UNITED STATES
No survivors in Alaska crash
The Coast Guard in Alaska on Friday found the wreckage of a small plane atop frozen sea ice, after the aircraft suddenly lost altitude a day earlier in a crash that killed all 10 people on board, officials said. Two Coast Guard rescue swimmers could see three bodies inside, and the other seven were presumed to be inside the wreckage, Coast Guard spokesman Mike Salerno told a news conference. “Unfortunately, it does not appear to be a survivable crash,” he said. Harsh winter weather had impeded search efforts, and it might take hours or days to recover the bodies from the remote site, officials said.
Photo: US Coast Guard via AP
FRANCE
Sarkozy fitted with e-tag
Nicolas Sarkozy was on Friday fitted with an electronic tag after being convicted of graft, prosecutors said, in a first for a former French president. The Court of Cassation in December last year ordered Sarkozy to wear the tag for a year, after finding him guilty of illegal attempts to secure favors from a judge. Sarkozy, who turned 70 last week, was fitted with the ankle monitor at his home, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. The ankle bracelet was imposed as an alternative to spending one year in jail.
Photo: AFP
UNITED STATES
Lawmaker removes sex organs
Michigan State Representative Laurie Pohutsky this week told a crowd protesting US President Donald Trump’s early actions that she underwent elective surgery to remove her reproductive organs. The 36-year-old Democrat said the surgery was a personal decision she had been considering for a few years and was finalized by Trump’s election. She wanted to validate the fears other women might have about access to contraception by sharing it. She said she has received threats since speaking about it on Wednesday, referring at least one of them to Michigan authorities. Pohutsky said that last month she had the bilateral salpingectomy to remove her fallopian tubes, a decision prompted by fears that the Trump administration would target access to contraceptives or abortion.
Photo: Detroit Free Press via AP
AUSTRALIA
Man finds 100 poison snakes
A man described feeling “the shudders” as more than 100 venomous red-bellied black snakes were removed from a pile of mulch in his Sydney backyard. David Stein called Reptile Relocation Sydney last week after watching around six snakes slither into the mulch. He learned from an Internet search that pregnant, known as gravid, red-belly blacks pile on top of each other before they give birth. Snake catcher Dylan Cooper arrived that afternoon. Stein helped rake away mulch as Cooper bagged 102 pregnant and newborn snakes. “Just seeing that amount in one group, it gives you a bit of the shudders,” Stein said on Friday. Reptile Relocation Sydney owner Cory Kerewaro said two of the captured adults gave birth to 29 snakes in the bag while Cooper was still sifting through mulch catching more. The final tally was five adults and 97 offspring caught, he said.
Photo: Cory Kerewaro via AP
UNITED STATES
Violin sells for US$11.3m
A rare Stradivarius violin, made more than 300 years ago by Antonio Stradivari during his so-called golden period, fetched US$11.3 million at auction in New York on Friday, Sotheby’s said. It said the buyer chose to remain anonymous. Known for its extraordinary sound, the “Joachim-Ma Stradivarius,” named after its distinguished former owners, became the third-most expensive musical instrument ever sold at auction.
Photo: AP
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DISASTROUS VISIT: The talks in Saudi Arabia come after an altercation at the White House that led to the Ukrainian president leaving without signing a minerals deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a day ahead of crucial talks between Ukrainian and US officials on ending the war with Russia. Highly anticipated negotiations today on resolving the three-year conflict would see US and Ukrainian officials meet for the first time since Zelenskiy’s disastrous White House visit last month. Zelenskiy yesterday said that he would meet Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto leader, after which his team “will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the American team.” At the talks in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, US
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