UNITED STATES
Woman gives up 300 rats
A woman living in a van in San Diego, California, with her pet rats has agreed to give them up — all 300 of them. The San Diego Humane Society on Oct. 8 went to the woman’s van near Del Mar, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Authorities found rats had clawed into upholstery, burrowed into the seats and gnawed the engine wiring. The woman was not hoarding the animals — she had started with just two pet rats, Captain Danee Cook of the animal shelter said. However, rats can give birth every four weeks and produce a dozen in a litter. Cook said the woman acknowledged things had gotten out of control. Authorities collected about 320 rats, and more than 100 are ready for adoption. The woman has found a new place to stay.
UNITED STATES
Woman tried to sell fetuses
A Colorado woman suspected of trying to sell three human fetuses from the 1920s and a fetal skeleton online has been indicted in California on charges of violating a federal law prohibiting the transfer of human fetal tissue. Emily Suzanne Cain, 38, on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to the charges, KUSA-TV reported. The case has been delayed until Nov. 20 in the District Court in San Francisco, court records showed. The fetuses are believed to be from stillborn infants from the 1920s, the records said. Cain in October last year attempted to mail a package from Canon City, Colorado, to an address in the UK, a criminal complaint said. The package, labeled “school teaching aids and T-shirts,” caught the attention of US Postal Service workers, who noticed there was no signature on a customs form certifying the package did not contain dangerous contents, authorities said in the complaint. An X-ray of the package revealed a human-like shape, San Francisco International Airport customs agents said in the complaint. Cain posted on Facebook that she acquired the fetuses from a university lab collection and was selling them for US$20,000, the complaint said. The specimens were traced to Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, it said.
UNITED STATES
Livestreamer crashes again
A California woman on parole after serving a sentence for driving drunk while livestreaming a crash that killed her younger sister was on Thursday arrested after crashing a car during a police pursuit, officials said. Obdulia Sanchez, 20, was arrested on weapons and traffic charges and a parole violation, Stockton Police Department spokesman Joe Silva said. Officers tried to stop Sanchez for a vehicle code violation, but she did not pull over. She crashed near a highway on-ramp and was arrested. A man traveling with her escaped, Silva said. “The arresting officers saw she was on parole and was driving on a revoked driver’s license,” he added. Last year, Sanchez was sentenced to six years and four months in prison for driving under the influence and gross vehicular manslaughter after her 14-year-old sister died in the 2017 crash. Prosecutors said Sanchez was livestreaming on Instagram while driving when she crashed. The video showed her taking her hands off the steering wheel. She was released from prison last month after serving two years and two months. State corrections department spokeswoman Terri Hardy said Sanchez received credit for the time she spent in jail before she was sentenced. Her sentence was also reduced under California law for good behavior, with credits for various rehabilitation programs.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not