UNITED STATES
Lummi totem tour begins
A Pacific Northwest tribe has begun a 4,800km road trip with a 6.7m-tall totem pole in tow. The Lummi Nation embarked on its fourth “totem journey” since 2012 to galvanize opposition to coal and crude oil projects it says could imperil native lands. The US Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for the Cherry Point project earlier this year over concerns it would affect the Lummi Nation’s treaty-protected fishing rights. This year, the focus is on the Millennium coal export terminal proposed for Longview, Washington, along the Columbia River. It would be the largest such terminal in the US.
UNITED STATES
Boy buys police lunch
A five-year-old boy in New Jersey has picked up the lunch tab for his police department. William Evertz Jr saved up his allowance for seven months and went to a Subway restaurant on Wednesday to get sandwiches for officers in Winslow Township, a suburb of Philadelphia. His mother said he told her he wanted the officers to rest so they could protect the town. Police made the boy an honorary officer and gave him a special shirt and badges. He also got a ride home in a police car with lights and siren.
ARGENTINA
General sentenced to life
A retired general has received another life sentence for killings, kidnappings and torture committed during the crackdown on leftists decades ago. Eighty-nine-year-old Luciano Benjamin Menendez is already serving several other life sentences for human rights violations. Thursday’s verdict is for 282 disappearances, 52 homicides, 260 kidnappings and multiple cases of torture at a clandestine military base in Cordoba. The repression of suspected leftists began under former president Isabel Martinez de Peron and continued during the 1976 to 1983 military dictatorship. Former Army Captains Hector Pedro Vergez and Ernesto Barreiro also were sentenced to life. They directly oversaw the La Perla-La Ribera torture center.
RUSSIA
Cat adopts squirrel monkey
A Russian cat has adopted a baby squirrel monkey after he was abandoned by his mother at a zoo, comforting the little primate by letting him cling to her back for warmth. Tatyana Antropova, the director of the zoo in the Siberian city of Tyumen, said she took the newborn monkey home three weeks ago after his mother refused to carry him on her back. To Antropova’s surprise, her 16-year-old cat Rosinka accepted the baby, who is called Fyodor. By now, though, the elderly cat is getting a bit tired of the little monkey because he “is getting naughty” and “has started biting and pinching her.” The cat just has to hold out for another month, when Fyodor will go back to the zoo to live with other squirrel monkeys.
NEPAL
Bus crash into river kills 20
At least 20 people were killed and 17 hurt yesterday, when a bus drove off a highway in Nepal and plunged into a river, police said. Police officials said the bus rolled about 100m down the slope early yesterday and crashed into the fast-flowing Trishuli River near Chandibhanjyang, about 120km west of Kathmandu. Police and villagers were helping the injured and pulling the dead from wreckage, which was mostly submerged in the river. Police are investigating the cause of the pre-dawn accident. Earlier this month, an overcrowded bus veered off a mountain trail in eastern Nepal, killing at least 33 people and injuring 28.
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