UNITED NATIONS
COVID-19 cases drop: WHO
The number of reported new COVID-19 cases worldwide decreased by nearly a quarter last week, continuing a decline since the end of last month, the WHO said in a report dated Wednesday and sent to reporters yesterday. From April 11 to Sunday, nearly 5.59 million cases were reported, 24 percent fewer than in the previous week, while the number of deaths dropped 21 percent to 18,215. New cases declined in every region, but only by 2 percent in the Americas, the WHO said. However, “these trends should be interpreted with caution, as several countries are progressively changing their COVID-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases detected,” it said.
UNITED STATES
Capitol evacuated after breach
Police on Wednesday night ordered a brief emergency evacuation of the Capitol and surrounding office buildings after a small plane breached a protected security zone. The evacuation alert went out at 6:32pm and an “all clear” was issued after 8pm when it turned out the aircraft was taking part in a parachute landing before a game between Major League Baseball’s Washington Nationals and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Nationals Park on the Washington waterfront, a police official said. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that the Federal Aviation Administration’s “apparent failure to notify the Capitol Police of the pre-planned flyover ... is outrageous and inexcusable.” She added that “Congress looks forward to reviewing the results of a thorough after action review that determines what precisely went wrong today and who at the Federal Aviation Administration will be held accountable for this outrageous and frightening mistake.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Queen marks 96th birthday
The 96th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II was yesterday marked with gun salutes, the release of a Barbie doll and a new photograph showing the kingdom’s longest-reigning monarch with two white ponies at Windsor Castle. Government ministers joined members of the royal family in sending their best wishes to the queen, who has stepped back from most public duties this year over concerns about her health. She spent her birthday in Sandringham, Norfolk. “An inspiration to so many across the UK, the Commonwealth and the world, it’s particularly special to be celebrating in this Platinum Jubilee year,” a message from the queen’s grandson Prince William and his wife, Kate, said on Twitter.
CHINA
Ex-justice minister arrested
A former justice minister who took a hard line on law enforcement has been arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes and “bending the law for personal gain,” Xinhua news agency said yesterday. Fu Zhenghua (傅政華), 67, was a rising star of law enforcement and was arrested a few days ago, Xinhua said. The case has been handed over to state prosecutors. Fu’s arrest follows a probe launched last year by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Fu was kicked out of the Chinese Communist Party and public office for breach of party discipline and rules, Xinhua reported last month. He was deputy head of the Ministry of Public Security before becoming justice minister in 2018. He led a number of high-profile investigations and crackdowns, including a probe into former security czar Zhou Yongkang (周永康), who was found guilty of corruption.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS