INDIA
Teeth pulled for record
A man obsessed with setting Guinness world records got 366 flags tattooed on his body and had all his teeth removed so he could put nearly 500 drinking straws and more than 50 burning candles in his mouth. Har Parkash Rishi, who claims to have set more than 20 records, now calls himself Guinness Rishi. The 74-year-old Rishi, an auto parts manufacturer by profession, says his toughest achievement was stuffing the straws in his mouth. “I am the world record holder of 496 straws in my mouth ... For that record, I needed space, I had to remove every tooth so that I could put maximum straws in my mouth,” Rishi told Reuters Television before re-enacting the feat on camera.
Photo: Reuters
FRANCE
New terror laws approved
The Senate on Wednesday approved a law that gives police and judicial authorities new powers to detain terrorism suspects and use deadly force to stop attacks. The National Assembly had already approved it. The law gives police the ability to hold someone without access to a lawyer for up to four hours to check their identification if they suspect that person of connections to terrorism. It gives police officers more leeway to use deadly force against someone they believe is committing a deadly attack and authorizes them to buy weapons in sting operations to combat weapons trafficking.
UNITED KINGDOM
Shakespeare folio auctioned
A set of the first four editions of William Shakespeare’s plays on Wednesday sold for almost ￡2.5 million (US$3.68 million). The Christie’s auction included a previously unrecorded copy of the First Folio, which fetched ￡1.87 million, well above its pre-sale estimate of ￡800,000 to ￡1.2 million. The First Folio, published in 1623, collected 36 plays, 18 of which had not previously appeared in print and would otherwise have been lost.
UNITED STATES
Machete killer sentenced
A California man on Wednesday was sentenced to 26 years in prison for killing his girlfriend in Panama, dismembering her body with a machete and disposing of her remains in a jungle. Brian Brimager had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, saying he stabbed 42-year-old Yvonne Lee Baldelli in the back before disposing of her remains in 2011. He later joked on a social media post that he had a machete for sale that had only been used once to dismember someone and was almost like new, according to the prosecution. He also admitted to killing her two dogs. District Judge Jeffrey Miller said he handed down 26 years because the crime was so horrific. Assistant Attorney Mark Conover said Brimager killed Baldelli because she discovered that he had a girlfriend and daughter in San Diego.
UNITED STATES
App helps with legal win
An Iowa man’s use of a smartphone application to get legal help in the middle of the night proved key in getting his drunk driving conviction overturned. Davenport police breached Craig Hermann’s rights during his 2014 arrest, when a breath test showed that his blood-alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit, the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday. A West Des Moines law firm, Rehkemper & Lindholm, developed the Oh Crap! App to allow users to know their rights during police encounters. Hermann used the app and invoked his right to request a consultation with an attorney or family member, but the officer said “there was no time to wait.” The appeals court said that when Hermann invoked his right for an in-person consultation, not giving him more time breached his rights.
SWITZERLAND
School demands handshakes
A school board in northeastern Therwil municipality on Wednesday said that two Muslim boys who have refused to shake hands with their female teachers can be required to do so. The boys’ refusal set off a debate in the nation, which has a tradition of handshake greetings. “The public interest concerning the equality of men and women as well as the integration of foreigners significantly outweighs the pupils’ freedom of religion and belief,” the school board said in a statement. “The social gesture of shaking hands is important if pupils are to be prepared for working life.”
THAILAND
Juiced up about fakes
Health officials are conducting surprise inspections of fresh orange juice vendors around the kingdom after photographs posted on Facebook showed a backyard producer adulterating the juice in big plastic tubs. The Food and Drug Administration announced the crackdown on Wednesday in response to an uproar over the pictures, which showed a couple diluting orange juice with water streamed from a garden hose, and then adding sugar and orange food coloring. Police arrested the couple in Saraburi Province, north of Bangkok, on Monday. Depending on the ingredients found in their concoction, they could face up to two years in jail and a 50,000 baht (US$1,405) fine. They are already liable for selling a product in a sealed container without proper labeling.
INDONESIA
Death for child rapists
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Wednesday issued a regulation that provides tougher penalties for child rapists, including chemical castration and the death penalty. He said the order was a response to increasing sexual violence against children. “I have declared that sexual offenses against children are an extraordinary crime, because they threaten and endanger the lives of children,” he said. “An extraordinary crime deserves an exceptional response. Therefore, this regulation imposes heavier punishments and additional measures for the perpetrators of the violence.”
AUSTRALIA
Debris may be from MH370
Three new pieces of debris have been found in Mauritius and in Mozambique that could be linked to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, Minister of Transport Darren Chester said yesterday. Chester said two of the new pieces were found in Mauritius, with the other in Mozambique and were “of interest in connection to the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.” No other details were given.
INDONESIA
Alleged poachers arrested
Three men accused of poaching rare Sumatran tigers have been arrested, an official said yesterday, with police seizing animal hides, bones and teeth during raids. The alleged poachers were believed to have hunted the tigers within the protected forests of Mount Leuser National Park on Sumatra. Fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers remain in the wild.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
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