■UNITED KINGDOM
BA sorry for false warning
Passengers on a British Airways (BA) flight from London to Hong Kong were mistakenly told to prepare for a crash landing, causing panic onboard. The carrier said on Friday it had apologized for causing customers distress after an emergency message was accidentally triggered. Passengers heard the message: “This is an emergency. We may shortly need to make an emergency landing on water.” Michelle Lord, who was onboard, told The Sun tabloid: “People were terrified. We all thought we were going to die,” BA said it is investigating how the error happened. “Our cabin crew immediately made an announcement following the message advising customers that it was played in error and that the flight would continue as normal,” the airline said in a statement.
■SPAIN
Man cuts off penis
A Kazakh man cut off his penis at Madrid’s Barajas airport in order to avoid being extradited home and was hospitalized in a serious condition, local media reported. The 52-year-old man had finished serving a five-year prison sentence for a violent crime and was to be extradited back to Kazakhstan overnight on Monday. Despite being escorted by several police officers, he managed to slip a knife out of his clothing and cut off his penis. The man was admitted to a Madrid hospital and was still in a serious condition on Friday, local media said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Smart dancers lap it up
One in four lap dancers has a university degree and the majority of those involved in the industry enjoy their work, earning up to £48,000 (US$74,500) a year, academic research has found. Researchers from the University of Leeds discovered that many women had chosen to get into lap dancing for the money or because it fitted in with their careers. “These young women do not buy the line that they are being exploited, because they are the ones making the money out of a three-minute dance and a bit of a chat,” Teela Sanders told the Independent newspaper. “You have got to have a certain way about how you to do it. They say 80 percent of the job is talking. These women do work hard for their money — you don’t just turn up and wiggle your bum.” The research, which involved interviews with 300 dancers, found there was a high level of job satisfaction and all had some qualifications.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Family allege spy smeared
The family of a murdered spy said on Friday that they were “deeply upset” over claims about his private life and suggested the security services may be behind a smear campaign. Gareth Williams’s body was discovered in a holdall in the bath of an apartment in London on Monday. Police believe he may have been dead for two weeks. Williams, 30, worked at GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping and security center and was days from completing a year-long secondment at MI6. Reports that police had found evidence linking him to a male escort agency and that bondage equipment was found at his apartment were challenged by his family. William Hughes, 62, a cousin of Williams’s mother, Ellen, said “I don’t see any evidence of it. It never crossed my mind that Gareth was that sort of person. He left home at a young age and what happened in his private life was his business ... It is heartbreaking that he has died so young and his family have enough on their plate without having to read these stories.” Hughes said it was possible the government or another agency might be trying to discredit Williams.
■Venezuela
Politician offers breast boost
A politician is holding an unusual raffle to raise campaign cash. The grand prize: breast implants. For a little under US$6 a ticket, donors get the chance to win the pricey operation free of charge. Breast enlargement is widely popular in image-conscious Venezuela. In recent years as many as 30,000 women have had the operation annually, according to the nation’s Plastic Surgery Society. Gustavo Rojas, who is running as an alternate for the National Assembly in Sept. 26 elections, said there is a great demand for the surgery.
■United States
Torpedo found in city
A police bomb squad had to be called to a Philadelphia construction site after someone found an old, inert torpedo. PennDOT spokesman Charles Metzger says a transportation department archeological team found two men sitting on the torpedo drinking beers on Friday morning. He says the men told the archeologists they had found the munition. Metzger says the dig team called police, who dispatched a bomb squad. The squad determined the torpedo was not explosive. The construction site is related to an Interstate 95 interchange project in the city’s Kensington neighborhood, close to the location of an old shipyard where warships were built during World War II.
■Italy
Killer wants to adopt
A US student convicted in Italy of murdering her British roommate has told an Italian lawmaker in a series of jailhouse conversations that she hopes to adopt children and be a writer when free. Lawmaker Rocco Girlanda said yesterday that he kept a diary of his frequent visits with Amanda Knox in her Perugia jail, material that formed the basis of a book being published in Italy and the US this fall. Girlanda’s Take Me With You — Talks with Amanda Knox in Prison also includes letters and poetry Knox sent to Girlanda, president of an Italian-US foundation. Knox, 23, is appealing her Dec. 5 conviction for murder and sexual assault in the 2007 death of Meredith Kercher. She was sentenced to 26 years in prison.
■United States
Envoy’s girl falls to death
The 17-year-old daughter of the US ambassador to Thailand was killed on Friday after falling out of a 25th story apartment window in New York, police said. Nicole John was at an overnight party with dozens of friends when she had the accident, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. “At the scene there was a camera. She may have looked out of the window to take a picture” before she fell to her death, he said. Kelly said an investigation was under way and the renter of the apartment has been placed under arrest for allowing under age drinking on his premises. The dead girl’s father is Eric John, a career diplomat and US Ambassador to Bangkok since 2007.
■United States
Hurricane Danielle weakens
Hurricane Danielle, churning in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, weakened to a Category Two storm early yesterday as it moved north well away from Bermuda, US forecasters said. “Little change in strength is forecast during the next 24 hours, and gradual weakening is expected to begin on Sunday and Sunday night,” the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. The storm, which was turning north, was forecast to leave Bermuda unscathed as it passed well east of the Atlantic island territory late yesterday. Danielle was a Category Four storm on Friday.
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
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘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,
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