■NEW ZEALAND
Swine flu no excuse for DWI
A woman had a novel defense when she appeared in court on a charge of driving while intoxicated (DWI): It was swine flu’s fault. Business manager Deborah Karen Graham sought clemency for the charge in Queenstown on Monday, saying the three glasses of wine she had consumed were more potent because she was recovering from the virus. Judge Kevin Phillips was having none of it: “Swine flu seems to be the ‘in’ submission for everything at the moment. I reject all that.” He fined Graham US$360 and disqualified her from driving for six months. The country has been hard hit by swine flu, with 2,662 confirmed cases reported, including 14 deaths.
■HONG KONG
Murderer sentenced to life
A man who killed a teenage prostitute before cutting up her body and leaving some of the remains at a butcher’s has been sentenced to life, a judicial spokeswoman said yesterday. Transportation worker Ting Kai-tai, 24, was found guilty by a unanimous verdict at the High Court on Monday of murdering the 16-year-old, the spokeswoman said. Jailing Ting, Judge Alan Wright described the crime as “barbaric,” the English-language daily the Standard reported. “The fact we had to sit and listen to what you did was the worst experience ever imaginable,” Wright was quoted as saying. “It would be no exaggeration to say your conduct was barbaric. You killed a 16-year-old and you disposed of her body in a most horrendous way.” Ting told police following his arrest last year that he had killed Wong Ka-mui after having sex with her in his apartment in April last year. He pleaded not guilty, saying he had been under the influence of drugs and had no recollection of killing the girl.
■AUSTRALIA
Women rescued from toilet
A woman was stuck in her toilet for a week before neighbors heard her cries for help, officials said yesterday. The 67-year-old Queensland woman was found on Sunday, seven days after she became trapped, officials said. “Firefighters accessed the woman and freed her. Paramedics treated the woman and transported her to Ipswich Hospital,” they said. She was very dehydrated but conscious, officials said. Rescuers had trouble reaching the woman because she was so tightly wedged by the toilet, with a foot stuck on either side.
■AUSTRALIA
Ski jump fells octogenarian
An 80-year-old man broke his hip while attempting a 2m ski jump at Mount Buller in Victoria state on Sunday, but says life is “too short” to skip the slopes. Ambulance Victoria flight paramedic Steve Grove says the man has been a regular skier at since the 1950s. The man was airlifted off the mountain and taken to a hospital in Melbourne for treatment. Grove says when he asked him why he was still skiing at 80, the man replied simply: “Life is too short.”
■CAMBODIA
Activists slam ‘AIDS colony’
AIDS campaigners and rights groups protested yesterday over the government’s shunting of HIV sufferers into an unsanitary “AIDS colony” outside Phnom Penh. More than 100 international and domestic pressure groups told Prime Minister Hun Sen and Health Minister Mam Bunheng in a letter they were “deeply disturbed” by the government’s treatment of 40 HIV-affected families. Over the past two months the government has evicted the families from Phnom Penh to live in metal sheds without running water or adequate sanitation at Tuol Sambo, 25km from the capital, the letter said.
■SRI LANKA
Cellphones banned in school
The government has banned students from taking mobile phones to school following the suicide of a teenager disciplined for using her telephone, an education ministry spokesman said yesterday. All schools were ordered to impose the ban after a 14-year-old girl — reprimanded over telephone contact with a boy during school last week — hanged herself, the spokesman said. Another student from the same school in the capital Colombo attempted suicide after receiving a similar reprimand. “Bringing mobile phones to school will now be considered unacceptable and teachers will make sure that no students takes a phone to class,” the spokesman said. More than half the country’s 20 million population use mobile phones and several networks offer special packages aimed at students.
■FRANCE
Oxygen prevents cancer
Men who regularly do heart-pounding exercise are less likely to develop cancer, a study said yesterday. The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that the key factor in the reduced risk of cancer was a higher rate of oxygen consumption. A team of researchers from the universities of Kuopio and Oulu in Finland studied the leisure-time physical activity over a 12-month period of 2,560 men between 42 and 61 years old with no history of cancer. Over an average follow-up period of 16 years, 181 of the subjects died from cancer, mostly of the stomach or intestines, lungs, prostate and brain. Using an intensity scale for physical exercise that measured “metabolic units” of oxygen consumption, the scientists found that the men who exercised for at least 30 minutes a day were half as likely to get cancer as those who did not.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Model charged with bigamy
A former model who wed five men without divorcing any of them was handed a suspended jail sentence on Monday by a court after being charged with bigamy. Emily Horne, 30, married four men by the age of 23, changing her name on marriage certificates to avoid detection, a court in Manchester heard. Horne, a former glamour model who had roles in adult movies, only told husband No. 5 that she was already married when they set off on their honeymoon in 2007. Judge Mushtaq Khokhar described Horne as a “manipulative woman” who had “undermined the institution of marriage.” But the judge said he had decided not to jail her because she had made progress in the last six months since being prescribed medication for a personality disorder. Horne, who has bipolar disorder, was handed a 10-month suspended prison sentence after admitting to bigamy at an earlier court hearing.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Bomb prankster sentenced
A teenager who phoned the White House and claimed as part of a “drunken prank” that there was a bomb in the center of New York escaped jail on Monday. Thomas Hutchinson, 19, from Sheffield, northern England, made a “giggling” call to the White House switchboard after drinking with friends at a barbecue in May and claimed there was a bomb in Madison Square Garden. The operator pressed a malicious call trace button and it was found to have been made in Britain. Prosecutor Stephen Acaster said there was great concern when the call was first received but it was soon realized it was a hoax and Madison Square Garden was not evacuated. A court gave him a six-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months. He was ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work.
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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