GREECE
New fires force evacuations
Two new brushfires have broken out, forcing the overnight evacuation of four villages on the island of Evia, authorities said yesterday. The new blazes came several hours after a major blaze led to the mobilization of more than 100 firefighters and the evacuation of another village. The island’s fire department said that the two new fires broke out simultaneously shortly before midnight on Thursday. Firefighters managed to limit the spread of the initial blaze, but it continued to burn. A total of 255 firefighters, four water bombers and three helicopters, along with 100 ground vehicles and earth-moving machinery, were battling the three fires.
POLAND
Tax break for young passed
Lawmakers have approved a measure that would exonerate most workers younger than 26 from income taxes as the government seeks to stem the flow of young people to other EU nations in search of better-paying jobs. The Sejm approved the measure introduced by the ruling conservatives in a vote late on Thursday by an overwhelming majority. The bill would exonerate workers younger than 26 from the 18 percent personal income tax for those whose gross earnings do not surpass 85,500 zlotys (US$22,696) per year. That level is higher than the nation’s average income, estimated to be about 60,000 zlotys per year before tax. The approval of the measure by the Senate and its signature by the president is widely expected. About 2 million people could benefit from the measure, said supporters of the legislation, which should enter into force from Aug. 1. The nation has long been hemorrhaging skilled workers to other EU states where they can find better-paying jobs, posing both a long-term demographic risk and a short-term problem to find enough workers to continue a streak of economic growth since the fall of communism in 1989. The measure was one of the campaign promises made by the ruling Law and Justice party ahead of the European parliamentary elections in May and legislative elections scheduled for later this year.
UNITED STATES
City blocks off skate ramp
A homemade skate ramp made in part from ashes of a man shot and killed at an Albuquerque, New Mexico, skate park is now blocked off. KOAT-TV reported that the city government this week temporarily blocked off access to the memorial, because it was built without permission from officials. Albuquerque Parks and Recreation Director Dave Simon said that nothing may be constructed on city property without prior authorization. City officials have said that they want to assess the ramp for safety and structural integrity. Cody Raver was shot and killed at Los Altos skate park in April. His friends built the ramp at the skate park in his honor and mixed some of his ashes in with the cement.
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
VIOLENCE: The teacher had depression and took a leave of absence, but returned to the school last year, South Korean media reported A teacher stabbed an eight-year-old student to death at an elementary school in South Korea on Monday, local media reported, citing authorities. The teacher, a woman in her 40s, confessed to the crime after police officers found her and the young girl with stab wounds at the elementary school in the central city of Daejeon on Monday evening, the Yonhap news agency reported. The girl was brought to hospital “in an unconscious state, but she later died,” the report read. The teacher had stab wounds on her neck and arm, which officials determined might have been self-inflicted, the news agency
ISSUE: Some foreigners seek women to give birth to their children in Cambodia, and the 13 women were charged with contravening a law banning commercial surrogacy Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday thanked Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni for granting a royal pardon last year to 13 Filipino women who were convicted of illegally serving as surrogate mothers in the Southeast Asian kingdom. Marcos expressed his gratitude in a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who was visiting Manila for talks on expanding trade, agricultural, tourism, cultural and security relations. The Philippines and Cambodia belong to the 10-nation ASEAN, a regional bloc that promotes economic integration but is divided on other issues, including countries whose security alignments is with the US or China. Marcos has strengthened