FRANCE
Hunt on after escape
A search was under way on Wednesday for armed assailants who ambushed a prison convoy, killing two prison officers, seriously injuring three others and freeing the inmate they were escorting. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal vowed that the gang would be caught, saying: “They will pay.” The escaped convict, Mohamed Amra, 30, has a long criminal record, with at least 13 convictions for robbery and other crimes, the first when he was 15, prosecutors said. International policing agency Interpol issued a Red Notice to find Amra. Hundreds of officers were mobilized in the search for Amra and the assailants, who rammed a car head-on into the prison van transporting him and opened fire on Tuesday.
UNITED STATES
Crash driver smoked pot
A man told investigators he smoked marijuana oil and took prescription drugs hours before he sideswiped a bus, killing eight Mexican farmworkers and injuring dozens more, an arrest report unsealed on Wednesday said. Bryan Maclean Howard, 41, pleaded not guilty to driving under the influence-manslaughter and remained jailed without bond for Tuesday’s crash. The Florida Highway Patrol said he drove his 2001 Ford pickup into the center line on a two-lane road and struck the bus, causing it to veer off the road, strike a tree and flip over.
UNITED STATES
Biden, Trump to debate
The Commission on Presidential Debates has an uncertain future after President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump on Wednesday struck an agreement to meet on their own. The Biden and Trump campaigns announced a deal to meet for debates in June on CNN and September on ABC. Just a day earlier, commission chairman Frank Fahrenkopf had sounded optimistic that the candidates would eventually come around to accepting its debates, saying that it would not immediately let go of its plans.
UNITED STATES
Barge hits bridge
A barge slammed into a bridge pillar in Galveston, Texas, on Wednesday, spilling oil into waters near busy shipping channels and closing the only road to a small island. No injuries were reported. The impact sent pieces of the bridge, which connects Galveston to Pelican Island, tumbling on top of the barge and shut down a stretch of waterway so crews could clean up the spill. The accident knocked one man off the vessel and into the water, but he was quickly recovered and was not injured, Galveston County Sheriff’s Office Major Ray Nolen said.
UNITED STATES
Monet sells for US$34m
A Monet sold for nearly US$35 million at auction on Wednesday, Sotheby’s said. Sotheby’s and rival auction house Christie’s launched their spring season on Monday. Claude Monet’s Meules a Giverny, which the French impressionist painted in 1893, went for US$34.8 million after a bidding war. Meanwhile, British-Mexican artist Leonora Carrington broke her own auction record when her Les Distractions de Dagobert sold for US$28.5 million. The new record places Carrington among the top-five most valuable female artists at auction, Sotheby’s said — and among the top four surrealist artists, “overtaking Max Ernst and Salvador Dali.” Meanwhile, Christie’s sold about US$115 million in contemporary art the prior evening, including a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting for US$32 million.
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
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
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
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