KENYA
Pastor in court over deaths
A high-profile pastor on Friday appeared in court suspected of links to the murder of dozens of people found in mass graves that has been dubbed the “Shakahola forest massacre.” Ezekiel Odero, the head of the New Life Prayer Centre and Church, was arrested on Thursday in the coastal town of Malindi and is accused of the “mass killing” of his followers. It followed the arrest of Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, a cult leader accused of the deaths of dozens of his followers who were allegedly ordered to starve themselves to death to find God. Cabinet Secretary of Interior and National Administration Kithure Kindiki, making his second visit to the crime scene on Friday, announced a shakeup in the local police and security services with the transfer of top bosses, but gave no reasons. Prosecutors said Odero is suspected of crimes including murder, aiding suicide, abduction, radicalization, crimes against humanity, child cruelty, fraud and money laundering. The wealthy televangelist was arraigned in a magistrate’s court in the port city of Mombasa, where prosecutors asked for him to be detained for another 30 days to enable police to complete their investigations. The death toll now stands at 109, a police source said. More than half the victims are children, sources close to the investigation said.
THE NETHERLANDS
Semen donor banned
Dutch judges on Friday ordered a man suspected of fathering more than 550 children through sperm donations to stop donating. The man, identified in Dutch media only as “Jonathan M,” 41, was dragged to court by a foundation protecting the rights of donor children and the mother of one of the children allegedly fathered from his sperm. Dutch clinical guidelines say a donor should not father more than 25 children in 12 families, but judges said the man had helped produce between 550 and 600 children since he started as a sperm donor in 2007. Should he continue with his donations, Jonathan M would face a 100,000 euro (US$111,285) fine for every transgression, as well as additional fines, the judge ordered. “The donor deliberately misinformed prospective parents about the number of children he had already fathered in the past,” the Hague District Court said in a separate statement. “All these parents are now confronted with the fact that the children in their family are part of a huge kinship network, with hundreds of half-siblings, which they did not choose,” it said.
SPAIN
Legends surprise restaurant
Staff at a Barcelona restaurant were left amazed when a mysterious last-minute booking turned out to be for former US president Barack Obama, along with film director Steven Spielberg and singer Bruce Springsteen. After dining on Thursday evening at the Palace Hotel’s Amar restaurant, the trio posed for a photograph with employees. The picture was posted on Instagram by staff member Pol Perello and captioned: “Pleasures that this job brings you!!” Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, along with Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, were in town for Springsteen’s Friday night concert at Barcelona’s Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys. Amar chef Rafa Zafra said their reservation was made only hours beforehand at the recommendation of famed Spanish-American chef Jose Andres. “The security people told us to please not ask them for photos, but just before leaving, Obama entered the kitchen and told us that this had been one of their best meals and if they could take a photo with the whole team,” Zafra told Cadena SER.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
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