UNITED STATES
Actor Verne Troyer dies
The diminutive actor who starred in the Austin Powers movies as “Mini Me,” Verne Troyer, died on Saturday at a hospital in Los Angeles. He was 49. The cause of death was not announced, but the family wrote that “depression and suicide are very serious issues… You never know what kind of battle someone is going through inside. But be kind to one another. And always know, it’s never too late to reach out to someone for help,” his family posted on his Instagram account. Troyer, who was 81cm tall, is best known for The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Power in Goldmember. He also had the role of the goblin Griphook in the Harry Potter movies. He had more than 25 other film credits to his name.
UNITED KINGDOM
Social media firms warned
Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt yesterday said that the government would introduce new laws targeting online social media companies if they do not do more to protect children. In a strongly worded letter to Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Twitter and others, Hunt said their failure to prevent you” was “unacceptable and irresponsible.” He said he was particularly concerned about the lack of age verification measures, with thousands breaching minimum user age rules. He gave the companies a week to set out steps they are taking to cut underage use, prevent cyberbullying and promote screen time limits.
UNITED STATES
Counter-protesters arrested
Ten people were arrested on Saturday when a rally attended by a handful of neo-Nazis was met with hundreds of counter-protesters in the Georgia town of Newman, local media reported. Hundreds of police officers were deployed ahead of the event organized by the National Socialist Movement, one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the country. However, only a few dozen far-right members showed up, among them the movement’s leader Jeff Schoep. The 10 arrested were counter-protesters.
SPAIN
March for prisoners held
Several thousand protesters marched on Saturday in Bilbao to demand that imprisoned members of the Basque group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) be moved to prisons closer to their homes. Hundreds of members of ETA are kept in Spanish and French prisons, mostly outside the Basque region.
UNITED STATES
Nude gunman kills three
A nude gunman yesterday shot dead three people and injured at least four more at a restaurant on the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee, police said. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said in a statement that the shooting occurred at a Waffle House in Antioch at 3:25am. “A patron wrestled away the gunman’s rifle. He was nude & fled on foot. He is a white man with short hair,” the statement added.
UNITED STATES
Nature out to get man
It was third time unlucky for a Colorado man attacked by a shark in Hawaii — as he had already been mauled by a bear and bitten by a rattlesnake, all in less than four years. Dylan McWilliams, 20, was bodyboarding in the ocean off Kauai on Thursday, when what he believed to be a tiger shark about 2m long chomped him on the leg, the Honolulu Star Advertiser reported. McWilliams was able to swim about 30m back to shore. He received seven stitches, compared with the nine staples in his scalp following an altercation with a black bear in July last year.
SAUDI ARABIA
Drones to be regulated
The Ministry of the Interior yesterday instructed drone enthusiasts to obtain permission to fly the devices until regulations were finalized, a day after security forces shot down a recreational drone near the king’s palace in Riyadh. Amateur online videos of heavy gunfire in the capital’s Khozama District on Saturday sparked fears of possible political unrest. A senior official told reporters there were no casualties when the drone was shot down and that King Salman was not in the palace at the time. A security screening point had noticed the flying of a small unauthorized recreational drone, leading security forces to deal with it “according to their orders and instructions,” state-run Saudi Press Agency said.
CHINA
Dragon boat accident kills 17
Seventeen people were killed on Saturday after two dragon boats capsized in Guilin, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Rowers on board the two boats were practicing for a race in the Taohua River when the accident occurred on Saturday afternoon, tipping 57 people into the water. About 200 rescuers were sent to help. About 40 people were pulled out of the water alive with rescue work ending around 10pm, Xinhua said. Authorities in Guilin said villagers had organized a practice session without notifying police, and that two organizers were detained.
IRAN
‘Torturer of Tehran’ arrested
Police have arrested a former prosecutor known as the “torturer of Tehran,” who faces a two-year prison sentence over the death of prisoners following 2009 protests, media reported yesterday. The official Web site of the judiciary, Mizanonline.com, said former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi had been arrested, without elaborating. Mortazavi was in December last year sentenced to prison by an appeals court. The court found him guilty of “abetting and aiding” torture and the deaths of protesters arrested after the disputed re-election of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
SYRIA
Mass grave found in Raqa
Dozens of bodies, including those of extremists and civilians, have been found in a mass grave in the former Islamic State group stronghold of Raqa, a local official said on Saturday. Nearly 50 bodies had already been recovered from the mass grave, which could contain up to 200 bodies, Abdallah al-Eriane, a senior official with Raqa Civil Council now running the city, said. The mass grave was under a football pitch, close to a hospital where the extremists had dug in before being chased out of the city. “It was apparently the only place available for burials, which were done in haste. The jihadists were holed up in the hospital,” the official said, adding that some bodies were marked with the nom de guerre of the militants while civilians just had first names.
JAPAN
World’s oldest person dies
A woman born in the final year of the 19th century and believed to have been the world’s oldest person died on Saturday, Kyodo news agency said. She was 117. Nabi Tajima, born in 1900, died from old age at a hospital on her native southwestern island of Kikaijima, Kyodo said. Guinness World Records had been conducting research with a view to certifying Tajima as the oldest person alive after the previous record holder, Violet Brown of Jamaica, died last year at 117, Kyodo 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