INDIA
Cows get visibility strips
Police are sticking glow-in-the-dark strips on the horns of stray cattle to prevent motorists from crashing into the animals as they wander across roads at night, an officer said on Tuesday. Following a spate of road accidents, traffic police in one district of Madhya Pradesh have stuck orange radium reflective bands on the horns of 300 cows and bulls to help drivers spot them. “Many drivers injured themselves or killed the cattle after running over them at night,” Kailash Chauhan, traffic police inspector for Balaghat District told reporters. “There was an urgent need to prevent such accidents.” Because of the success of the scheme, officers say they now plan to buy permanent radium paint to cover cows’ horns, as the plastic bands only last for a few weeks.
FRANCE
False teeth removed
An elderly man has been hospitalized in serious condition after his false teeth reportedly were stuck in his throat for six days. The Dunkirk Hospital on Tuesday said that it is investigating how its personnel handled the treatment of 85-year-old Roland Marissael. La Voix du Nord newspaper reported that staff at the Dunkirk Hospital and Cambrai Hospital Center thought he had lung problems or dementia and refused to check his throat. Marissael’s sons, Jean-Jacques and Jean-Luc, are quoted as saying they repeatedly told medics that he had accidentally swallowed his dentures. The report says that an X-ray eventually revealed the false teeth were trapped in the octogenarian’s vocal cords, and surgeons immediately removed them.
GAZA STRIP
Charity animals from zoo
An international animal welfare charity has removed 15 animals rescued from the territory’s main zoo, dubbed “the worst in the world.” Four Paws International is to resettle the animals from the Khan Younis Zoo abroad. The rescue was announced last week. The removal of the animals, completed yesterday, effectively closed the zoo. Most of the animals are headed to Jordan, while a tiger was to go to South Africa. The rescued animals include monkeys, an emu, a pelican and a porcupine.
SAUDI ARABIA
Attack reported foiled
Security forces have foiled a planned suicide attack on a mosque in the Qatif region, where many Shiite Muslims live, al-Arabiya news channel and other media reported early yesterday. The satellite channel said security forces killed one man who was wearing an explosive belt and arrested another. Neither man was a Saudi citizen, al-Arabiya said. Asharq al-Awsat newspaper said the second man was wounded after a gunfight.
UNITED STATES
Dog re-elected as mayor
The four-legged mayor of a northwestern Minnesota village greets voters like a true politician. Duke, a nine-year-old Great Pyrenees, won a third one-year term as honorary mayor of Cormorant Township on Saturday last week. The big, shaggy white dog was overwhelmingly re-elected at the sixth annual Cormorant Daze Festival. Anyone could pay US$1 and cast a vote. Cormorant resident Karen Nelson says Duke “greets everyone” who comes to the village of about 20 people nestled among lakes northwest of Minneapolis. Nelson says the canine mayor also is popular with children. She says Duke “can have 10 kids on him, and he don’t care.” Duke was first elected in a write-in vote in 2014.
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
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number