Top Stories – Haiti man alive after being buried for 14 days –
14 days after the devastating earthquake that has killed tens of thousands in Haiti, Rico Dibrivell, has been pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed building the capital. U.S. troops rescued the 35-year-old from the ruins in Port-au-Prince.
Avatar mountain in China –
A Chinese mountain has been renamed in honour of the film Avatar, after it apparently inspired scenery in the movie. The Southern Sky Column in Zhangjiajie, Hunan province, will now be known as the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain. Avatar has become the most popular film ever in China, making $80m (£50m) at the box office so far.
The genius behind ‘Headless Body in Topless Bar’ headline dies at 74 –
Vincent A. Musetto, who wrote the greatest headline in New York newspaper history, died Tuesday at 74 from cancer. “Headless Body in Topless Bar” ran on The Post’s front page on April 15, 1983. As witty as it was horrific, it expressed with unflinching precision the city’s accelerating tailspin into an abyss of atrocious crime and chaos. Post editor- in-chief Col Allan said, “V.A. Musetto was one of the legends of our business, and he became famous for a truly classic headline. But for those who worked with him and mourn him today, V.A. offered so much more: Humor. A sharp critical eye. A personal warmth with his colleagues, and deep love for The Post and its readers. All will miss him.” [Daily Post] New York Post headline April 15, 1083
Chinese actress Zhao Wei sued for ‘staring’ at man through his TV set –
A Chinese actress is being sued after a man claims she “stared at him too intensely” through his TV set. The lawsuit was filed by a man in Shanghai after he watched Zhao Wei in a series called Tiger Mom, which debuted last month. A new law making it harder for courts in China to reject lawsuits has led to concerns of a rise in the number of frivolous claims being made. The rules came into force on 1 May with a 29% rise in cases reported in China. The Supreme People’s Court says there were just over a million cases filed compared with same period last year. [BBC Newsbeat] Zhao Wei
The death toll from the MERS outbreak in South Korea rises to nine, with 13 new cases reported. More than 2,200 schools have closed or cancelled classes as a result of the outbreak. (Reuters)
Skier’s Close Call As Drone Camera Crashes –
A skier has narrowly avoided serious injury after a drone being used to film the event he was competing in crashed to the ground. The drone hit the snow just centimetres away from Austria’s Marcel Hirscher during the alpine skiing World Cup slalom in Italy. “This is horrible,” Hirscher, who finished second in the event, said. A skier has narrowly avoided serious injury after a drone being used to film the event he was competing in crashed to the ground. The drone hit the snow just centimetres away from Austria’s Marcel Hirscher during the alpine skiing World Cup slalom in Italy. “This is horrible,” Hirscher, who finished second in the event, said. [MSN News] See Video of the Day Marcel Hirscher
Madonna goes to court to force 15-year-old son to return to New York –
Madonna has gone to court to force her 15-year-old son Rocco to return to New York, after his father Guy Ritchie insisted that he wanted to stay in the UK for Christmas. The singer appeared before a judge in Manhattan on Wednesday morning, where she won her bid to have her son forced to board a plane from London. Mr Ritchie, a film director who has two children with Madonna, argued through his lawyer that Rocco preferred to spend Christmas with his father, the New York Post reported. Judge Kaplan ordered that Rocco should talk with Madonna, and then revisit the issue of which parent he prefers. The judge told a smiling Madonna that Rocco must also present himself to court in the United States for the case to be decided. “I’m directing the child to be returned to New York. If he wants to stay with his father, he must return to his mother.” [Daily Telegraph] Madonna
Video of the Day –
TV drone crashes during ski race – Marcel Hirscher at Madonna di Campiglio
Amnesty International reports at least 200 civilians have been killed in Russian air strikes in Syria, indicating “serious failures by Russia to respect international humanitarian law”. Moscow denies causing civilian deaths. (BBC)
An overnight raid by suspected Boko Haram militants on Niger‘s southern border town of Abadam, kills two Nigerien Army soldiers and three civilians. And, separately, a suicide-bomb attack on Lake Chad killed three of the attackers but no one else. A military convoy was also ambushed by militants in northern Cameroon, although there were no reported deaths. (Reuters)
Clashes continue between PKK militants and Turkish Army troops in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakır in southeastern Turkey. At least one Turkish soldier is killed and several are wounded in a bomb attack. (Reuters)
Hacktivist collective Anonymous declares a cyber-war on Turkey, and claims responsibility for the major week-long cyber-attack between 14 and 21 December on Turkey, which it accuses of supporting the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and threatened additional attacks in case the alleged support continues. “We will continue attacking your internet, your root DNS, your banks and take your government sites down,” it said. “After the root DNS, we will start to hit your airports, military assets and private state connections. We will destroy your critical banking infrastructure,” the group added. (Hurriyet Daily News)(Independent)
South Korea announces an end to the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak that has killed 36 people since May 2015. The virus infected 186 people, with nearly 17,000 people confined to their homes and thousands of schools temporarily closing at the peak of the largest MERS outbreak outside Saudi Arabia, where it first appeared in 2012. (AFP via FRANCE 24)
It’s Kylie Minogue versus Kylie Jenner in a battle for who owns their name –
Kylie Minogue is trying to stop Kylie Jenner from using “Kylie” as a trademark in America. And the singer’s lawyers aren’t pulling any punches. They’ve filed documents describing the Keeping up with the Kardashians star as a “secondary reality television personality” who participates in “photo exhibitionism”. They also say giving Kylie J the trademark could damage Kylie M and her other trademarks. The legal papers from KDB refer to her as a “home-schooled graduate,” saying her “photographic exhibitionism and controversial posts have drawn criticism from, for example, the disability rights and African-American communities”. [BBC Newsbeat] Kylie Minogue (L) and Kylie Jenner (R)
Sam Smith ‘taking a break from Twitter’ after Oscars row with Dustin Lance Black –
Sam Smith says he’s taking a break from social media. It’s after Dustin Lance Black criticised him on Twitter for claiming that he was the first openly gay man to win a prize at the Oscars. Sam Smith made the comment during his acceptance speech after winning the Academy Award for best song for the theme tune to James Bond movie Spectre. “I read an article… by Sir Ian McKellen and he said no openly gay man had ever won an Oscar,” he said. “I want to dedicate this to the LGBT community all around the world. “I stand here tonight as a proud gay man and I hope we can all stand together as equals one day.” But the comments didn’t go down well with director Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar in 2009 for his film Milk. After all the online drama, the British singer said it was time to “log off for a while”. Sam Smith tweet
The United States Army‘s elite Delta Force captures their first suspected ISIL operative during a raid in northern Iraq. The detainee is being interrogated by the U.S. and is expected to be turned over to Iraqi officials in the coming days. (CNN)
At least 18 people are killed and 16 others injured in a multi-vehicle accident involving a bus near Nahdah in northwestern Oman. Six of the dead were from Oman, four from Saudi Arabia, two from Pakistan, and one from Yemen. Five others are unidentified. (AP via ABC News)
The Peruvian Army is deployed on the country’s northern and southern coasts to help cope with El Niño-related floods that have killed at least two people and left thousands homeless. (Euronews)
Filipino fishermen say China has deployed up to five ships around the disputed Quirino Atoll, also known as Jackson Atoll, in the South China Sea, preventing them from accessing traditional fishing grounds. (Reuters via Channel News Asia)
Ukraine bans government officials from publicly criticizing the work of state institutions and their colleagues, after damaging disclosures last month that highlighted slow progress in fighting corruption.(Reuters)
Snapchat is assembling a super team to build smart glasses –
Today, you use your smartphone’s cameras to take snaps and creates stories on Snapchat. But in the future, you could be Snapchatting with a pair of Google Glass-like smart glasses on your face. According to CNET, Snapchat has aggressively assembled a team of wearable experts to work on some kind of smart eyewear device. Now, imagine being able to put on a pair of smart glasses and then see these effects overlaid on top of your friends’ faces using augmented reality. It would be insane. Of course, this is just one far-flung idea. For all we know, Snapchat could be building something entirely different. [Mashable UK]
Woman sues after toilet ‘exploded’ while she was sitting on it –
A woman is suing for damages after being “blown off” her toilet when workmen used high-power hoses to clean out sewer lines in her neighbourhood. Angela Wright of Baltimore, Maryland, says the incident, which took place in October 2014, left her suffering physical injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder from the incident. Both Ms Wright and her bathroom were “covered in filth and excretion,” following what she described as an “explosion”. In an interview with Fox 45 she said: “I was literally covered in faeces. Are you kidding me? Who wants that?” [Daily Telegraph]
Airstrikes on the Al-Qaeda-held Al-Mansoura district in the port city of Aden, kill at least 17 militants and injure 20 civilians, according to local medics and a Yemeni security official. (Reuters)
Business and economics
Reuters reports, on the basis of unnamed sources “familiar with the matter,” that Energy Transfer Equity, a private equity concern, is in talks to sell Sunoco, a deal which would be valued at more than $2 billion. (Reuters)
A protestor attempts to storm the stage as Donald Trump was talking at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, causing Secret Service agents to jump on the stage and form a wall around the presidential candidate amid the chaos. The suspect was identified as Thomas Dimassimo, 32, and was charged with disorderly conduct and inducing panic, according to Chief Mike Etter of the Dayton Police Department. Dimassimo is a Black Lives Matter activist. (NBC News).
Thousands of people take to the streets of Warsaw and other cities in Poland in protest against the government after it refused to publish the Constitutional Court’s ruling that the government cannot change how the court works. (BBC)
Chocolate shortage sparks violence at Easter family fun day in Skegness –
A volunteer at an Easter family fun day in Skegness was attacked by a visitor who became enraged when organisers ran out of chocolate eggs. Families paid £5 to attend Church Farm Museum’s “Easter Eggstravaganza”, which was raising funds for Bury-based charity Annabelle’s Challenge for Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. The fee included access to the site, billed as Lincolnshire’s only open air farming museum, along with a falconry display, an Easter bonnet competition, and an egg hunt. Families were also given an Easter egg – until supplies ran out. “We were handing them out and there were some people who got aggressive when we said we had run out of eggs. “A lady with her large family was aggressive and she grabbed my volunteer by the scarf round her neck, she pulled her across the counter and demanded her money back. [Daily Telegraph]
Belgium officials lower the official death toll from 35 to 32, with nearly 100 still hospitalized. (UPI)
BrusselsZaventem International Airport CEO Arnaud Feist says the airport will reopen at less than a quarter capacity Wednesday, as ongoing tests determine which flights can resume. It could take months for the airport to return to full capacity, Feist added. (UPI)
New research, published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, finds women who have endometriosis, the abnormal growth of uterine tissue outside the uterus, may face a 60 percent higher risk of developing heart disease than women without the disorder. The potential risk was especially high for women 40 or younger. At least 10 percent of women of reproductive age suffer from endometriosis (endo) says Dr. Stacey Missmer of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who co-authored the study. (UPI)(NBC News)
A hijacked EgyptAir flight lands in Cyprus. All hostages have been released, and the hijacker has no evident ties to any terrorist organizations. (The Guardian)
Dozens of chief executive officers of major U.S. technology, biotech, and financial companies urge North Carolina to repeal a new state law forcing transgender people to use rest-rooms and changing-rooms according to the gender on their birth-certificate.(AP via WBT)
The NC Values Coalition, which worked to get Charlotte‘s nondiscrimination ordinance overturned by the state legislature, says hundreds of North Carolina businesses support the new state law, though fear retaliation if they make that support public. The coalition did list 17 businesses willing to be identified as supporting the new law. (AP)
In a move designed to head off a 4-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court directs lawyers for the Obama administration, and for the religious groups who challenge it, to submit written briefs on a possible remedy to the case: whether coverage could be provided through the group’s insurance companies without any actual notice to the government. A 4-4 decision would not set a national precedent, and would let stand the preceding decision in each case. In these seven cases, the appeals court in six upheld the government mandate. (NBC News)
The Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, the country’s largest party, decides unanimously to leave President Rousseff’s governing coalition. While Rousseff will remain in office, it’s likely she could be impeached in a matter of months, which would make Vice PresidentMichel Temer president. (Reuters)
Chief of staff Jaques Wagner says President Rousseff will announce a new governing coalition before the end of the week. The President has an opportunity to form a new coalition for her remaining two years and nine months in office, Wagner added. (Reuters²)
The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a United States foreign aid agency, pulls $472m of funding for a Tanzanian electricity project after concluding that the election held in Zanzibar “was neither inclusive nor representative”. Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, held a rerun of its election that was boycotted by the opposition after it was previously annulled because of supposed fraud. (BBC)
Candidate Donald Trump says he will no longer honor his pledge to support the eventual Republican Party pick for president because, “I have been treated very unfairly.” (AP)(Fox News)
Two police officers are killed and four others are wounded in the western Venezuelan city of San Cristóbal after they were run over by a bus driven by young men protesting a hike in public transport fares, according to government officials and Reuters witnesses. (Reuters)
New Zealand stages first Pastafarian wedding on pirate boat –
The light-hearted Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has staged its first legally recognised wedding. Toby Ricketts and Marianna Fenn tied the “noodle knot” in the New Zealand South Island town of Akaroa. The happy couple say that guidelines of the Pastafarian religion stipulate that wedding celebrants must be pirates. Members of the church profess the belief that the world was created by an airborne spaghetti and meatballs-based being and humans evolved from pirates. New Zealand officials last month designated the religion as an officially-recognised faith, allowing Wellington-based Pastafarian Karen Martyn the legal right to conduct marriages. She carried out her inaugural wedding as an ordained “ministeroni” on Saturday. [BBC]
A battle rages in the Kunduz Province of Afghanistan as the Taliban launches its spring offensive to capture the city of Kunduz. According to a Taliban spokesperson, several outposts already fell to them but this could not be verified immediately while a police chief says that the security forces were keeping “the situation under control”. (Al Jazeera)
At least four Turkish Army soldiers are killed and two others are wounded after a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in the southeast Mardin Province. (Reuters)
The death toll from yesterday’s earthquake rises to nine with eight dead in the town of Mashiki. Eight hundred people have been injured including over 50 seriously injured. (AP)
Authorities in Rwanda jail former politician Léon Mugesera for life. Mugesera was known for describing Tutsis as “cockroaches” and called for their extermination in a speech in 1992 and is said to be a precursor to the Rwandan genocide. (BBC)
Riot police violently break up an anti-Sisi protest in Cairo, Egypt. In the first sign of public discontent with President Sisi’s rule, hundreds of people gathered and shouted slogans calling for his overthrow. (Al Jazeera)
Leaders of the Czech Republic choose “Czechia” as the one-word alternative name of their country to make it easier for companies, politicians and sportsmen to use on products, name tags and sporting jerseys. However, this change must still win cabinet approval before the foreign ministry can lodge the name with the United Nations for it to become the country’s official short name. (The Guardian)
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Sesame Street sends cease and desist letter to STD awareness group after it suggests Bert and Ernie have HIV –
Sesame Street sent a cease and desist letter to a company that used its characters Bert and Ernie in their campaign ad that promoted at-home HIV and STD testing. Lately, a company which has created a ‘simple, cutting-edge, and affordable STD testing’ method, posted a photo of the two characters to their Facebook page.’Help us take STD Testing out of the Stone Age,’ the company, wrote on Facebook, in a post accompanied by a picture Bert and Ernie, according to the New York Post.Elizabeth W Fishman, Vice President of Strategic Communications for the show, told the The Post that the Mately ad is an ‘unauthorized, unlicensed use of our characters’. Fishman added that Mately will be contacted and sent ‘a cease and desist letter instructing them to take this down’. Bert and Ernie are shown in the Facebook post looking at a set of papers. ‘See Ernie, you’ve got nothing to worry about, everything is positive!’ the caption reads. [Daily Mail]
By 7 pm local time, the entire town of population 80,000 is placed under a mandatory evacuation. The neighbourhood of Beacon Hill, home to about 2,200 people, is 80% destroyed by fire. (Weather Underground)
El Salvador arrests former congressman Raúl Mijango for allegedly attempting to smuggle banned items into prison and allegedly associating with gang members. (Reuters via Trust)
The government of Hungary announces it will hold a referendum regarding future European Union quotas for resettling refugees. The vote is expected to be held either in September or October of this year where a turnout of over 50 percent will render it to be valid. (Al Jazeera)
A meeting is held in London on the issue of West Papuan independence. Independence leader Benny Wenda joined various humanitarians, parliamentarians and lawyers in urging the United Nations to secure a vote on the future status of the region, which is occupied by Indonesia. (The Guardian)
In an interview with MediaKix in 2017, Thompson explained how he was bullied at school but eventually became a pilot. After flying planes for more than a decade, he went into real estate, became “semi-retired” and started his YouTube channel.
“I started making videos on YouTube showing people what I was tinkering with and what I was coming up with,” he said at the time.
‘The ducks have won’ – French court says they may keep on quacking
The ducks on a small French smallholding may carry on quacking, a French court ruled on Tuesday, rejecting a neighbour’s complaint that the birds’ racket was making their life a misery.
The court in the town of Dax ruled that the noise from the flock of around 60 ducks and geese kept by retired farmer Dominique Douthe in the foothills of the Pyrenees, southwestern France, was within acceptable limits, broadcaster France 3 said.
“The ducks have won,” Douthe told Reuters after the court decision. “I’m very happy because I didn’t want to slaughter my ducks.”
The complaint was brought by Douthe’s neighbour who moved from the city around a year ago into a property about 50 metres (yards) away from the enclosure in the Soustons district where Douthe keeps her flock.
The dispute is the latest in a series of court cases that have pitted the traditional way of life in rural France against modern values which, country-dwellers say, are creeping in from the city.
In a court ruling in September, a rooster named Maurice was allowed to continue his dawn crowing, despite complaints from neighbours who had also moved in from the city.
AfghanPresidentAshraf Ghani claims victory over ISIL, citing the surrender of over 600 of their fighters in the past weeks as an example that the group has given up. (Reuters)
At least three people are killed and 22 injured after Bolivian police and military forces use armored vehicles and helicopters to unblock access to a major fuel plant that had been blockaded by supporters of former president Evo Morales. (The Guardian)
Bolivia’s congress, controlled by lawmakers from Morales’ Movement for Socialism (MAS) party, said it would cancel a contentious vote in the legislature that had been expected to reject Morales’ resignation. (Reuters)
Japan and South Korea have failed to narrow their differences over Japan’s export controls in the second round of bilateral talks. (NHK World-Japan)
Amid continuing fallout over rape allegations against Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and controversy over his close friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, several businesses—including British banking group Standard Chartered, KPMG, Aon and drug giant AstraZeneca—cut ties with the Prince. Pitch@Palace, an initiative founded by Prince Andrew to support entrepreneurs, removes its entire web page listing its supporters. (Yahoo! News)(CNN)
Health and environment
Fifteen children are confirmed (and three more suspected) dead from measles in Samoa as the illness epidemic continues within the country. (Radio New Zealand)
