JAPAN
Attack suspect detained
Police yesterday detained a suspect who had been holed up in a building after allegedly killing four people, including two police officers in a gun and knife attack, Kyodo News and public broadcaster NHK reported. Police took the man into custody outside the farm property near the city of Nakano in Nagano Prefecture, Kyodo reported, adding that police had confirmed a fourth fatality — an elderly woman who was found injured at the attack scene and later pronounced dead.
UNITED STATES
Hollywood lawsuit rejected
A Los Angeles County judge on Thursday said she will dismiss a lawsuit that the stars of 1968’s Romeo and Juliet filed over the film’s nude scene, finding that their depiction could not be considered child pornography and that they filed their claim too late. Superior Court Judge Alison Mackenzie ruled in favor of a motion from defendant Paramount Pictures to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Olivia Hussey, who played Juliet at the age of 15, and is now 72, and Leonard Whiting, who played Romeo at the age of 16, and who is also 72. Mackenzie determined that the scene was protected by the First Amendment, finding that the actors “have not put forth any authority showing the film here can be deemed to be sufficiently sexually suggestive as a matter of law to be held to be conclusively illegal.”
JAPAN
Cabinet targets heatstroke
The Cabinet is slated to approve a plan that outlines measures to combat the rising number of deaths from heatstroke, the Ministry of the Environment said. An average of 1,145 people have died annually of heatstroke from 2017 to 2021, a ministry official said. In 2020, 86 percent of the deaths were over the age of 65. The move comes as climate change is leading to scorching temperatures and frequent heat waves, affecting countries around the world. Almost 30 percent of Japanese are over the age of 65. While details of the plan are still under debate, it would address preventing deaths among the elderly, who are among the most vulnerable to heat stress, the official said.
BALKANS
Police disband gang
An international police operation coordinated from Croatia has broken up a “highly violent” criminal gang from the Western Balkans and arrested 37 people, Europol said on Thursday. The “powerful criminal cell” was mainly involved in the large-scale trafficking of drugs and firearms across Europe, the EU law enforcement agency said. “A total of 37 suspects were arrested over the course of the investigation, including the gang’s ringleader — a national from Bosnia and Herzegovina considered as a high-value target by Europol and currently serving a four-year-long prison sentence in Italy,” Europol said in a statement. The gang leader is suspected of having orchestrated the trafficking of drugs and firearms by giving orders to his subordinates from behind bars, Europol added.
FRANCE
Bird flu jabs effective
France confirmed that it would launch a vaccination program against bird flu in the autumn, after results from a series of tests on the vaccination of ducks showed “satisfactory effectiveness,” the Ministry of Agriculture and Food said. A severe strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has ravaged poultry production around the world, leading to the culling of more than 200 million birds in the past 18 months.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
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