UNITED STATES
Transgender teen crowned
A transgender Maine teen who was crowned homecoming king at his new school said he wants to use the attention to spread love and tolerance. Noble High School in North Berwick named Stiles Zuschlag homecoming king on Friday. He came out as a transgender male in 2015. Zuschlag said he transferred to Noble after he was asked to leave Tri-City Christian Academy in Somersworth, New Hampshire, because of his gender identity. His story has been widely circulated on social media since he was crowned homecoming king. He said he has received some blowback, but he has “done nothing, but spread awareness and love.”
BRAZIL
Officials start probes of sect
Authorities said they have launched several investigations connected to two local branches of Word of Faith Fellowship, a secretive evangelical sect based in North Carolina. Authorities are investigating whether a picture framing factory connected to the Franco da Rocha-based church broke labor laws. Investigators have said they are also probing how land bought in the name of that branch ended up being legally owned by two pastors. The investigations were spurred by reports in July detailing allegations that the Word of Faith Fellowship funneled young Brazilians congregants to the US and forced them to work at church-affiliated businesses for little or no pay.
HUNGARY
Minister slams Ukraine law
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto yesterday said he would ask the EU to revise its association agreement with Ukraine, claiming its new language law limits the rights of minorities. Szijjarto said that increasing international pressure is the only way to get Ukraine to change the law, affecting about 150,000 ethnic Hungarians and other minorities, including Russians, Romanians and Moldovans. Kiev said the law signed last month by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko strengthens Ukrainian-language education while protecting minority rights.
UNITED STATES
Flavor dedicated to refugees
A New York ice creamery is dedicating a new ice cream flavor to Syrian refugees and donating part of the profits to efforts to help them. The Adirondack Creamery in Saratoga Springs said its new flavor is inspired by a popular Syrian pastry called ma’amoul. The New York Times reported that the ice cream combines dates and walnuts into a sweetened confection. A pint of the new flavor has calls for unity plastered all over, including the word “peace” in English, Arabic and Hebrew. The newspaper reported that 50 percent of the profit made from each pint would be donated to the International Rescue Committee’s efforts to assist Syrian refugees. Pints of the new flavor are available at multiple stores and online.
THE VATICAN
Pope to call astronauts
Pope Francis is to get closer to the heavens this month when he puts in a call to the International Space Station. The Vatican on Monday said the pope would make the call at 5pm on Oct. 26. It gave no further details, but Francis has supported the work of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which regularly brings together scientists from around the world to exchange views on topics such as climate change.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of