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.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese