CAMBODIA
Crocodiles attack man
About 40 crocodiles on Friday killed a Cambodian man after he fell into their enclosure on his family’s reptile farm, police said. Luan Nam, 72, was trying to move a crocodile out of a cage where it had laid eggs when it grabbed the stick he was using as a goad and pulled him in. The main group of reptiles then set about him, tearing his body to pieces and leaving the concrete enclosure at the farm in Siem Reap awash with blood. “While he was chasing a crocodile out of an egg-laying cage, the crocodile attacked the stick, causing him to fall into the enclosure,” said Mey Savry, police chief of a Siem Reap commune.
INDONESIA
Rebels threaten pilot’s death
Rebels in Indonesia’s Papua region threatened to shoot a New Zealand pilot they took hostage in February if countries do not comply with their demand to start independence talks within two months, a new video released by the group on Friday showed. Guerrilla fighters in Papua’s central highlands, who want to free Papua from Indonesia, kidnapped Phillip Mehrtens after he landed a commercial plane in the mountainous area of Nduga. In the video, Mehrtens is seen talking to the camera, saying the separatists want countries other than Indonesia to engage in dialogue on Papuan independence. “If it does not happen within two months then they say they will shoot me,” he says in the video, which was verified.
UNITED STATES
Bear nabs 60 cupcakes
A hungry black bear barged into the garage of a Connecticut bakery, scared several employees and helped itself to 60 cupcakes before ambling away. Workers at Taste by Spellbound in the town of Avon were loading cakes into a van for delivery on Wednesday when the bear showed up. Bakery owner Miriam Stephens wrote on Instagram that she heard employee Maureen Williams “screaming bloody murder” and yelling that there was a bear in the garage. Williams told TV station WTNH that she shouted to scare the bear off, but it retreated and came back three times. Surveillance footage shows the bear dragging a container of cupcakes from the garage into the parking lot. A baker finally got the bear to leave by honking a car horn, Williams said.
UNITED STATES
Paxton faces impeachment
The Republican-led Texas House of Representatives was yesterday set to hold historic impeachment proceedings against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as the scandal-plagued Republican called on supporters “to peacefully come let their voices be heard at the Capitol tomorrow” to protest a vote that could lead to his ouster. The House scheduled an afternoon start for debate on whether to impeach and suspend Paxton from office over allegations of bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust — just some of the accusations that have trailed Texas’ top lawyer for most of his three terms. Paxton, 60, has called the impeachment proceedings “political theater” based on “hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims.”
STANDING HEAD
Debt talks over soon: Biden
President Joe Biden on Friday said that Democratic and Republican negotiators were on the verge of resolving a debt ceiling standoff, as the deadline for a potentially catastrophic US default was pushed back to June 5. “It’s very close and I’m optimistic,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “I’m hopeful we’ll know by tonight whether we’re going to be able to have a deal.”
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
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
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
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