IRAN
Headscarf bill advances
The parliament on Wednesday approved a bill to impose heavier penalties on women who refuse to wear Islamic headscarves in public and those who support them. The bill also extends punishments to business owners who serve women not wearing the mandatory headscarf, known as hijab, and people who organize against it. Those convicted face up to 10 years in prison if the offense occurs in an organized way. The bill requires ratification by the Guardian Council, a clerical body.
UNITED STATES
Officer probed over comment
A Columbus police officer summoned to a home on Friday last week by a father concerned that his 11-year-old daughter was being solicited by a man said that the girl could face charges for sending explicit images of herself. Body camera footage showed the father closing the door on two officers after one of the officers told him his daughter could face charges for producing or recording child sexual abuse images. The parent posted to TikTok a security video of the conversation. The officers’ conduct is being investigated, as well as any crime that may have been committed against the girl, Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant said in a statement on Tuesday.
UNITED STATES
Moose attacks woman
A woman walking her dog on a wooded trail in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains on Wednesday spooked a cow moose and it charged, headbutting the hiker and stomping on her before she escaped back down the trail, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said. Authorities said the woman was taken to a hospital, but they declined to provide information on her condition. They said the moose had stomped on her “several times” and that the dog had minor injuries. The attack was the third in Boulder County this year, said Kara van Hoose, a spokeswoman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The animals are often aggressive with dogs, which they perceive as a threat, she said.
UNITED STATES
Woman rescued from toilet
A woman was rescued on Tuesday from an outhouse toilet in northern Michigan after she climbed in to retrieve her Apple Watch and became trapped. The woman, whose name was not released, lowered herself inside the toilet after dropping the watch at the Department of Natural Resources boat launch at Dixon Lake in Otsego County’s Bagley Township, state police said on Wednesday. First responders were called when the woman was heard yelling for help. The toilet was removed and a strap was used to haul the woman out. “If you lose an item in an outhouse toilet, do not attempt to venture inside the containment area. Serious injury may occur,” state police said in the release.
ISRAEL
Tank theft probed
Authorities are investigating how an unarmed tank was stolen from a military training zone after finding it discarded in a junkyard. The Merkava 2 tank disappeared from a training zone near Haifa, the Israeli army said on Wednesday. The training zone is closed to the public when in use, but is otherwise accessible. Police said that the 65-tonne tank was found abandoned in a scrapyard near a military base. In a video from the scene, the tank towers alongside industrial castoffs. The army said that the tank was decommissioned years ago and was unarmed. It said it had been used most recently as a “stationary vehicle for soldiers’ exercises.” Police said they had arrested two suspects in connection with the theft.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also