LEBANON
IS leader killed, US says
A helicopter raid by US forces in northern Syria early on Monday killed a senior leader of the Islamic State (IS) group, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said. Abd-al-Hadi Mahmud al-Haji Ali was “responsible for planning terror attacks in the Middle East and Europe,” it said. Two other alleged IS members were killed along with al-Haji Ali,who was the target of the raid, it said, adding that no civilians or US troops were hurt in the operation. CENTCOM said the raid was launched after intelligence uncovered a plan by the militant group to “kidnap officials abroad as leverage for [IS] initiatives.”
ARGENTINA
Radiation to fight dengue
Fighting one of its worst outbreaks of dengue fever in recent years, the nation is sterilizing mosquitoes using radiation that alters their DNA before releasing them into the wild. The National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) have been experimenting with atomic sterilization since 2016. They are sterilizing 10,000 males per week and aim to increase that to 500,000. They expect to release the first batch of sterilized males in November. “They are sterilized through ionizing energy and those sterile males are freed into the fields and when they meet with a wild female, their offspring are not viable,” CNEA biologist Marianela Garcia Alba said.
UNITED STATES
Wrong turn leads to death
A woman looking for a friend’s house in upstate New York was shot to death after the car she was riding in mistakenly went to the wrong address and was met with gunfire in the driveway, authorities said on Monday. Kaylin Gillis, 20, was traveling through the rural town of Hebron with three other people on Saturday night when the group made a wrong turn onto the property. They were trying to turn the car around when the homeowner, Kevin Monahan, 65, came out onto his porch and fired two shots, Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy said. One round hit Gillis. Monahan has been taken into custody, the sheriff said.
ITALY
‘Killer’ bear captured
A female bear that killed a 26-year-old runner in the Italian Alps two weeks ago has been captured overnight, Trento provincial authorities said in a statement yesterday. The search for the bear began after Andrea Papi’s body was found on April 6 in the woods of the Peller mountain, where he had gone jogging. Local prosecutors later said the DNA samples taken after the attack on Papi matched that of a 17-year-old female bear identified as “JJ4.” The bear had previously attacked two other people and Trento President Maurizio Fugatti has issued an order for JJ4 to be put down. However, the order was suspended on Friday by an administrative court, following appeals by environmental groups. Judges are due to return to the issue in a May 11 hearing.
UNITED STATES
Boy stuck in claw machine
A 13-year-old boy had to be freed from a claw machine after he climbed inside hoping to score a prize, an official at North Carolina amusement park Carowinds said. Park officials were alerted just before 2pm on Sunday that the boy was inside the Cosmic XL Bonus Game, park spokesperson Courtney McGarry Weber said. The medical response team unlocked the machine and the boy was able to get out, she said. He was treated and released from first aid to his guardian. The boy has been banned from the park for one year for attempted theft, Weber said.
PHILIPPINES
Anti-China minister dies
Albert del Rosario, the former secretary of foreign affairs who stood up to Beijing in the South China Sea, has died at the age of 83, Manila said yesterday. Del Rosario, who served from 2011 to 2016, died while en route to the US, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a statement that did not specify the cause of death. Del Rosario was “a staunch advocate of protecting and advancing national security and promoting the rights and welfare of Filipinos,” the department said. “He was a consummate diplomat and an inspiring leader who led the DFA with integrity and unwavering commitment to public service,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo wrote on Twitter. Relations with Beijing soured during Del Rosario’s tenure, which was marked by a fierce standoff in 2012 in the Scarborough Shoal, a chain of reefs and rocks 240km west of the main island of Luzon. The Scarborough Shoal is known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) in Taiwan and China, which also lay claim to it. He was behind two prominent legal cases against Beijing, including a 2013 case at an international tribunal that eventually struck down China’s claims to most of the resource-rich South China Sea waterway.
HONG KONG
Expat students decline 12%
The number of non-local students at Hong Kong international schools has fallen 12 percent in four years, reflecting a wave of expatriate departures during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 26,768 non-local students enrolled at the territory’s international schools in the current academic year, comprising 66 percent of the total intake, the Education Bureau said. That is down from 30,499, and 74 percent, respectively, in the 2019-2020 academic year. There is no easy way to ascertain how many expats left the territory during the COVID-19 era, when it was closed off to the world. The decline in non-local students may become a problem to operators of international schools if it continues. Under government rules, non-local students must account for an average 70 percent of the total. Hong Kong has 54 international schools.
INDIA
Moonshine kills at least 27
Toxic hooch has killed at least 27 people in the eastern state of Bihar, where alcohol is banned, officials said yesterday. Initial investigations found that poisonous methyl alcohol was mixed with the spirit. Police official Jitender Kumar said that 27 deaths had been reported since Saturday. Some local media put the toll at 40. Police have arrested 174 people in connection with illegal manufacturing, sale and supply of liquor in the past three days. They have also seized and destroyed more than 900 liters of toxic liquor during raids.
PAKISTAN
Landslide kills at least 2
A massive landslide yesterday struck a key highway in the country’s northwest near the border town of Torkham, burying two dozen trucks and killing at least two people, officials said. It was unclear how many people were missing and feared buried under the landslide. Police official Ishrat Khan said dozens of firefighters and rescuers were trying to save truck drivers and other people hit by the landslide near the Afghan border. Officials said the landslide was triggered by lightning during rain. At least one truck caught fire when it was struck by lightning, rescuers said. “Rescuers are very careful because there is a possibility of another landslide, but they are risking their lives to pull out those feared trapped,” Khan said.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
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