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.
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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