AUSTRIA
Right-wing shindig crashed
Police officials said that a demonstration protesting the presence of right-wingers at a ball in Vienna has left at least two people injured and dozens of protesters detained. Police officers estimated that about 5,000 demonstrators gathered on Friday to oppose the ball at the imperial-era Hofburg Palace organized by the Freedom Party, which promotes xenophobia and has some neo-Nazi supporters. Some allegedly tried to break through police barricades and threw firecrackers. At least one police officer and one demonstrator were reported hurt, and 38 protesters were detained by the time the crowd started to thin shortly before midnight.
SPAIN
Shakira bears second son
Colombian pop star Shakira has given birth in Barcelona to her second child, a boy, she said on Friday. A statement posted on Shakira’s Web site said the baby, Sasha, was born on Thursday night. “The hospital confirmed that both mother and child are in excellent health,” the statement said. The singer and her boyfriend, Spanish soccer player Gerard Pique, had their first child, a son named Milan, in 2013. Shakira, 37, and Pique, 27, met in 2010, but confirmed that they were in a relationship only in March 2011. The Hips Don’t Lie singer, one of the best-selling Latin pop idols, gave birth in Barcelona’s Teknon clinic, local media outlets had earlier reported. Pique is a defender for Spanish La Liga team FC Barcelona.
GERMANY
Tank ace dies at 92
Otto Carius, a World War II German panzer ace credited with destroying more than 150 enemy tanks, mostly on the eastern front, has died at 92. Carius died at home in western Germany on Jan. 24 after a short illness, according to a statement issued on Friday on the Web site of the Tiger Pharmacy, which he founded in 1956. He was drafted in 1940 as an infantryman and volunteered for a tank unit, according to his autobiography, Tigers in the Mud. Eventually promoted to first lieutenant, he was wounded several times and received many awards, including the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves. In the foreward to his book’s 2003 edition, Carius defended his service to Nazi Germany, saying that combat troops should not be painted with the broad brush of guilt.
ARGENTINA
Only Nisman’s DNA on gun
Testing of the pistol apparently used to kill a prosecutor who had leveled charges against the president has found traces of DNA belonging only to him, the lead investigator in the case said on Friday. Alberto Nisman was found dead in his apartment on Jan. 18, hours before he was to detail allegations that President Christina Fernandez protected former Iranian officials accused of orchestrating the 1994 car-bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires. Investigator Viviana Fein said on Friday that traces of DNA found on the pistol, its ammunition and other items from the scene “undoubtedly” matched that of Nisman. She also said that a security camera in the service elevator of his apartment building was not working and there were no cameras in its stairwell. Supporters of Nisman have insisted that the prosecutor would not have killed himself and even Fernandez has said that, contrary to initial findings, his death could not have been a suicide. Nisman had feared for his safety and 10 federal police were assigned to protect him. The officers were suspended as part of the investigation, but none have been named as suspects.
HONDURAS
Four men shot to death
Four men were shot to death on the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa, on Friday, officials and witnesses said. Witnesses said the four men were talking on a street corner in a slum neighborhood when a car pulled up and at least six people emerged. The Honduran civil defense agency confirmed the killing. President Juan Orlando Hernandez said this week the nation had reduced its homicide rate from 86 to 66 per 100,000 people.
UNITED STATES
Man has ‘hangover’ episode
A Hong Kong businessman has been charged with breaking into a northwestern Montana home after allegedly getting drunk at a wedding and causing extensive damage in a case a judge says “reads like a Hangover movie.” Montana sheriff’s deputies responding to a report of a naked intruder at a residence found food strewn across the kitchen, a frying pan heating “some sort of wretched, mysterious substance” on the stove, urine-soaked formal wear in the living room and flooding from a damaged water line. Guneet Banga was found naked and asleep in the bedroom early on Sept. 6 last year. Investigators learned that Banga had attended a wedding a few houses away and apparently, while intoxicated, mistakenly broke into someone else’s house to get some sleep. Charges of felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor criminal trespass were filed on Friday last week and Banga was ordered to appear for arraignment on Wednesday. He did not show up.
VENEZUELA
US reporter appears in ad
A US reporter briefly arrested in Venezuela in 2013 said he has unwittingly turned up in an advertisement promoting the nation. Miami Herald Bogota-based correspondent Jim Wyss was detained for two days near the border with Colombia in November 2013 for not having a journalist visa. So he was surprised this week when a friend pointed out a picture of him on the Twitter feed of state-funded broadcaster Telesur alongside a big heart and the caption, “We love Venezuela ... for receiving foreigners like their own.” The picture, according to a copy blogged by Wyss (http://tinyurl.com/ofvacga), showed him hugging a colleague at Miami airport right after his release from the nation. “I really hope someone in Telesur had a wicked sense of humor, but I fear it’s just a mistake,” Wyss said, laughing, on Friday.
UNITED STATES
Zimmerman evades charges
A Florida man cleared two years ago of murdering unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in a case that fueled debate about racism in the nation is not set to face charges over recent allegations of assault, local media reported. A woman described as his ex-girlfriend told police George Zimmerman had thrown a wine bottle at her in a domestic dispute. However, she is no longer cooperating with authorities, prompting police to drop the charges, the Orlando Sentinel reported on Friday.
VENEZUELA
Oil official accused of graft
An oil ministry official in charge of overseeing the domestic fuel market has been arrested on suspicion of corruption, the state prosecutors’ office said in a statement on Friday. Nubia Parada would appear in court in the coming hours, the statement said, without providing additional details of what she is accused of. President Nicolas Maduro last month said Venezuela needs to raise fuel prices to limit losses to state coffers which are estimated at about US$12 billion per year.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
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