INDONESIA
Hundreds flee eruption
Hundreds of people yesterday were staying in temporary shelters after a volcano on the main island of Java erupted, with officials evacuating about 190 people from its slopes, authorities said. Mount Semeru in eastern Java erupted on Wednesday afternoon, throwing ash and gas more than 13km away and forcing officials to raise the alert status to its highest level. Volcanic activity had largely calmed down, but was still fluctuating yesterday, the Geological Agency said. Nearly 900 people were moved to shelters set up in schools, mosques and village halls after the eruption, disaster agency official Sultan Syafaat said.
Photo: Reuters
UNITED STATES
Trump signs Epstein bill
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed legislation ordering the Department of Justice to release documents from its long-running investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — files eagerly sought by both his political opponents and members of Trump’s own base who have pressed for greater transparency in the case. The material could shed more light on the activities of Epstein, who socialized with Trump and other notable figures before his 2008 conviction on charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution. Trump, who had originally urged Republican lawmakers to oppose the measure, celebrated the signing in a social media post, saying it would help expose “the truth about certain Democrats and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein.” Only 20 percent of Americans — including just 44 percent of Republicans — approve of how Trump has handled the Epstein case, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
GREECE
Giant spider web found
Scientists have discovered a giant spider web spanning about half the size of a tennis court and with 111,000 spiders in a cave on the border between Greece and Albania. The web in the “Sulfur Cave” in the Vromoner Gorge covers 106m2, a study published in Subterranean Biology showed. In it are about 69,000 domestic house spiders, in addition to more than 42,000 Prinerigone vagans dwarf weavers, the study said. The researchers from universities and natural history museums in Albania, Romania, Belgium, Germany and Italy called the discovery “the first documented case of colonial web formation” of two species that are normally solitary. Based on its spatial distribution and dimensions, species composition and population density, in addition to the food resources, the spider colony is unique and remarkable, they said. The cave, so called because of its abundance of the chemical, completely straddles the border — its entrance is in Greece, while the deepest sections are under Albanian soil.
VATICAN CITY
Illinois gifts pope beer
Catholics believe in holy water. How about holy beer? Pope Leo on Wednesday received a special gift from Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a four-pack of mild ale from a Chicago brewery. Pritzker, visiting Leo at the Vatican, handed the beers over to the pope as part of a gift exchange. He suggested that Leo, originally from Chicago and the first US pope, might enjoy a local brew. “We’ll put that in the fridge,” Leo responded, taking the beers and putting them on a table. The beer from Burning Bush Brewery on Chicago’s north side is named “Da Pope,” a play on a famous sketch on the Saturday Night Live television show about the Chicago Bears football team. The Vatican did not offer immediate comment about whether Leo, from Chicago’s south side, planned to sample the beverage.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
RSS