FRANCE
No-show stops rape trial
The trial of a man accused of recruiting strangers to rape his heavily sedated wife was yesterday suspended after he failed to show up in court due to ill health. The presiding judge had adjourned the trial of Dominique Pelicot until yesterday after the accused was excused from attending proceedings for most of last week because of his deteriorating health. However, his lawyer said that Pelicot, 71, was still not well enough to attend. “He will not be there today,” Beatrice Zavarro said, unless “he is taken by force” from his cell. She said Pelicot was suffering from “a clot in the bladder” and the beginning of a kidney infection. “I have been advised that Mr Pelicot has refused his extraction” from his cell, presiding judge Roger Arata said.
BOTSWANA
1,094-carat diamond found
Lucara Diamond Corp has recovered another mammoth diamond from a local mine, its second major find in a month. The latest gem weighed 1,094 carats and was found at the Karowe mine, Lucara said in a statement. While it is smaller than the 2,942-carat stone discovered at the same site last month, it is still about a third the size of the biggest-ever found, the Cullinan Diamond of South Africa. Lucara’s Karowe project is famous for giant stones, and the company’s shares jumped more than a third last month when the initial mammoth finding was announced. CEO William Lamb said the latest discovery further validated an expansion of the site’s underground capacity, which would extend the life of the project to at least 2040.
UNITED STATES
Subway shooting injures 4
Four people were wounded at a Brooklyn subway station on Sunday when police officers shot at a man threatening them with a knife, the authorities said. The people hit by police gunfire included the man with the blade, one of the officers and two innocent bystanders. The bloody confrontation began when two officers confronted a man who had entered the station without paying his fare, officials said. One of the bystanders, a 49-year-old man, was hospitalized in critical condition. The man suspected of evading his fare, 37, was shot several times, but was in stable condition. A 26-year-old woman suffered a graze wound. The wounded police officer had a bullet enter his torso under his armpit and lodge in his back, but was also expected to recover. New York City Police Department Interim Police Commissioner Thomas Donlan promised a thorough investigation into the shooting. “But right now, we are grateful that our officer will be OK,” he told reporters.
HUNGARY
Short-term rentals banned
Residents of Budapest’s sixth district have narrowly voted to ban short-term rentals from 2026 in a decision that could have wider ramifications for the housing market in one of Europe’s most popular tourist destinations. Eurostat figures show almost 719 million guest nights spent in the EU were booked via online platforms Airbnb, Booking, Expedia and Tripadvisor last year, with Paris leading EU capitals with more than 19 million guest nights. Within central Europe, Budapest was the most popular for short-term stays, with 6.7 million guest nights. Results published on the Budapest district’s Web site early yesterday showed 54 percent of voters backing the ban with 20.52 percent turnout, which the district said was well above levels seen at other local initiatives. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government is mulling regulation on short-term rentals, which it blames for a housing shortage and high prices.
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