HONG KONG
John Lee has COVID-19
Chief Executive John Lee (李家超) tested positive for COVID-19 on his return from an Asia-Pacific summit, the territory’s government said yesterday, days after he met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and other heads of state. Lee visited Bangkok last week to attend a meeting of the APEC forum, with his office saying he tested negative on rapid antigen tests for all four days he was there. “The chief executive is undergoing quarantine in accordance with the guidelines provided by the Centre for Health Protection,” a government statement said.
KAZAKHSTAN
President wins snap vote
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev secured a second term in Sunday’s snap election, winning 81.31 percent of the vote, the central Asian nation’s Central Election Commission said yesterday, citing preliminary data. The 69-year-old former diplomat had been widely expected to extend his rule over the oil-rich nation by seven years and get a strong mandate to continue his increasingly independent foreign policy, as the former Soviet republic navigates the Russia-Ukraine war. Voter turnout stood at 69.44 percent.
BANGLADESH
Militants escape from court
Two militants sentenced to death for killing a US blogger critical of religious extremism escaped from a crowded court in Dhaka on Sunday. Avijit Roy, an engineer of Bangladeshi origin, was hacked to death by machete-wielding assailants in February 2015 while returning home with his wife from a Dhaka book fair. His wife, blogger Rafida Bonya Ahmed, suffered head injuries and lost a thumb in the attack. Five members of a Muslim militant group were sentenced to death last year, while one was jailed for life. Two of those on death penalty escaped on Sunday.
UNITED STATES
‘Power Rangers’ actor dies
Jason David Frank, who played the Green Power Ranger, Tommy Oliver, on the 1990s children’s series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, has died. He was 49. Justine Hunt, Frank’s manager, did not name the cause of death or say when he died, but asked for “privacy of his family and friends during this horrible time as we come to terms with the loss of such a wonderful human being.” Walter Emmanuel Jones, the original Black Power Ranger who costarred with Frank, wrote on Instagram that he could not believe it. “My heart is sad to have lost another member of our special family,” Jones wrote. Thuy Trang, who played the original Yellow Power Ranger, died in a car accident in 2001 at age 27.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
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
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
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