UNITED KINGDOM
Doctors launch strike
Doctors in England yesterday began a five-day strike over pay and working conditions during a surge in influenza cases and with no end in sight to an increasingly bitter dispute between the government and doctors’ union. The walkout is the latest in a series of strikes this year by “resident” or junior doctors, who make up nearly half the medical workforce and say their pay has been eroded over more than a decade. National Health Service England last week warned that hospitals were facing a “worst-case scenario” from a surge in cases of a virulent strain of flu.
Photo: AFP
UNITED STATES
Trump expands travel ban
President Donald Trump on Tuesday sharply expanded a travel ban by barring people from seven more countries, including Syria, as well as Palestinian Authority passport holders, from entering the US. The latest move brings to nearly 40 the number of countries whose citizens face restrictions in coming to the US solely by virtue of nationality, with Trump also tightening rules for routine travel from Western nations. The White House in a proclamation said it was banning foreigners who “intend to threaten” Americans.
NEW ZEALAND
Former top cop sentenced
The Wellington District Court yesterday sentenced former deputy police commissioner Jevon McSkimming to nine months of home detention, after he admitted to possessing child sexual exploitation and bestiality material. McSkimming, who until late last year was the nation’s second-highest ranking police officer, was arrested and charged in June with eight counts of possessing objectionable material. The 52-year-old last month admitted to three charges, including possession of child sexual exploitation and bestiality images, which were stored on his work devices. Judge Tim Black ruled that McSkimming would not have to register as a child sexual offender. The judge adopted a starting point of three years’ prison, but gave deductions for McSkimming’s guilty plea, remorse and attempts at rehabilitation.
UNITED STATES
Rob Reiner’s son charged
The son of famed Hollywood director Rob Reiner was charged with two counts of first-degree murder over the brutal slaying of his parents, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman’s office said on Tuesday. Nick Reiner, 32, who has a history of substance abuse stretching back to his teenage years, could face life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty if convicted over the killings. The office said in a statement that Nick Reiner had been charged with “with two counts of murder with the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders,” and also faces “a special allegation that he personally used a dangerous and deadly weapon, a knife.”
UNITED STATES
Last cents sold for millions
The US Mint on Thursday last week sold 232 three-cent sets for US$$16.76 million at an auction hosted by Stack’s Bowers Galleries, after the government ended the cent’s production last month. The 232nd set — containing the last three pennies ever made — sold for US$800,000. That bidder also got the three dies that struck the Lincoln cents. “I’ve been going to coin auctions for 40 years, and I can tell you, I’ve never seen anything like this, because there’s never been anything like this,” Stack’s Bowers numismatic Americana director John Kraljevich said.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
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