressed to “white men” and disparage Jewish people. They include links to a neo-Nazi Web site. Trestan said the founder of the Web site previously urged supporters to “troll” perceived enemies, including a Jewish member of the British Parliament, Luciana Berger, on Twitter. He said other affected universities include Smith College in Massachusetts; the University of California, Santa Cruz; Northeastern University in Boston; the University of Rhode Island; the University of Connecticut; DePaul University in Chicago; and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
UNITED STATES
‘Planet Snoop’ launched
Snoop Dogg heard the call of the wild, and he responded. The rapper is providing commentary for nature and other videos on Planet Snoop, a new series on his Merry Jane Web site. The world learned of Snoop Dogg’s skill as a nature host when his parodies of the Plant Earth documentary series aired on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live. A petition titled “Get Snoop Dogg to Narrate Whole Season of Planet Earth” drew more than 75,000 signatures, according to the Web site, and “Planet Snoop” was born.
UNITED STATES
Anchorage man sentenced
A 45-year-old Anchorage man has been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for attempted sexual exploitation of children and attempted foreign travel for illicit sexual conduct. Federal prosecutors in an announcement said Jason Jayavarman attempted to arrange a child sex tourism trip for himself and others to Cambodia. He was convicted in March last year. Prosecutors at Jayavarman’s trial presented evidence that he made 12 trips to Cambodia before his arrest in 2013 and made videos of himself engaging in sexual acts with a person he believed was a child. An undercover FBI agent collected evidence indicating Jayavarman planned another trip for himself and others and explained to a potential traveler how to groom a child for sex and avoid arrest.
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