■AUSTRALIA
Women prefer manly men
The recession has made beefy blokes like Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig more appealing than scented metrosexuals like Hugh Grant and Leonardo DiCaprio, an Australian sociologist said yesterday. “During the downturn, the theory is that women are concerned about safety, security and food supply, so their taste in men will shift from the androgynous, hairless metrosexual towards the more muscular, primal, hairy male,” demographer Bernard Salt told Australian news agency AAP. He predicted the desired body shape would “shift from hairless, sleek, a bit wimpy, to the more muscular” as economies sank deeper into recession. Film-star looks were likely to change too, with the androgynous Zac Efrons fading from view and the hirsute, sweaty Russell Crowes taking their place.
■VIETNAM
Mass grave discovered
Searchers discovered a mass grave of 35 North Vietnamese soldiers killed at a military airport during the 1968 Tet offensive, a military official said yesterday. The remains were discovered on Saturday in a search of the former Vinh Long army airport, said the head of the provincial military command’s political department, Vo Hieu Hoa. “We had the names and addresses of all of them, but could not identify who is who,” Hoa told reporters, adding that the search for the 35 began in the 1980s. He said several more bodies of soldiers killed by US troops when they tried to occupy the airport had still to be found.
■MALAYSIA
Detainees set free
The government yesterday freed 13 people detained under controversial security laws, police said, after new Prime Minister Najib Razak ordered their release. Najib was sworn in on Friday and announced in his maiden speech that he was revoking a ban on two newspapers and releasing 13 people held under the Internal Security Act, which allows for indefinite detention without trial. The 13, including two ethnic Indian leaders of a banned group, were greeted by family members and supporters as they left the detention center in northern Perak state where they were held. Najib had said their release was good for the country and denied it was a bid to win back support for the ruling party.
■INDIA
Bad moonshine kills 14
At least 14 people including two women were killed after drinking illegally brewed poisonous alcohol in India’s northeastern state of Assam, a news report said yesterday. The deaths occurred in the Saboti area in the Lakhimpur district, some 400km east of state capital Guwahati, on Saturday night, the PTI news agency reported. Thirteen villagers who were seriously ill after consuming the alcohol were admitted to different state-run hospitals in the area. Doctors said the death toll could rise.
■AUSTRALIA
Polio survivor turns 82
A polio victim confined to a Melbourne hospital and an “iron lung” respirator for the past six decades completed her 82 birthday yesterday. June Middleton, who entered the Guinness Book of Records three years ago as the person who had spent the longest time in an iron lung, had 160 well-wishers around her bedside. Middleton was rendered a quadriplegic when she contracted polio at the age of 22 — just a week before she intended to marry. Thousands of Australians died and tens of thousands were crippled in the polio outbreak of 1949. There are now few people confined to the telephone box-sized iron lung, which inflate the lungs.
■EGYPT
Court sentences swingers
A Cairo court sentenced a man to seven years and his wife to three years for setting up a swingers’ club, the press reported yesterday in a case that has angered conservative society. Tolba Abdel Hafez, a 48-year-old civil servant, and his wife Salwa Higazi, a 37-year-old schoolteacher, were sentenced by the Agouza Criminal Court on Saturday, the state-owned Al-Gomhuria reported. Extra-marital sex is illegal in the mainly Muslim country, where Islamic law is a principal source of legislation. The Cairo couple, who have children, used the pseudonyms Magdy and Samira on a Web site and in e-mails to organize wife-swapping parties and orgies.
■UNITED STATES
Dancer charged with assault
A dancer and choreographer featured on the FOX TV show So You Think You Can Dance was arrested Saturday on suspicion of sexually assaulting four of his dance students, police said. Alex Da Silva, 41, a well-known salsa dancer who teaches at several Los Angeles dance studios, was taken into custody after teaching a class at a Hollywood studio and booked for investigation of sexual assault, Detective John Eum said. Da Silva, who was being held on US$3.8 million bail, is scheduled to appear in court tomorrow.
■UNITED STATES
Police confiscate pillows
Detroit police officers nonplussed with the idea of an impromptu pillow fight in downtown Detroit have ruffled a few feathers by preventing it. The pillow fight, reportedly one of at least 50 across the world on Saturday organized by people on social networking Web sites, was shut down by officers stationed at Campus Martius Park. The Detroit News said officers in blue jumpsuits politely disarmed pillow-toting participants. Thirty-two-year-old Michael Davis of Hamtramck, who had his pillows snagged but his cases returned, said police told him he needed a permit. But 48-year-old Scott Harris of Ferndale wasn’t willing to simply roll over, saying, “It is not illegal to own a pillow.”
■MACEDONIA
Runoff election begins
The country began voting yesterday in a runoff election to choose a new president. Election officials said the polls opened at 7am, with no problems reported. First-round winner Gjorgje Ivanov, a government-backed conservative, is running against Social Democrat challenger Ljubomir Frckoski. The two sides are at odds over whether to compromise with neighbor Greece on a name dispute that has delayed the country’s bid to join NATO.
■UNITED STATES
Alaskan volcano erupts
The Mount Redoubt volcano had another large eruption on Saturday after being relatively quiet for nearly a week. Radar indicated a plume of volcanic ash rose 15,240m into the sky, making it one of the largest eruptions since the volcano became active on March 22, the National Weather Service said. The ash cloud was drifting toward the southeast and there were reports of the fine, gritty ash falling in towns on the Kenai Peninsula. Plans to transfer millions of liters of oil from an oil storage facility near Mount Redoubt were derailed when the volcano erupted and a tanker sent to get the oil had to turn back. The explosion caused a mud flow in the Drift River Valley. The slurry of meltwater, hot rocks, volcanic ash and other debris reached the area of the Chevron-operated Drift River Terminal, where 23.85 million liters of oil is stored in two tanks, said Rod Ficken, vice president of Cook Inlet Pipeline Co.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
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