MALAYSIA
Airport shooting not terrorism
A man attempting to shoot his wife at Kuala Lumpur International Airport yesterday instead left her personal bodyguard in a critical condition, Malaysian authorities said. Police were investigating the rare shooting in connection to a domestic dispute and said it was not related to terrorism. The shooter, who was thought to be targeting his wife in the arrivals hall, hit her bodyguard and then fled the scene, police said. “The suspect fired two shots before hitting a local man who was a bodyguard, causing the victim to suffer injuries to the abdomen,” Selangor state police chief Hussein Omar Khan said in a statement. Officers were searching for a 38-year-old Malaysian man who had previously been arrested for threatening his wife. Following the threats, the woman hired bodyguards last year, Criminal Investigation Department Director Shuhaily Zain said. The woman, who runs a travel agency, was at the airport to receive Muslim pilgrims returning from Mecca, police said.
CHINA
Boat capsizes, killing 12
Two people have been detained following the capsizing of a tourist boat on a river in northeastern China that led to the deaths of 12 people, state media reported yesterday. The incident occurred on Saturday afternoon outside the city of Qinhuangdao near the coast of Hebei Province. Thirty-one people were thrown into the water. The boat was made by local villagers and was not equipped with life jackets or other safety equipment, Xinhua News Agency reported. The boat’s owner and operator were being held while an investigation was under way. The country has powerful rivers and such deadly accidents used to be common before major safety improvements over the past few years.
UNITED STATES
O.J. lawyer to fight payout
The executor of O.J. Simpson’s estate plans to fight to stop families of the late NFL star’s alleged murder victims from receiving funds from a US$33.5 million wrongful death judgement that found him liable for the killings, a report said on Saturday. Simpson, who died on Wednesday at the age of 76, was acquitted in 1995 of murdering ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in a court case dubbed “The Trial of the Century.” However, a subsequent 1997 civil trial found Simpson liable for the brutal double-slaying and ordered the US football icon-turned-actor to pay US$33.5 million to the victims’ families. The father of Ron Goldman, Fred Goldman, waged a decades-long pursuit of Simpson to force him to make good on the settlement. Simpson is believed to have paid only a fraction of the 1997 figure, with a 2021 report stating that the Goldmans had received just less than US$133,000. Simpson’s long-time lawyer Malcolm LaVergne told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Saturday that he was determined to ensure that the Goldman family not receive anything from Simpson’s estate. “It’s my hope that the Goldmans get zero, nothing,” LaVergne was quoted by the paper as saying. “Them specifically. And I will do everything in my capacity as the executor or personal representative to try and ensure that they get nothing.” LaVergne apparently was angered that the Goldmans at one point had gained control of the manuscript of Simpson’s book If I Did It, and retitled it, If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer. The Review-Journal reported that LaVergne was named as executor of Simpson’s estate in court documents filed on Friday.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
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