HUNGARY
Crane arrives in Budapest
A huge floating crane, designed to lift a sunken sightseeing boat that was carrying South Korean tourists, on Wednesday arrived in Budapest as the search for more bodies continued, officials said. However, rising waters in the Danube River could impede the crane from reaching the site of the tragedy for up to four days, said Istvan Gyenyei, captain of the Adam Clark floating crane. The Hableany sightseeing boat, carrying 33 South Koreans and two Hungarian crew members, capsized and sank in about seven seconds after a collision on Wednesday last week with the Viking Sigyn, a river cruise ship. “Once the ropes are in place, the lifting tasks take a couple of hours,” Gyenyei said. “The question is how the [sunken] boat will behave as it starts to tear away from the river floor... If the boat’s hull doesn’t break, the ropes will bear it for sure.” The plan is to put the Hableany on a barge in the river once raised out of the water, he said. The confirmed death toll rose to 13, as two more bodies were recovered from the river. Seven people were rescued and 15 remain missing.
UNITED STATES
Shooter smuggling Chinese
Authorities said that a 23-year-old US citizen who died in a shoot-out with border inspectors in San Diego was bringing two Chinese men into the country illegally. Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday said that the man fired at officers several times after refusing to pull aside for inspection. The Chinese men — aged 18 and 27 — were found unharmed inside the vehicle. San Diego police identified the driver as Travis James Eckstein. Police said seven Customs and Border Protection officers were involved in the shooting on Monday night, none of them injured. All vehicle and pedestrian traffic into the country was suspended for about 30 minutes after the shooting. San Ysidro is the nation’s busiest border crossing, separating San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico.
UNITED STATES
Ladybugs pop up on radar
A huge blob that appeared on the National Weather Service’s radar was not a rain cloud, but a massive swarm of ladybugs over southern California. Meteorologist Joe Dandrea said that the array of bugs appeared to be about 129km wide as it flew over San Diego on Tuesday. However, Dandrea told the Los Angeles Times that the ladybugs were actually spread throughout the sky, flying at between 1.5km and 2.8km, with the most concentrated group about 16km wide. It was not immediately known what type of ladybug was causing the phenomenon. The newspaper said that one species, adult convergent lady beetles, mate and migrate from the Sierra Nevada to valley areas where they eat aphids and lay eggs.
UNITED STATES
Deer trap elderly woman
Police rescued an Indiana woman after three deer crashed through a window, trapping her inside her apartment. Decatur police said that the 74-year-old woman was in her retirement home apartment on Tuesday night when the deer crashed through a bedroom window. Officers found her trapped on her living room couch, with her walker knocked over, as one deer jumped about the room. Sergeant Kevin Gerber said that an officer shielded the woman after that deer knocked her over. Gerber said that officers subdued and removed one deer, while the other two ended up in a bathroom where they were tranquilized and released. The woman was not injured and “was amazingly calm” during her ordeal, but the deer heavily damaged her apartment, he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing