UNITED STATES
Lynx thief in custody
Authorities said they have a suspect in custody in the theft of two seven-week-old Siberian lynx from a petting zoo in southeastern Wisconsin. Town of Delavan Police Chief Raymond Clark on Thursday said in a news release that his department is still investigating whether other people were involved and will not release further information until the investigation is over. The cats were returned to Animal Gardens on Wednesday evening, hungry, but in good health. Security camera footage showed a truck pulling up to the petting zoo area at Animal Gardens on Monday night. Owner Dana Montana said the baby lynx were gone when someone arrived to feed them on Tuesday morning. She said two women dropped them off with a worker on Wednesday. Montana said the exotic cats sell for about US$4,000 each.
UNITED STATES
Slow rider taken home
A 76-year-old woman riding a mobility scooter down the shoulder of Interstate 75 in northern Michigan received a warning and a ride home from a Michigan State Police trooper. State police said the woman had finished shopping in West Branch on Wednesday afternoon and instead of taking a safer, legal route home, decided to take the expressway. The Bay City Times reported that after several people called state police to report the slow-moving scooter traveler, Trooper Jeff Devine flagged the woman down, loaded the scooter into his patrol car and gave her a ride to her home about 5km away. She had already traveled about 1.6km on the highway. Devine issued the woman a warning.
UNITED STATES
First-class row grounds flight
A Delta Air Lines flight bound for Beijing on Thursday returned to Seattle after a passenger in the first-class cabin assaulted a flight attendant before being subdued by other travelers, a Seattle-Tacoma International Airport spokesman said. The flight attendant and a passenger were sent to an area hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening after the Boeing 767-300 landed safely shortly after 7pm, airport spokesman Perry Cooper said. The male passenger was arrested by Port of Seattle Police Department officers, Cooper said. Delta flight 129 departed Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at around 5:30pm, but headed back to Seattle roughly 45 minutes into the flight, Cooper said. Cooper said the man assaulted a flight attendant in the first-class cabin, but said he had no further details about the incident. Cooper said multiple passengers intervened to help subdue the suspect during the in-flight disturbance. The pilot decided to turn back and call for police, fire and medical personnel to meet the plane.
UNITED STATES
Granny becomes flower girl
While Abby Arlt and Dustin Mershon, of Mankato, Minnesota, got their dream wedding, it was the flower girl who stole the show. She was the bride’s 92-year-old grandmother, Georgiana Arlt, of Chaska. Pushing her walker down the grass aisle on Saturday last week, she tossed a path of flower petals as guests cheered and applauded. As she finished her duties and sat down, she said with a laugh: “That was hard work.” Abby Arlt told KARE-TV that she always wanted her grandparents to be the flower girl and ring bearer at her wedding, but her grandfather passed away a year ago. However, he gave the groom his blessing just a week before he died.
NETHERLANDS
Turkish vice PM unwelcome
The Cabinet yesterday said that Turkish Vice Prime Minister Tugrul Turkes was not welcome to travel to the country for a ceremony among Turkish expatriates commemorating last year’s failed coup. A statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said attendance by Turkes or other members of Turkey’s government were undesirable “given the current circumstances in the bilateral relations between our land.” Shortly before the Dutch national elections in March — in which anti-immigrant sentiment was a major theme — the Cabinet declared unwelcome Turkish ministers attempting to travel to the Netherlands to campaign among expatriates for a Turkish constitutional referendum giving broader powers to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. The government expelled one who came anyway. Friday’s decision is a “natural consequence” of events in March, the statement said.
AUSTRALIA
Koala comment disquiets
Pop superstar Katy Perry has been slammed by animal activists for telling her pet poodle “let’s go chase some koalas, Nugget” in a promotional video for the Australian leg of her global tour, which also pushes the nation’s top department store Myer. Koalas on Australia’s east coast are listed as vulnerable to extinction, with dog attacks, habitat loss and vehicle strikes among the top causes of the population decline. The retailer also came under fire on social media: “How could you even think this was OK? On any level? Pathetic. Cruelty to animals is not a joke,” one user wrote on Facebook. Following the backlash, a Myer spokeswoman said the company had removed the reference to koalas in the video and replaced it with: “OK Nugget, it’s time to get you a puppy passport.”
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
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