BANGLADESH
Coastline braces for cyclone
Authorities have put more than 50,000 volunteers on standby and readied about 5,000 shelters as a strong cyclone in the Bay of Bengal was expected to hit the low-lying nation’s vast southwestern and southern coast yesterday evening. The weather office in Dhaka issued the most severe storm signal for Cyclone Bulbul, packing maximum sustained winds of 74kph and gusts of up to 150kph. It said the southwestern Khulna region could be worst hit. The region has the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans. Junior Minister for Disaster Management Enamur Rahman said government offices suspended work in 13 coastal districts. As the day progressed, the volunteers used loudspeakers to ask people to move to shelters in Chittagong and other regions, the ministry said.
CHILE
University building torched
Demonstrators on Friday set a university building ablaze and ransacked a church at the close of an otherwise peaceful rally marking three weeks of unprecedented protests against social and economic inequality. Protesters clashed with police who had set up barricades to protect private Pedro de Valdivia University, and shortly thereafter the wooden roof of its 100-year-old administration building began to burn, witnesses said. Fire crews had trouble reaching the blaze because of the demonstrators. Nearby, hooded protesters looted the church of La Asuncion, which was built in 1876, dragging furniture outside and setting it alight.
UNITED STATES
Vaping illness culprit found
Health officials on Friday announced a breakthrough into the cause of a mysterious outbreak of vaping illnesses, reporting they have a “very strong culprit.” The same chemical compound was found in fluid taken from the lungs of 29 patients across the country, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention said. The compound — vitamin E acetate — was previously found in liquid from electronic cigarettes and other vaping devices used by many of those who got sick. However, this is the first time they have found a common suspect in the damaged lungs of patients, officials said. “We are in a better place in terms of having one very strong culprit,” the CDC’s Anne Schuchat said.
UNITED STATES
Woman found in desert
Authorities have said a suburban Las Vegas woman dragged to California by father-and-daughter kidnappers has been found alive after a harrowing, week-long kidnapping where she was allegedly raped, robbed and left for dead in the desert. Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials on Friday told reporters that Stanley Alfred Lawton and Shaniya Nicole Poche-Lawton dumped the woman near Edwards Air Force Base north of Los Angeles. Military personnel found her early on Wednesday.
UNITED STATES
Birds terrorize community
Some New Jersey residents have been getting an early Thanksgiving surprise. A gaggle of 40 to 60 wild turkeys have been aggressively terrorizing residents in a 55-and-up community in Ocean County daily. Holiday City residents said the turkeys are blocking doorways, pecking at vehicles and behaving aggressively when they are shooed away. The wild turkeys can weigh 7kg to 10kg and run up to 32kph. The township has received dozens of complaints, but said its animal control is powerless, as they are not licensed to trap wildlife.
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
New Zealand is open to expanding its frigate fleet beyond its current two vessels, with New Zealand Minister of Defence Chris Penk saying “no options are off the table” as the government weighs buying new warships from Japan or the UK. The government yesterday said it is looking to replace its two aging Anzac-class frigates, which were both commissioned almost 30 years ago. The UK’s Type 31 and Japan’s Mogami-class warships are the options under consideration. Speaking in an interview, Penk said there is potential to increase the number of frigates the nation purchases. “We need a certain amount of capability as a
The Philippine Coast Guard yesterday said it deployed aircraft to issue radio warnings to a Chinese research ship in a disputed area of the South China Sea “swarming” with vessels from Beijing’s so-called maritime militia. The research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 33 (向陽紅33), which is capable of supporting submersible craft, was operating near a reef in the contested Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The Chinese ship was deploying a service boat toward the Spratly’s Iroquois Reef on Wednesday when it was spotted by a coast guard plane, “confirming ongoing unauthorized [marine scientific research]
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