CHILE
Haitians apply for visa
Haitians living in the country on Monday began a process that would facilitate the reunification of family members, thanks to a new humanitarian visa. Haitians can apply for the 12-month visa if they already have family living in the Andean nation. The measure was announced in April as the country looked to grapple with an influx of migrants, mostly from crisis-hit Venezuela and Haiti. It is to issue 10,000 such humanitarian visas a year. The country has actually tightened the rules for Haitians, canceling a previous tourist visa-on-arrival and imposing a new system that requires them to apply for a 30-day visa in their capital, Port-au-Prince.
AUSTRALIA
Senator causes uproar
A senator has been accused of “slut-shaming” a fellow parliamentarian after telling her to “stop shagging men” in a grubby dispute that yesterday saw the prime minister demand an apology. Senator David Leyonhjelm last week made the derogatory remarks about fellow Senator Sarah Hanson-Young during a heated debate in parliament’s upper house about legalizing pepper spray to protect women. He reportedly told her to “fuck off” when she confronted him over the incident. Leyonhjelm, who does not dispute what happened, repeated his comments and aired other rumors about Hanson-Young in a weekend television interview while refusing to apologize.
INTERNET
Bug unblocks contacts
Facebook on Monday said it is notifying more than 800,000 users that a software bug temporarily unblocked people at the social network and its Messenger service. The glitch active between May 29 and June 5 has been fixed, said Facebook, which has been striving to regain trust in the aftermath of a Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal. “We know that the ability to block someone is important,” Facebook chief privacy officer Erin Egan said in a blog post. “We’d like to apologize and explain what happened.”
UNITED STATES
Attorney general accused
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill has been investigated after four women claimed that he touched them inappropriately at a bar earlier this year. The Indianapolis Star obtained an eight-page memo written by the law firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister, which conducted its investigation at the request of legislative leaders. The memo states that a lawmaker and three legislative staffers said Hill inappropriately touched them during a party on the final night of Indiana’s legislative session. Hill, a Republican, denied the allegations.
UNITED STATES
Hunter sparks outrage
Images of a Kentucky hunter posing with the body of a black giraffe she killed in South Africa have triggered an online backlash after going viral on social media. Thousands of Twitter users expressed outrage at Tess Thompson Talley, 37, for killing the giraffe on a hunting trip last summer. “Prayers for my once in a lifetime dream hunt came true today! Spotted this rare black giraffe bull and stalked him for quite awhile,” Talley wrote in a since-deleted post on Facebook, according to USA Today. The post said the animal was more than 18 years old, weighed 1,814kg and yielded 907kg of meat. The pictures went viral only recently after being reposted on Twitter last month by the Web site Africalandpost.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
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