UNITED STATES
‘Affluenza’ mom bailed
The mother of a Texas teenager who used an “affluenza” defense for a deadly wreck is expected to leave jail soon after a judge on Monday sharply reduced her bond. Tonya Couch’s bond was lowered from US$1 million to US$75,000. Couch posted the bond and was due to be released yesterday morning “barring any unseen delays” after being fitted with a GPS monitor, Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said in a tweet posted late on Monday. Couch is required to wear the electronic ankle monitor and remain at the home of her 29-year-old son, Steven McWilliams, except for appointments with her doctor and lawyer. “I want her at her son’s home, and that’s where I want her to stay,” said State District Judge Wayne Salvant, who also ordered Couch to pay nearly US$3,200 in restitution to the sheriff’s office for the cost of transporting her back to Texas from Los Angeles. The 48-year-old is charged with hindering the apprehension of a felon after she and her son, Ethan Couch, were caught in a Mexican resort city. Ethan, 18, killed four people in a 2013 crash and was facing allegations that he violated his probation.
UNITED STATES
Thief puts python in pants
A snake thief smuggled a python from a Portland, Oregon, pet store by stuffing it down his pants. Sergeant Greg Stewart said no arrests have been made in Friday last week’s theft, but Christin Bjugan, the owner of the A to Z pet store, said video surveillance has helped police identify a suspect and she expects to have the snake returned soon. “We know who did it,” she said on Monday. “We know where he lives, we know where he works, we know all about him and his girlfriend. We’re just waiting to get our snake back.” The video shows the suspect with a blue-haired woman, who appeared to be in on the theft. He handed her some keys before taking the snake from a tank and shuffling out of the store. Bjugan says it was “pretty gutsy” for the man to put the python down his pants and potentially a bad move because it was close to feeding day. On the other hand, she added, the snake does like warm, dark places.
MONACO
‘Pink Panther’ thief on trial
An alleged member of the infamous “Pink Panther” gang of jewel thieves went on trial on Monday, pleading guilty to holding up a jewelry shop in 2007. Nicolai Ivanovic, 42, of Montenegro is being tried without his presumed accomplice, Zoran Kostic, a compatriot who is in jail in France and considered a likely leader of the Pink Panther gang. The duo allegedly robbed the store in a high-end shopping gallery at gunpoint, making off with 32 Audemars Piguet luxury watches, as well as the watch of a soccer player who was caught up in the heist. The total haul was estimated to be worth more than 460,000 euros (US$500,000). They left in a stolen car that was found a month later not far from the principality in southeastern France. The two men were arrested in Paris nearly two years later, in May 2009. Investigators suspected them of involvement in jewelry store heists in Monaco and the two northern French towns of Le Touquet and Rouen, as well as in Germany and Switzerland. Ivanovic on Monday admitted to the heist in Monaco, saying the watches had been sold in Milan, Italy, for 200,000 euros. The Pink Panthers gained their nickname after a raid on a London branch of Graff Diamonds in 2003, in which two of them posed as wealthy customers, persuading staff to open the doors for them, before helping themselves to diamonds worth millions of dollars.
PHILIPPINES
US military accord upheld
The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that a military accord with the US was constitutional, a spokesman said, paving the way for a greater presence of US forces in the former US colony. The agreement, signed in 2014, but not implemented due to legal challenges, will see more US troops rotate through the country for war games. Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te said judges approved the accord with a 10-4 vote.
CHINA
Ex-deputy minister jailed
A former deputy national police chief and ally of the country’s ex-security czar Zhou Yongkang (周永康) was yesterday sentenced to 15 years in prison for corruption, state media reported.
Former deputy public security minister Li Dongsheng (李東生), 61, was convicted of bribery by a court in Tianjin, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said on a verified social media account. Prosecutors previously accused him of taking nearly 22 million yuan (US$3.3 million) in bribes.
The court gave him 15 years in jail and he decided not to appeal, CCTV said.
JAPAN
Magnitude 6.1 quake hits
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the northern island of Hokkaido early yesterday, the US Geological Survey said. The quake hit off the west coast of the island, about 170km north of Sapporo, at a relatively deep 236km. The Japan Meteorological Agency recorded it as a magnitude 6.0 quake.
THAILAND
Wild elephant kills woman
A wild elephant trampled a rubber tapper to death and left her two-year-old son badly injured, police said yesterday, the second deadly attack in the area in recent months. The 34-year-old woman was found early on Monday morning on a road near a rubber plantation in the east. Her body was found next to her motorcycle and injured baby, police said. “She was killed instantly at the site, her son sustained a broken leg and is now in hospital,” Police Lieutenant Pramote Kongnantha said. The officer said the elephant is believed to have retreated back into a nearby national park. A park official at Khao Soi Dao, one of several protected areas in the province bordering Cambodia, said it was unclear whether the elephant was the same animal that killed two men on a rubber plantation in the province in October last year. In August last year, an elephant killed his keeper, before taking off into the jungle with three Chinese tourists still on his back. The tourists survived.
THAILAND
Snake found in airport
Bangkok’s main international airport has issued an apology after a snake was found on a luggage cart in the arrival hall and startled passengers. Suvarnabhumi International Airport, built on land previously known as “Cobra Swamp,” said it would like to “apologize for the incident that frightened passengers” on Sunday. Passengers spotted the snake coiled around the base of the trolley after a female traveler had loaded bags onto it and was preparing to leave the arrival hall, Thai media reported. “After being alerted, security officers captured the snake right away and no passengers were injured,” Airports of Thailand said in a statement that described the reptile as “a small baby snake,” but did not identify the species. Meanwhile, on Phuket, a Chinese tourist was bitten on the nose by a python while leaning in to kiss it while visiting a snake show over the weekend, the Bangkok Post reported on Monday.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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