■ INDIA
Marathon surgery successful
Doctors said yesterday they had separated a two-year-old girl from her twin and reconstructed her body after a marathon operation at a Bangalore hospital. Lakshmi, born with four arms and four legs but a single head, was under observation at the intensive care unit of Sparsh Hospital, said Sharan Patil, the surgeon who led the team that operated on her. "She has withstood the operation, she is safe and doing well," Patil said. Lakshmi had been fused to the headless conjoined twin that had stopped developing in their mother's womb. She had been attached to the "parasitic twin" at the pelvis. She had absorbed the organs and body parts of the undeveloped fetus -- a condition that occurs once in 50,000 twin births. The operation lasted more than 24 hours.
■ INDIA
Boy dies after class beating
A 14-year-old boy died after his teacher allegedly beat him in class for scribbling in his notebook, police said yesterday. Ajay Kumar had been breathing through a ventilator in a New Delhi hospital since Oct. 23. He died on Tuesday, said Rajan Bhagat, spokesman for the New Delhi Police. Police are investigating the case, Bhagat said. "My son's fault was that he was scribbling in his notebook" and writing over his teacher's signature, Satya Prakash told the Hindustan Times. The teacher then beat the teen until he collapsed, the father was quoted as saying. Officials also said they will order an inquiry.
■ JAPAN
Police won't arrest Marines
Police have decided against arresting four US Marines over the alleged sexual assault of a 19-year-old woman in Hiroshima Prefecture last month, police spokesman Kyoji Yokoyama said yesterday. Police handed over the case to prosecutors to make a final decision on whether to continue an investigation, but they are likely to drop it because of discrepancies between the accounts of the woman and the Marines, Yokoyama said. "It would be difficult to press formal charges against the four men," he said. The Marines allegedly met the woman at a restaurant or bar, drove her to a nearby parking lot, raped and robbed her.
■ FINLAND
Seven die in school slaying
At least seven people died when a gunman opened fire at a school in Tuusula yesterday, hours after a video was posted on YouTube predicting a school massacre. A teacher at Jokela High School said the gunman was one of its pupils. "At this moment its seven [deaths] or more, higher," said Eero Hirvensalo, the head of the medical response team. The YouTube video, set to hard-driving music, shows a still photo of a school that appears to be Jokela High School. The photo then fragments to reveal a red-tinted picture of a man pointing a gun at the camera. Three people were wounded, early reports said. One of those shot was the school principal, said Tuula Panula, spokeswoman for the Tuusula municipality, some 60km from Helsinki.
■ GREECE
Police seal off village
Scores of heavily armed police sealed off the mountain village of Zoniana on the island of Crete yesterday after suspected drug smugglers ambushed police, leaving three officers with gunshot wounds. Special police units searched house-to-house in the village of 1,600 inhabitants as snipers took up positions on the hills above and helicopters flew overhead. Police Chief Anastasios Dimoshakis traveled to Crete to coordinate the effort on the island, where gun ownership is widespread and police for decades have battled blood feuds as well as drug and arms-smuggling by criminal gangs based in close-knit communities.
■ ITALY
Three detained over killing
Police detained an American woman and two others on suspicion of murdering and sexually assaulting a female British student in Perugia last week, authorities said on Tuesday. Meredith Kercher, 21, was found dead on Friday in her rented room in the central Italian city the morning after attending a Halloween party, authorities said. Kercher, found half-naked, died fighting off a sexual attack, Perugia Police Chief Arturo De Felice told a news conference on Tuesday. He said Kercher was a "victim and nothing more." A coroner said Kercher was stabbed in the neck, but police said no murder weapon has been found.
■ SPAIN
Africans die at sea
At least 50 Africans died while trying to sail from Senegal to the Canary Islands in a boat that was found on Tuesday after spending more than two weeks adrift, Spanish police said. The boat was found in waters off Mauritania by a Mauritanian patrol boat, a Civil Guard official said. It was one of the highest death tolls this year among Africans trying to escape poverty and reach Europe's southern gateway. The boat set out from Senegal with 150 people aboard, and after it lost power and food and other supplies ran out, travelers started dying and were thrown overboard, the official said. When the vessel was found on Tuesday, there were 100 people aboard and two dead bodies, the official said.
■ SOUTH AFRICA
Blaze sweeps nursing home
A blaze swept through a nursing home on Tuesday, killing about a dozen people and injuring five, the South African Press Association reported. The fire occurred at a nursing home near the KwaZulu-Natal town of Nkandla, SAPA said, citing emergency officials. Police said they were interviewing employees at the nursing home and forensic teams were expected to begin work at the site early yesterday.
■ UNITED STATES
New Matisse record set
A 1937 Henri Matisse painting set a new auction record for the artist where it went for US$33.6 million at Christie's. Overall sales of US$395 million from Tuesday night's auction were the second highest ever achieved in fine art auctioneering, Christie's said. The Matisse work, L'Odalisque, Harmonie Blueue features one of the artist's favorite models lounging behind a bouquet set on a table. The buyer was not identified. The previous auction record for a Matisse painting was US$22 million for Danseuse dans le fauteuil, sol en damier, a 1942 work, at Sotheby's in London in June.
■ UNITED STATES
Trains become billboards
Amtrak, the financially struggling railroad, has found a new way to make money -- by turning an entire train into a moving billboard. A train used on the Acela Express, the railroad's premium Boston-Washington service, will be wrapped in an advertisement for the History Channel's 1968 with Tom Brokaw, a two-hour special scheduled to air on Dec. 9. The wrapped train will feature recognizable images from 1968, including the faces of Martin Luther King Jr, Bob Dylan, Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy, Arlo Guthrie and Goldie Hawn, said Steve Feder, president of Corporate Image Media, which helps Amtrak market advertising opportunities.
■ UNITED STATES
Woman killed in brawl
A pregnant woman who had just returned from her grandfather's funeral was killed when another woman deliberately rammed her car into a crowd during a street brawl involving nearly three dozen women, authorities said. Shontae Treniece Blanche of Los Angeles, was killed and two other women were injured in a fight over a "lovers' quarrel," Officer Matthew Gares saidon Tuesday. The driver of the car, Unique Bishop, 21, fled after Monday afternoon's fight but later turned herself in and was booked for investigation of murder, police said. Witnesses reported two groups of women shouting at each other and fighting at a discount store parking lot.
■ UNITED STATES
Sex line called from church
Isn't the 11th Commandment thou shalt not use the church's telephone to call a sex hot line? A homeless man in Clarkstown, New York has been charged with breaking into a Valley Cottage church by picking a lock so he could dial up some sex chat. The man, James Macnair, 35, was arraigned on Monday night before Justice Scott Ugell on charges of burglary and petty larceny. He admitted he had sinned before, breaking into the Elim Alliance Church days earlier for the same reason, the judge said. A church treasurer found Macnair on the phone both times, police said.
■ UNITED STATES
Pet pig sitter charged
A pet pig whose weight tripled while it was in the care of a sitter has been placed on a diet -- and an animal cruelty charge has been filed against the caretaker. The five-year-old animal, Alaina Templeton, has lost 10 percent of her 68kg and is recovering from surgery to remove a collar that had become embedded in her overly fat neck, owner Michelle Schmitz said. Schmitz had left Alaina with the sitter, a co-worker, while she was on medical leave to recover from ankle surgery. A misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty has been filed against Mary Beesecker, 52, of Houston, Minnesota, Winona County Sheriff David Brand said.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
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