PHILIPPINES
Storms kill at least 27
At least 27 people have died in storms this month, authorities said yesterday, as forecasters warned of continued heavy rains in the disaster-prone country. Heavy downpours and flooding have plagued the southern and central islands since the Christmas weekend, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes. Since the start of this month, at least three storms have killed 27 people, the Office of Civil Defense said in a report. Eleven people were reported injured and three are missing. The state weather forecaster expected heavy rains over the Bicol Peninsula and Quezon Province in the southern tip of the main island of Luzon.
UNITED STATES
More Biden files found
Five additional pages of classified material have been found at President Joe Biden’s family home in Delaware, the White House said on Saturday in a new twist in a politically sensitive affair for the president. It was the latest in a series of revelations about the apparently improper storage of papers dating from Biden’s time as former president Barack Obama’s vice president. Biden has said he had no intention of keeping any classified documents. White House lawyer Richard Sauber said the latest papers were found after he visited the home on Thursday to oversee the transfer to the Department of Justice of a first batch of documents found a day earlier in a room next to the home’s garage. Critics of Biden have seized on the findings to say he has not been transparent and forthcoming. Others papers were found on Nov. 2 last year at Biden’s former office at a Washington think tank, where he had offices after leaving the Obama White House.
UNITED STATES
California faces new storms
Storm-battered California got more wind, rain and snow on Saturday, raising flooding concerns, causing power outages and making travel dangerous. Bands of rain with gusty winds started in the north and spread south, with more storms expected to follow into early this week, the National Weather Service said. More than 68,000 utility customers on Saturday morning were without electricity, a number that was cut by more than half during the afternoon, poweroutage.us data showed. At least 19 storm-related deaths have occurred in the state this month, and a five-year-old boy remained missing after being swept out of his mother’s vehicle by flood waters in San Luis Obispo County. The swollen Salinas River swamped farmland in Monterey County, while flood warnings were in effect for Merced County. “The reality is that this is just the eighth of what we anticipate will be nine atmospheric rivers — we’re not done,” California Governor Newsom told a briefing with local leaders, urging people to stay vigilant for the next 24 to 48 hours.
PERU
State of emergency declared
The government late on Saturday declared a state of emergency in the capital and three other regions amid protests against President Dina Boluarte that have claimed at least 42 lives in the past few weeks. The measure, in force for 30 days, authorizes the military to intervene to maintain order and suspends several constitutional rights, such as freedom of movement and assembly, the government said. Supporters of former president Pedro Castillo have marched and barricaded streets since last month, demanding new elections and the removal of Boluarte. On Friday night, she refused to step down, saying in a televised address: “My commitment is with Peru.”
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘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
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
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
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