JAPAN
Break-in addict arrested
Police yesterday said that they had arrested a man who reportedly admitted to breaking into more than 1,000 homes in an unconventional way of relieving stress. Police took the 37-year-old into custody on Monday on suspicion of trespassing on a property in Dazaifu, a police spokesman told reporters. “Breaking into other people’s homes is a hobby of mine, and I have done it more than 1,000 times,” the Mainichi Shimbun quoted the unnamed man as saying. “I get so thrilled that my palms sweat when wondering if someone will discover me or not, and it relieves some stress,” he told police, according to the newspaper.
Photo: AP
AUSTRALIA
Police officer found guilty
A police officer who shocked a 95-year-old nursing home resident with a Taser was found guilty of manslaughter in court yesterday. A jury found Kristian White guilty in the trial in Sydney after 20 hours of deliberation. White, who is on bail, could get up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced. Clare Nowland, a great-grandmother who had dementia and used a walker, was refusing to put down the steak knife she was holding when the officer discharged his Taser at her in May last year. Nowland fell backward after White shocked her and died a week later in hospital. Police said at the time that Nowland sustained her fatal injuries from striking her head on the floor, rather than directly from the device’s debilitating electric shock.
Photo: AFP
PHILIPPINES
Complaint filed against VP
Police yesterday said that they had filed a complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte and several of her security detail over an incident at the lower house of Congress. The complaint is for direct assault, disobedience and grave coercion during an incident at the lower chamber and a hospital, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said in a statement. Duterte has been the subject of a heated congressional inquiry into the spending of her office as vice president and education secretary, during which she has clashed with lawmakers. “The PNP remains steadfast in its commitment to uphold justice and ensure that all individuals are held accountable under the law, regardless of their position,” police chief Rommel Francisco Marbil said. Duterte has been furious over the detention at the complex of the lower house of her aide, who is also facing a House inquiry. The aide was later transferred to a government hospital for medical attention. On Saturday, Duterte said she had contracted an assassin to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, his wife and the speaker of the House, if she herself were killed. Law officials on Tuesday summoned Duterte for questioning over the statements. She said her words had been twisted to create a false narrative that Marcos’ life was under active threat, calling her remarks a “conditional act of revenge.”
UNITED STATES
Trump names trade envoy
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named Jamieson Greer his trade envoy, a key figure in implementing the incoming administration’s economic agenda, particularly a plan to use tariffs to raise revenue and help bring in more manufacturing. Trump also picked Kevin Hassett as his top economic adviser. “Jamieson played a key role during my First Term in imposing Tariffs on China and others to combat unfair Trade practices,” Trump said of Greer. Later, Trump named health economist Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s leading medical research agency.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
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