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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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