UNITED KINGDOM
Officer hangs on, saves life
A police officer has been praised for grabbing hold of a van as it dangled on an icy bridge over a highway with the driver trapped inside. The West Yorkshire Police force said Constable Martin Willis on Friday arrived at the scene of an accident that had left the large van teetering on the edge of the bridge. He grabbed the rear axle and held it until a fire department crew arrived. Willis on Saturday said he told the driver not to panic and “whatever you do, don’t move.” The fire service says the driver is recovering in a hospital.
BRAZIL
Ex-senator eyes presidency
Former senator and environmental minister Marina Silva on Saturday said that she would seek her party’s nomination to run for president next year. Silva announced her plans at a meeting of her Sustainability Network Party (REDE), which would officially nominate her at its national convention in April. The 59-year-old environmentalist has run in the previous two presidential elections, but never made it to a second-round vote.
VENEZUELA
‘Advances made’ in talks
The government and opposition made “significant advances” in the latest talks aimed at resolving the nation’s crushing economic and political crisis, they said on Saturday after two days of meetings in the Dominican Republic. However, there was no agreement and negotiations will continue in Santo Domingo on Dec. 15, the two sides said in a statement read by Dominican President Danilo Medina, who hosted the talks with former Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. The main demand of the opposition coalition, Democratic Union Roundtable, is the opening of a “humanitarian corridor” to allow the import of desperately needed food and medicines — along with a guarantee of free and fair presidential elections next year.
SPAIN
No return yet for Puigdemont
Deposed Catalonian president Carles Puigdemont is to remain in Belgium until after the Dec. 21 elections in his province, as he is fighting extradition to Spain, his lawyer said on Saturday. Madrid sacked Puigdemont for holding a banned independence referendum and declaring on Oct. 27 that Catalans want to become an independent state. It has charged him with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds. Puigdemont is running for re-election at the head of the Junts per Catalunya (“All for Catalonia” in Catalan) grouping.
UNITED STATES
Monty Python out, Hitler in
The Color Purple, Freakonomics, a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets and Monty Python’s Big Red Book are among the titles banned in Texas state prisons, but Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and two books by former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke are not. The Dallas Morning News reported the choices made by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on behalf of thousands of inmates. Also among the forbidden are Where’s Waldo? Santa Spectacular and Homer Simpson’s Little Book of Laziness. Satan’s Sorcery Volume I and 100 Great Poems of Love and Lust are allowed, as is James Battersby’s The Holy Book of Adolf Hitler. What is or is not permissible is largely decided by mailroom staff, the newspaper found. Many books are banned because their bindings or covers could be used to smuggle contraband. “Mein Kampf is on the approved list because it does not violate our rules,” department deputy chief of staff Jason Clark said.
SOUTH KOREA
Boat crash kills 13
Thirteen people were killed and two were missing after a fishing boat collided with a tanker off the west coast and capsized early yesterday, the coast guard said. The Seonchang-1 fishing boat was carrying 20 passengers on a fishing tour, as well as two sailors, when it crashed with the 336-tonne fuel tanker at about 6am at sea near Incheon. Thirteen people were found dead or died after being sent to hospitals. Seven others were being treated at hospitals while two remained missing, the coast guard said.
YEMEN
Coalition jets bomb Sana’a
Aircraft from the Saudi-led coalition yesterday bombed Houthi positions in Sana’a, residents and local media said, aiming to shore up supporters of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh as they battle the Iran-aligned Houthi group. Saleh on Saturday announced he was ready to turn a “new page” in ties with the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen if it stopped attacks on Yemeni citizens, in a move that could pave the way to end nearly three years of war. The apparent shift in position came as Saleh’s supporters battled Houthi fighters in Hadda, a district in southern Sana’a where members of Saleh’s family, including his nephew Tareq, live.
PHILIPPINES
Vaccine causes alarm
The nation is prepared for a “worst-case scenario” following warnings that an anti-dengue vaccine administered to thousands of children might worsen the disease in some cases, a health official said on Saturday. Department of Health spokesman Eric Tayag said the country had already taken precautions against potential mishaps when it became the first country to use the landmark vaccine last year. French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, which developed the vaccine, earlier this week revealed that it could trigger more severe symptoms in people who had not been previously infected with dengue.
INDIA
Stinky socks cause ruckus
Police arrested a man whose stinky socks caused a showdown on a bus as his fellow passengers protested the pungent odor, an officer said on Saturday. The man removed his shoes and socks on a bus going from the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh to New Delhi and put them near the aisle, police said. Other passengers protested and asked the man to put away the offending socks or throw them out. The man refused, sparking a heated confrontation that forced the bus driver to stop at a police station in Una District of Himachal Pradesh.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Three sisters from Ohio who inherited a dime kept in a bank vault for more than 40 years knew it had some value, but they had no idea just how much until just a few years ago. The extraordinarily rare coin, struck by the US Mint in San Francisco in 1975, could bring more than US$500,000, said Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, which specializes in currency and is handling an online auction that ends next month. What makes the dime depicting former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt so valuable is a missing “S” mint mark for San Francisco, one of just two
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