■HONG KONG
Police to go green
Hong Kong is set to become the second place in the world after Japan to use electric police patrol cars when the first batch enters service later this year, a media report said yesterday. Mitsubishi will initially supply 10 of its iMiEV cars to the territory’s government with three earmarked for police use, the South China Morning Post newspaper said. The others will be used by government departments and agencies. The car, which has zero emissions by using a lithium-ion battery and an electric motor, has a top speed of 130kph and can travel 160km after an eight-hour charge using a household plug.
■AUSTRALIA
Wheel falls off airliner
A nose wheel fell off a Boeing 737 belonging to budget airline Virgin Blue while it was taxiing for takeoff at Melbourne Airport, news reports said yesterday. Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association secretary Steve Purvinas said that Saturday’s incident showed the need for safety checks before all flights. A ground engineer noticed the lost wheel and alerted the pilot. Virgin Blue said it had checked all 737s.
■AUSTRALIA
Man loses it over late lunch
A court has jailed a man who set fire to his own house in a fit of anger after his wife failed to make him lunch, a report said yesterday. Rajah Theivendradas, 54, was jailed for four years over the incident in which he poured petrol on a staircase and set it alight, AAP news agency reported. His wife and daughters, aged 21 and 16, suffered superficial burns as they escaped through the flames, the report said. The court heard Theivendradas had been drinking heavily the day before the incident in May last year and had also had a heated row with one of his daughters.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Lifeguards rescue 40 people
Lifeguards say a dramatic rescue operation saved dozens of children after a sandbank collapsed and plunged 40 people into freezing waters in Wales on Saturday. Three lifeguards led efforts to rescue 36 children and four adults who fell into the sea when the banking was washed away in Tenby. Coast guard officials said on Sunday that the volunteer lifeguards had undoubtedly saved lives. The group had been on a walk, but became stranded on a sandbank that is often swept away as the tide comes in. An air ambulance and two ambulance crews treated several of the group for minor injuries.
■UNITED STATES
Famous name a hindrance
Sharing a name with someone who lives in your area isn’t usually a big deal — unless your name is Neil Armstrong. Thirty-eight-year-old Neil Allen Armstrong, a financial services professional from Symmes Township in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, says he constantly gets calls and packages from autograph seekers, school children and reporters. He tries to explain he’s not the 78-year-old Neil Armstrong who was the first man to walk on the moon and lives in nearby Indian Hills. But people don’t always believe him. Armstrong, the non-astronaut, says he has never met his namesake but would welcome the opportunity.
■RUSSIA
Drunk driver kills four
Four people were killed when a drunk driver plowed into a store in Perm, the Interfax news agency reported yesterday, citing local traffic police. “On Sunday evening the driver of a Mitsubishi car, in a state of alcoholic intoxication, lost control and collided with a store in Perm,” a traffic police spokesman was quoted as saying. The car hit three women and two six-month-old babies, he said. One of the babies, one of the women and two passengers from the vehicle died, while the other victims as well as the driver were admitted to hospital with injuries, Interfax reported.
■ITALY
Five hurt in vigilante clash
At least five people were injured and two arrested after clashes between left and right-wing citizens’ patrols, reviving a controversy over government plans to use the patrols to back up security forces. The fighting occurred late on Saturday in the town of Massa, in Tuscany, when a group of youths called the “Antifascist Proletariat Patrol” took to the streets against the right-wing “SSS,” which has begun patrols. A scuffle broke out between the rival groups and police officers who intervened, leaving at least five people injured, police said. Following the arrest of two of their leaders, members of the left-wing group blocked Massa station for two hours on Sunday and held a demonstration outside police headquarters.
■UNITED STATES
Bird song watchers watched
For years, an unusual event has been held at a Queens park in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of New York City on Sunday afternoons with scant attention from outsiders. Birds whistle songs at each other, as people watch — and keep count. The first bird to tweet a certain number of songs is considered the winner. The bird singing races at the park have drawn increased scrutiny recently from law enforcement, as federal officials target illegal smuggling of finches from Guyana. Authorities also suspect the men bet on the races, which would be illegal. The people who flock to the races, mostly Guyanese immigrants, argue that it is simply a harmless cultural past time.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
RSS