■UNITED STATE
Teen arrested with arsenal
Police are investigating a Washington area teenager who allegedly had amassed an arsenal of deadly assault weapons and bomb-making materials, along with a map to the president’s weekend retreat, press reports said on Wednesday. Authorities said recent high school graduate Collin McKenzie-Gude — who had a map of the Camp David Maryland retreat which highlighted the route taken by the presidential motorcade — also possessed a fake CIA identification card, the Washington Post reported. Investigators who searched the teen’s home also found a document appearing to explain how to shoot someone from 200m away and a false identity of a federal contractor with purported protection under the Geneva Convention.
■UNITED STATES
Sick sea lion boards yacht
Lynnea Flarry and her family were picnicking on Sunday on Clark Island when her daughter-in-law spotted a sea lion aboard the family’s 9m boat. The animal had apparently taken advantage of a ladder on the stern of the boat. Flarry’s son and grandchildren took a dingy out to the boat to try to coax the animal back into the water. When they got close, the sea lion hid “behind the lifesaver like a little kid who hides behind a curtain and doesn’t realize his toes are sticking out,” Flarry told the Bellingham Herald newspaper. Marine mammal rescuers said the animal is likely suffering from the poisoning effects of a toxin found in algae.
■UNITED STATES
JetBlue sets trip to nowhere
Want all the hassle of air travel without going anywhere? Step up for JetBlue Airways Corp’s trial of bag check and security systems at its new John F. Kennedy International Airport terminal, which is set to open in September. New York-based JetBlue is looking for 1,000 of its frequent flyers to show up at JFK on Aug. 23 to check bags given to them by the airline, go through security and wait at the assigned gate for their imaginary “flight.” In return, the airline is promising unspecified “giveaways.” The country’s No. 7 carrier is taking no chances with the systems at its new Terminal 5, following the chaotic opening of British Airways’ Terminal 5 at London’s Heathrow Airport in March.
■UNITED STATES
Cheerleaders rescued
Twenty-six teenage cheerleaders tried to cram themselves into an elevator at the University of Texas to see how many would fit, but then they got stuck and had to be rescued. One girl was treated and released at a hospital and two others were treated at the scene after the Tuesday night prank, officials said. The group of 14 to 17-year-olds were attending a cheerleading camp when they decided to stuff themselves into an elevator at Jester Residence Hall on the UT campus.
■UNITED STATES
Morgan Freeman to divorce
Actor Morgan Freeman is divorcing his wife of 24 years, according to a report on Wednesday on Access Hollywood. The Oscar-winning star and his wife Myrna Colley-Lee “are involved in a divorce action,” Freeman’s business partner, attorney Bill Luckett, was quoted as saying. The report came as Morgan, 71, was recovering in hospital from a car crash on Sunday night in Mississippi. He was driving, and his co- passenger Demaris Meyer, 48, was also injured. The New York Post reported that Meyer was a friend of Colley-Lee, and news of the divorce increased speculation that she was also romantically involved with Freeman.
■ITALY
Church goes to the beach
Catholic nuns and priests in Italy are following their flocks to the beach this summer, establishing an inflatable church and a beach convent in the sands to lure sunbathers. The 30m-long blow-up church — staffed by priests ready to take confession — will debut tomorrow on the Adriatic coast in the Molise region, an organizer said. “There will be four or five people singing, with music about God,” said Chiara Facci with Catholic group Sentinelli del Mattino. Night time activities, which will not include Mass, will run from 10pm to 1am.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Red squirrels fighting back
The red squirrel is making a comeback in one part of Britain after the successful culling of its bigger and more aggressive rival, the gray. Red squirrel numbers on Anglesey, north Wales, had fallen to a few dozen after the gray made its way onto the island in the late 1960s. But since about 7,000 grays were removed by the Menter Mon environmental group, the number of red squirrels has risen to nearly 200. The group began culling grays in 1998 and reintroduced the red in 2004. “There are more reds than grays now,” said Hugh Knott, environment project manager.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Stately home raiders jailed
Five gang members have been jailed for a series of raids on stately homes, including Britain’s biggest domestic burglary, police said on Wednesday. They stole antiques and art treasures worth millions of pounds from country houses across central and southern England. Their crime spree included a raid on Ramsbury Manor, the Wiltshire mansion owned by property developer Harry Hyams. They broke into the 17th century house in February 2005, stealing paintings, clocks, furniture and other items valued at £22 million (US$42.8 million). A judge described it as the UK’s biggest ever private house burglary. The five men — all members of the same traveller family — were found guilty of conspiracy to burgle at Reading Crown Court.
■ISRAEL
Abuse officer quits post
The military said an officer filmed ordering a soldier to abuse a cuffed and blindfolded Palestinian prisoner is resigning his command of an army battalion, but would continue to serve elsewhere. A military statement says Lieutenant-Colonel Omri Borberg asked to be removed from his post in the wake of the July 7 incident on the outskirts of the West Bank village of Naalin when a soldier shot a captured Palestinian demonstrator in the foot with a rubber-coated bullet from close range. The shooting was captured on video by a local resident.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Gang linked to Madeleine
British toddler Madeleine McCann could have been abducted “to order” for a Belgian pedophile ring, Portuguese police files now published on the case suggest. Reports in Britain said yesterday that Scotland Yard passed on a report from an informant who said a photograph of the child on holiday in Portugal was taken and passed to a “purchaser” in Belgium days before she vanished on May 3 last year. The information was contained in an e-mail from Scotland Yard, and Portuguese police pursued the lead with Interpol, which gathered further reports from Belgium, Britain, Finland and Germany. But Portuguese chief detective Paulo Rebelo, head of the Madeleine inquiry, ruled that all but the German intelligence showed a “lack of credibility” and ordered that the tip-off should be filed.
■AFGHANISTAN
Kidnapped man freed
A spy agency official said agents have freed a kidnapped man with dual German-Afghan nationality and arrested three kidnappers. Deputy head of the spy service Abdullah Laghmani said the man was freed from a house in the Bagram District of Parwan Province in a pre-dawn raid yesterday. Laghmani said the victim was kidnapped nearly two weeks ago in Kabul. The man is the owner of a popular wedding hall in the capital. Three kidnappers have been detained, the official said.
■NEPAL
Twin blasts injure six
Two bombings in Pokhara, a city popular with tourists, injured six people and sparked panic among residents, media reports said yesterday. The bombs went off within 20 minutes of each other late on Wednesday in the commercial district of the city about 180km west of Kathmandu, the Kantipur newspaper reported. The bombs were placed in public places within 0.5km of one another, the newspaper quoted police as saying. A child was among the injured in the blasts, which damaged a house in the city where tourists organize treks into the Annapurna mountains. The Terai Army, a group that says it is fighting for the Madhesi ethnic group’s right to self-determination, claimed responsibility for the blasts.
■PAKISTAN
Fighting leaves 27 dead
An attack on a military checkpoint by some 200 pro-Taliban militants triggered intense fighting that killed 25 insurgents and two paramilitary soldiers near the Afghan border, security officials said yesterday. The fighting broke out on Wednesday in Loi Sam village in the Bajur tribal region, two army officers and an area intelligence official said. All three spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. The officials said they received reports from local authorities about the casualties. The local intelligence official said the militants used rockets and assault rifles in the attack.
■BANGLADESH
UN expert released
A lawyer who works as a human trafficking expert for the UN has been released on bail while she appeals a three-year jail sentence on extortion charges, a prison official said yesterday. The High Court granted her bail hs, said Major Shamsul Haider Siddiqui, the deputy inspector general of prisons. A trial court sentenced Huda to three years in jail last year on charges of helping her husband extort more than US$294,000 from a construction company while he was communications minister. Huda also faces four other cases involving charges of bribery, misuse of power and extortion. All are unrelated to her UN assignment. Her husband is serving a seven-year sentence on extortion charges.
■INDONESIA
Bird flu outbreak suspected
Thirteen people hospitalized with high fevers and respiratory problems are being treated as suspected bird flu patients after dozens of chickens died of the disease in their village, a health official said yesterday. Swab and blood samples have been taken, but it could be days before results come back, said Memed Zulkarnaen, spokesman for the National Bird Flu Commission, adding, however, that “their condition appears to be improving.” The 13 were admitted to two hospitals in the past week after chickens started dropping dead in Air Batu on Sumatra.
‘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
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
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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