■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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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