MEXICO
Falling backhoe kills two
A heavy construction vehicle on Wednesday plunged onto a congested road outside Mexico City, killing two people and injuring six more. The Mexico State Government said in a statement that the backhoe fell from a height of about 10m and struck five passing passenger cars. Surveillance camera video obtained by newspaper El Universal showed the bulk of the vehicle landing on a white-and-pink minivan in stop-and-go traffic, flattening it amid a cloud of dust. The operator of the backhoe was one of the two killed, while an eight-year-old girl was among the injured who were taken to a hospital for treatment. The state government said the vehicle was involved in construction of a two-lane bridge. An investigation has been launched.
PHILIPPINES
Officials boost cybersecurity
The government is beefing up cybersecurity measures prior to the expected entry of Chinese firms in the telecom industry, the president’s spokesman said yesterday, amid concerns that national security could be at risk. Several senators have spoken out about allowing Chinese state-run firms to build and manage crucial Internet and telecom infrastructure, given the two nations’ history of bitter mistrust and Beijing’s reputation for technological expertise. “They should not worry, because the government is already worried,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque told a regular news briefing. Regulators have been ordered to take all measures to protect the country’s cybersecurity with the likely entry of China Telecom, Roque added.
SOUTH KOREA
‘Nut rage’ exec avoids jail
A former Korean Air Lines executive who went into a rage on an aircraft over the way she was served nuts in first class avoided jail yesterday when the Supreme Court upheld her 10-month suspended sentence. Heather Cho had been charged with contraventions of aviation law in 2015 after she took issue with the way she was served nuts and forced the Korean Air Lines plane to return to its gate at a New York airport in December 2014. The incident became a national scandal, as Cho is the daughter of the chairman of Hanjin Group, the conglomerate of which Korean Air is an affiliate. Cho stepped down from her role as Korean Air Lines vice president and attempted to apologize to crew members. The Supreme Court upheld an appeals court ruling that said forcing a plane on the ground to return to its gate cannot be seen as “route deviation,” but found Cho guilty of abusive language and actions against cabin crew and forcing a crew member to disembark. Cho was originally sentenced to one year in jail, but has been free from custody since May 2015, when the appeals court suspended her sentence.
UNITED STATES
Five-year-old shoots himself
A five-year-old boy who was last year struck in the face by a stray bullet fired during a drive-by shooting accidentally shot himself in the hand this week with a gun his father had obtained illegally, Chicago police said on Wednesday. Kavan Collins found the loaded, uncased gun under a mattress in an upstairs bedroom and shot himself on Tuesday evening in the finger, police said. The boy’s father, Kevin Collins, was arrested late on Wednesday on several felony gun charges and six misdemeanor counts of child endangerment. The child was listed in good condition at Comer Children’s Hospital — the same hospital he was taken to in June last year, when he was shot in the face as he and his mother walked down the street on the city’s South Side.
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