INDIA
Killer tiger electrocuted
A tiger that killed four villagers has died after being electrocuted, an official said yesterday, ending a hunt by armed rangers for the animal. A court in Maharashtra State on Friday issued a shoot-to-kill order against the two-year-old female tiger after its latest victim, a woman, died earlier this month. However, efforts to capture or kill the tiger were called off after it strayed against an electric fence near a village early on Saturday, Pench Tiger Reserve field director Rishikesh Ranjan said. “She died at 2:30am after getting electrocuted. We have recovered the body,” he said. “The fencing was erected by the villagers to keep away wild animals, especially boars.”
GERMANY
Lower Saxony heads to polls
The state of Lower Saxony was holding elections yesterday that looked likely to hand the Social Democrats (SPD) a narrow victory, and deprive Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives of a boost in looming national coalition talks. Voters disgruntled with Merkel’s liberal migrant policy abandoned her party in droves in last month’s national election; having recorded the worst conservative result since 1949, she must try to piece together an awkward alliance with the pro-business Free Democrats and environmentalist Greens. Those parties are this week to begin discussions that could drag into next year about entering a marriage of convenience untested at the federal level.
UNITED STATES
Flynt looks for dirt on Trump
Pornography publisher Larry Flynt is offering “up to US$10 million” to anyone who produces information that leads to President Donald Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. He laid out the offer in a full-page ad in yesterday’s edition of the Washington Post. During last year’s presidential campaign, Flynt dangled US$1 million to anyone who could turn over video or audio capturing Trump behaving in an illegal or sexually demeaning manner. That followed the release of the 2005 Access Hollywood video in which Trump bragged of imposing himself on women. In yesterday’s ad, Flynt asked for any “smoking gun” that is fit to publish and drives Trump from office.
KYRGYZSTAN
Vote likely to produce runoff
The nation yesterday began voting in a presidential election with no candidate expected to win outright and observers predicting a close run-off between two pro-Russian candidates, one of whom is backed by the outgoing leader. The mainly Muslim nation of 6 million people is already a close ally of Moscow and hosts a Russian military base, helping it project power across the region where China and the US also vie for influence.
UNITED STATES
Wildfires roar back to life
Rising winds fanned the California wildfires again on Saturday, forcing hundreds more people to flee from their homes in the state’s fabled wine country and threatening to undo the efforts of crews who have spent days trying to corral the flames behind firebreaks. Just a day after firefighters reported making significant progress, the winds kicked up and pushed flames into the hills at the edge of Sonoma, a town of 11,000. About 400 homes were evacuated in Sonoma and a portion of Santa Rosa that included a retirement community that evacuated earlier this week, authorities said.
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
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
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the