AUSTRALIA
RBA apologizes for typo
About 46 million A$50 (US$34.83) banknotes have an embarrassing typographical error that was overlooked by the central bank before they were printed and circulated. The goof first became known yesterday, when a listener to radio broadcaster Triple M sent it a magnified photograph of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) new A$50 note highlighting the word “responsibility” misspelled as “responsibilty” three times. The note is the nation’s most widely circulated, accounting for nearly half the total value of other banknotes in use, the RBA has said. It went into circulation on Oct. 18 last year, incorporating new security features to deter counterfeiting and tactile elements for the visually impaired. It carries a headshot of Edith Cowan, the first woman elected to one of the nation’s legislatures from 1921 to 1924. The typo appears in an excerpt of Cowan’s maiden speech to Western Australia’s parliament featured on the note.
NORTH KOREA
Launches were regular drills
The government has described its firing of rocket artillery and an apparent short-range ballistic missile over the weekend as a regular and defensive military exercise and ridiculed South Korea for criticizing the launches. State media yesterday carried a statement by an unnamed military spokesman who called Seoul’s criticism a “cock-and-bull story.” Seoul’s presidential Blue House and the South Korean Ministry of National Defense have raised concern that Saturday’s launches went against the spirit of an inter-Korean military agreement reached last year to cease all hostile acts. A separate statement by a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman described the launches as a “routine and self-defensive military drill.”
PHILIPPINES
Cockroach interrupts speech
President Rodrigo Duterte’s unpredictable speeches frequently contain bombshell pronouncements, but the surprise this time came in the form of a cockroach ambling along the leader’s shoulder. The bug popped up on Duterte as he was extolling the virtues of the candidates he has endorsed in next week’s midterm polls at a campaign rally late on Wednesday. An aide tried and failed to scrape the critter away with some papers, but Duterte brushed it aside as the government broadcast cut to a smiling, but bemused audience in the central city of Bohol. Duterte, who was nearing the end of his roughly 90-minute address, joked that the insect belonged to the opposition party. The leader’s critics quickly took to Twitter to mock his close encounter with the cockroach. “The cockroach must have realized that duterte is the trashiest trash it has ever seen,” one netizen said on Twitter.
UNITED STATES
Chef stopped over piranhas
A famous South American chef said that he was stopped as he carried 40 piranhas in a duffel bag through Los Angeles International Airport. Virgilio Martinez, chef-owner of Central restaurant in Peru, on Wednesday told the Los Angeles Times that he hoped to serve the predatory, sharp-toothed fish at a Los Angeles food festival. Martinez was featured in the third season of the Netflix show Chef’s Table. He said that customs agents pulled him into an interrogation room last week when they found the cache of frozen, vacuum-sealed piranhas. After five hours, the agents let Martinez through with the fish. He used them that night on a salad. The newspaper said that the following night he dried the piranha skins and served them inside the piranha heads.
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number