AUSTRALIA
Extreme heat in west
Parts of Western Australia were yesterday gripped by an “extreme” heat wave, raising the risk of bush fires in the vast state, the Bureau of Meteorology said. It had an “extreme heat wave warning” in place for the remote areas of Pilbara and Gascoyne, warning that temperatures could reach the high 40s°C over the weekend. In the Pilbara mining town of Paraburdoo, about 1,500km north of the state capital, Perth, a maximum temperature of 47°C was forecast, more than 6°C above the average January maximum, forecast data showed. It was 42.7°C there at 11am.
SOUTH KOREA
Chief charged in 2022 crush
Seoul’s chief of police has been charged with professional negligence over the deadly 2022 Halloween crush that killed nearly 160 people, prosecutors in the capital said. Kim Kwang-ho, head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, was charged with professional negligence resulting in injury or death, Seoul’s Western District Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement released on Friday. Kim “did not take necessary measures, such as deploying sufficient police forces and ensuring proper command and supervision” on the day of the crush, although he was able to “foresee potential dangers arising” from overcrowding in the nightlife area on Oct. 29, 2022, it said. Kim is the highest-ranking police official to face trial over the tragedy.
UNITED STATES
Microsoft e-mails hacked
Microsoft on Friday said that a Russian state-sponsored group hacked into its corporate systems on Friday last week and stole some e-mails and documents from staff accounts. The group was able to access “a very small percentage” of Microsoft corporate e-mail accounts, including members of its senior leadership team and employees in cybersecurity, legal and other divisions, the company said. The company said its probe into the breach indicated the hackers were initially targeting Microsoft to learn what the technology giant knew about their operations. The hackers used a “password spray attack” starting in November last year to breach a Microsoft platform, it said.
MEXICO
Cartel leader arrested
Authorities have arrested an alleged cartel leader over the kidnapping of four Americans, which resulted in the deaths of two of them, local media reported on Friday. The man, identified as one of the “main targets” of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, “was one of the key leaders of one of the criminal organizations with the greatest presence in the state of Tamaulipas,” the Mexican Secretariat of the Navy said in a statement on Thursday, without naming the suspect. Media on Friday identified the arrested man as Jose Alberto Garcia Vilano, also known as La Kena, linked to one of the most dangerous factions of the Gulf Cartel and the kidnapping of the four Americans in March last year.
UNITED STATES
Baldwin charged again
Alec Baldwin on Friday was charged again with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film Rust, reinstating a criminal case against the actor months after previous charges were dropped. Friday’s indictment by a New Mexico grand jury followed an independent forensic test concluding that Baldwin, 65, would have had to pull the trigger of a revolver he was using in a rehearsal for it to fire the live round that struck Hutchins in the chest and killed her.
A museum in southern French city Marseille is inviting visitors to discover Europe’s relationship to the naturist lifestyle by wandering its halls in the nude. “It’s not every day you get to walk around a museum naked,” said Julie Guegnolle, 38, who was celebrating her birthday at the “Naturist Paradises” exhibition in the Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean (Mucem). Once a month, visitors to Mucem can explore the history of naturism in Europe in only their shoes — a precaution not for modesty’s sake but simply to “avoid getting splinters,” said Eric Stefanut, head of French naturist organization
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
Four days after last scanning in for work, a 60-year-old office worker in Arizona was found dead in a cubicle at her workplace, having never left the building during that time, authorities said. Denise Prudhomme, who worked at a Wells Fargo corporate office, was found dead in a third-floor cubicle on Aug. 20, Tempe police said. She had last scanned into the building on Aug. 16 at 7am, police said. There was no indication she scanned out of the building after that. Prudhomme worked in an underpopulated area of the building. Her cause of death had not been determined, but police said the preliminary
SOVEREIGNTY ‘VIOLATION’: China was possibly probing Japan’s air defense network, seeking to obtain intelligence and putting pressure on Tokyo, analysts said Japan yesterday criticized what it called the first confirmed incursion by a Chinese military aircraft into its airspace as a “serious violation” of its sovereignty, saying Beijing was becoming “increasingly active.” China’s growing economic and military clout in the Asia-Pacific region and its assertiveness in territorial disputes — mostly with the Philippines — has rattled the US and its allies, and Monday’s incident represents a further heightening of tensions. Japan, Washington’s closest ally in the region, said it scrambled fighter jets after the two-minute incursion from 11:29am on Monday by the Y-9 surveillance aircraft off the Danjo Islands in the East China