JAPAN
shake islands
A remote island chain in the nation’s south has been rattled by more than 470 earthquakes since Saturday, the national weather agency said yesterday, calling for residents to stay alert. No major damage has been reported from the series of quakes with a strength that is slightly perceptible to people seated quietly indoors, or a 1 on its seven-point seismic intensity scale. As of yesterday morning, 474 such earthquakes had been detected around the Tokara island chain, the agency said. “As this region has experienced extended periods of earthquake activity in the past, please be vigilant against earthquakes that cause strong shaking,” it added.
Photo: AFP
JAPAN
Pop group Tokio disbands
Pop group Tokio on Wednesday announced it is disbanding following a scandal. Five-member Tokio emerged in 1994 from Japan’s boyband empire Johnny and Associates, which unraveled in 2023 following revelations about its late founder’s decades-long sexual abuse of boys. Recent years have seen Tokio trimmed to a trio and in a final death blow, it declared itself defunct after reports that one of its members had engaged in unspecified misconduct. Details surrounding the alleged misbehavior of Taichi Kokubun, 50, are scarce, with official statements describing it as a “violation of compliance protocols.” Media in Japan, including the Kyodo news agency, cited “behavior that could be considered sexual harassment,” quoting unnamed sources.
MEXICO
Weissman slams US policy
Drew Weissman, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine, on Wednesday said that people appointed by US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr would block approvals of new treatments. Weissman’s remarks, in an interview during a visit to Mexico City, came on the same day that a US vaccine review panel appointed by Kennedy held its first meeting. “My fear is that no new vaccines are going to be approved in the United States,” Weissman said. Kennedy fired all 17 sitting members of the committee earlier this month, accusing them of industry conflicts of interest. He replaced them with eight new appointees.
MEXICO
Gunmen kill 12 people
Twelve people were killed overnight in Guanajuato state when gunmen opened fire on a celebration in the city of Irapuato, authorities said on Wednesday. People were dancing and drinking in the street in celebration of St John the Baptist when the shooting began. Irapuato official Rodolfo Gomez Cervantes told a news conference that about 20 people were wounded.
UNITED STATES
Mississippi man executed
A Mississippi man who had been on death row for nearly 50 years was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday. Richard Jordan, 79, was convicted in 1976 of the murder of Edwina Marter, the wife of a bank executive in the town of Gulfport. Jordan, a shipyard worker, kidnapped Marter from her home and demanded a US$25,000 ransom. He was apprehended when he went to pick up the money. Jordan confessed to murdering Marter and led the authorities to her body, which had been hidden in a forest. She had been shot. Jordan was pronounced dead at 6:16pm at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, the Mississippi Department of Corrections said.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
With a monthly pension barely sufficient to buy 15 eggs or a small bag of rice, Cuba’s elderly people struggle to make ends meet in one of Latin America’s poorest and fastest-aging countries. As the communist island battles its deepest economic crisis in three decades, the state is finding it increasingly hard to care for about 2.4 million inhabitants — more than one-quarter of the population — aged 60 and older. Sixty is the age at which women — for men it is 65 — qualify for the state pension, which starts at 1,528 pesos per month. That is less than US$13
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