UNITED STATES
Manafort request rejected
A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday refused to dismiss criminal charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller against President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, after Manafort claimed that Mueller had exceeded his prosecutorial powers. In a sharp rebuke of those claims, Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had followed all the Department of Justice’s rules when he hired Mueller, and Mueller’s case against Manafort is not overly broad or improper.
GUATEMALA
New details in graft probe
Investigators on Tuesday night revealed new details of a probe against President Jimmy Morales relating to purported illicit campaign financing, saying the material is sufficient to again seek to have his immunity from prosecution lifted. Chief prosecutor Thelma Aldana said businesspeople allegedly created a means to deliver anonymous funds to the National Convergence Front when Morales was its secretary-general and legal representative during his presidential run. Aldana alleged that the money, about US$2 million, was channeled through a company called Nova Servicios without being reported to electoral authorities as required by law. The announcement, made public the day before Aldana’s term in office ended, puts her Morales-picked successor, Maria Consuelo Porras, in the position of choosing whether to pursue the case.
UNITED STATES
Nurses want name change
A handful of nurses sick of scandal over Facebook user privacy want a new prescription for a hospital named after the social network’s cofounder, Mark Zuckerberg. The Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center said it added his name as a way of saying thanks after Zuckerberg and his physician wife, Priscilla Chan, made a US$75 million donation three years ago. A “very small group” of people demonstrated over the weekend, calling for the Zuckerberg name to be removed, a hospital spokesman said. The protesters said the name could make patients question how well the hospital would protect their privacy.
UNITED STATES
Service refused after insults
A California coffee shop worker refused to serve a customer who insulted a Muslim woman wearing a niqab in a confrontation recorded on video. The footage shows a man asking “Is this Halloween?” while standing in front of the woman. When the woman confronts him, he says he does not like her religion. A supervisor who identifies herself as Tawny Alfaro refuses to sell him coffee while saying he was being disruptive and racist. The Riverside Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf said it has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to discrimination.
UNITED STATES
Loaded safe found in yard
A couple in New York City found buried treasure in their backyard, the result of having some trees replaced. A safe containing about US$52,000 worth of property — including diamonds, gold, jade and wet cash — was found in the Staten Island yard of Matthew and Maria Colonna Emanuel. The safe also had a piece of paper with an address on it. Matthew Emanuel knocked on a neighbor’s door and asked if they had ever been burglarized. They had, in 2011. The Emanuels returned the safe’s contents to them. Maria Colonna Emanuel said there was never a question about returning the cache: “It wasn’t ours.”
BANGLADESH
Release Zia, court orders
The Supreme Court yesterday ordered the release from detention of 72-year-old opposition leader Khaleda Zia after her lawyers argued she was unwell. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision to grant Zia bail while she appeals against a five-year jail term imposed in February for corruption, her lawyer Joynal Abedin said. Zia’s lawyers said they told the court that the three-time former prime minister faced serious health risks if kept in prison. Zia underwent a hospital checkup last month. However, it was not immediately clear when Zia would be released from the special prison in Dhaka where she is the only inmate.
INDIA
Highway collapse kills 18
A highway overpass being built in the northern city of Varanasi collapsed, killing 18 people when an immense concrete slab slammed down onto the crowded road below, officials said yesterday. Five injured people were pulled from the wreckage, police said. Two were seriously hurt. Local media reports said that four officials from the Uttar Pradesh state construction agency were suspended in the wake of the Tuesday collapse. Rescuers and crane operators worked through much of the night to search for survivors and clear the wreckage, which had crushed cars, motorcycles and a bus. However, fears that many more people were trapped were unfounded and the road was reopened yesterday morning.
AUSTRALIA
One last blood donation
James Harrison, known as the “Man with the Golden Arm,” has donated his life-saving blood for the last time. Harrison, 81, has an antibody in his blood that is used to make the lifesaving medication Anti-D, which is given to mothers whose blood is at risk of attacking their unborn babies. The Australian Red Cross Blood Service said Harrison had donated his blood more than 1,100 times over six decades, helping to save more than 2 million babies. “I’ve saved a lot of lives and got a lot of new kids into the world, so yeah, it makes you feel good in that respect,” Harrison told the Nine Network on Friday last week.
CHINA
Plane window under probe
Chinese authorities and Airbus are investigating why a plane’s cockpit window detached during a flight, forcing an emergency landing. Sichuan Airlines Flight 3U8633 was en route from Chongqing, China, to Lhasa, Tibet, on Monday morning when the cockpit window on the A319 jet broke off, according to the Web site of the Civil Aviation Administration of China. The copilot’s seatbelt prevented him from being sucked out of the plane. The plane made an emergency landing in Chengdu, China. The copilot and a flight attendant suffered minor injuries, but none of the 27 passengers was injured, according to a post from Sichuan Airlines on Sina Weibo. Airbus on Tuesday said it has assigned a team to investigate and will cooperate with Chinese authorities.
UNITED STATES
Europa top candidate for life
A new look at old data is giving scientists a fresh reason to view Europa, a moon of Jupiter, as a leading candidate in the search for life beyond Earth, with evidence of water plumes shooting into space. A bend in Europa’s magnetic field observed by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft during a 1997 flyby appears to have been caused by a geyser gushing through its frozen crust from a subsurface ocean, researchers who re-examined the Galileo data reported on Monday.
‘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