UNITED STATES
Kennedy reveals suspicion
Independent US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr believed he might have been attacked by a worm that ate part of his brain and then died inside his head, the media reported on Wednesday. Kennedy, 70, made the claim in a 2012 deposition as part of his divorce from his second wife, according to the New York Times, which said the scion of the storied political clan reported severe memory loss and mental fog. A New York surgeon who reviewed his brain scans told Kennedy his health issues could have been “caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” he reportedly told attorneys. AFP has not independently reviewed the deposition.
UNITED STATES
Apple ad causes backlash
An ad for the new iPad Pro on Wednesday caused an uproar for showing an industrial-sized hydraulic press crushing objects linked to human creativity — such as a record player and trumpet — into a sleek tablet. Social media users immediately criticized the ad, which was posted on X by Apple CEO Tim Cook, as painfully tone-deaf at a time when the creative community is worried about its future with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence. “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley,” actor Hugh Grant wrote on X. Set to the song All I Ever Need is You by Sonny and Cher, the one-minute ad titled Crush sees the pile of creative artifacts, also including a piano and paint cans, explode under the pressure of Apple’s press. “I’m not sure ‘wanton destruction of all the good and beautiful things in this world’ was really the vibe you were trying for,” X user Judd Baroff wrote.
JAPAN
Rat parts found in bread
More than 100,000 packets of sliced bread have been recalled after parts of a black rat’s body were discovered inside two of them, the manufacturer said on Wednesday. Food recalls are rare in Japan, a country with famously high standards of sanitation, and Pasco Shikishima Corp said it was investigating how the rodent remains had crept into its products. The company said it was so far unaware of anyone falling sick after eating its processed white chojuku bread, long a staple of Japanese breakfast tables. About 104,000 packs of the bread have been recalled in mainland Japan, from Tokyo to the northern Aomori region. “We would like to apologize deeply for causing trouble to our customers and clients,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, Pasco confirmed that parts of a black rat had contaminated the two packs.
VIETNAM
Senior official arrested
Police have arrested a senior official involved in talks with international organizations on labor reforms, state media said yesterday, adding that the action was linked to disclosure of classified information. The detention of Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Legal Affairs Department Director Nguyen Van Binh follows months of arrests of prominent experts and activists, in what some diplomats see as a further crackdown on civil society amid a major reshuffle of top political leaders in the communist-ruled country. Binh, 51, was charged with overseeing reforms to labor law on which he worked closely with the International Labour Organization, the ministry said on its Web site. Binh was detained on charges of intentionally revealing state secrets, the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper said.
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