UNITED STATES
AI beats top poker players
Artificial intelligence (AI) has made history by beating humans in poker for the first time, the last remaining game in which humans had managed to maintain the upper hand. Libratus, an AI built by Carnegie Mellon University, racked up more than US$1.7 million in chips against four of the top professional poker players in the world in a 20-day marathon poker tournament that ended on Tuesday in Philadelphia. “The best AI’s ability to do strategic reasoning with imperfect information has now surpassed that of the best humans,” computer science professor Tuomas Sandholm, who created Libratus with doctoral student Noam Brown, said on Wednesday.
UNITED STATES
Bobcat Ollie returns to zoo
After an elusive feline from Washington’s National Zoological Park triggered a three-day cat hunt — and an online sensation — Ollie the bobcat on Wednesday ventured home on her own terms. The seven-year-old, 12kg female went missing early on Monday from her enclosure in the capital, apparently after slipping through a hole in the fencing. Ollie ultimately turned up near the zoo’s birdhouse, where keepers successfully captured her and took her for a checkup with veterinarians. “We’re just over the moon happy,” said Craig Saffoe, curator of big cats at the zoo. “I think she was ready to come home.” A team of zookeepers, police officers and animal rescue workers had deemed their search futile just hours earlier.
MEXICO
Police find bodies of six men
Police found the bodies of six men reportedly kidnapped by an armed gang in the southern state of Guerrero, state prosecutor Xavier Olea said on Wednesday. Two women who were kidnapped along with the six men were released alive, Olea said, but added that the women “are in a state of shock, they are very afraid” and had not yet spoken to investigators. The kidnappings were reported Monday, Olea said, adding that the bodies were apparently found on Tuesday in a rural mountain community north of Acapulco, an area that has been the scene of turf battles involving drug gangs and vigilante “community police” forces.
SLOVAKIA
Fico unveils anti-terror unit
Prime Minister Robert Fico on Wednesday unveiled a special police unit to fight extremism, warning about the rise of fascism in Europe and Slovakia. The 125-strong unit is to investigate crimes related to support and funding of terrorism and extremism, hate crimes and hate speech, both online and off-line, the police said. In an electoral shock, the far-right People’s Party-Our Slovakia last year entered parliament for the first time after winning 8 percent of the vote in a March election. The party openly admires Jozef Tiso, leader of the 1939-1945 Nazi puppet state who allowed tens of thousands of Slovak Jews to be deported to Nazi death camps.
NIGERIA
Lagos restores death penalty
Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on Wednesday signed a law authorizing the death penalty for anyone convicted in a kidnapping where the victim dies, saying it would help halt a spate of abductions for ransom. The central government signed a moratorium to stop executions seven years ago, but that has been breached in Edo State, where three men convicted of armed robbery were hanged in December last year and four convicted criminals were hanged in 2013.
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
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
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not