UNITED STATES
Man survives on taco sauce
A man whose car was stranded in snow in central Oregon for five days survived by eating taco sauce packets and starting the engine periodically to warm up. A snowmobiler on Friday found Jeremy Taylor, 36, of Sunriver, and a search-and-rescue team member who rode to him on a large snow tractor brought him out of the woods, Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sergeant William Bailey said. Taylor, an avid outdoorsman who loves to go off-roading, was last seen buying gas on Sunday last week in Sunriver. He told his rescuers he and his dog, Ally, became stuck in deep snow on a US Forest Service road later that same day.
ESTONIA
Voters head to polls
Estonians yesterday voted in a general election with the center-left coalition dueling its traditional liberal rivals and a surging far-right party buoyed by a backlash from mostly rural voters in the Baltic eurozone state. The lackluster campaign has focused on bread-and-butter issues, such as taxation and public spending, as well as tensions over Russian language education for the country’s sizeable Russian minority and the rural-urban divide. Nearly 40 percent of the 880,690 eligible voters have used e-voting in advanced polling, with officials confident that the online system can withstand any attempted meddling. A poll collating e-voters and those intent on using paper ballots suggested a tight race. No exit polls were to be released, with initial official results due by midnight.
AUSTRALIA
Two dingoes put down
Two dingoes have been put down after a French mother and son were mauled at an Australian tourist island, authorities said yesterday, the second attack in the popular spot in just more than a month. The pair had just stepped out of a vehicle at the World Heritage-listed Fraser Island off the Queensland state coast on Thursday evening when they came across a pack of dingoes, paramedics said. “The couple panicked and ran back toward the vehicle and it was that time when the pack actually chased them and attacked,” Queensland Ambulance Service spokesman Michael Augustus said on Friday.
ECUADOR
Guaido to return home
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido on Saturday said that he will return home after concluding a visit to Ecuador, raising the prospect of a showdown with the government that he is trying to force from power. “I’m announcing my return home from Ecuador,” Guaido said after meeting President Lenin Moreno. He also called for protests in Venezuela today and tomorrow, days that coincide with the country’s Carnival season. Guaido’s spokesman Edward Rodriguez said that “it’s possible” that he will return today.
GAZA STRIP
Balloons prompt airstrike
Israeli aircraft have struck two Hamas observation points in the enclave, a security source said yesterday, after the Israeli army said that balloons carrying an “explosive device” were sent toward Israel. No injuries occurred from the strikes late on Saturday east of Al-Bureij and east of Rafah in the south of the blockaded enclave run by Hamas, a security source said. Late on Wednesday, Israeli aircraft targeted several militant sites in the enclave after an “explosive balloon” launched from the area damaged a house in Israel.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
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