AUSTRALIA
Croc goes in pot
A saltwater crocodile that had terrorized a remote community by snapping up dogs and lunging at children met its end in a feast cooked up by locals. The 3.6m reptile “had been stalking and lunging out of the water at children and adults,” Northern Territory police said in a statement. “The crocodile had also reportedly taken multiple community dogs,” it added. After talking to elders and landowners in the Bulla community, police shot and killed the scaly predator on Tuesday, police said. “The community prepared it for a feast in the traditional manner,” they said. The animal ended up as the main ingredient in various meals, Sergeant Andrew McBride told Australian public broadcaster ABC. “I believe he was cooked up into crocodile tail soup, it was on the barbecue, a few pieces were wrapped up in banana leaves and cooked underground,” McBride said.
Photo: AP
PEURTO RICO
Power outage hits
A widespread power outage hit the US territory on Wednesday night, leaving more than 340,000 customers without electricity after two power plants shut down. The capital of San Juan was left without power, as well as neighboring municipalities, including Bayamon, Caguas and Carolina. Luma Energy, which operates transmission and distribution for the power authority, wrote on X that the outage was tied to an issue with the power plants’ transmission lines.
UNITED STATES
NASA errs with broadcast
NASA on Wednesday accidentally broadcast a simulation of astronauts being treated for decompression sickness on the International Space Station (ISS). At about 5:28pm, NASA’s live YouTube channel broadcast audio that indicated a crew member was experiencing the effects of decompression sickness, NASA said on X. A female voice asks crew members to “get commander back in his suit,” check his pulse and provide him with oxygen, later saying his prognosis was “tenuous,” according to copies of the audio posted on social media. NASA did not verify the recordings or republish the audio. Several space enthusiasts posted a link to the audio on X with warnings that there was a serious emergency on the ISS. “This audio was inadvertently misrouted from an ongoing simulation where crew members and ground teams train for various scenarios in space and is not related to a real emergency,” NASA wrote. “There is no emergency situation going on aboard the International Space Station,” it added.
UNITED STATES
Bear filmed in hammock
Noah and Kristen Dweck have seen several black bears around their home in Vermont, but this was a first: a bear relaxing on their hammock. Noah Dweck filmed two young bears in their yard in Waitsfield on Tuesday, with one sitting on the swinging hammock before he shooed them away. “It was adorable. It was a funny sight,” he said. Noah Dweck said that he was sitting at a desk with the screen doors open in their home near the Sugarbush ski resort when he heard the jingling of the hammock. He then realized there was no wind. “So immediately I knew it was the bears,” he said. He ran upstairs and looked out the window and saw one bear looking curiously at the other bear who was hanging around on the hammock, he said. He took some video and then scared the bears away. “We live in a very active bear basin. The bears are very used to human contact, so I’m assuming they have found other people’s hammocks before,” he said.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
‘DOWNSIZE’: The Trump administration has initiated sweeping cuts to US government-funded media outlets in a move critics said could undermine the US’ global influence US President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday began making deep cuts to Voice of America (VOA) and other government-run, pro-democracy programming, with the organization’s director saying all VOA employees have been put on leave. On Friday night, shortly after the US Congress passed its latest funding bill, Trump directed his administration to reduce the functions of several agencies to the minimum required by law. That included the US Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. On Saturday morning, Kari Lake, a former Arizona gubernatorial and US
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