PHILIPPINES
Pacquiao concedes defeat
Boxing great Manny Pacquiao has conceded defeat in the presidential election after his rumble for the top job failed to hit the mark with voters. Pacquiao, who had pledged to fight corruption, crack down on drugs and improve the lives of impoverished people, congratulated victor Ferdinand Marcos Jr and said he hoped the president-to-be would “help the poor.” Pacquiao, 43, said in a video on Facebook late on Tuesday: “As a boxer and athlete, I know how to accept defeat. I just hope that while I lose in this fight, my fellow Filipinos — those who are struggling — will win.” Pacquiao said that he prayed for the success of the Marcos Jr administration and that it would “uplift the lives and help many poor.” Pre-election surveys indicated that Pacquiao had almost no chance of winning the polls and their results were confirmed by an initial tally showing he picked up fewer than 4 million votes, or 6.6 percent of those counted. That left him a distant third behind Marcos Jr, who got more than half of the votes, and runner-up Leni Robredo.
UNITED STATES
Riot inciter sentenced
A Chicago man who posted online to urge others to join crowds that were looting downtown businesses in the summer of 2020 was sentenced on Tuesday to 15 months in federal prison. James Massey, 23, pleaded guilty in February to inciting and participating in a riot. He admitted in a plea agreement with prosecutors that he posted multiple videos and messages on Facebook calling for people to travel to downtown Chicago to engage in property damage and looting. Massey was later captured on surveillance video helping to loot and destroy four businesses, including a cellphone store and a marijuana dispensary, the Chicago Tribune reported. With good behavior, he would eligible for release in about five months. Massey apologized to the court, saying the kind of behavior he engaged in that night was behind him. Massey was arrested after an investigation revealed that he posted a series of sometimes profane messages and videos on Facebook on Aug. 9, 2020, in which he urged people to take part in the widespread violence that erupted in the city that day and the next. Massey told others that the looting would start at midnight and that they should “bring ya tools ski masks and gloves.”
COLOMBIA
Prosecutor killed on beach
Paraguay’s prosecutor of organized crime and drug trafficking cases was slain on Tuesday by gunmen on a beach as he honeymooned with his new wife, who said the attackers came on a jet ski or small boat. Prosecutor Marcelo Pecci married journalist Claudia Aguilera last month. Aguilera had recently shared photographs on social media showing her and Pecci on the Baru Peninsula in the Caribbean, south of the Colombian city of Cartagena. Her final social media posting, hours before the attack, was a photo of herself and her husband with a pair of baby’s shoes along with the message: “The best wedding gift ... the approaching life that is a testimony to the sweetest love.” The Decameron Baru Hotel, where the couple was staying, said the attackers arrived on a jet ski and shot the couple while they were on the beach. The gunmen also fired at a security guard, who was unhurt, the hotel said. Aguilera, who was not hurt in the attack, said two men arrived on a small boat or jet ski, saying she could not remember precisely. One of them got off and “without saying a word shot Marcelo twice, once in the face and once in the back.”
‘EATING UP SPRING’: Temperatures are 10oC to 15oC above the seasonal average and a city northwest of Madrid experienced its first ‘tropical’ May night on Friday Parts of Spain are experiencing their hottest May since records began, as a mass of hot, dry air blows in from Africa, bringing with it dusty skies and temperatures of more than 40°C. Spain’s state meteorological agency, Aemet, has warned of a weekend heat wave of an “extraordinary intensity,” with temperatures between 10°C and 15°C above the seasonal average and more akin to high summer than mid-May. “The early hours of 21 May have been extraordinarily hot for the time of year across a good part of the center and south of the peninsula,” Aemet said on Saturday. “In many places the
BUSINESS AS USUAL: Thousands of people were forcibly removed from their homes in the dead of night and all mentions of the incident were scrubbed from the Internet Thousands of COVID-19-negative Beijing residents were forcibly relocated to quarantine hotels overnight due to a handful of infections, as the Chinese capital begins to take more extreme control measures resembling virus-hit Shanghai. Beijing has been battling its worst outbreak since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 1,300 since late last month, leading city restaurants, schools and tourist attractions to be closed indefinitely. China’s strategy to achieve zero COVID-19 cases includes strict border closures, lengthy quarantines, mass testing and rapid, targeted lockdowns. More than 13,000 residents of the locked-down Nanxinyuan residential compound in southeast Beijing were
‘I’M STUNNED’: The disease is not known to be sexually transmitted, but a large outbreak might reveal previously unknown transmission routes, a virologist said Scientists who have monitored numerous outbreaks of monkeypox in Africa say they are baffled by the disease’s recent spread in Europe and North America. Cases of the smallpox-related disease have previously been seen only among people with links to central and West Africa. However, in the past week, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the US, Sweden, Canada all reported infections, mostly in young men who had not previously traveled to Africa. There are about 80 confirmed cases worldwide and 50 more suspected ones, the WHO said. France, Germany, Belgium and Australia reported their first cases on Friday. “I’m stunned by this. Every day I
INTERVENTION: A source said that a border patrol agent had rushed into the school without waiting for backup and killed the teen gunman, who was behind a barricade An 18-year-old man on Tuesday opened fire at a Texas elementary school, killing at least 19 children as he went from classroom to classroom, officials said. The attacker was killed by law enforcement. The death toll also included two adults, authorities said. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that one of the two was a teacher. The assault at Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde was the deadliest shooting at a US school since a man killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. Outside the town civic center, where families were told to await news
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