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.”
India and Canada yesterday reached a string of agreements, including on critical mineral cooperation and a “landmark” uranium supply deal for nuclear power, the countries’ leaders said in New Delhi. The pacts, which also covered technology and promoting the use of renewable energy, were announced after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a fresh start in the relationship between their nations. “Our ties have seen a new energy, mutual trust and positivity,” Modi said. Carney’s visit is a key step forward in ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi
Gaza is rapidly running out of its limited fuel supply and stocks of food staples might become tight, officials said, after Israel blocked the entry of fuel and goods into the war-shattered territory, citing fighting with Iran. The Israeli military closed all Gaza border crossings on Saturday after announcing airstrikes on Iran carried out jointly with the US. Israeli authorities late on Monday night said that they would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza yesterday, for “gradual entry of humanitarian aid” into the strip, without saying how much. Israeli authorities previously said the crossings could not be operated safely during
Counting was under way in Nepal yesterday, after a high-stakes parliamentary election to reshape the country’s leadership following protests last year that toppled the government. Key figures vying for power include former Nepalese prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli, rapper-turned-mayor Balendra Shah, who is bidding for the youth vote, and newly elected Nepali Congress party leader Gagan Thapa. In Kathmandu’s tea shops and city squares, people were glued to their phones, checking results as early trends flashed up — suggesting Shah’s centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was ahead. Nepalese Election Commission spokesman Prakash Nyupane said the counting was ongoing “in a peaceful manner”
‘APARTHEID WALL’: Critics said the wall would not stop crime, and that it aimed to hide the poor and the fact that there is a privileged and privilege-deprived Cape Town Cape Town’s plans to build a wall to prevent attacks on the airport highway have divided South Africa’s tourist hotspot, with critics calling it an apartheid throwback to hide poverty. The nearly 9km wall would separate part of the road that leads in from the international airport from the packed, impoverished settlements that line the route. Attacks — some deadly — have been reported for years along the busy multi-lane route, including hijackings and smash-and-grab ambushes. “They’ll come with a stone and break the windscreen,” e-hailing driver Mustafa Hashim said, recounting stories of attacks on the corridor known as the “N2 hell
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