UNITED STATES
Bin Laden son on terror list
The US added Hamza bin Laden, son and would-be heir of late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, to its terrorist blacklist on Thursday. Hamza, who is in his mid-twenties, has become active as an al-Qaeda propagandist since his father’s death at the hands of US special forces on May 2, 2011. According to letters found in the Navy SEAL raid on Osama’s hideout in Pakistan, Hamza wrote to the Saudi-born al-Qaeda leader asking to be trained to follow him.
UNITED STATES
Lawmaker told to resign
A legislator indicted on allegations of beating his wife should resign, leaders of the South Carolina legislature said on Thursday, with one lawmaker calling it “terrifying and horrific” to hear children on a 911 telephone call screaming for their father to stop. The comments come a day after Representative Chris Corley was indicted on felony domestic violence charges and suspended from his seat in the House of Representatives. State law requires an officeholder indicted on a felony to be suspended. Corley’s wife told deputies he stopped hitting her on Dec. 26 only after noticing she was bleeding and hearing the screams of two of their three children, ages two and eight. Corley said his wife tried to punch him after accusing him of cheating, and the police report noted a scratch on his forehead
UNITED STATES
Lynx spotted in Colorado
Some elusive and charismatic lynx have been parading past awe-struck Colorado residents and visitors this winter, electrifying social media and giving biologists a reason to smile. One of the rare, fluffy-looking cats strolled nonchalantly across the Purgatory resort in southwestern Colorado last week, threading through a crowd of skiers and snowboarders who swerved around the animal and stopped to take videos. Two weeks earlier, a pair of lynx loped along a mountain highway a few feet from Dontje Hildebrand’s car. “My heart just about busted out of my chest when I realized what I was seeing,” Hildebrand said.
HAITI
Politician arrested on air
A former rebel leader who is wanted on drug charges in the US, and was recently elected to the Haitian Senate, was arrested on Thursday as he appeared on a live radio talk show. Guy Philippe was being interviewed live on the show with another recently elected lawmaker when the host abruptly announced that police were outside the studio in the Petionville district of the capital to arrest him. The host came back on air and said that authorities had taken him away. Radio host Gary-Pierre Paul Charles later told reporters that the police were members of the Haitian anti-drug unit and fired shots into the air to disperse a crowd that had gathered.
FRANCE
Police search for student
Police in eastern France on Thursday searched a forest for the body of a missing Japanese student as a chilling video emerged in which a man thought to be her fugitive Chilean ex-boyfriend threatens her. Narumi Kurosaki went missing in the city of Besancon, where she had been studying French, on the night of Dec. 4. French authorities believe the 21-year-old was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, who is believed to have fled to Chile, and have issued an international warrant for his arrest. The Chilean Ministry of Justice on Wednesday said it was assisting the French “in the identification of certain suspects as of their latest movements,” without giving further details.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
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