ISRAEL
Bar chairman arrested
Media on Wednesday reported that the chairman of the country’s Bar Association was arrested for allegedly trading sexual favors for judicial promotions. Effi Naveh, a member of the committee that appoints judges, appeared in court for an extension of his arrest in a case that has rocked the country’s legal system. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the Lahav 433 investigative body was looking into “offenses of integrity” regarding attempts to appoint two judges. Police have seized documents as part of the investigation, he said. Media said that Naveh is accused of breach of trust and accepting bribes, and ran reports of his sexual relations with two women who were candidates for judgeships, allegations that Naveh has reportedly denied. Media reported that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit recused himself from the case because of his friendship with Naveh and that Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked and Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut would be called to testify.
SERBIA
March held over shooting
Thousands of people have marched in the capital, demanding that the authorities find out who killed a moderate politician in Kosovo a year ago. Holding candles, the crowd on Wednesday walked in silence to honor Oliver Ivanovic, who was gunned down in the Serb-dominated northern part of the Kosovar town of Mitrovica on Jan. 16 last year. No one has been charged in the attack. Assailants fled the scene in a car after shooting Ivanovic six times in the back. Wednesday’s march was organized by the same groups behind weeks of protests against populist President Aleksandar Vucic. They have said that finding Ivanovic’s killers is crucial to maintain the rule of law and justice.
UNITED STATES
Truck plows into diner
A speeding tractor-trailer on Wednesday skidded off a snow-slicked road and crashed into a restaurant in a small Utah town, flattening the establishment and injuring three people, authorities said. The truck was traveling too fast for conditions at about 6:30am, when it went off a state highway that runs through the town of Wellington and struck the Los Jilbertos restaurant, which was open, Utah Highway Patrol said in a statement. State troopers rescued the restaurant owner’s wife, who was trapped in in the wreckage and suffered what were described as minor injuries. Also taken to hospital for treatment of minor injuries were the restaurant owner and the truck driver, Highway Patrol Sergeant Nicholas Street said. No customers were inside the restaurant when the truck hit it.
UNITED STATES
Woman finds 23kg tumor
An Idaho woman who thought that she was gaining weight because of menopause discovered she actually had a 23kg tumor that had been growing inside her for decades. Boise TV station KTVB reported that Brenda Cridland of Meridian chalked up her weight gain to aging, but when her health started to quickly decline about eight months ago she decided to see a doctor. That is when a CAT scan revealed that she had an enormous tumor that had displaced her organs and was cutting off the blood supply to her brain. Cridland said she underwent two-and-a-half hours of surgery to remove the mass, which was benign. She added that she lost 29kg in the process, and learned that the tumor was caused by undiagnosed endometriosis.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not