UNITED STATES
Margot Kidder dies aged 69
Actress Margot Kidder, best known for playing Lois Lane in the Superman films in the 1970s and 1980s, has died at age 69, a funeral home said on Monday. The Franzen-Davis Funeral Home in Livingston, Montana, said on its Web site that Kidder passed away on Sunday at her home in the town. The cause of death was not given and her manager did not return a request for comment. Canadian-born Kidder appeared in more than 70 movies and TV shows. She was unable to work for two years after a serious car crash in 1990 and eventually became bankrupt. Six years later, she had a mental health breakdown and disappeared for four days, spending time homeless. She was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
ECUADOR
Finance minister replaced
President Lenin Moreno on Monday replaced the country’s finance minister for the second time in as many months, amid economic woes that have prompted major cuts to the state apparatus. The president, who on Thursday next week is to complete his first of four years in office, named business leader Richard Martinez as minister of economy and finance, the National Secretariat of Communications said. “My goal and that of my team is to guarantee the sustainability of public finances and promote economic growth to generate jobs,” Martinez said on Twitter.
NORWAY
Group sets collection goal
Europe’s bottled water producers yesterday set a goal of raising collection rates of plastic bottles from 60 percent to 90 percent by 2025 to improve recycling and cut pollution. “Our packaging today is part of the unacceptable phenomenon of littering alongside other discarded items,” the European Federation of Bottled Waters said in a statement. The federation, which represents national associations and several major companies, said the new industry goal was to collect 90 percent of all polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles by 2025 as an average across the EU. Almost 60 percent of PET bottles are now collected for recycling, although with big national variations.
UNITED STATES
Teachers paying for supplies
Nearly all public-school teachers report digging into their pockets to pay for school supplies, spending nearly US$480 per year, far more than the federal US$250 tax deduction available to teachers. The findings by the National Center of Education Statistics released yesterday came as teachers across the country are walking out of classrooms to protest low pay and to demand pay raises. About 94 percent of public-school teachers said they spent their own money on notebooks, pens and other supplies in the 2014-2015 school year without reimbursement, the study found. The average amount spent was US$479.
UNITED STATES
Mom denies abuse of kids
A California woman has denied her husband abused their 10 children, who were removed from their home after authorities said they had puncture wounds, burns and other injuries. Fairfield resident Ina Rogers on Monday told reporters that she called authorities in March after her 12-year-old son did not come home. Nine other children were found living in what police call squalid and unsafe conditions. The children were removed from their home on March 31. Authorities said the children’s father, 29-year-old Jonathan Allen, has pleaded not guilty to torture and child cruelty charges. Rogers said the home only looked messy because she tore it apart searching for her son.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
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
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
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