■GERMANY
Identical triplet girls born
A 34-year old woman has given birth to three identical girls, an event thought to occur in less than one in 1 million births, doctors in Bonn said on Tuesday. The three girls, Alexandra, Antonia and Adriana, were delivered within seconds of each other in the middle of last month and all three are healthy, the hospital said in a statement. “At first we could not believe it,” said the mother, identified only as Karina P. The triplets were delivered six weeks early.
■POLAND
Protest to target Madonna
An ultra-religious movement said on Tuesday it planned prayer sessions to protest a concert by US superstar Madonna in Warsaw on Aug. 15, which is when Roman Catholics honor the Virgin Mary. “We’re going to continue our crusade with daily prayer sessions outside Warsaw city hall from Aug. 1,” said Marian Brudzynski, head of the Committee for the Defense of the Faith and Tradition. “We’ll start with a group of a few hundred people, but I’m convinced that the square in front of city hall will end up filled with pious Poles,” he said. Madonna has angered Christians in the past with racy shows including on-stage antics such as a mock crucifixion scene.
■POLAND
Nazi tree in the way
An oak tree planted during the Nazi occupation to mark dictator Adolf Hitler’s birthday may soon face the axe. Authorities in Jaslo discovered the origins of the tree when plans were lodged to fell it to make way for a traffic roundabout. “We obtained information that this is no ordinary tree but was put here to mark Adolf Hitler’s birthday,” Jaslo Mayor Maria Kurowska said. “So should I try to improve our town’s communications or should I allow a memorial to that criminal to remain standing? The choice is simple.” Not everybody in the town agreed. Kazimierz Polak, who was present at the planting 67 years ago, said: “[The tree is] a historic curiosity ... It’s not the tree’s fault that it was planted here to honor the biggest criminal and enemy of Poland.”
■GERMANY
Tractor in low-speed chase
A drunk man sparked a slow-speed chase after stealing a tractor, said police, who used pepper spray to try to stop him. “After his girlfriend abandoned him in a night club, the 23-year-old driver, who doesn’t own a license, commandeered the vehicle to make his way home,” a police spokesman said on Monday. Six police cars trailed the tractor at 20kph on Saturday. Officers held up stop signs and directed pepper spray through the window. They then threw nail belts on the road, but the tractor’s tires were too thick. The 40-minute chase ended when officers shot at the tractor’s tires after it rammed into a police car and collided with another vehicle.
■AUSTRALIA
Debate over Uluru landmark
A plan to close a tourism attraction because its Aboriginal owners consider it sacred sparked a fierce debate yesterday. Parks Australia said Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, would likely be off-limits by October 2011. Around 350,000 people visit Uluru each year. A third of them climb the 347m monolith despite the owners urging visitors not to do so. Vince Forrester, a spokesman for the Mutitjulu community, said the traditional owners had wanted Uluru roped off since it was handed back to them in 1985. “You can’t go to the top of the Vatican,” he told national broadcaster ABC. “You have to respect our religious attachment.”
■UNITED STATES
Book sparks controversy
A book by a bestselling biographer alleging that former US president John F Kennedy’s widow, Jackie, began a four-year affair with her brother-in-law, Robert, within months of her husband’s assassination has sparked a row in the country. The book, Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story, by C David Heymann, alleges that the relationship grew so intense that when Robert Kennedy was shot in 1968, it was Jackie, not his wife, who told doctors to turn off life support. Heymann says the accounts are based on the recollections of a clutch of Kennedy confidants, including Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Pierre Salinger and Arthur Schlesinger. But Salinger, Kennedy’s press secretary, dismissed the account as “bullshit,” while Heymann’s critics said he has been caught making egregious errors in previous books and has even been accused of fabricating material.
■UNITED STATES
No pants and drunk
A Delaware man who claimed he lost his pants faces drunken driving charges after authorities said the deputy who pulled him over noticed he was in the buff below the waist. A spokesman for Maryland’s Cecil County Sheriff’s Office said 41-year-old Jonathan Schultz “was driving commando” and only partially covered with a towel on his lap, though he was wearing a shirt. Lieutenant Bernard Chiominto said Schultz was stopped Saturday near Rising Sun for going 111kph in a 80kph zone. Chiominto said the deputy smelled alcohol and noticed Schultz’s semi-exposed situation. The Newark, Delaware, man told the deputy he’d lost his pants.
■UNITED STATES
Alaska a ‘good deal’: Obama
President Barack Obama on Tuesday thanked Russia for giving his country a “good deal” on Alaska when it purchased the northern territory, now a US state, in 1867. “Before we ever exchanged ambassadors, we exchanged goods,” Obama said at a US-Russia business forum in Moscow, which he addressed as part of a state visit to the Russian capital. “Along the way you gave us a pretty good deal on Alaska. Thank you,” Obama said to laughter from the audience. It purchased Alaska in 1867 for US$7.2 million in gold after the government of Russiaan Tsar Alexander II determined it was losing money on the colony.
■BRAZIL
New monkey discovered
Researchers have discovered a new sub-species of monkey in a remote part of the Amazon rain forest, a US-based wildlife conservation group said on Tuesday. The newly found monkey was first spotted by scientists in 2007 in the state of Amazonas and is related to the saddleback tamarin monkeys, known for their distinctively marked backs, the Wildlife Conservation Society said. The small monkey, which is mostly gray and brown and weighs 213g, has been named the Mura’s saddleback tamarin after the Mura Indian tribe of the Purus and Madeira river basins where the new sub-species was found.
■MEXICO
Useless phones stolen
Call it the case of the dead cells — both telephones and the ones in the brain. Employees at a Telefonica Movistar cellphone store in Morelia said they arrived on Tuesday morning to find that the store had been broken into. An examination of the shop revealed the only items missing were hollow replica phones for display that are completely useless for making calls. Employees said the clueless thieves overlooked real cellphones and cash in another part of the shop.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS