UNITED STATES
Plane crash kills 16
A military plane on Monday crashed into a field in rural Mississippi, killing at least 16 people aboard and spreading debris for kilometers. Leflore County Emergency Management Agency Director Frank Randle told reporters at a late briefing that 16 bodies had been recovered after the KC-130 spiraled into the ground about 135km north of Jackson in the Mississippi Delta. The KC-130 is used as a refueling tanker. Andy Jones said he was working on his family’s catfish farm just before 4pm when he heard a boom and looked up to see the plane corkscrewing downward with one engine smoking. By the time he and other reached the crash site, fires were burning too intensely to approach the wreckage, he said.
MEXICO
Journalist’s death probed
The Veracruz state attorney general’s office on Monday said it has opened an investigation into the shooting of a Honduran photojournalist, who had apparently fled his own country fearing for his life. The body of Edwin Rivera Paz was found in the city of Acayucan on Sunday with gunshot wounds, and was identified by a family member, the office said. Rivera Paz was a cameraman for the Honduran television program Los Verduleros (The Grocers). He fled Honduras after assailants shot and killed Igor Padilla, the program’s director and producer, in mid-January.
UNITED STATES
Man charged over mailings
An Olympia, Washington, man who authorities say mailed one of his fingers to the IRS is now facing federal charges. The Seattlepi.com on Monday reported that 68-year-old Normand Lariviere was charged with mailing a threat to injure after IRS workers in Ogden, Utah, discovered a package containing a fake bomb on Thursday last week. Charging papers say he also sent his finger, a bullet and a marijuana joint to tax collectors last year. Court documents say Lariviere has been upset with the IRS since he was laid off in the 1990s from his job as a civilian defense contractor.
BRAZIL
New class for teachers
About 40 teachers in Rio de Janeiro started a new course on Monday — they are learning how to react to the shootings and violence plaguing the city. The course was organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and each teacher will go back and instruct colleagues in their own schools on how to deal with a variety of violent incidents. “It’s a question of knowing how to manage each situation — how to react during a shooting, for example. These are simple courses of action that can make a real difference,” said Lorenzo Caraffi, regional director of the ICRC in Latin America. Since the start of the academic year, only seven of 120 school days have passed without at least one of Rio’s schools being shut down because of outbreaks of violence.
UNITED STATES
Happy cows give more milk
Dairy farmers who want their herds to be cash cows should give them bigger stalls, increase air circulation and provide shelter to prevent overheating, according to a University of Wisconsin initiative that focuses on making dairy cows happier so they provide more milk. “I think it’s really important that we give them the spa treatment,” said Nigel Cook, who has directed the Dairyland Initiative since 2010. Cook said major concerns include leg pain or lameness, especially among cows that stand for long periods without a comfortable resting place.
UNITED KINGDOM
May suspends lawmaker
Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday suspended one of her Conservative Party lawmakers after she used racist language at a think tank event on the implications of Brexit on the financial services sector. Anne Marie Morris, who campaigned to leave the EU in last year’s referendum, was describing her view of what could be done to ensure a good exit agreement in the two years allowed for talks. “And then we get to the real nigger in the wood pile which is, in two years, what will happen if there is no deal,” she told a gathering of politicans, lawyers and senior city figures. She later said she apologised unreservedly for any offense caused. May said she had been shocked to hear about the comment, which she described as “completely unacceptable,” adding that she “immediately asked the Chief Whip to suspend the party whip.” Suspending the party whip means Morris is excluded from the party and will sit as an independent, potentially reducing May’s ability to pass legislation.
TURKEY
More warrants issued
Authorities have issued detention warrants for 105 information technology experts suspected of aiding last year’s failed coup, state-run Anadolu Agency said. The warrants were issued yesterday as the nation starts a week of events commemorating the July 15 anniversary of the thwarted coup and remembering about 250 people who were killed. The report said that 52 of the suspects, who include ex-employees of the nation’s scientific research council and the telecommunications authority, have been detained so far. They are accused of providing technical support to coup plotters.
INDIA
Cattle trade ban suspended
The Supreme Court yesterday suspended a government ban on the trade of cattle for slaughter, a boost for the multibillion-dollar beef and leather industries mostly run by members of the Muslim minority. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government in May decreed that markets could only trade cattle for agricultural purposes, such as plowing and dairy production, on the grounds of stopping cruelty to animals. The slaughter of cows, considered holy in Hinduism, was already banned in most parts of the nation, but Hindu hardliners and cow vigilante groups have been increasingly asserting themselves since Modi’s government came to power in 2014. Muslims, who make up 14 percent of the nation’s 1.3 billion people, said the May government decree against the beef and leather industry employing millions of workers was aimed at marginalizing them. The Supreme Court stressed the hardship that the ban on the trade of cattle for slaughter had imposed. “The livelihood of people should not be affected by this,” Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar said in his ruling.
UNITED KINGDOM
Trump to visit next year
US President Donald Trump’s state visit to Britain is being planned for next year, a senior government source said yesterday. Prime Minister Theresa May extended the invitation when she visited Washington just days after Trump’s inauguration in January, but a date has yet to be set. The source said both sides had been unable to arrange a date for this year and were now looking for dates next year. There has been speculation Trump was deferring the state visit, an occasion filled with pomp that involves a banquet with Queen Elizabeth II, amid concerns that it would draw protests over his presidency.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
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