UNITED STATES
Pentagon probes breach
The Department of Defense is investigating a “critical compromise” of communications allegedly brought on by one of its engineers and that affected 17 air force installations, a search warrant obtained by Forbes showed. The employee, who is not named because charges have not been made formally, also possibly breached FBI communications, the magazine said. A base contractor tipped off government officials, saying that an engineer at Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee had taken government technology home, Forbes said. The materials would have given the employee “unauthorized administrator access” to radio communications technology across 17 defense facilities.
HAITI
US nurse, child kidnapped
An American nurse and her child have been kidnapped, a Christian aid group said on Saturday, days after the US government ordered its nonessential personnel out of the country due to spiraling insecurity. Alix Dorsainvil and her child were kidnapped on Thursday morning near Port-au-Prince, El Roi Haiti said in a statement on its Web site. She is the wife of the group’s director, who is Haitian, and the mother and child were taken from the El Roi campus “while serving in our community ministry.”
POLAND
Wagner on border: PM
More than 100 mercenaries belonging to the Russian-linked Wagner Group in Belarus have moved close to the border, the Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Saturday. He told a news conference that the mercenaries had moved close to the Suwalki Gap, a strategic stretch of territory between Belarus and Kaliningrad, a Russian territory separated from the mainland. Poland is a member of the EU and NATO, and it has worried about its security with Russian ally Belarus and Ukraine on its eastern border. “Now the situation becomes even more dangerous,” Morawiecki told reporters, adding that “this is certainly a step towards a further hybrid attack on Polish territory.”
RUSSIA
Mother tried for online posts
A nine-year-old girl and her 10-year-old brother have been called as witnesses in a criminal case against their mother after she was accused of repeatedly “discrediting” the army. Lidia Prudovskaya and her two children were summoned by investigators in the northern region of Arkhangelsk on Friday to give testimony in the case, Russian news outlet Sota reported. Prudovskaya previously faced administrative charges on similar allegations after sharing anti-war posts on social media platform VKontakte in September last year. Discrediting the military is a criminal offense under a law adopted after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February last year. The law is regularly used against Kremlin critics.
CANADA
Six die in plane crash
Six people have died after a small plane crashed in Kananaskis Country, a mountainous region west of Calgary, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said on Saturday. The police said that an aircraft with five passengers and a pilot left Springbank Airport near Calgary on Friday night en route to Salmon Arm, British Columbia. RCMP Staff Sergeant Ryan Singleton said that contact was lost with the plane at about 9:30pm. Shortly after the plane was reported overdue, a search by the Royal Canadian Air Force found the crash site. The RCMP did not release the names of the victims.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
TESTING BAN: Satellite photos show a facility in the Chinese city of Mianyang that could aid nuclear weapons design and power generation, a US researcher said China appears to be building a large laser-ignited fusion research center in the southwestern city of Mianyang, experts at two analytical organizations said, a development that could aid nuclear weapons design and work exploring power generation. Satellite photos show four outlying “arms” that would house laser bays, and a central experiment bay that would hold a target chamber containing hydrogen isotopes the powerful lasers would fuse together, producing energy, said Decker Eveleth, a researcher at US-based independent research organization CNA Corp. It is a similar layout to the US$3.5 billion US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in northern California, which in 2022 generated
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