■UNITED STATES
Plea in death by swimming
An Ohio woman has pleaded guilty to reckless homicide for exercising her 73-year-old husband to death in a swimming pool, repeatedly refusing to let him leave the water. Surveillance video showed Christine Newton-John, 41, pulling James Mason around the pool by his arms and legs, Middlefield police Chief Joseph Stehlik said. The chief said he counted 43 times in which Newton-John prevented her husband from leaving the water, and Mason rested his head on the side of the pool several times while gasping for breath. “The video is bone-chilling,” Stehlik said. “The whole case is very sinister.” Mason had a heart attack on June 2 after the extended swim session. An officer who had investigated previous complaints that Mason was being abused pursued the case because he suspected there was more to the death, Stehlik said. Newton-John pleaded guilty on Thursday and faces up to five years in prison. Mason had been a longtime friend of his wife’s family. He knew her as John Vallandingham before she had gender reassignment surgery in 1993. The couple were wed in 2006 in Kentucky.
■UNITED STATES
DWI offender repeats
Police on Long Island say a convicted drunken driver whose car was equipped with anti-drunken driving technology has crashed a rented vehicle while intoxicated. Suffolk County police say Marvin Rice Jr, 27, lost control of his rental car and hit a utility pole on Sunday morning in Brentwood. Rice had agreed after a previous DWI conviction to have his car equipped with a device that tests for alcohol in a driver’s breath before starting the car. Police say Rice is being treated for multiple injuries. He is expected to be arraigned on a DWI charge.
■MEXICO
Cocaine shipment seized
Acting on a tip from the US Coast Guard, the navy has seized 7 tonnes of cocaine from a boat and detained five Mexicans onboard. Navy Secretary Mariano Francisco Saynez said the boat and suspects were being transported to the port of Salina Cruz in Oaxaca state, where they were expected to arrive yesterday.
■MEXICO
Eight killed outside bar
Eight people were shot to death outside a bar in Coahuila state early on Sunday, and nine other bodies were found after a series of killing sprees in the north of the country, police said. “It appears that the victims were two women and six men. They were killed outside the bar when an armed gang, arriving in three trucks and began shooting at those leaving the bar,” said a police spokesperson who asked not to be identified. No arrests have been made in connection with the killings, which came as nine other bodies were discovered in northern Mexico overnight.
■UNITED STATES
Texans report fireball in sky
What looked like a fireball streaked across the Texas sky on Sunday morning, leading many people to call authorities to report seeing falling debris. “We don’t know what it was,” Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Roland Herwig said. The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office used a helicopter to search after callers said they thought they saw a plane crashing, a spokesman said. “We don’t doubt what people saw” but authorities found nothing, said spokesman John Foster. The US Strategic Command said there was no connection to the sightings over Texas and last Tuesday’s collision of satellites from the US and Russia.
■BELGIUM
New Antarctica base set up
The government opened a new scientific research center in Antarctica on Sunday — 40 years after its last polar base there. About 100 people attended the opening ceremony of “Princess Elisabeth,” the brain child of Belgian explorer Alain Hubert, including government ministers, scientists and business partners. Private investors contributed almost 22 million euros (US$28 million) to build the center, 200km from the King Baudouin base abandoned in 1967. The new base, named after the first in line to the Belgian throne, can accommodate up to about 20 people at a time and is well insulated to prevent any waste of heating. Eight wind turbines and 400m² of solar panels provide the base with hot water and electricity. “To build a polar base which uses only wind and solar energy was an almost impossible task,” Alain Hubert said.
■GAZA STRIP
Recycling blast kills one
Palestinian hospital officials say a 25-year-old Gaza man has been killed and five people have been wounded in a blast along the border with Israel. Palestinian security officials say the explosion in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya occurred when people who were melting down scrap metal for recycling inadvertently threw an explosive device into the fire. Residents initially reported yesterday that a shell exploded. In other news, two rockets fired from Gaza in violation of an informal truce landed in Israel. No injuries were reported.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Terror questioning extended
Lancashire police said on Sunday they had been given six more days to question three men arrested under anti-terrorism laws. Police said in a statement they were searching five houses in the northwestern town of Burnley after arresting nine men on a motorway near Preston on Friday. Six were released without charge. The police also seized three vans that were to form part of a 100-vehicle aid convoy headed for Gaza. The convoy had been organized by the pro-Palestinian organization Viva Palestina and left central London on Saturday, the group’s Web site said. It had posted a video on YouTube showing an assortment of vehicles, including one towing a yacht, leaving London on Saturday. Volunteers plan to drive 8,000km through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, where they had hoped to cross the border at Rafah into Gaza on March 2. The group said the vehicles, which include a fire engine and ambulances, were carrying clothes, blankets and children’s toys.
■AUSTRIA
Pastor giving up promotion
A pastor who created a controversy by suggesting that God punished New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina because of the city’s sins said he would ask the pope to rescind his promotion. Pope Benedict XVI’s recent appointment of the conservative Reverend Gerhard Maria Wagner, 54, to auxiliary bishop in Linz, Austria’s third largest city, sparked an outcry among Catholics who warned it could prompt people to leave the Church. Wagner, among other things, also had characterized Harry Potter novels as “Satanism.” “Regarding the fierce criticism, I am in prayer and, after consulting the diocesan bishop, I have decided to ask the Holy Father in Rome to take back my promotion as auxiliary bishop,” Wagner said in a statement released by Linz Diocesan Bishop Ludwig Schwarz on Sunday. Schwarz declined to comment on Wagner’s decision.
■CHINA
Medicine factory closed
A pharmaceutical factory producing herbal medicine was shut down in the northeast when a patient died after being injected with one of its products, state press said on Sunday. Two other patients were taken ill after being injected with the medicine produced by the Wusili River Pharmacy in Heilongjiang Province, Xinhua news agency said. The Ministry of Health on Thursday ordered hospitals and pharmacies to suspend the use and sales of “Shuanghuanglian” produced by the Wusili factory, the report said. The herbal medicine is normally used to treat fevers and coughs caused by the common cold, it said.
■MALAYSIA
Puffer fish kills fisherman
A fisherman died and four others were hospitalized after they consumed a meal of puffer fish when they ran out of food while at sea, a news report said yesterday. Nordin Sulong, 43, and four friends had decided to cook the puffer fish when they ran out of food after being out at sea for several days, the Star daily said. All five fishermen began to feel dizzy and numb from the toxins in the puffer fish, but managed to steer their vessel back to the jetty in the northeastern state of Terengganu early on Sunday, the report said. All five were rushed to the hospital where Nordin was pronounced dead and another fisherman, Khalid Jusoh, was said to be in critical condition.
■AFGHANISTAN
Court upholds sentence
An appeals court upheld 20-year prison sentences for two men who published a translation of the Koran that drove religious leaders to call for their execution. The panel ruled on Sunday that the men were guilty of modifying the Koran — a crime punishable by death. However, the three-judge panel reiterated a lower court ruling giving the men 20 years each. The controversial text is a translation of Islam’s holy book into an Afghan language without the original Arabic verses alongside. Muslims regard the Arabic Koran as words given directly by God. A translation is not considered a Koran itself, and it is believed that a mistranslation could warp God’s word.
■MALAYSIA
Unmarried couples jailed
Authorities arrested 26 unmarried Muslim couples in hotel rooms during Operation Valentine — aimed at curbing illegal premarital sex, an officer said yesterday. The couples, most under 30 years old, were detained for sharing rooms early on Sunday in the beachside town of Kuantan in eastern Pahang state, said Badaruddin Ahmad Bustami, enforcement assistant director with the state’s Islamic department. State authorities carry out raids each year on Valentine’s Day in the Muslim-majority country, where Shariah laws make it illegal for unmarried Muslims to meet behind closed doors, Badaruddin said. Doing so constitutes a crime known as khalwat, or “close proximity,” which carries a maximum fine of 1,000 ringgit (US$280) and up to six months in prison.
■INDIA
Cells banned in schools
A state banned teachers from chatting on their cellphones during class as it distracts pupils, a report said. Maharashtra state’s education minister Patangrao Kadam told the Press Trust of India news agency that he had taken the step to prevent “a lot of disturbance while teaching.” He said his department had received complaints from parents concerned about teachers who disrupted lessons by holding conversions on their telephones. “Precious education hours get wasted and students are distracted,” Kadam said.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
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