■ AUSTRALIA
Drag-racing mother arrested
An Australian mother was arrested for drag racing along a Sydney street with her two young children in the back seat, police said on Wednesday. Police said the 29-year-old woman was clocked traveling at almost twice the speed limit on Wednesday night with her six-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter aboard. They said the woman, who did not have a full driver's license, reached speeds of up to 109kph as she and a motorcyclist held a street race. Police stopped the woman and immediately suspended her license and confiscated her car, charging her with a range of traffic offenses.
■ HONG KONG
Hostess jailed for blackmail
A Hong Kong karaoke hostess was jailed for three years on Wednesday for blackmailing a senior government official by threatening to go public with a steamy videotape, a spokeswoman at the judiciary said. Hui Wing, 36, had threatened to expose her relationship with the official, referred to as Mr. X to protect his identity during the trial, unless he paid her HK$590,000 (US$75,000). The Hong Kong official, who is married with children, had appeared in court behind a screen as Hui spilled details of the liaison, including descriptions of sex in his office and how she had accompanied him on business visits to Macau and Guangdong.
■ CHINA
'Stocks' beat 'sex' on Google
The names of three banks and the word "stocks" beat "sex" to become four of the most Googled words in China last year, a Google China list seen yesterday revealed. China Merchants Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Construction Bank ranked second, third and sixth, a list supplied by Google China on its Web site showed. Fourth on the list was "stock." At No. 1 was "QQ," a Chinese instant message service and a brand of car. In another list labeled "seeking knowledge," "what is a blue chip" and "how to invest in the stock market" were the most searched questions on Google in China, while "what is love" and "how to kiss" ranked top of the global list.
■ AUSTRALIA
Surgeon saves hungry snake
A snake has been saved by surgery after mistaking four golf balls for a meal of chicken eggs, a veterinarian said on Wednesday. A couple had placed the balls in their chicken coup at Nobbys Creek in New South Wales state to encourage their hen to nest, Australian Associated Press reported. They found the balls missing last month and a lumpy carpet python nearby. They took the 80cm non-venomous snake to the nearby Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, where senior veterinarian Michael Pyne operated to remove the balls from the snake's intestine. Pyne said on Wednesday the snake was making a speedy recovery.
■ CHINA
Dogs prepare for Olympics
Sniffer dogs have started making regular checks at Beijing's subway stations ahead of the Olympics to detect incendiary substances such as fireworks, state media reported yesterday. Xinhua news agency quoted an official from the detection detachment of the Beijing Traffic Police as saying the patrols would give the dogs experience for the Summer Olympics, which start on Aug. 8. He said eight dogs were patrolling five subway stations, including ones close to Tiananmen Square in central Beijing.
■ AUSTRIA
107 questioned in probe
Federal authorities said on Wednesday they questioned 107 suspects in two major international child pornography investigations. The country's Federal Criminal Investigations Bureau said the "intensive questioning" of the suspects, whose names were not released, was done in conjunction with police in Germany and the US. Worldwide, 2,500 suspected child porn customers have been interrogated, officials said. They did not elaborate. Investigators said they also seized pornographic materials that included disturbing images of a 12-year-old blonde girl and a 10-year-old Asian girl.
■ FRANCE
Animals found to sell sex
Selling sex is said to be humankind's oldest profession but it may have deep evolutionary roots, according to a study into our primate cousins which found that male macaques pay for intercourse by using grooming as a currency. Michael Gumert of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore made the discovery in a 20-month investigation into 50 long-tailed macaques in Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia, New Scientist reports tomorrow. On average, females had sex 1.5 times per hour. But this rate jumped to 3.5 times per hour immediately after the female had been groomed by a male. Market forces also acted on the value of the transaction. If there were several females in the area, the cost of buying sex would drop dramatically.
■ ISLE OF MAN
British novelist Fraser dies
George MacDonald Fraser, a British writer whose popular novels about the arch-rogue Harry Flashman followed their hero as he galloped, swashbuckled, drank and womanized his way through many of the signal events of the 19th century, died on Wednesday on the Isle of Man. He was 82 and had made his home there in recent years. The cause was cancer, said Vivienne Schuster, his British literary agent. Over nearly four decades, Fraser produced a dozen rollicking picaresques centering on Flashman.
■ PORTUGAL
Agency head breaks law
The head of the agency responsible for enforcing a new ban on smoking in public was seen lighting up at a New Year party, breaking the law on the first day it came into effect. Antonio Nunes, president of Portugal's food standards agency, was photographed by the daily Diario de Noticias smoking a cigar at a casino on the outskirts of Lisbon. Nunes told the daily he was not aware the anti-smoking law, which applies to cafes, restaurants and bars, also included casinos. But a spokesman for the Ministry of Health said it did. "We will have to look into what is in the law," Nunes said.
■ TURKMENISTAN
Ban on foreign cash lifted
The government has lifted a 10-year ban on buying and selling foreign currency as part of efforts to lift the country out of international isolation. Saparmurat Niyazov -- the autocratic president who died in December 2006 -- had ordered currency exchange offices closed in 1998, forcing citizens and foreigners to change money on the black market or not at all. A decree signed by President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov allows citizens and foreigners to exchange at more than 100 bank branches, at a regulated commercial rate similar to the black market rate of 20,000 manat per US$1.
■ UNITED STATES
Couple's baby No. 1 again
A Pennsylvania couple has a new tradition for ringing in the new year: spending it in the maternity ward. For the second year in a row, Kyle and Becky Armstrong welcomed the first baby of the year at Gettysburg Hospital. Faith Lynn Armstrong arrived on New Year's Day at 5:23am. Her sister, Kaden Skye, was the hospital's first baby last year -- also born on Jan. 1. Nurse manager Laura Swomley said she had never seen anything like it in 25 years at the hospital. "It's strange," agreed Becky Armstrong, of Gettysburg. Armstrong said it was not planned.
■ UNITED STATES
NY murders hit new low
The number of murders in New York has fallen to its lowest level since the current system of record-keeping began more than 40 years ago, the city's police department said on Wednesday. A police spokesman said there were 494 homicides in the city last year, marking a 17 percent drop from the 596 killings a year before. Violent crime and murder spiked in the early 1990s as a crack cocaine epidemic hit the city, with more than 2,200 murders in 1990 -- the equivalent of more than six a day. Most of last year's murders involved disputes between family members, gangs or criminals.
■ UNITED STATES
State allows civil unions
The state of New Hampshire on Tuesday joined the handful of states to grant formal civil unions to same sex couples. The law that took effect on New Year's Day "recognizes the civil union between one man and another man or one woman and another woman." It grants rights to couples previously denied them because they cannot marry, including inheritance and child custody. According to the homosexual rights group Human Rights Campaign, only five other states allow same-sex marriage or provide the same rights through civil unions or domestic partnerships: Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, California and New Jersey.
■ UNITED STATES
One-time fugitive jailed
A man who fled to Ireland to avoid prosecution for killing three college students in a 2001 drunken-driving wreck was sentenced to the maximum 14 years and three months in prison. "You were grossly irresponsible," Whitman County Superior Court Judge David Frazier told Frederick Russell on Wednesday. Russell was drunk and speeding on the night of June 4, 2001, when his vehicle smashed into a car containing six fellow Washington State University students. Russell clutched a rosary as he addressed his surviving victims and the relatives of those killed. "There aren't enough words that could define who your children were," he said. "I'm sorry; you've been waiting too long to hear that."
■ UNITED STATES
Phones slow down drivers
Researchers said on Wednesday that people who use cellphones while behind the wheel impede the flow of traffic, clog highways and extend commute times. "It's a bit like breaking wind in the elevator. Everyone suffers," Peter Martin of the University of Utah's Traffic Lab said. Martin and a team of researchers devised a study involving university students who drove through freeway scenarios. The drivers used a hands-free phone during half their trips and no phone in the other half. What they found is that when the drivers were distracted by a phone conversation, they made fewer lane changes, drove slower and took longer to get where they are going.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’ A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines. All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames. The plane was seen having engine trouble.
REVELRY ON HOLD: Students marched in Belgrade amid New Year’s events, saying that ‘there is nothing to celebrate’ after the train station tragedy killed 15 Thousands of students marched in Belgrade and two other Serbian cities during a New Year’s Eve protest that went into yesterday, demanding accountability over the fatal collapse of a train station roof in November. The incident in the city of Novi Sad occurred on Nov. 1 at a newly renovated train facility, killing 14 people — aged six to 74 — at the scene, while a 15th person died in hospital weeks later. Public outrage over the tragedy has sparked nationwide protests, with many blaming the deaths on corruption and inadequate oversight of construction projects. In Belgrade, university students marched through the capital
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