INDIA
Heat deaths draw warnings
At least 34 people have died in the past two days as a large swath of the northern state Uttar Pradesh swelters under severe heat, officials said yesterday, prompting doctors to advise people older than 60 to stay indoors during the daytime. The dead were all older than 60 and had pre-existing health conditions that might have been exacerbated by the intense heat. The fatalities occurred in Ballia District. Twenty-three deaths were reported on Thursday and 11 died on Friday, Ballia Chief Medical Officer Jayant Kumar said. Ballia reported a maximum temperature of 42.2°C on Friday, which is 4.7°C above normal, India Meteorological Department data showed.
UGANDA
US imposes curbs over law
Washington on Friday said it is imposing visa restrictions for Ugandans accused of “undermining the democratic process” after the enactment of an anti-gay law. A statement from the US Department of State did not name any targeted individuals, but said the US would consider other possible actions “to promote accountability for Ugandan officials and other individuals responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic process in Uganda, abusing human rights, including those of LGBTQI+ persons, or engaging in corrupt practices.” The law adopted last month punishes homosexuality, including with the death penalty in some cases.
UNITED STATES
Trucker guilty of massacre
A truck driver was convicted on Friday of massacring 11 Jewish worshipers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, five years ago in the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history. Robert Bowers methodically tracked down his victims at the Tree of Life synagogue, shooting many multiple times from close range as he yelled: “All Jews must die.” The 50-year-old was found guilty of all 63 charges leveled against him, the federal prosecutor’s office said, including hate crimes resulting in murder and attempted murder. A jury is to decide whether Bowers should be executed for the Oct. 27, 2018, mass shooting.
ECUADOR
Pigs confiscated from prison
Security forces have confiscated pigs, fighting cocks and more than two dozen bladed weapons, among other items, from a high-security wing of Bellavista Prison in Santo Domingo, the military said on Friday. Police and operatives of the national prison authority were shown wheeling out two pigs from the prison in images shared by the military in a message posted on Twitter. The authorities also removed 12 fighting cocks, 26 bladed weapons, 16 electrical items and other objects, they said, without saying how the animals ended up there.
UNITED STATES
Biden royally baffles crowd
President Joe Biden on Friday left Americans scratching their heads with an off-the-cuff remark that was, well, royally unusual for a US president: “God save the queen, man.” What he meant, which queen he was referring to, and why he threw in what sounded like the traditional patriotic British cry, no one could immediately tell. Queen Elizabeth II, whom Biden met, died in September last year and was replaced by a king — her son Charles. Biden had just completed an impassioned speech at the National Safer Communities Summit in Connecticut on toughening gun ownership laws when he made the remark from the stage. Later, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters that Biden had been “commenting to someone in the crowd.”
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
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