UNITED STATES
Horse gets loose mid-flight
A cargo jet headed to Belgium from New York had to turn around mid-flight after a horse escaped its stall and got loose in the hold, air traffic control audio showed. The Boeing 747 operated by Air Atlanta Icelandic had just started its flight across the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday last week when the pilot radioed air traffic control in Boston and said that a horse on board had escaped its stall. “We don’t have a problem as of flying-wise but we need to return, return back to New York. We cannot get the horse back secured,” the pilot said on air traffic control recordings made by the site LiveATC.net and compiled by the site You Can See ATC. The controller cleared the aircraft to return to John F. Kennedy International Airport. The pilot said that due to the plane’s weight, he had to dump 20 tonnes of fuel before going back to New York. The controller confirmed and alerted nearby pilots about a “fuel dumping in progress approximately 10 miles [16km] west of Martha’s Vineyard.” The 747 pilot had one more request. “I do believe we need a vet — veterinarian, I guess you call it, for the horse upon landing,” he said. “Is that something you can speak to New York about?” The controller said he would pass it on. The flight landed at Kennedy, took off a short time later and successfully arrived at Liege Airport the next morning, according to the tracking site FlightRadar24.
JAPAN
Panic near Israeli embassy
A vehicle crashed into a temporary barricade near the Israeli embassy in Tokyo yesterday, and reports said police arrested the driver. The alleged motive and whether the embassy was targeted are not known. Protesters often gather against Israel’s attacks on Gaza, and the street near the embassy has been barricaded by police. Police refused to confirm the media reports. A man in his 50s believed to be a member of a right-wing group was arrested at the scene on suspicion of obstructing official duties, public broadcaster NHK and other media reported. An ambulance was dispatched to a nearby location when an emergency call reported one person was injured, the Tokyo Fire Department said. One police officer had a hand injury, the media reports said. Photographs and video footage showed a black compact vehicle crashed into a guardrail by the sidewalk, with debris scattered on the street. The crash site is near an intersection about 100m from the embassy, NHK said.
AUSTRALIA
Musk’s X sues agency
An Australian online safety watchdog yesterday said it was being taken to court by Elon Musk’s X in a fight over the platform’s failure to outline how it combats child sexual abuse content. Last month, eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant slapped an A$610,500 (US$396,564) fine on the company formerly known as Twitter for failing to respond to questions sent in February about how it is tackling the issue on its platform. The social media giant missed an extended deadline to pay the fine, the eSafety commission said this week, adding that it was “considering further steps.” Instead, X has taken the case to Australian federal court. “X Corp has lodged proceedings seeking judicial review of decisions of the eSafety Commissioner in this matter,” an eSafety commission spokesperson said. “ESafety continues to consider its options in relation to X Corp’s non-compliance with the reporting notice but cannot comment on legal proceedings.” Documents have been filed with the federal court in Melbourne. When contacted by AFP, X responded with an automatic e-mail: “Busy now, please check back later.”
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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