UPI – An American man has reclaimed the Guinness World Record for the most pull-ups in 24 hours after briefly holding the title before losing it in less than a day.
Truett Hanes initially broke the record two years ago with 8,100 pull-ups, only to have Australian Gary Lloyd surpass him just hours later with 8,600 pull-ups.
Determined to reclaim his title, Hanes has now set a new benchmark, completing an astonishing 10,001 pull-ups in 24 hours.
“What I learned about myself is: I won’t give up. I wasn’t blessed with unique ability or super strength and things have never really come easily to me, but I have been gifted the ability to not give up on my goals,” he said. “Even if it takes years, I’ll see it through until it’s completed,” he told Guinness World Records.
BEIJING (AFP) – Foreign amateur runners yesterday flew out of Beijing for North Korea to race in the first Pyongyang Marathon in six years, an official travel agent said.
The marathon is part of celebrations marking the birth of North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il Sung in 1912 and is the largest international sporting event in the reclusive country.
It is scheduled to take place on Sunday, offering a rare opportunity to run through the streets of the tightly controlled capital.
The last edition of the Pyongyang Marathon was held in 2019, after which it was suspended because of the pandemic, which prompted the nuclear-armed state to seal its borders in an effort to quell the virus.
With North Korea tentatively re-opening, foreign participants departed from the Chinese capital on a six-day visit organised by Koryo Tours.
The travel agency specialises in trips to North Korea and describes itself as the exclusive travel partner of the marathon.
“Participants departed today,” an agency official told AFP.
A group of foreigners was seen boarding an Air Koryo commercial flight from Beijing to Pyongyang in a video posted on the company’s Instagram account.
“The Pyongyang Marathon is an extremely unique experience as it provides an opportunity to interact with locals,” the Beijing-based firm said on its website.
“An experience truly like no other.”
The marathon is listed on the website of global governing body World Athletics.
In 2019, about 950 Westerners took part in the race, up from the roughly 450 recorded the previous year.
This year, about 200 foreign runners were expected to compete, along with more than 200 North Koreans, General Manager of Koryo Tours Simon Cockerell recently told Australian broadcaster SBS.
“North Korea is a complex and fascinating place that intrigues many people, and while it is certainly not for everyone, it definitely appeals to those curious about the experience of visiting such a country and seeing what they can,” he said.
COLOMBO (AFP) – Sri Lankan animal rights activists marched yesterday to protest the round-up of stray dogs a day ahead of a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Authorities in Colombo and Anuradhapura have reportedly deployed dog catchers to impound hounds ahead of Modi’s visit, which begins today.
Many of Colombo’s strays are beloved by their adopted neighbourhoods despite lacking formal owners – and are dubbed “community” canines rather than street dogs.
Around a dozen protesters from the Rally for Animal Rights and Environment (RARE) waved placards outside President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s office in Colombo after submitting a petition to India’s high commission.
“Stop the cruel removal of our community dogs,” one placard read. Protesters said that many of the dogs in public parks had been vaccinated and neutered and were cared for by locals and animal welfare groups.
“How can Sri Lanka promote tourism when we are a country known for animal cruelty?” another placard read.
Protesters urged New Delhi’s intervention to “prevent the cruel and unnecessary removal of these dogs”, saying that the round-up of dogs would create “displacement, suffering and potential harm”.
Modi is set to receive an official welcome at Colombo’s Independence Square, where dog catchers are reported to have been busy in this week.
He is also set to visit Anuradhapura, 200 kilometres north of the capital, to pay homage to a fig tree with religious significance.
The tree is both an object of worship and a symbol of national sovereignty on the island of 22 million people.
Sri Lankan animal rights activists take part in a demonstration in Colombo. PHOTO: AFP
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a weather official said yesterday, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching.
Senior government climatologist Simon Grainger said the rolling 12-month period between April 2024 and March 2025 was 1.61 degrees Celsius above average – the hottest since records began more than a century ago.
“This is certainly part of a sustained global pattern,” he told AFP.
“We’ve been seeing temperatures since about April 2023 that were globally much warmer than anything we have seen in the global historical record.”
The previous hottest period was in 2019, Grainger said, when temperatures were 1.51 degrees Celsius above average.
“That is a pretty significant difference,” Grainger said.
“It’s well above what we would expect just from uncertainties due to rounding. The difference is much larger than that.”
The record was measured on a rolling 12-month basis – rather than as a calendar year.
Australia has also recorded its hottest-ever March, Grainger said, with temperatures more than two degrees above what would normally be seen.
“There has basically been sustained warmth through pretty much all of Australia,” he said.
“We saw a lot of heatwave conditions, particularly in Western Australia. And we didn’t really see many periods of cool weather – we didn’t see many cold fronts come through.”
From the arid outback to the tropical coast, swaths of Australia have been pummelled by wild weather in recent months.
Unusually warm waters in the Coral Sea stoked a tropical cyclone that pummelled densely populated seaside hamlets on the country’s eastern coast in March.
Whole herds of cattle have drowned in vast inland floods still flowing across outback Queensland.
Tourists climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge as sunlight hits the roof of the Sydney Opera House. PHOTO: AFP
NEW YORK (AP) – A police officer in upstate New York, United States (US) will not face criminal charges in the fatal shooting of a 13-year-old boy who pointed what turned out to be a BB gun, state Attorney General Letitia James announced.
Nyah Mway was shot and killed after he fled from officers questioning him and another teen on a residential street in Utica on the night of June 28, 2024.
Officer Patrick Husnay chased Mway, tackled him to the ground and fired a single shot into his chest. He was taken to a hospital where he died.
James, in releasing her office’s 18-page review of the shooting, concluded prosecutors would not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer’s actions were unjustified.
Husnay and two other officers had approached Mway because he matched the description of a suspect involved in an armed robbery the previous night, she said. Mway fled when officers attempted to pat him down. He then pulled out what appeared to be a handgun and aimed it at an officer.
“Under New York’s justification law, a police officer may use deadly physical force when the officer reasonably believes it to be necessary to defend against the use of deadly physical force by another,” James stated.
File photo shows a man carrying a portrait of Nyah Mway at athe funeral home in New York, United States. PHOTO: AP
Mway, whose family name is Nyah, was a Karen refugee born in Myanmar. He had just graduated from middle school and was set to start high school in the fall.
His family, in an emailed statement, said it was reviewing James’ report but thanked her office for investigating.
“Regardless of what the report concludes, we know what we lost. We know what we experienced,” the statement reads. “Nyah deserved to grow up. We deserve to live in a community where children like him are protected, not pursued.”
The family and other Karen community members had called for police to be held accountable, as Mway was already subdued and on the ground when he was shot.
Body camera videos released by police in the days after the killing showed a chaotic scene.
The officers scream “gun!” before one of them tackles him and punches him. Another officer opens fire as the two wrestle on the ground while bystanders scream at police.
Police also released images showing the BB gun Mway pointed closely resembled a Glock 17 Gen 5 handgun. They also noted it did not have an orange band on the barrel that many BB gun-makers have added in recent years to distinguish their products from real firearms.
Utica Police Chief Mark Williams and Mayor Michael Galime, in a joint statement, said they were “pleased” James’ office cleared the officers of criminal wrongdoing.
They expressed hope the city could heal after the tragedy.
“Since that night we have tirelessly sought to build back the relationships and trust with the Burmese and Karen communities,” the statement read. “We feel that those connections have never been stronger than they are today.”
Husnay and the Utica police officers union didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment late Wednesday.
Karens are an ethnic minority warring with the military rulers of Myanmar, which was formerly known as Burma.
Utica, located about 400 kilometres northwest of Manhattan, is home to more than 4,200 people from Myanmar.
They’re among thousands of refugees from various countries who have settled in the area in recent decades.
DENVER (AP) – The second of two men who escaped from a Colorado immigration detention centre during a power outage last month was arrested after being found on a bus in Denver, United States (US) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said.
Originally suspected of shoplifting and resisting arrest, the 24-year-old from Venezuela had been picked up by ICE in February and is accused of ties to Tren de Aragua, a gang that gained global notoriety after US President Donald Trump put it at the centre of his efforts to deport immigrants accused of crimes.
Geilond Vido-Romero was caught while riding a bus on Colfax Avenue, the city’s main east-west street, said the US Marshals Service in Denver, which helped in the arrest. In a social media post, the agency said he was a “suspected Tren de Aragua (TdA) associate”.
Vido-Romero apparently walked out of doors that opened during a power outage on March 18 at ICE’s privately-operated detention center in Aurora, Colorado. A man from Mexico who escaped at the same time, Joel Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 32, was found three days later in nearby Adams County where he had been previously held in jail.
A US Marshals spokesperson did not immediately respond to a telephone call or email seeking more details about Vido-Romero’s arrest and ties to the gang from Venezuela, which started in a prison there.
Court and police documents show Vido-Romero had lived at the now closed apartment complex in Aurora where some armed members of the gang were seen entering an apartment on a viral video that caught Trump’s attention during last year’s presidential campaign. Some members of the gang were also later accused of kidnapping and assaulting two residents there in December.
Vido-Romero was originally arrested February 26 by police at the Park Meadows mall after a running from officers in the parking garage, according to an arrest affidavit. He was suspected of misdemeanour theft for allegedly stealing a white puffer jacket and jewellery that was stuffed into one if its pockets, it said. ICE said it found him in the nearby jail and arrested him the next day.
He does not have an attorney listed as representing him in that case.
File photo shows visitors walking out of a detention centre in the United States. PHOTO: AP
NASHVILLE (AP) – The shooter behind the 2023 Nashville elementary school attack in the United States (US) that killed six people, including three children, had been obsessively planning it for years while hiding mental health issues from family and doctors, a police report released revealed.
The nearly 50-page investigative case summary includes long-sought-after details of The Covenant School shooting and underscores the elaborate lengths the shooter took to research and plan a massacre at the institution without provoking interference from mental health providers.
The prospect of releasing the shooter’s writings sparked a legal battle. Some of the documents have been leaked, and while Wednesday’s report closes the Nashville Police probe into the March 2023 shooting, the fight over what else should be released – concerning that attack and others – is ongoing.
Early in the investigation, police suggested the shooter had written a “manifesto” detailing motives and intentions. Instead, the 28-year-old shooter, Audrey Hale, left behind “a series of notebooks, art composition books, and media files” documenting plans and preparation for the attack, as well as life events and other motivations, police determined. Hale, who once attended Covenant, was killed by police.
Hale wanted to kill at least 40 people, hoping to inspire books, documentaries and movies, have the weapons placed in museums and his bedroom preserved as a memorial, police found. The report acknowledges but dismisses speculation that Hale’s mental health providers could be criminally culpable for not intervening.
File photo shows children from The Covenant School holding hands as they are taken to a reunification site in the United States. PHOTO: AP
The report said Hale’s parents and therapist had been concerned about his mental health for years. Psychological assessments conducted by Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2019 and 2021 concluded Hale wasn’t suffering from psychosis and recommended outpatient treatment.
“She had enough experience with the mental healthcare system to understand which topics to avoid with her providers and how to manipulate them into believing her documented issues with homicidal and suicidal ideations were well in her past,” it said. Police found that as Hale’s parents and therapists became more concerned, Hale became more manipulative.
At one point Hale planned to kill his mother to prevent discovery, despite a “strong emotional attachment” to her, the report said.
Hale avoided using credit or debit cards on expenses related to the attack, knowing his mother could access the accounts.
Hale also frequently removed attack-related material from his computer and mobile phone so his mother wouldn’t find it, police wrote.
Hale selected The Covenant School for a few reasons, police said. He felt he would not be overpowered by the staff and students there. He figured he would gain notoriety for attacking a school. And, he had happy memories of attending the school.
“Hale often remarked her time at The Covenant was the happiest she was during her childhood education,” police wrote.
AP – The conviction of one of the most powerful figures of the European far right for embezzling European Union (EU) Parliament funds has sent shockwaves around the continent and beyond. But Marine Le Pen’s case is just one example of transparency problems that have plagued the legislature.
From Budapest to Washington, Le Pen’s political allies cried foul over this week’s French court-mandated five-year ban on seeking political office that could block her chances of securing France’s presidency in 2027.
The longtime leader of the National Rally party and former EU lawmaker is one of 24 people convicted in the ruling in Paris for redirecting millions of euros earmarked for EU political work to serve the party’s domestic interests. The party employed staffers who were declared as EU parliamentary assistants but instead had other duties, including Le Pen’s bodyguard.
Transparency advocates said the case underlines broader issues related to lack of oversight of spending at the EU legislature affecting members across the political spectrum.
WHAT EU PARLIAMENTARY ASSISTANTS DO AND WHAT RULES APPLY
The EU Parliament’s 720 lawmakers benefit from a pot worth around USD250 million a year to pay their assistants for political work like administration, speech-writing, or studying and drafting legal proposals. Critics have long warned that the fund is ripe for financial and political abuse. Lawmakers have often been probed by the EU anti-fraud office, OLAF.
Some parliamentarians have no assistants. Most have around five or six. At the time Le Pen was implicated, some members had dozens.
Her 29-year-old protégé Jordan Bardella – who could replace her on the French presidential ballot in 2027 – has three assistants. Some carry out parliamentary work in the Belgian and EU capital Brussels or the French city Strasbourg, where the legislature convenes. Others work in a Parliament member’s home country.
Only two rules seem to apply: Family members cannot be hired, and assistants should focus on EU business and not work against the legislature’s interest. But the assembly has no clear system for enforcing the rules.
WHAT LE PEN’S ALLIES SAY
Le Pen and her allies seek to frame her as the martyr of a politically motivated trial. Even her opponents have questioned whether it was right for the Paris court to potentially bar her from running to become the next French president. An appeals trial is expected next year that could uphold the ban, overturn it or reinforce it ahead of the 2027 election. “This is not an isolated case of MEPs misusing their allowances,” campaigner from the EU office of advocacy group Transparency International Nick Aiossa told The Associated Press. “The only exceptional thing about this case is perhaps the sheer scope of the embezzlement scheme and that ultimately there was justice and accountability at the end of the process.”
Aiossa said the convictions handed down to National Rally members and associates – many of whom were also barred from running for office – did not appear to be ‘lawfare’ as Le Pen’s allies allege.
“I think what we see is an independent judiciary ruling on a very extensive, almost decades-long investigation into pretty latent embezzlement,” he said.
HOW THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT POLICES ITSELF
The European Parliament relies on national judiciaries, principally in Belgium, and EU agency OLAF to investigate irregularities. OLAF cannot prosecute, only investigate and issue recommendations for action. In 2023, OLAF issued five recommendations linked to the EU Parliament.
Once the ball passes to member states, prosecution is rare.
Members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France. PHOTO: AP
WARSAW (AP) – Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that his centrist political party was the target of a cyberattack, and suggested that it could have been interference from the east ahead of Poland’s presidential election next month.
Tusk announced on the X platform that his Civic Platform party’s computer system was targeted.
“Foreign interference in elections begins. Services point to eastern trace,” Tusk said.
Head of Tusk’s office Jan Grabiec told the Polish state news agency PAP that the cyberattack consisted of an attempt to take control of computers of employees of the Civic Platform office and the election staff over about a dozen hours.
Asked if Tusk was pointing the finger, Grabiec said that would be for Poland’s secret services to comment on.
Poland is weeks away from the first round of a presidential election, scheduled for May 18.
The frontrunner is the Civic Platform candidate, Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who like Tusk is a pro-European Union centrist. He has been polling around 35 per cent.
His main contenders include a conservative backed by the Law and Justice party, Karol Nawrocki, who is second in most polls at a bit over 20 per cent, and a co-leader of the far-right Confederation party, Sławomir Mentzen, who has been polling around 20 per cent.
If no candidate wins outright with at least 50 per cent of the vote on May 18, a runoff will be held on June 1.
ATHENS (AP) – At least seven people have died, including two children, after a boat carrying migrants from Turkiye to a nearby Greek island capsized, Greece’s coast guard said yesterday.
A search and rescue operation off the northern coast of the island of Lesbos recovered the bodies. The coast guard said 23 people have been rescued.
Reporting on what appeared to be the same sinking, Turkiye’s state-run media said the incident was attended by the Turkish coast guard after a rubber dinghy sank in the Aegean Sea between the Turkish mainland and Lesbos.
Those rescued were taken to a hospital and the search continued, Anadolu news agency said.
Weather in the area was reported to be good, and it was unclear what had caused the boat to overturn early yesterday morning.
There was no immediate information on the total number of people who had been on the boat, their nationalities, or the type of vessel they had been using.
A sea and land search and rescue operation was continuing, with three coast guard vessels, an air force helicopter and a nearby boat searching for potential further victims.
Greece is one of the main entry points into the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, with many making the short but often treacherous journey from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands in inflatable dinghies.
Many are unseaworthy or set out in bad weather, and fatal accidents have been common.
The Greek government has cracked down with increased patrols at sea, and many smuggling rings have shifted their operations south, using larger boats to transport people from the northern coast of Africa to southern Greece.
File photo of a dinghy transporting refugees and migrants travelling towards Greece’s Lesbos island. PHOTO: AFP
