INDIA
Capital braces for heat wave
Schools in New Delhi must ring regular bells to remind schoolchildren to drink water as the megacity gears up to face heat wave conditions, the city ordered on Tuesday. Temperatures yesterday were expected to reach 41°C to 43°C, and rise to 42°C to 44°C later in the week. The Delhi Directorate of Education issued guidelines asking schools to avoid “outdoor physical activities” and conduct “awareness sessions” to remind students of the importance of hydration. Schools were also asked to start a “water bell” initiative to prevent dehydration, with the bell rung every 45 to 60 minutes to remind students to drink water, and implement a “buddy system” for students to look out for each other.
Photo: AFP
SOUTH KOREA
State hackers behind heist
A notorious North Korean hacking group is likely behind the theft of nearly US$300 million in cryptocurrency over the weekend, online investment tool KelpDAO said, in the biggest known crypto heist this year. Digital currency news site CoinDesk said the heist on the vault of KelpDAO on Saturday was this year’s biggest crypto exploit so far. During the hack, two blockchain servers hosted by another crypto tech application called LayerZero were compromised, KelpDAO said on Tuesday. That allowed a cryptocurrency token linked to the major ethereum currency to be “drained” from KelpDAO, it said. “On April 18, 2026, KelpDAO was exploited for approximately US$290 million,” LayerZero said in a statement, adding that North Korea state-sponsored Lazarus Group was likely behind the attack.
AUSTRALIA
Salmon on cocaine studied
Salmon exposed to cocaine in the water swim longer distances than those who go without, a study released on Monday showed. Cocaine use is on the rise worldwide, with the UN reporting an estimated 25 million people used the stimulant in 2023 and the drug being increasingly found in waterways. Joint research by scientists at Griffith University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences studied how the drug affected the movements of wild fish in their natural habitats. Researchers took a hundred wild Atlantic salmon in Sweden’s Lake Vattern and exposed them to cocaine and benzoylecgonine — a metabolite created by the drug in the liver — and then tracked their movements. They found the river-dwellers living the high life traveled 1.9 times further per week than their clean-living control cousins. Those exposed to the byproduct also swam up 12.3km farther, the study found. “Any unnatural change in animal behaviour is a concern,” report coauthor Marcus Michelangeli of Griffith University’s Australian Rivers Institute told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “We’re finding higher and higher concentrations of not just illicit drugs but all types of pharmaceuticals in our waterways.”
UNITED STATES
Eldest of The Osmonds dies
Alan Osmond, the eldest member of the chart-topping family act The Osmonds, died on Monday after decades with multiple sclerosis. He was 76. According to a family spokesperson, Osmond’s wife, Suzanne Osmond, and their eight sons were with him at his home in Lehi, Utah, at the time of his death. Prior to his passing, Alan Osmond used a wheelchair and spent a week in intensive care before returning home on Thursday last week on hospice. He helped write some of the Osmond Brothers’ biggest hits, including One Bad Apple, Crazy Horses and Are You Up There?.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Nauru said it would hold a referendum to change its official name, described as a colonial relic from a time when “foreign tongues” mangled the native language. Nauru would change its name to Naoero to “more faithfully honor our nation’s heritage, our language and our identity,” Nauruan President David Adeang said in a statement on Tuesday. The Pacific island nation’s native language is Dorerin Naoero, which is spoken by the vast majority of its approximately 10,000 inhabitants. “Nauru emerged because Naoero could not be properly pronounced by foreign tongues, and was changed not by our choice, but for convenience,” the government said in
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