UNITED STATES
Kushner registered ‘female’
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top aide, Jared Kushner, has been registered to vote as a woman for eight years, media reports said. A screenshot, published by Wired, of voter information records held by New York state show Kushner was registered as “female.” Prior to 2009, Kushner’s New Jersey voter registration noted his gender as “unknown,” according to The Hill news site. Kushner is one of a number of Trump’s inner circle previously found to have been registered to vote in more than one state during last year’s election, the Washington Post has reported.
EL SALVADOR
‘Missing commission’ set
The government on Wednesday launched the first commission to search for people who went missing during the nation’s 1980 to 1992 civil war. The commission will seek victims who were killed or kidnapped by the military or rebels in order to help reunite them with families or return their remains. People who lost relative have demanded such measures for decades. “With this instrument we reaffirm our deep commitment to pay off the historical debt to the victims of forced disappearances in the country,” said President Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a former guerrilla leader. “We hope that this commission gives something to the mothers because what we want is at least for them to tell us what they did with them,” said Sofia Hernandez, 74, who is looking for a daughter, two brothers and four nephews.
GREECE
Refugees rescued, one dies
More than 20 migrants or refugees were rescued and one child died yesterday on the small southeastern island of Kastellorizo after the boat they sailed from the Turkish coast overnight either capsized or sank, authorities said. The coast guard said a vessel from the European border agency Frontex initially picked up six people it spotted in the sea off Kastellorizo, but one, a nine-year-old girl, died after being taken to a local hospital. A search and rescue operation was launched and crews later found and rescued another 20 people who had managed to swim to a rocky coast on the island.
MEXICO
Fish fall from the sky
Civil defense officials in the state of Tamaulipas said a light rain that fell on Tuesday in the coastal city of Tampico was accompanied by small fish that fell from the sky. Photographs posted on the agency’s Facebook page show four small fish in a bag and another on a sidewalk. Scientists believe that waterspouts could be responsible for sucking fish into the air where they are blown around until being released to the ground.
GERMANY
Donkey versus car in court
The owner of a pricey McLaren sports car is in court to try to get a donkey owner to pony up for an alleged 5,000 euros (US$5,876) in damage caused when the animal chomped the backside of the vehicle. The Deutsche Presse-Agentur yesterday reported the McLaren owner filed a complaint in Giessen state court after the donkey owner refused reimbursement for the incident in September last year. At the time, police said the donkey might have mistaken the orange McLaren that was parked up against his enclosure for a giant carrot when he bit the back, damaging the paint job and a carbon-fiber piece. Local media reported the donkey’s owner told the McLaren owner that he should have picked a better parking place.
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