UNITED STATES
Leak cancels spacewalk
A spacewalk to work on the International Space Station ended abruptly on Tuesday when a water-like liquid started building up inside an Italian astronaut’s helmet, NASA officials said. US astronaut Chris Cassidy and Italy’s Luca Parmitano were less than an hour into a planned six-hour outing when Parmitano reported what seemed to be water inside his helmet. “My head is really wet and I have a feeling it’s increasing,” Parmitano radioed to flight controllers in Houston. Thinking it might be his drink bag leaking, Parmitano drained the bag, but in the weightless environment of space, blobs of liquid continued to collect in his helmet. “Where’s it coming from?” Parmitano said. “It’s too much. Now it’s in my eyes.” With the astronaut at risk of choking or drowning, NASA called off the spacewalk. Engineers estimate about 1 liter to 1.5 liters of water had collected inside Parmitano’s spacesuit by the time station crew members were able to get to him and take off his helmet.
CANADA
‘Glee’ star overdosed: report
Cory Monteith, the Canadian star of the hit TV musical series Glee, died of an apparent overdose of heroin and alcohol, the British Columbia Coroner’s Office said on Tuesday. The 31-year-old Monteith, who had struggled in the past with substance abuse and checked into a rehabilitation facility in April, was found dead on Saturday in his Vancouver hotel room. “There is no evidence to suggest this is anything other than the most sad and tragic accident,” coroner Barbara McLintock said in a statement released on YouTube. McLintock said the coroner’s investigation was continuing. Monteith starred on Glee as Finn Hudson, a star high-school football player who joined a motley crew of students in the glee club.
UNITED STATES
Army trial jury picking starts
Jury selection began on Tuesday for the trial of Army General Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair, who is charged with sexually assaulting a subordinate, in the latest in a string of sexual misconduct allegations in the military. The charges against Sinclair led to his removal from command last year in Afghanistan. Sinclair, a 27-year army veteran, pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of forcible sodomy, wrongful sexual conduct, possessing pornography while deployed and conduct unbecoming of an officer. The most serious charges stem from accusations that he forced a subordinate with whom he acknowledges having a three-year affair to perform oral sex on two occasions. He is also accused of eliciting nude e-mails and text messages from other female subordinates. He could be sent to prison for life if convicted of the most serious charge: forcible sodomy.
UNITED STATES
Guard charged for sex abuse
An Ohio National Guard major who once said he wanted to adopt a girl from Africa to protect her from rape has been indicted on charges he sexually abused three children, including two of his own. A grand jury indicted the man on charges of rape, sexual battery and gross sexual imposition between 2006 and last year. The indictment said he is the father of two of the children, but does not give his relationship with the third. The man is not being named to protect the children’s identities. The Guard say he is on duty in Kuwait. The man spoke in a 2008 story in a military publication about his large family and his desire to adopt an African girl to protect her from sexual assault.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
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