RUSSIA
Bomb squad defuse sex toy
Anti-terrorist bomb squad experts were called to a post office in the northwest to make safe a package from which a strange ticking sound was coming, local police said on Monday. They found a vibrator. The incident took place at Petrozavodsk in the Republic of Karelia and followed a call from a postal worker who had identified a suspect package, a police spokeswoman said. The sex toy had apparently been turned on “by accident.” Nerves are on edge after an attack in January on the Moscow Domodedovo Airport left 37 dead. Two suicide bombers killed 40 in March 2010 in the Moscow Metro.
UNITED STATES
Dolphin jumps onto boat
A dolphin weighing around 300kg jumped onto the deck of a boat, injuring a woman in South Florida. Isles of Capri Fire Department spokesman Keith Perry said a charter boat captain called emergency services on Sunday afternoon after the dolphin jumped on the boat and landed on one of his passengers. The woman suffered a sprained ankle. Her name was not available. Officials from fire department, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Collier County Sheriff’s Office used an immobilizing board and a rope to push the dolphin back into the water.
UNITED KINGDOM
Clergymen collared
Officials have charged two clergymen for allegedly arranging about 200 fake marriages to help bypass immigration laws. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Reverend Brian Shipsides and Reverend Elwon John are charged for facilitating the marriages, mostly between EU and non-EU residents, at All Saints Church in London. CPS lawyer Andrew Hadik said on Monday there is sufficient evidence to prosecute the men “for conspiring to facilitate entry and to obtain indefinite leave to remain in the UK in breach of immigration law.” Shipsides and John were suspended from their Church of England duties shortly after their arrests last year by Border Agency officials and police.
UNITED STATES
Harry Baals a no-go
A new government building in Indiana may officially be called Citizens Square, but to some not-so-square citizens it will always be the Harry Baals Government Center. Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry announced the new city and county government center’s name on Monday. The most popular choice for the building in an online poll was the “Harry Baals Government Center.” The second-place finisher was “Thunder Dome.” The former mayor pronounced his name “balls,” although his descendants pronounce their name “bales” (baylz). Fort Wayne officials previously said the city wouldn’t name the building after Baals because they were worried the name would be ridiculed.
UNITED STATES
Firm recycles fetid fish
The massive fish die-off in a Southern California marina is a boon for a Mojave Desert composting firm that is recycling the stinking haul for use as fertilizer. Trucks took about 75 tonnes of rotting sardines to Victorville’s American Organic site in the first four days of the cleanup at King Harbor in Redondo Beach. The American Organic general manager told the Victorville Daily Press that the fish would be used as fertilizer. Biologists said critically low oxygen levels in the water caused the sardines to suffocate on March 7.
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
The tale of a middle-aged Chinese man, or “uncle,” who disguised himself as a woman to secretly film and share videos of his hookups with more than 1,000 men shook China’s social media, spurring fears for public health, privacy and marital fidelity. The hashtag “red uncle” was the top trending item on China’s popular microblog Sina Weibo yesterday, drawing at least 200 million views as users expressed incredulity and shock. The online posts told of how the man in the eastern city of Nanjing had lured 1,691 heterosexual men into sexual encounters at his home that he then recorded and distributed online. The
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
CEREMONY EXPECTED: Abdullah Ocalan said he believes in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons, and called on the group to put that into practice The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group yesterday renewed a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state. In a seven-minute video message broadcast on pro-Kurdish Medya Haber’s YouTube channel, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said that the peace initiative had reached a stage that required practical steps. “It should be considered natural for you to publicly ensure the disarmament of the relevant groups in a way that addresses the expectations
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