CHINA
All 33 trapped miners dead
All 33 coal miners trapped underground in a gas explosion earlier this week in Chongqing have been found dead, state media reported yesterday, as work safety officials vowed to punish those responsible. Two miners survived Monday’s explosion, but rescuers working around the clock found no others alive. All bodies have been recovered and rescuers were shown bowing their heads in memorial for the dead. The State Administration of Work Safety ordered an investigation into the blast, “adding that those responsible must be strictly punished.”
FRANCE
Halloween extremist arrested
Police early on Tuesday arrested a young man celebrating Halloween after passers-by alerted them to a menacing figure brandishing a rifle and shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”). The rifle turned out to be fake and the 26-year-old suspect, who was dressed in black and khaki, told investigators he did not understand what the problem was, a police source in the city of Toulouse said. The man said he had just dressed up for a night out, telling investigators: “You can do anything on Halloween.”
UNITED STATES
Man kills coworker’s child
A man has been arrested on suspicion of fatally stabbing his coworker’s three-year-old daughter at their workplace in downtown Los Angeles. The woman picked her daughter up from daycare and brought her to work at a garment factory on Monday. When the woman stepped away from her work station, the Los Angeles Police Department said a coworker began stabbing the girl without warning. The girl, known as “Baby Ruby,” died at a hospital. Thirty-four-year-old Ricardo Augusto Utuy was arrested and booked on a murder charge.
UNITED STATES
Teacher’s foul talk fined
A New Jersey high school teacher is to forfeit 120 days’ pay for discussing stripping and prostitution with female students during a photography class in January last year. The Home News Tribune reported that an arbiter dismissed other charges that accused Thomas Strassle of requesting sexual favors from students for money. Strassle is a tenured teacher at Old Bridge High School with an annual salary of US$106,778. One student testified that a classmate said a fast way to make money was to start stripping and Strassle, considered a “cool teacher,” then asked if the girls would do anything for money “with someone around his age.” Another student testified that Strassle was not being serious.
UNITED STATES
Outhouse users vote Clinton
A week before election day, a New Hampshire farm stand owner has decided to tally customers’ votes for president from an outhouse-turned-fake-voting booth. The winner: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rhodham Clinton. Chris Owens, of Ashland, built the device with mannequins of Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and toilets to cast ballots. With 721 ballots cast in the past month or so, the results of the Outhouse Vote are 413 votes for Clinton and 165 for Trump. There were 101 votes combined for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, 40 write-in votes for Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, and two votes for Pinocchio. Regarding the Pinocchio votes, Owens said: “At least we know when they’re lying.”
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
French singer Kendji Girac, who was seriously injured by a gunshot this week, wanted to “fake” his suicide to scare his partner who was threatening to leave him, prosecutors said on Thursday. The 27-year-old former winner of France’s version of The Voice was found wounded after police were called to a traveler camp in Biscarrosse on France’s southwestern coast. Girac told first responders he had accidentally shot himself while tinkering with a Colt .45 automatic pistol he had bought at a junk shop, a source said. On Thursday, regional prosecutor Olivier Janson said, citing the singer, that he wanted to “fake” his suicide
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other