While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, May 17
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A March 8 picture shows people in Israel's Tel Aviv looking at photos of hostages kidnapped in Hamas' deadly Oct 7 attack on the Jewish state.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Thai hostages thought to be captive in Gaza are dead
The Israeli army said on May 16 that two Thai hostages earlier believed to be alive in Gaza were killed in the Oct 7 attack and their bodies are being held in the Palestinian territory.
“We informed the families of two kidnapped Thai citizens, who worked in agriculture in the plantations near Kibbutz Beeri, that they were murdered in the terrorist attack on Oct 7 and their bodies are being held by Hamas,” said army spokesman Daniel Hagari.
The Israeli army and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum named the two men as Sonthaya Oakkharasr and Sudthisak Rinthalak.
There are now six Thai hostages being held in Gaza, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Slovak PM speaking, but serious, after shooting
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was able to speak but remained in a serious condition on May 16 officials said, as police charged a suspect for the attack they called politically motivated.
President-elect Peter Pellegrini briefed journalists a day after the shooting, which has prompted fears of further violence in the politically polarised nation just weeks before European parliament elections.
“He is able to speak, but only a few sentences, and then he is really, really tired... The situation is very critical,” Mr Pellegrini said, outside the hospital in the central city of Banska Bystrica.
Russian troops insufficient for Kharkiv breakthrough
Nato’s top commander said on May 16 he did not believe Russia’s military has deployed enough troops to make a strategic breakthrough in the region around Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine.
General Christopher Cavoli, Nato’s supreme allied commander Europe, said he was confident Ukrainian forces would hold their lines in the region.
Russia last week opened a new front in the Ukraine war when small groups of highly mobile units pushed swiftly over the border into the Kharkiv region, forcing Ukraine to rush in troops from other areas.
US teen died after doing spicy chip challenge: Autopsy
PHOTOS: GOFUNDME.COM, PAQUICHIPS/TWITTER
A US teenager died of cardiac arrest after taking part in a social media challenge daring people to eat a single extremely hot tortilla chip, an autopsy revealed on May 16.
Harris Wolobah, a 14-year-old from Massachusetts, died in September after taking part in the so-called “One Chip Challenge” – which involved a single chip produced by Paqui, dusted with Carolina Reaper and Naga Viper peppers.
The local chief medical examiner determined that Harris died of cardiac arrest after ingesting a food with a large amount of a chili pepper extract called capsaicin, said the autopsy report, seen by AFP. The autopsy also concluded that the teen had an enlarged heart, which could have contributed to his death.
Coppola’s long-awaited Megalopolis divides Cannes
REUTERS
Hollywood titan Francis Ford Coppola returned to the Cannes Film Festival on May 16 to unveil his enormously hyped, wildly experimental and deeply divisive Megalopolis.
The 85-year-old director’s arrival at the world-famous movie festival – where decades earlier he twice scooped the top prize Palme d’Or – has been the frenzied talk on cafe terraces in the swanky Cote d’Azur city.
Would the epic US$120 million (S$160 million) project that he self-funded, and that has been gestating for some 40 years, be another masterpiece emerging from chaos, like Apocalypse Now all those decades ago?
