ITALY
Forty-one die in shipwreck
Forty-one migrants died in a shipwreck last week in the central Mediterranean, the ANSA news agency reported yesterday, citing accounts from survivors who have just reached the Italian island of Lampedusa. ANSA said that four people who survived the shipwreck told rescuers that they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children. The boat set off on Thursday morning from Tunisia’s Sfax, a hot spot in the migration crisis, but capsized and sank after a few hours, the survivors were quoted as saying. The survivors — three men and a woman from Ivory Coast and Guinea — said they were rescued by a cargo ship and then transferred onto an Italian coast guard vessel.
HONG KONG
Parents ‘harassed’: activist
Democracy activist Anna Kwok (郭鳳儀) yesterday said that her parents were “questioned, harassed and intimidated” by authorities, weeks after officials accused her and seven others of endangering national security. The territory last month offered bounties of HK$1 million (US$127,908) for information leading to the arrest of eight prominent democracy activists now living abroad, accusing them of subversion, foreign collusion and other crimes. Police said that its national security department on Tuesday “took away a man and a woman for investigation” related to national security crimes, without naming them. Kwok, executive director of the nonprofit Hong Kong Democracy Council, yesterday apologized to her parents in a statement for getting them involved. “Yesterday my parents were questioned, harassed and intimidated. Even though I feel apologetic, I must say this is a price I expected to pay,” said Kwok, who is based in the US. Family members of at least four other wanted activists have been taken in for police questioning over the past weeks.
UNITED STATES
US$1.58bn jackpot won
Someone in Florida on Tuesday won a US$1.58 billion Mega Millions jackpot, ending a stretch of lottery futility that had stretched for nearly four months. A Publix grocery store in Neptune Beach sold the winning ticket, the Florida Lottery said. The winning numbers were: 13 19 20 32 33 and the yellow ball: 14. Before the big win Tuesday night, there had been 31 straight drawings since the last time someone won the game’s jackpot on April 18. That enabled the prize to steadily grow to be the third-largest in US history. Mega Millions jackpot winners are rare thanks to odds of one in 302.6 million. The US$1.58 billion payout would go to the winner if they opt for an annuity, doled out over 30 years. People usually prefer a lump sum option, which for Tuesday’s jackpot is an estimated US$783.3 million.
UNITED STATES
Rapper Lanez sentenced
Canadian rapper Tory Lanez was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years in prison, more than seven months after he was convicted of shooting fellow musical artist Megan Thee Stallion during an argument in 2020. Judge David Herriford handed down the sentence to the 30-year-old rapper, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, during a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court that had been pushed back by delays. On Dec. 23 last year, a jury found Lanez guilty of carrying a loaded and unregistered firearm in a vehicle, assault with a semiautomatic handgun and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. Lanez was accused of shooting Grammy-winning rapper Megan Thee Stallion, 28, injuring her feet after a pool party in the Hollywood Hills in July 2020.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home