JAPAN
Young Japanese suicidal
More than a quarter of Japanese in their 20s have thought about taking their own life, according to a survey released yesterday, in a nation with one of the world’s highest suicide rates. The survey found that 28.4 percent of respondents in their twenties had contemplated suicide, the highest of any age group, according to the report. “The data show that the younger people hesitate to talk to others, or cannot find anyone to talk to when they have a problem because of shallow relationships with others,” the survey conducted by Japan’s Cabinet Office said. “They tend to suffer alone,” it added.
AUSTRALIA
Drunks fined over penguin
Two drunken Welshmen on Wednesday escaped with a fine after being convicted of stealing a penguin called Dirk from an Australian theme park after consuming large amounts of vodka. Former Royal Marine Rhys Owen Jones, 21, and his bricklayer friend Keri Mules, 20, broke into Sea World on Queensland’s Gold Coast last month and swam with the dolphins and let off a fire extinguisher in a shark enclosure. The pair, in Australia on a working holiday, then stole Dirk, Southport Magistrates Court heard. Their lawyer Bill Potts, who Australian Associated Press reported was wearing a penguin tie in court, said his clients meant no harm. He said after they awoke the next day with hangovers and found the bird in their room they tried to care for it by feeding it bread and putting it in the shower.
AUSTRALIA
Arm nearly lost to chainsaw
A man was in hospital yesterday after his arm was nearly severed by a chainsaw in a horrific neighborhood dispute that saw the alleged offender’s finger hacked off with a machete. Police said they were called out to Minto in Sydney’s southwest on Tuesday evening and were confronted by the grisly scene. “Upon arrival, they located a 30-year-old man with his right arm partially severed,” a police statement said. “It’s believed he had been attacked with a chainsaw during a violent altercation with a neighbor.”
AUSTRALIA
New toilet speed record set
Stuntwoman Jolene Van Vugt was flushed with pride yesterday after setting a new land speed record for the fastest motorized toilet. Van Vugt, a former Canadian motocross champion, steered the contraption through some early wobbles to 75kph in Sydney, 7kph more than the previous Guinness world record. Police were on hand to record the feat. “I flew into Australia yesterday and came out here to jump straight on the toilet,” the 31-year-old said. “That was so fun and I’m stoked to get the record.” Van Vugt, who is in Australia to perform at the Nitro Circus stunt show based on the hit MTV series, holds a host of world records, including being the first woman to backflip a dirt bike.
INDONESIA
Two-year-old dies of bird flu
A two-year-old boy has died of bird flu, the health ministry said, bringing the country’s death toll from the virulent disease this year to seven. The toddler, from the city of Pekanbaru on Sumatra island, developed fever on April 17 and was hospitalized three days later, according to a health ministry statement released late on Tuesday. “His condition worsened and he died on April 27,” it said. It added that it was suspected that he contracted the virus through contact with poultry products as his parents sold quails’ eggs for a living.
UNITED STATES
Cezanne sold for US$19m
A rare watercolor study by Paul Cezanne believed lost for nearly 60 years fetched more than US$19 million at a New York auction. Christie’s auction house says A Card Player sold on Tuesday night to a buyer who wished to remain anonymous. The price includes the buyer’s premium. The watercolor was a study for Cezanne’s celebrated series of oil paintings titled Card Players, created between 1890 and 1896. It was rediscovered this year in the collection of the late Heinz Eichenwald, a well-known collector from Dallas.
UNITED STATES
No basis to claims: official
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said the Secret Service found no basis to allegations its agents hired strippers and prostitutes in El Salvador last year. The allegations had been made by an anonymous source on a Seattle television station after the service was embroiled in a prostitution scandal involving agents’ conduct in Colombia last month. Napolitano said no basis to the claims had been found after interviews with some of the Secret Service agents who were in El Salvador at that time. She said while the interviewing likely was to continue, “to date, nobody has been able to substantiate that anonymous story.”
UNITED STATES
Judge rejects sex immunity
A judge rejected former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s claim of diplomatic immunity in his effort to dismiss a civil suit filed by a hotel housekeeper who claimed that the Frenchman had sexually assaulted her. Justice Douglas McKeon of New York state Supreme Court characterized Strauss-Kahn’s attempt to claim diplomatic immunity as “his own version of a Hail Mary pass,” noting that he had resigned from his position as the head of the IMF before the suit was filed. A provision of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations grants certain diplomatic agents an extension of diplomatic immunity for a period of time after one’s official duties have ended, but McKeon, in a written decision released on Tuesday, ruled that the extension did not apply to Strauss-Kahn.
UNITED STATES
Man convicted in bomb plot
A federal jury on Tuesday found a Bosnian-born US citizen guilty of planning a coordinated suicide bomb attack on New York subways in 2009 at the behest of senior al-Qaeda operatives. Adis Medunjanin, 28, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison following his conviction on all charges, including conspiring to carry out a suicide attack, receiving military training from al-Qaeda and plotting to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan. Medunjanin’s accused co-conspirator, Najibullah Zazi, was arrested in September 2009, just days before Medunjanin and a third member of the plot, Zarein Ahmedzay, were allegedly prepared to carry out the attacks. Medunjanin’s high school friends, Ahmedzay, 27, and Zazi, 27, both pleaded guilty to planning the attacks with him and are cooperating with the government, awaiting sentencing.
UNITED STATES
Gingrich to end campaign
Former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich planned to officially end his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination with an announcement yesterday in Arlington, Virginia. Gingrich had indicated he would leave the race after he finished poorly in five northeastern state primaries last week. On Tuesday, Gingrich thanked supporters in a video message posted on his Web site.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers on Monday said that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That is essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. “As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,” the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast might be moot
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