CHINA
Sinkhole swallows bus
An enormous sinkhole swallowed a bus and pedestrians in the country’s northwest, sparking an explosion, killing six people and leaving four more missing, state media said yesterday. Footage showed people at a bus stop running from the collapsing road as the vehicle — jutting into the air — sank into the ground. Several people disappeared into the sinkhole as it spread, including what appeared to be a child. The incident also triggered an explosion inside the hole, video showed. The incident occurred at about 5:30pm on Monday in Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province, China Central Television said. A search-and-rescue operation involving more than 1,000 people and 30 vehicles was under way, the official Xinhua news agency said. An investigation into the cause has been opened. Video footage published by China Global Television Network showed a person being pulled from the hole by rescue workers.
THAILAND
Wuhan virus confirmed
A Chinese visitor to the country has been confirmed to be infected with a new strain of coronavirus that has been linked to a pneumonia outbreak in central China, health officials said on Monday. The WHO said local officials have reported that a traveler from Wuhan, China, has been hospitalized outside of Bangkok with the virus. Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said it appears to be the first confirmed case of the virus found outside China, the Bangkok Post newspaper and other local media reported. He identified the infected tourist as a 61-year-old woman whose symptoms were detected on arrival at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport on Wednesday last week. Her coronavirus was confirmed on Sunday by a laboratory test, Anutin said.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
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