INDIA
Street mutt becomes top dog
Eighteen months after being rescued from stone-throwing children, a street mutt has emerged top dog in an elite bomb and drug-sniffing squad. Asha — “hope” in Hindi — was rescued by West Bengal police when they found her being mistreated outside their training facility. “The dog was bleeding when she was taken inside the campus,” West Bengal Police Training Academy official Dipankar Bhattacharya said. Officers originally intended keeping the mixed-breed stray as a pet, but Asha turned out to have a nose every bit as good as the German Shepherds and Labradors usually trained to sniff out explosives and drugs. Sajal Mondal, the head of the academy, said she passed the grueling training with flying colors. “She performed better than her pedigree peers... She is also our fastest runner,” Mondal said.
CZECH REPUBLIC
Lion mauls, kills owner
A lion that mauled and killed its owner in a cage at his property has been shot dead by police. Local media reported that the male lion attacked Michal Prasek when he entered the cage he had built for the animal in his garden, about 350km southeast of Prague. A lioness was also shot by police. “A 33-year old man died after his lion attacked him,” police spokeswoman Lenka Javorkova said on Tuesday. “The police had to shoot two lions in order to get to the man who was with the animals.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Hundreds play royal match
Hundreds of people on Tuesday descended on the town of Ashbourne in central England to play a traditional soccer game in which the rules are hazy and the goals 5km apart. The Royal Shrovetide Football Match involves teams called the Up’ards and the Down’ards, who battle to try and tap the ball three times on stone plinths that act as goals. Well aware of the passions involved, local shops close early and board up as if preparing for a riot. Due to the large numbers taking part, there is little kicking of the ball, with players instead tending to carry the ball across the pitch. The match is played from 2pm to 10pm on both Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, but goals are rare because of the size of the pitch, with last year’s match finishing 1-1. The centuries-old event gained its “royal” title when the future Edward VIII started a 1928 game by throwing up the ball, an act repeated by present heir to the throne Prince Charles in 2003.
UNITED STATES
Jackson backlash begins
Michael Jackson fans have bombarded Oprah Winfrey with hateful messages after the broadcast of a documentary about alleged child abuse by the late singer. Leaving Neverland, and her follow-up interview with the two men at the center of the film, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who said they were befriended by Jackson and were abused by him from the ages of seven and 10 in the early 1990s. The film has been met with a mixture of horror and disbelief after a two-part airing on HBO on Sunday and Monday. Winfrey, herself a sexual assault survivor, conducted the follow-up interview in a special in front of an audience of assault victims. Winfrey was aware of the attacks they might face. “All the anger — you guys are going to get it,” she said. “You’re going to get it. I’m going to get it. We’re all going to get it.” Robson said that he had already received death threats. Jackson’s family has called the documentary a “public lynching” and said he was “100 percent innocent.” Some radio stations in Canada and the Netherlands have stopped playing Jackson’s music
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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