UNITED STATES
No to vaccine passports
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey on Monday signed a bill that prohibited private businesses and public institutions from requiring COVID-19 “vaccine passports” to access services or refusing those not inoculated against the novel coronavirus. “I’ve signed SB 267! Since the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, both Dr Scott Harris [state health officer] and I have said that we would not mandate vaccines in the state of Alabama,” Ivey said in a statement. “I am supportive of a voluntary vaccine, and by signing this bill into law, I am only further solidifying that conviction.” Ivey added that she has been vaccinated and would “encourage any Alabamian who has not gotten their shot to roll up their sleeves.”
AUSTRALIA
Explosion causes outage
An explosion and fire at a Queensland coal-fired power station caused a widespread power outage, affecting almost 500,000 homes from northern New South Wales to Cairns. The Queensland government-owned corporation CS Energy confirmed that the fire at the Callide power station near Biloela caused the shutdown of the station’s three operating generators. CS Energy said the fire broke out in a turbine hall at the Callide Power Station at about 1:45pm, causing the three units that were generating power at the time to go off line. Energex, which manages the power network in southeast Queensland, said that 389,000 people from the Gold Coast to Caboolture were affected by outages. Most had power restored by 3.30pm yesterday. Ergon Energy, which distributes power outside the southeast, reported unexpected power outages in Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Bundaberg and Gladstone.
UNITED STATES
Defiant priest told to quit
A priest in Wisconsin who has been ignoring COVID-19 gathering restrictions at his masses and criticized Democrats for their stance on vaccines said that the leader of the Diocese of La Crosse had asked him to resign. The Reverend James Altman announced the request from Bishop William Callahan during his sermon on Sunday at St James the Less Catholic Church in La Crosse. The sermon was posted to YouTube. “As the bishop has stated to me: I am ineffective. So for the record dear family, Bishop Callahan has asked me to resign as pastor as of this past Friday, two days ago, because I am divisive and ineffective,” Altman said. Audible “no” sounds from the crowd can be heard during the video, the La Crosse Tribune reported. Altman came under fire last fall for calling Democrats godless and saying they would go to hell if they do not repent.
SPAIN
Dead man found in dinosaur
Police in Catalonia are investigating the death of a man who is thought to have become trapped inside a large dinosaur statue while trying to retrieve his mobile phone. Officers were called to the statue in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a satellite town of Barcelona, after a man and his son noticed something inside the papier-mache stegosaurus on Saturday afternoon. A spokeswoman for the regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, said the death of the 39-year-old man was not being treated as suspicious. “We found the body of a man inside the leg of this dinosaur statue. It’s an accidental death; there was no violence. This person got inside the statue’s leg and got trapped... It looks like he entered the statue head first and couldn’t get out,” the spokeswoman said, adding that officers had called in firefighters to help cut into the statue so the body of the man could be removed.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of