47 Dead, 640 Injured In Chemical Plant Explosion In China

An explosion at a pesticide plant in eastern China has killed 47 people and injured as many as 640, the state media said on Friday, the latest casualties in a series of industrial accidents that has angered the public.

The blast occurred on Thursday at the Chenjiagang Industrial Park in the city of Yancheng, in Jiangsu province, and the fire was finally brought under control at 3.00 a.m. on Friday (1900 GMT), state television said.

Survivors were taken to 16 hospitals with 640 people being treated for injuries. Thirty-two of them were in a critical condition, it said.

The fire at a plant owned by the Tianjiayi Chemical Company spread to neighbouring factories. Children at a kindergarten in the vicinity were also injured in the blast, media reported.

The cause of the explosion was under investigation, but the company - which produces more than 30 organic chemical compounds, some of which are highly flammable - has been cited and fined for work safety violations in the past, the China Daily said.

Police, some wearing face masks, sealed off roads to the plant. The power of the blast smashed windows in the village of Wangshang two kilometres away, and shocked villagers likened it to an earthquake.

"There have been little accidents before but nothing like this," one resident, who gave his family name as Wang, told Reuters.

"There was one loud bang followed by a long rumble. All the windows were smashed. I went to have a look. Near the site there was blood everywhere. People were crushed," he said.

The village, overlooking a murky mildewed pond, has not been evacuated despite its proximity to the blast site.

President Xi Jinping, who is in Italy on a state visit, ordered all-out efforts to care for the injured and to "earnestly maintain social stability", state television said.


Authorities must step up action to prevent such incidents from happening and find out the cause of the blast as quickly as possible, Xi added.

"There have recently been a series of major accidents, and all places and relevant departments must fully learn the lessons from these," the report cited Xi as saying.

The Jiangsu environmental protection bureau said in a statement late Thursday that the environmental monitoring station in the area had found no abnormal concentrations of toluene, xylene or benzene.

Concentrations of acetone and chloroform outside the perimeter of the explosion zone were also within normal limits, it added.

Jiangsu will launch inspections on chemical producers and warehouses, according to an emergency notice published by official media on Friday.

The notice, published on the news website of Jiangsu province's Communist Party, said the government would shut down any chemical firms found not complying with regulations on dangerous chemicals.

Public anger over safety standards has grown in China over industrial accidents ranging from mining disasters to factory fires that have marred three decades of swift economic growth.

In 2015, 165 people were killed in a series of explosions at a chemical warehouse in the northern city of Tianjin.

The explosions at Tianjin, one of the world's busiest ports and not far from the capital, Beijing, were big enough to be seen by satellites and register on earthquake sensors.

Despite repeated pledges by the government to tighten safety, chemical plants in particular have been plagued by disasters.

In November, a series of blasts during the delivery of a flammable gas at a chemical manufacturer killed 23 people.

Years Before Crash, Ethiopian Pilots Had Raised Concerns Over Training

Two pilots filed complaints with the Federal Aviation Administration about allegedly flawed training programs and poor safety procedures at Ethiopian Airlines years before a Boeing 737 MAX commercial jet crashed in Ethiopia with 157 people on-board last week, according to a Federal Aviation Administration database.

The 2015 complaints, filed before the Max 8 was in use, are critical of training and pilot documentation on the 737 in use at the time, as well as two larger Boeing planes. They could also lead to renewed scrutiny of Ethiopian Airlines, a fast-growing international airline that has enjoyed a generally positive safety reputation in international aviation circles.

One pilot said the airline didn't "have the infrastructure" to support the fleet of Boeing and Airbus jets it ordered, and alleged the airline had a "fear-based" management culture in which "safety is being sacrificed for expansion and profit margin." The pilot also accused the airline of failing to update pilot manuals and leaving out certain checklists designed to help pilots respond to "non-normal" situations. And another pilot criticized Ethiopian regulators for maintaining lax standards with respect to crew flight and rest time. The FAA's data does not identify the pilots by name.

Anmut Lemma, a spokesman for Ethiopia's Civil Aviation Authority, said because the complaints were lodged years ago the agency would need "further investigation" before commenting additionally. A spokesman for Ethiopian Airlines could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The FAA closed the complaints less than a month later and it's unclear whether the agency shared them with Ethiopia's Civil Aviation Authority.

An FAA spokesman emphasized that the agency has a "long-standing and robust" program that evaluates airlines overseas in conjunction with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations organization responsible for standardizing international airline regulations.

"The FAA regularly evaluates foreign civil aviation authorities to ensure they continue to adhere to ICAO standards," FAA communications manager Ian Gregor said in a statement.

Mike Boyd, a Colorado-based aviation analyst with Boyd Group International, said the two complaints are "not a smoking gun," but actually more like "an artillery barrage" that call for additional scrutiny on airlines' roles in the two deadly crashes. Boyd referred to multiple published reports that the pilot of the doomed plane had 8,000 flying hours while the copilot had just 200 hours.

"There is no way [Ethiopian Airlines] can claim they had a qualified crew on that flight," Boyd wrote in an email Wednesday. In the U.S. copilots on commercial flights are required to have at least 1,500 flight hours.

The first 2015 pilot complaint "is totally consistent with an airline whose standards would put a 200-hour pilot in a sophisticated 737-MAX," Boyd said. "That is not inconsequential and it's a scandal that, instead of investigating the fact that we have an airline such as [Ethiopian Airlines] flying into the U.S., we have Congress running off into the weeds chasing Boeing/FAA issues."

The complaints have surfaced at a time when Boeing, the FAA and Ethiopian Airlines are under intense scrutiny.

In the past few months a pair of deadly plane crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people. Both were new Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets flown by airlines based outside the United States. And both flights followed a similar flight path, pitching up and down before veering downward into a fatal nosedive just minutes after takeoff. The Federal Aviation Administration said in a recent airworthiness directive that it has found evidence of similarities between the two crashes, citing satellite data and evidence found in the wreckage.

The possibility that design flaws caused both crashes has led to a worldwide grounding of Boeing's new 737 MAX 8 and 9 jets, lawsuits from surviving family members of at least two dozen crash victims, congressional inquiries and a criminal probe.

Scrutiny around Boeing's role has focused on the company's decision, which the company maintains was approved by the FAA, to include an automated flight control system called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System to the 737 MAX. The system automatically nudges the nose of the plane downward to prevent it from stalling.

Pilot groups in the U.S. have sharply criticized Boeing for changing the software without detailing it in pilot training, raising concerns that pilots might not know how to override the automated nose-down function at a critical moment.

The two complaints about Ethiopian Airlines come from a database of 2015 pilot complaints posted on the Federal Aviation Administration's website, which the FAA stopped publishing after 2015. An FAA spokesman said Wednesday that the agency searched safety hotline reports it received after 2015 and did not find any from Ethiopian Airlines pilots. The Washington Post has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the agency for updated complaint data.


The two complaints, which the FAA published without identifying the names of the pilots, allege a range of safety issues at Ethiopian Airlines including poor pilot training processes, potentially dangerous policies with respect to crew flight and rest time, and a failure to include updated pilot checklists for certain "non-normal" flight conditions.

It is unclear how the complaints were handled by the FAA, Ethiopian regulators, and the airline. The first complaint was filed in early January 2015 and marked "closed" by the FAA less than a month later. The second was filed Feb. 9 and closed a day later.

One pilot accused the airline of employing flight simulator trainers that are not knowledgeable about "aircraft systems, Boeing procedures, or company procedures," and failing to follow a syllabus for pilot training course.

"Across the board, 737, 767 [and] 777 [flight simulator] instructors not knowledgeable about the aircraft's systems, Boeing procedures, or company procedures," the pilot alleged in the complaint. "Overall, [Ethiopian Airlines] offers substandard training compared to industry norms," the pilot wrote.

The pilot also criticized Ethiopian Airlines' coordination on specific flights, calling the airline's dispatch office "a disgrace" and taking the airline to task for apparent safety oversights.

"Crews never get accurate flight plans, fuel loads, latest weather or up to date information," the pilot alleged.

The pilot alleged that scheduled passenger flights are flown into airports in Somalia "without operable navigation aids" noting "this is unsafe," and said pilots are not issued personal navigation manuals and instead have to rely on out-of-date flight manuals.

The pilot also noted that "non-normal checklists in the cockpit are not kept current, including complete omission of certain checklists," referring to documents that instruct pilots on how to respond to "non-normal" equipment behaviors that can become dangerous.

The pilot also harshly criticized the airline's management style, alleging that a pressure to meet deadlines sometimes led flight crews to overlook maintenance requirements.

"If a scheduled flight pushes back due to maintenance, mechanics are punished with a reduction in salary," the person wrote. "Leadership style of the company is fear based. ... This permeates all aspects of the operation and all departments. Nobody wants to be held accountable. Misunderstandings, conflicts, or errors are handled through punishment."

The pilot said the Federal Aviation Administration should intervene. The FAA regularly evaluates whether foreign countries meet U.S. standards for airline oversight, and has the authority to revoke authorizations given to specific countries.

"It's the duty and moral responsibility of ICAO, the FAA and JCAB to assure this airline is fully competent and compliant before allowing them to expand and continue their international operations," the pilot wrote. "The traveling public deserves much safer air transport. Essentially, [Ethiopian Airlines] doesn't have the infrastructure to support the giant influx of 787′s, A350′s, and 737Max's on order. Safety is being sacrificed for expansion and profit margin."

In a different complaint, a pilot accused Ethiopian regulators of signing off on flight and rest time policies that are not consistent with the FAA's positions on the matter, saying the policy could "will jeopardize the safety of flights" from a major African carrier.

"Ethiopian Airlines has accepted this and renewed its flight operations policy manual to reflect this," the person wrote.

Aviation analysts expressed surprise at the pilots' allegations, noting that Ethiopian Airlines is thought to have a reputation for diligence when it comes to safety. Before last Sunday's tragedy the last deadly accident at Ethiopian Airlines was a 2010 incident that killed 90 people. The airline operates regular flights into Chicago, Los Angeles, Newark and Washington.

"As far as the Ethiopians are concerned, they have a pretty good reputation," said Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia.

Analysts say the pilots raise serious questions about whether overseas' airlines are maintaining responsible pilot training programs and requirements.

"These are very serious allegations, and if true they point to a very bad safety culture at Ethiopian Airlines," said Henry Harteveldt, an analyst with Atmosphere Research.

"We don't know how many other pilots may share these feelings . . . however when you look at these against the potential training problems with the 737 MAX, training that the FAA said could be done through an iPad course, and the lack of 737 MAX simulators, these don't paint a very rosy picture of how Ethiopian Airlines views safety."

Man Charged With Sending Bombs To Trump Critics Pleads Guilty

A Florida man pleaded guilty on Thursday to using weapons of mass destruction and other crimes in connection with mailing explosives to prominent Democrats and other critics of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Cesar Sayoc, 57, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan federal court, speaking in a halting, shaky voice that often dropped to a whisper. He admitted to sending 16 devices "designed to look like pipe bombs" consisting of a plastic pipe filled with power from fireworks and fertiliser, a digital clock and wires.

All of the devices were intercepted before reaching their intended targets, and none exploded.

Sayoc listed the intended recipients of his packages, including former President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, U.S. Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, billionaire investor and Democratic donor George Soros, former Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan, actor Robert DeNiro and CNN.

After describing what he did, he broke down in sobs, for several seconds unable to speak.

"I know that these actions were wrong and I am extremely sorry," he finally said.

When Rakoff asked Sayoc whether he intended the devices to explode, or to kill or injure people, Sayoc said he did not. However, he admitted that he knew there was a risk they could explode.


In addition to using weapons of mass destruction, the charges include mailing explosives with an intent to kill or injure people or property, and conveying threats through interstate commerce. Sayoc faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced on Sept. 12.

Sayoc, a part-time pizza deliveryman, grocery worker and former stripper, was arrested in October after a four-day manhunt. At the time, he had been living in a white van plastered with pro-Trump stickers, the slogan "CNN SUCKS" and images of Democratic leaders with red cross-hairs over their faces.

All of his intended targets are either prominent Democratic politicians or critics of Trump, a Republican.

A native of New York City's Brooklyn borough and a registered Republican, Sayoc railed against Democrats, Muslims and liberals on Facebook and Twitter. Public records showed that he had been arrested multiple times for domestic violence, theft and other charges, including threatening to bomb an electric company over a billing dispute.

Amazon Employee Says He Was Fired For Demanding Safer Working Conditions

Amazon's clashes with employees over worker's rights and unionization now include a Staten Island warehouse worker who says his criticism of the company led to his firing.

A retail worker's union filed a complaint Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board saying that Amazon violated federal law when it fired a warehouse employee, Rashad Long, in February. Long says he was fired after he protested Amazon's new headquarters in New York and advocated for safer working conditions and unionization.

Amazon says that Long violated a safety regulation at the warehouse. And the company maintains that it already offers benefits that unions advocate for, including high wages and benefits, "all while working in a safe, modern work environment."

"At Amazon, these benefits and opportunities come with the job, as does the ability to communicate directly with the leadership of the company," Amazon said.

(Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Long began working the overnight shift at the Amazon warehouse in October 2018, according to a letter submitted to the NLRB by the Retail, Warehouse and Department Store Union. Long was outspoken about working conditions inside the warehouse, including health and safety issues, the letter said. In December, Long was quoted in a Bloomberg News story about workers in the Staten Island warehouse calling for unionization. (Long was not available for an interview for this story due to NLRB proceedings.)

Long was quoted in the Bloomberg story saying "they talk to you like you're nothing -- all they care about is their numbers." Long was also included in other news coverage through early 2019, saying he worked 12-hour shifts, five or six days a week without many breaks.

Long was fired from Amazon in early February over what the letter described as a "purported" safety violation. The warehouse, according to the letter, has areas where human employees work and others for robots and drones. Amazon employees are not supposed to go into the robot zone, though there is no physical barrier between the two zones, the letter said.

Long said that a product fell off one of the robots near where he was working, and that he put it back on the robot. The company told him the next day that amounted to a low-level safety violation, and he was fired days later. The letter alleges that another employee also put a fallen product back on a robot but wasn't permanently fired.


"Long's termination for his purported safety violation was pretext for being outspoken against the working conditions at the facility," the letter states.

In a statement, an Amazon spokeswoman said that Long's "allegations are false" and that he was fired for violating a safety policy at the warehouse. Amazon said there is a clear set of safety expectations in place where Long was working, "and when he was asked, he admitted he was aware that he had violated a very serious safety rule."

In 2014, Amazon settled with the NLRB over a worker's rights complaint and agreed to change the rules about how employees share information about pay and working conditions without fear of retaliation. Employees nationwide have tried to unionize for years, alongside calls for backup day-care benefits and higher pay.

Amazon said that Long was told by human resources that he had put himself at risk and was told he could appeal his firing. But "he declined to take the opportunity," Amazon said, and didn't ask to watch a recording of his safety violation.

Long has described his daily routine at the fulfillment center before. In January, he described a four-hour commute to get to and from the warehouse. Long said health and safety hazards were persistent. Products bins were regularly overstuffed, and workers were given few breaks. The warehouses were sweltering, Long said, even when it was freezing cold outside. Long said that workers had asked for an air conditioner to be installed at the warehouse, but that they were told that the robots inside couldn't work in cold temperatures.

Long said the sprinkler systems and smoke detectors inside the building didn't work. He said he recently had to take a leave of absence because he developed carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands. Before he started working at Amazon, he never had any numbing, tingling or cramping in his hands, he said.

He specifically called on Bezos to visit the Staten Island center "to see how we're being treated firsthand." He said the company prioritized getting customers their packages over worker treatment.

"We are not robots," he said. "We are human beings."

US Sanctions Chinese Ships Over North Korea Sanctions

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on two Chinese shipping companies for doing business with North Korea, vowing to keep strictly enforcing sanctions on Pyongyang even amid top-level diplomacy.

"The maritime industry must do more to stop North Korea's illicit shipping practices," national security adviser John Bolton tweeted after the Treasury Department's announcement.

"Everyone should take notice and review their own activities to ensure they are not involved in North Korea's sanctions evasion," he said.

The Treasury Department said it was blocking all potential US interests of the Dalian Haibo International Freight Co. Ltd. and prohibiting Americans from dealing with the firm.

The United States charged that the company last year shipped cargo from the Chinese port of Dalian to North Korea on behalf of the Paeksol Trading Corporation, which in the past has sold metal and coal to earn money for Pyongyang.


The Treasury Department also sanctioned the Liaoning Danxing International Forwarding Co. Ltd., saying it had assisted North Korean officials based in Europe in procuring goods for the regime.

The action comes less than a month after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met in Hanoi with President Donald Trump for a second summit that broke down in part over Pyongyang's demands for immediate sanctions relief.

Trump, while walking away from the talks, has been eager to reach a potentially landmark agreement on North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, announcing the latest measures, said that the United States remained committed to seeking a denuclearization deal with North Korea but believed fully enforcing UN-backed sanctions "is crucial to a successful outcome."

Cop, Wearing Scarf, Keeps Guard As New Zealand Shows Support For Muslims

Women all over New Zealand put on headscarves on Friday to show solidarity with Muslims a week after 50 people were killed at two mosques in the city of Christchurch. A doctor in Auckland, Thaya Ashman, came up with the idea to encourage people to wear a headscarf after hearing about a woman who was too scared to go out as she felt her headscarf would make her a target for terrorism."I wanted to say: 'We are with you, we want you to feel at home on your own streets, we love, support and respect you'," Ashman said.

As Christchurch geared up for prayers at a park in front of the Al Noor mosque, where most of the victims were killed last week, women in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch posted pictures of themselves in headscarves, some with children in headscarves, too."Why am I wearing a headscarf today? Well, my primary reason was that if anybody else turns up waving a gun, I want to stand between him and anybody he might be pointing it at. And I don't want him to be able to tell the difference, because there is no difference," said Bell Sibly, in Christchurch.

Many Muslim women cover their heads in public with the hijab as a sign of modesty, although some critics see it as a sign of female oppression.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won widespread praise last week for putting on a black headscarf when meeting members of the Muslim community after the shootings.


A woman police officer kept guard at a Christchurch cemetery, where shooting victims were buried on Thursday, with a scarf over her head and an automatic weapon in her hands.

Rachel MacGregor, who is involved in the Head Scarf for Harmony campaign, said she had felt anxious going out with her head covered, with people staring when she entered her office building.

"It's given me for the first time an appreciation for what it must be like to be a minority and to wear clothing that perhaps the majority don't normally wear," she said by telephone from Auckland.

Both headscarves and the niqab, the full-face Islamic veil, have stirred debate in countries around the world. Some have tried to restrict the items, the niqab in particular, others have called for women to wear them.

While the New Zealand campaign won support and appreciation from the Islamic Women's Council of New Zealand and the NZ Muslim Association, it has opponents in New Zealand and beyond.

In an unsigned opinion piece on Stuff.co.nz, a Muslim woman called the movement "cheap tokenism"."The attack in Christchurch was not just about Muslims, it was against any person of colour in a 'white' country so this focus on hijabs is derailing the examination of white supremacy, systematic racism, Orientalism and bigotry," she said.

A professor and former journalist, Asra Nomani, in Washington, who has campaigned for Muslim reform, urged women not to wear a headscarf for harmony.

"It is a symbol of purity culture antithetical to feminist values. We have women in jail and dead, for refusing the interpretation of Islam you promote," Ms Nomani said on Twitter.

6 Dead As Car Rams Crowd In China, Driver Shot Dead By Police

A man rammed a car into a crowd in central China Friday, killing six people and injuring eight others before he was fatally shot by police, said local officials.

The suspect, a 44-year-old named Cui Lidong, wounded his wife and daughter at home before ploughing a car into pedestrians, said the Zaoyang City government in Hubei province in an online statement.

The case is under investigation and the injured are being treated, it added.

A video, published by Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper, shows a body covered in a blanket left on the roadside and a group trying to lift someone onto a stretcher.

China has suffered a spate of similar incidents in recent months.


Last September, 11 people died and dozens were injured when a car struck a crowd in a public square in the central Hunan province city of Hengdong.

Police detained the driver, a man in his 40s, and described him as a "vengeful repeat offender" who had daggers in his car and intended to "cause serious damage".

In late November, a car ploughed into a group of children crossing a street in front of an elementary school in the northeastern Liaoning province, killing five people and injuring at least 19.

The driver said he "chose his victims at random" and had reportedly been contemplating suicide due to domestic troubles before the tragedy occurred.

"Cowardly Grubs": Australia PM Slams Online Trolls For Abusing Athlete

Australia's prime minister Scott Morrison has described social media users who posted abusive comments beneath a photograph of Australian Rules player Tayla Harris as "cowardly grubs".

Harris, who plays for Carlton in the Australian Football League Women's (AFLW) competition, was pictured with her leg fully extended as she kicked a goal in a photograph posted online by a broadcaster on Tuesday.

The post was pulled after a rash of comments that Harris described as "repulsive" and "sexual abuse" appeared underneath it, although the broadcaster later put it up again with an apology.

The Prime Minister waded in on Thursday, saying that while social media attacks were nothing new, they did appear to to be disproportionately aimed at women.

Leaning heavily on the Australian vernacular, Morrison utilised the local word for a person indulging in disgusting behaviour to describe the online abusers.

"I think they're grubs," he told reporters in Melbourne. "I think they're cowardly grubs, who need to wake up to themselves.

"They're acting out some kind of hatred in a way that lessens them as people. We should give them no quarter and we should treat them as the grubs they are."

Harris, who also boxes professionally, described the online abusers as "animals" and received backing from around the world on social media.

The 21-year-old Queenslander said on Wednesday she would not be issuing a complaint to police but hoped the widespread coverage of the incident would make abusers think twice.

"I'm fine with people commenting on and critiquing my football ... but it's the comments that are severely inappropriate, comments that my family will read," she said.

"The support that has come from this has been phenomenal. I think that has shut down anyone who would have made a comment ... I hope they'd be thinking 'I've mucked up here' and hopefully they won't do it again."

Harris, listed as an All-Australian in AFLW's inaugural season in 2017, has helped Carlton to the last four of this year's edition. They play Fremantle Dockers in Melbourne on Sunday for a place in the final.

Japan Women Revolt Against High Heels At Workplace With #KuToo Movement

Women in Japan have launched an online movement against workplace dress codes which have made wearing high heels mandatory for women.

While both men and women are supposed to wear suits when hunting for a job and to their workplace, heels are the de facto dress code for working women in Japan as flats are usually frowned upon, reports Japan Today.

The hashtag #KuToo on Twitter, which borrows its writing style from the #MeToo movement, has users calling for a change in formal dress codes for women in Japan.

The #MeToo movement started trending in October 2017 as a hashtag on social media to demonstrate the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace.

#KuToo is a combination of the Japanese words for shoe (kutsu) and pain (kutsuu).

Calling it the modern version of "foot-binding", Twitter users have expressed rage at the socially ordained practise of wearing heels during work.

"I want them to get rid of pumps for job hunting. Pumps are the modern equivalent of foot-binding. It's a mistake to force women to wear them. They say it's proper manners to wear them? It's a medical injury!" a Twitter user wrote.

Another woman tweeted in Japanese, saying: "Wearing uncomfortable and harmful shoes is not an obligation. Let's break down misogyny together."

Meteor? Aliens? Nah. Fiery Streak Over LA Was A Supermoon Marketing Stunt

From a distance, it was a flash screaming across the Los Angeles skyline on Wednesday evening, prompting wonder and a tinge of fear that the object could be otherworldly.

"What is that?" Celeste Perez narrated through a window as the bright streak zoomed over downtown skyscrapers. "Oh my God. It's a meteor. It's a fireball. What the hell?"

But from a closer perspective, it was soon clear what that object was: A promotion tool from one of the most self-aware companies in the galaxy.

"A meteor did not crash into Downtown Los Angeles, and no, it's not an alien invasion," Los Angeles police said on Twitter, as speculation consumed the city and videos percolated through social media.

"Just a film shoot. This is Tinseltown after all."

Red Bull filmed flare-wielding wingsuit jumpers against the backdrop of the supermoon, to the delight of people on the ground waiting with smartphones tilted up for the moment the jumpers touched down.



"Wearing wingsuits that shape the human body into an airfoil, they leapt from a helicopter 4,000 feet above L.A. and swooped into downtown at more than 120 mph," Red Bull said in a statement. "To add a touch of Hollywood glitz, the suits were fitted with LED lights and sparking pyrotechnics that lit up the night sky as the sun set and the supermoon rose."

The company said the three were experienced "Red Bull Air Force" jumpers, though the company's claim of having an aerial attack force appears limited to stuntmen.

It became clear from social media that not everyone got the memo.

"Did anyone else see a meteor fly over downtown L.A. and the six helicopters surrounding it currently?!" one Twitter user wrote. "Y'all peepin that?!"

And another: "Did anyone else see that meteor over Downtown Los Angeles?? #crazy"

Political Row After South Korea President Uses Wrong Greeting In Malaysia

What's the difference between good afternoon and good night? In South Korea's cutthroat politics, it can be a furious political row and the foreign minister apologising to parliament.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in visited Malaysia earlier this month and greeted his audience at an afternoon press conference with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad using the phrase "selamat sore".

The line is more commonly used in Indonesia -- although the neighbours' languages are so similar they are generally mutually intelligible.

At the time, Mahathir smiled and appeared amused, while senior Malaysian senior ministers laughed, but Moon's South Korean critics slammed him for not using the correct Malaysian greeting "selamat petang".

And his use of that phrase, meaning "good afternoon", at a dinner beginning at 8pm -- rather than "selamat malam", or good night -- triggered another round of fury in Seoul.



Opposition lawmakers and newspapers lined up to excoriate Moon, with headlines calling it a "diplomatic disaster".

The Korea Times assailed the "incompetence" of the presidential protocol team on Friday.

"The absence of a protest from the host country does not excuse the unbelievable carelessness," it added, saying it was one of a series of incidents demonstrating a "serious lack of professionalism and ethics" in the Blue House.

South Korea's foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha has apologised to parliament, admitting that her ministry had made a "painful mistake".

"I apologise for causing concerns," she told the national assembly on Wednesday.

But an aide for the Malaysian prime minister's office told AFP that "selamat sore" was usable in Malaysian too.

"We were happy and amused when the President said it," he told AFP. "Personally, it is a non-issue."

Two US Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan, Says NATO

Two US service members were killed in Afghanistan on Friday, NATO said, in the latest casualties to hit the international coalition amid ongoing peace talks between Washington and the Taliban.

NATO's Resolute Support mission would not immediately release any details about the soldiers but said they had been killed during an unspecified "operation" in the country.

"In accordance with US Department of Defense policy, the name of the service members killed in action are being withheld until 24 hours after notification of next of kin is complete," said NATO.

The deaths come a day after at least six people were killed by blasts in an Islamic State-claimed attack during Persian New Year celebrations in a Shiite area of Kabul.

The number of American casualties has fallen dramatically since the end of 2014 when Afghan forces took over from US-led NATO combat troops to secure the country.Fighting continues to flare across Afghanistan more than a week after the latest round of talks between the US and the Taliban ended in Doha, as Washington continues to seek an end to the nearly 18-year war.

The Afghan government has complained it is being left out of the negotiations, as many Afghans fear a premature US withdrawal could see the Taliban return to some semblance of power.

The country remains on edge as winter comes to end, with warmer weather sparking the potential onset of a new fighting season as analysts warn the Taliban may increase attacks to gain leverage at the negotiating table.

US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is spearheading efforts to strike a peace deal with the Taliban before Afghanistan's presidential election, which was pushed back to late September earlier this week.

Chinese woman nearly dies after injecting herself with fruit juice to improve healthy

In a bizarre medical case, a woman in China reportedly suffered multiple organ damage after she injected herself with a cocktail of more than different fruit juices in a bid to improve her health. Apparently, the 51-year-old woman, who had almost died and suffered liver, kidney, heart and lung damage, had to be put into intensive care unit (ICU) to remove the toxins from her body.

An employee at the Affiliated Hospital of Xiangnan University in Hunan told the BBC News that more than 20 types of fruit were found in the intravenous injection. A report in the Independent said that the woman from Guiyang County in Chenzhou, Hunan province, gave herself an intravenous infusion by drip.

After injecting herself with the concoction of fruit juices, she developed itchy skin and a rising temperature. On February 22, she was admitted to the intensive care unit for five days before being transferred to the hospital's kidney unit and finally discharged.


“I had thought fresh fruits were very nutritious and it would not do me harm by injecting them into my body. I had no idea that would get me into such trouble,” the woman was quoted as saying. According to the report, the woman, who was reportedly interested in unconventional health treatments, had to undergo dialysis to remove toxins from her blood, and doctors injected clotting agents and gave her antibiotics.

Liu Jianxiu, a doctor at the hospital in Hunan, said the woman had been in danger of dying of multiple organ failure and sepsis, the report added.

Meanwhile, the incident has caused a stir on Chinese social media site Weibo where more than 11,000 users have used the hashtag #OldWomanPutsJuiceIntoVeins.


Perhaps, it's not recommended that one should inject fruit juice to boost health, however, the practice of juicing - replacing your meals with fruit juice - has become very common over the years, particularly those trying to lose weight. It is claimed that juicing is a great and easy way to get more fruit and veggies into your diet.