HUNGARY
Crane arrives in Budapest
A huge floating crane, designed to lift a sunken sightseeing boat that was carrying South Korean tourists, on Wednesday arrived in Budapest as the search for more bodies continued, officials said. However, rising waters in the Danube River could impede the crane from reaching the site of the tragedy for up to four days, said Istvan Gyenyei, captain of the Adam Clark floating crane. The Hableany sightseeing boat, carrying 33 South Koreans and two Hungarian crew members, capsized and sank in about seven seconds after a collision on Wednesday last week with the Viking Sigyn, a river cruise ship. “Once the ropes are in place, the lifting tasks take a couple of hours,” Gyenyei said. “The question is how the [sunken] boat will behave as it starts to tear away from the river floor... If the boat’s hull doesn’t break, the ropes will bear it for sure.” The plan is to put the Hableany on a barge in the river once raised out of the water, he said. The confirmed death toll rose to 13, as two more bodies were recovered from the river. Seven people were rescued and 15 remain missing.
UNITED STATES
Shooter smuggling Chinese
Authorities said that a 23-year-old US citizen who died in a shoot-out with border inspectors in San Diego was bringing two Chinese men into the country illegally. Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday said that the man fired at officers several times after refusing to pull aside for inspection. The Chinese men — aged 18 and 27 — were found unharmed inside the vehicle. San Diego police identified the driver as Travis James Eckstein. Police said seven Customs and Border Protection officers were involved in the shooting on Monday night, none of them injured. All vehicle and pedestrian traffic into the country was suspended for about 30 minutes after the shooting. San Ysidro is the nation’s busiest border crossing, separating San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico.
UNITED STATES
Ladybugs pop up on radar
A huge blob that appeared on the National Weather Service’s radar was not a rain cloud, but a massive swarm of ladybugs over southern California. Meteorologist Joe Dandrea said that the array of bugs appeared to be about 129km wide as it flew over San Diego on Tuesday. However, Dandrea told the Los Angeles Times that the ladybugs were actually spread throughout the sky, flying at between 1.5km and 2.8km, with the most concentrated group about 16km wide. It was not immediately known what type of ladybug was causing the phenomenon. The newspaper said that one species, adult convergent lady beetles, mate and migrate from the Sierra Nevada to valley areas where they eat aphids and lay eggs.
UNITED STATES
Deer trap elderly woman
Police rescued an Indiana woman after three deer crashed through a window, trapping her inside her apartment. Decatur police said that the 74-year-old woman was in her retirement home apartment on Tuesday night when the deer crashed through a bedroom window. Officers found her trapped on her living room couch, with her walker knocked over, as one deer jumped about the room. Sergeant Kevin Gerber said that an officer shielded the woman after that deer knocked her over. Gerber said that officers subdued and removed one deer, while the other two ended up in a bathroom where they were tranquilized and released. The woman was not injured and “was amazingly calm” during her ordeal, but the deer heavily damaged her apartment, he said.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
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