UNITED STATES
Heimlich inventor dies
The surgeon who created the life-saving Heimlich maneuver for choking victims has died. Henry Heimlich died early on Saturday at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati. He was 96. His son, Phil, said he suffered a heart attack earlier in the week. Heimlich was director of surgery at Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati in 1974 when he devised the treatment for choking victims that made his name a household word. Rescuers using the procedure abruptly squeeze a victim’s abdomen, pushing in and above the navel with the fist to create a flow of air from the lungs. The flow of air can push objects out of the windpipe and prevent suffocation.
UNITED STATES
Woman killed by falling tree
A woman was killed and five others were injured when a large eucalyptus tree fell on a wedding party taking photographs at a Southern California park on Saturday, authorities said. Several people were trapped under the tree at Whittier’s Penn Park, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said. Video from the scene showed fire crews using chain saws to cut through the downed branches. Four of the injured suffered scrapes and bruises, officials said. A your-year-old girl was listed in critical condition due to head trauma, the Los Angeles Times reported. Witnesses described hearing a loud crack and seeing people run from the area.
GERMANY
Cleric slams neo-Nazis
An official from the Lutheran Church in Dortmund has sharply criticized far-right protesters’ occupation of a downtown church next to a Christmas market in the western German city. Superintendent Ulf Schlueter on Saturday told the German news agency dpa that it was “disrespectful to abuse the church for far-right propaganda.” A group of neo-Nazis occupied the Reinoldi Church in Dortmund on Friday night, putting up racist banners from its steeple and setting off firecrackers. Dpa reported that police eventually cleared the church and are investigating the incident. Schlueter said the church’s staff has for years taken a strong stand against far-right extremism and would continue to do so.
BOLIVIA
Crashed pilot unqualified
The pilot in the plane crash that killed 71 people traveling to Colombia on a Bolivian charter including soccer players from Brazil had not flown enough hours to pilot commercial flights, a copilot’s attorney said on Saturday. “We have been able to demonstrate that pilot Miguel Quiroga had not completed the training hours required” to fly commercially, Omar Duran, attorney for the family of copilot Fernando Goytia — who like Quiroga was killed in the crash — told state news agency ABI. The LaMia airlines plane slammed into the mountains outside Medellin on Nov. 29, killing most of Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense Real as they traveled to a match. A harrowing recording has emerged of the pilot radioing the control tower to report he was out of fuel. Six people survived the crash. “Apparently in 2013, some falsified information was relayed and despite the fact authorities verify that [Quiroga] did not have the flight hours required he got his license” in Bolivia, Duran said. Copilot Goytia was aware, but did not disclose the facts to protect the airline’s reputation, the attorney added. Bolivia has suspended the airline’s permit and arrested its manager and his son, who is an official in the civil aviation authority.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
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
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS