Thu, Jul 04, 2024 page5

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  UNITED STATES

  Kennedy denies claims

  Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr on Tuesday said he has “so many skeletons in my closet,” when asked about an allegation in a Vanity Fair article that he sexually assaulted a former family babysitter. Kennedy also denied a picture of him posing with the barbecued carcass of a large animal — which Vanity Fair said appeared to be a dog. He said it was the carcass of a goat. Vanity Fair said Kennedy texted the photo to a friend last year, saying the friend might enjoy a restaurant in South Korea that served dog on the menu. “Hey @VanityFair, you know when your veterinary experts call a goat a dog, and your forensic experts say a photo taken in Patagonia was taken in Korea, that you’ve joined the ranks of supermarket tabloids,” Kennedy wrote on social media platform X. Reuters was not able to independently confirm details of the photograph. The Vanity Fair article also said that in 1998 Kennedy and his then-wife Mary Richardson hired a 23-year-old woman, Eliza Cooney, as their part-time babysitter, who told the magazine that Kennedy groped her in the family kitchen.

  INDONESIA

  Python swallows woman

  A woman was found dead inside the belly of a snake after it swallowed her whole in South Sulawesi, police said yesterday, the second python killing in the province in a month. Siriati, 36, had gone missing after she left her house on Tuesday morning to buy medicine for her sick child, police said. Her husband, Adiansa, 30, found her slippers and pants on the ground about 500m from their house in Siteba Village. “Shortly after that, he spotted a snake, about 10m from the path. The snake was still alive,” local police said. Village secretary Iyang said that Adiansa became suspicious after he noticed the python’s “very large” belly. He called the villagers to help cut open its stomach, where they found her body.

  UNITED STATES

  ‘Chinatown’ writer dies

  Robert Towne, the Hollywood writer whose Chinatown script is often described as the greatest screenplay ever written, has died at 89. The Oscar winner, whose credits also include The Last Detail and Shampoo, and the first two Mission: Impossible films, passed away at home in Los Angeles, publicist Carri McClure said. Towne was a leading figure of the 1970s New Hollywood movement. Several classics benefited from Towne’s input, despite his name being absent from their writing credits. Most famously these included Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather. For The Godfather, Towne received a shout-out from the Oscars stage as Francis Ford Coppola accepted the best screenplay prize for his classic. Coppola offered “credit where it is due” for “the very beautiful scene between Marlon [Brando] and Al Pacino in the garden — that was Bob Towne’s scene.” Towne was nominated for screenplay Oscars three years in a row during the mid-1970s, winning for Chinatown.

  AUSTRALIA

  Crocodile attack suspected

  A 12-year-old missing in remote northern Australia might have been “attacked by a crocodile,” police said yesterday as search teams combed a creek for signs of the child. The child disappeared on Tuesday evening after swimming at Mango Creek near Palumpa. “Initial reports stated the child had been attacked by a crocodile,” Northern Territory Police said in a statement. Crocodile attacks are rare, but not unheard of in sparsely populated Northern Territory.
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