■ RUSSIA
Vodka run goes awry
An apparently drunk tank driver rammed his 25-tonne fighting machine into a remote village cottage while on a vodka run, footage aired on state television showed on Friday. The soldier was filmed driving the tank, armed with an anti-aircraft gun, through a tiny street in Oktyabrskaya, in the Ural mountains' Sverdlovsk region. He clambered unsteadily into his vehicle with two freshly purchased bottles, then rammed a fence and a house while attempting to leave. "He was drunk," a villager said on Channel One television. An assistant at the local shop said the soldier had purchased two bottles of vodka.
■ UNITED STATES
Stylist shoots customer
A hairstylist shot an unhappy client after she complained about her haircut, police in Washington, Pennsylvania, said. Lauren Newton, 28, was getting her hair cut on Thursday at the home of Monique Reed when the two began to argue about the style, police said. "She [Reed] went to the bedroom, got a gun, fired a shot in the ceiling," Police Chief James Blyth said. Newton, who was trying to flee with her sister, was then shot in the lower back, he said. Reed, 38, was charged with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. Newton's injuries were not considered life threatening.
■ CYPRUS
UK soldiers run from police
Five British soldiers dodged police warning shots, crashed a car and jumped into the sea after they were targeted as drug suspects, officials said on Friday. "It would appear that these soldiers were in the wrong place at the wrong time and it's a case of mistaken identity," British Forces Cyprus spokesman Captain Nick Ulvert said. The men involved -- aged between 19 and 24 -- serve with the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment. The ordeal near a holiday resort took place late on Thursday when they were seen "behaving suspiciously" in an area under surveillance by an anti-drug squad, police said.
■ RUSSIA
Electricity stations raided
Residents of a town fed up with electricity cuts took the law -- and guns -- into their own hands to get power restored, officials said on Friday. More than 50 men with firearms stormed five electricity substations in Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan, the electricity company said. A number of workers were beaten in the assault, which took place on Thursday, and one woman was taken to a hospital with a broken jaw, the company said. "It is an insolent attack on energy workers doing their jobs and should not be left unpunished," said Magomed Kaitov, general director of the grid.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
ead rodent stops surgery
A patient was told there was no reason why he couldn't have surgery in a hospital, despite the stench caused by a dead rodent trapped in the building's ceiling. Andrew Cowper was due to have an operation at the Queen Elizabeth II hospital in Hertfordshire when staff "were made aware of a dead rodent in the single story unit's roof space," the hospital said. The hospital said its experts concluded that the dead animal posed no risk. Cowper, 19, told the Sun newspaper he had waited 11 months for the operation. "I asked [the doctor]: 'If you were me, would you have the operation?' He looked at me and said 'no,' so I decided there and then I wasn't going to go ahead."
■ CANADA
Mother throws kids to safety
A Montreal mother saved her seven children from a blazing apartment fire overnight by tossing them from a second-floor window into deep snowbanks, officials said on Friday. At just past midnight, flames and smoke from the fire believed to have started in the basement trapped the family. Desperate, the woman turned to the only available exit, tossing her children aged one to 10 years old out of her apartment window into the fluffy snow 5m below. At least one child dropped into the waiting arms of a neighbor, said reports. Officials said one toddler was in critical condition, while his siblings were being treated in a hospital for second and third-degree burns.
■ CANADA
Premature proposal
A man thought he had come up with the perfect romantic setting to propose to his high school sweetheart until airport security got involved. Aaron Tkachuk, 24, had intended to propose to girlfriend Jennifer Rubadeau during a Caribbean cruise last week, but instead had to pop the question at a security screening station at the Prince George, British Columbia, airport. An airport screener checking Tkachuk's carry-on luggage spotted a small box in the toe of a sock -- insisted on having a closer look and pulled out a white gold, diamond and ruby ring. Tkachuk proposed on the spot, and his dazed 24-year-old girlfriend said yes as fellow travelers and security staff applauded.
■ CANADA
Woman has identical triplets
A couple has shattered the odds with the birth of naturally conceived, identical triplets. Thea and Phil Willson became the proud parents of Daniella, Alexis and Gemma on Feb. 29. Naturally born identical triplets are born at a rate of one in 20 million, said Michael Bernard of Fraser Health, the health authority that oversees the New Westminster hospital where the babies were delivered. Most triplets are conceived with the help of fertility drugs, but the Willsons did it naturally. Thea Willson took it in stride as she joked about her new family. "We've always wanted to have more than one. So we had them all at once," she said.
■ MEXICO
Police caught with cash
Soldiers caught six local police chiefs red-handed at a gas station sporting luxury watches and carrying envelopes stuffed with wads of cash, the army said on Friday. Soldiers in the northern state of Tamaulipas rushed to the gas station after a tip-off that members of the powerful Gulf drug cartel were there. They detained six men who turned out to be municipal police commanders for suspicious activity, the army said. Searches of the men produced six envelopes filled with thousands of dollars each as well as Rolex and Cartier watches, priced far beyond the means of police salaries, the army said.
■ UNITED STATES
Kitten crosses Pacific Ocean
A scrawny, black and white female kitten apparently survived a trip across the Pacific Ocean and North America inside a shipping crate. Cleveland Animal Protective League executive director Sharon Harvey said a Cleveland company that received the crate of spooled steel coil on Friday found the approximately 12-week-old kitten inside one the spools. Harvey says the mother cat and other kittens found in the crate were dead. The crate came to Samsel Supply Co from Singapore. It was sealed on Feb. 4 and shipped three days later. The kitten will be quarantined for about three weeks to make sure it doesn't carry any infectious diseases.
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
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
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