ITALY
Ferry passenger found alive
One of the passengers missing aboard the ferry ablaze off Greece was yesterday found alive, Greek coast guards said. The man was one of 12 truck drivers who were missing following the blaze, the coastguards said. Rescuers spotted the man on the vessel’s stern as it was being towed to port. “Tell me I’m alive,” the 21-year-old truck driver who said he was from Belarus, told rescuers, he Proto Thema news Web site reported. Clad in tan shorts and a black T-shirt he climbed down a ladder into a rescue boat, images on the iefimerida news Web site showed. He appeared to be in good physical condition, Athens News Agency reported. The fire broke out on the Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia late on Thursday as it sailed from Igoumenitsa in Greece to Brindisi in Italy, with nearly 300 people aboard.
BRAZIL
Landslide death toll rises
Rescue workers on Saturday pulled more bodies from the muddy wreckage left by devastating floods and landslides in the city of Petropolis, where the death toll rose to 146, including 26 children. In a dense fog, workers dug with spades and shovels through the rubble and muck as the search churned through its fifth day. An Agence France-Presse photographer saw rescuers carrying out two recovered corpses in body bags in the hard-hit neighborhood of Alto da Serra, as relatives sobbed in the street. In the heart of the disaster zone, rescue workers occasionally blew loud whistles to call for silence and listen for signs of life, but authorities have said that there is little hope at this point of finding survivors from Tuesday’s torrential rains.
UNITED STATES
Helicopter crashes off beach
Two people were hospitalized on Saturday after the helicopter they were flying in crashed into the ocean off a beach in the US state of Florida. Miami Beach police said they received a call about the crash at 1:10pm. “Police and @MiamiBeachFire responded to the scene along with several partner agencies,” the police wrote on Twitter. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also responded to the crash. “There were three passengers onboard. Two were transported to the hospital,” police said, adding that they were in “stable condition.” A video posted alongside the tweet showed a helicopter falling into the Atlantic Ocean, not far from people swimming or sunbathing on the crowded beach. Mary Schiavo, the former inspector general of the US Department of Transportation, said on CNN that the video showed the helicopter appearing to lose engine power. She said that watching the video, it appeared as if the pilot was able to steer away from beachgoers even as the helicopter fell.
UNITED STATES
Missing actress found dead
Actor Lindsey Erin Pearlman, who had roles in General Hospital, American Housewife and other shows, was found dead days after she was reported missing in Los Angeles, authorities said. Investigators had sought the public’s help in finding Pearlman, 43, who was last seen at about noon on Feb. 13, ABC 7 reported. Her body was found Friday morning when officers responded to a call for a death investigation in a residential neighborhood of Hollywood, the Los Angeles Police Department said. The cause of death and the circumstances of her disappearance are under investigation.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
DEFIANT: Ukraine and the EU voiced concern that ICC member Mongolia might not execute an international warrant for Putin’s arrest over war crimes in Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin was yesterday visiting Mongolia with no sign that the host country would bow to calls to arrest him on an international warrant for alleged war crimes stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The trip is Putin’s first to a member country of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since it issued the warrant about 18 months ago. Ahead of his visit, Ukraine called on Mongolia to hand Putin over to the court in The Hague, and the EU expressed concern that Mongolia might not execute the warrant. A spokesperson for Putin last week said that the Kremlin
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