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
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate
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