Top News Stories –

Playboy mansion bought by Hugh Hefner’s neighbour –
The Playboy mansion, home to Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, is being sold to a private equity boss who lives next door. Daren Metropoulos, 32, is buying the 200,000 sq ft ((1,858 sq m) property, which was on the market for $200m (£138m). He bought the neighbouring property from Mr Hefner in 2009 for $18m. Mr Metropoulos is a principal at Metropoulos & Co, which is run by his father Dean. “The heritage of this property transcends its celebrity and to have the opportunity to serve as its steward would be a true privilege,” Daren Metropoulos told The Wall Street Journal. The mansion was built in 1927 and purchased by Playboy in 1971 for a reported $1.1m, making it the most valuable real estate deal in Los Angles at the time. It features a tennis court, free-form swimming pool, wine cellar, home theatre and games house but needs renovating to meet the same standards as other Beverly Hills homes. Neither party has confirmed what the mansion was sold for. Mr Hefner, 89, has the right to remain living in the property until his death. The LA estate eventually replaced the original Playboy Mansion, which opened in 1959 in Chicago. [BBC]
Hugh Hefner in 2010

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• Five people working for Jordanian intelligence are killed in an attack in a Palestinian neighborhood near Amman. (Al Arabiya)

Disasters and accidents

• Australian east coast low
  • Three bodies have been discovered in flood waters: two in the state of New South Wales and one in the Australian Capital Territory. Two people are missing in Tasmania. (ABC News Australia)
• A soldier is killed and another injured after a fire spread to an ammunition dump at the Salawa army camp near Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo. Thousands of people in the area were evacuated. The fire is under control, according to a military spokesman. (AP)
• 2016 Atlantic hurricane season
  • Florida Governor Rick Scott declares a state of emergency as Tropical Storm Colin‘s rain and gusty winds pelt the state’s west coast. Maximum sustained winds at 1:00 p.m. EDT are 50 mph (85 kpm). Between three and five inches of rain are forecast for northern Florida, with some areas getting up to eight inches. (Miami Herald) (NHC)
  • The National Hurricane Center says this is the earliest a third named storm has ever formed in the Atlantic basin. (CBS News)

Health and medicine

• Singapore researchers report, in the nanomaterials journal Small, the creation of a new antimicrobial material capable of neutralizing E. coli bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant bacteria such asStaphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. (UPI) (Wiley Online Library)

Law and crime

• Researchers report that testing of 5,000 forgotten Cuyahoga County, Ohio, police rape kits for unsolved cases between 1993 and 2010 has led to more than 250 criminal convictions. (UPI) (Case Western Reserve University)

Politics and election

• Peruvian general election, 2016
  • With more than 92% of the vote counted, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is ahead of Keiko Fujimori by just over 103,000 votes, 50.3 percent to 49.6 percent, in the electorate of 23 million citizens. Ballots ofPeruvians living abroad will begin to arrive tonight. Mariano Cucho, the head of the electoral office, says the count may not be finalized until Thursday or Friday. (CNN via WFXP) (Reuters) (Fox News Latino)
  • With 96.13% of ballots counted, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski‘s lead shrinks to less than 50,000 votes, with 50.14 percent of the votes versus Keiko Fujimori‘s 49.85 percent. (Financial Times)
• Haitian presidential election, 2015–16
  • Haiti will redo its presidential election after findings of widespread voter fraud in last years voting. Additional measures will be put in place for the first round in October this year. (Fox News)
• Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2016
  • The Associated Press reports that Hillary Clinton has the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic Party nomination. Since delegates do not vote until the convention though, she is thepresumptive nominee of the party. (AP)

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