INDIA
Mother fights off tiger
A mother fought off a tiger with her bare hands to save her toddler from its jaws, an official said yesterday. Archana Choudhary stepped out of her house in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday night as the 15-month-old boy wanted to relieve himself. A tiger believed to have strayed from the nearby Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve pounced on them, local official Sanjeev Shrivastava told reporters. It attacked and tried to sink its teeth into the child’s head, but the mother leaped to the rescue, he said. The tiger kept trying to snatch the boy until villagers heard her screams and rushed to her rescue. The tiger then slunk away into the forest. “She has been admitted to the hospital. She is out of danger and recovering. The baby is also doing fine,” Shrivastava said. The mother suffered punctured lungs and wounds to her abdomen while the toddler had deep gashes on his head.
BAHAMAS
Woman killed by shark
A shark attacked and killed a US cruise ship passenger who was snorkeling in waters around the Bahamas on Tuesday, authorities said. The incident involved a 58-year-old woman from Pennsylvania and occurred at a popular snorkeling spot near Green Cay in the northern Bahamas, police spokeswoman Chief Superintendent Chrislyn Skippings told reporters. “It’s unfortunate,” she said. Skippings said the woman’s family identified the animal as a bull shark. Royal Caribbean International said in a statement to that the person died after arriving at a local hospital for treatment and that the company is helping their loved ones.
HONG KONG
Two killed in crane collapse
Two men were killed and at least six injured after a tower crane collapsed at a construction site, authorities said yesterday. One man was pronounced dead at the site in eastern Kowloon and the other man died on the way to hospital, police told reporters. Six injured construction workers were taken to hospital, while another man was still trapped under the debris and awaiting rescue, police said.
SOUTH KOREA
Typhoon toll rises to 10
The death toll from Super Typhoon Hinnamnor rose to 10, authorities said yesterday, after the storm battered the southern coast with huge waves and heavy rain this week. The typhoon, one of the most powerful to hit the country in decades, flooded streets and buildings as it passed through on Monday and Tuesday. In the southeastern port city of Pohang — one of the hardest-hit areas — seven bodies and two survivors were pulled out of the submerged underground parking lot of an apartment complex, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said.
UNITED STATES
Antiquities returned to Italy
Prosecutors in New York on Tuesday returned dozens of antiquities stolen from Italy and valued at about US$19 million, some of which were found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “These 58 pieces represent thousands of years of rich history, yet traffickers throughout Italy utilized looters to steal these items and to line their own pockets,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said, adding that it was the third such repatriation in nine months. “For far too long, they have sat in museums, homes and galleries that had no rightful claim to their ownership,” he said at a ceremony attended by Italian diplomats and law enforcement officials.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant