Navalny goes on prison hunger strike
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has started a hunger strike in prison to protest officials’ failure to provide proper treatment for his back and leg pains.
In a statement posted Wednesday on Instagram, Navalny complained about prison authorities’ refusal to give him the right medicines and to allow his doctor to visit him behind bars. He also protested the hourly checks a guard makes on him at night, saying they amount to sleep deprivation torture.
Navalny said he had no choice but to protest with a hunger strike because his physical condition has worsened. He said his back pains have spread to his right leg and he feels numbness in his left leg.
The 44yearold Navalny, who is President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken opponent, was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerveagent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
President to choose premier
Israeli election officials Wednesday handed over the results of last week’s vote to President Reuven Rivlin, nudging forward the country’s elusive efforts to break political deadlock, form a government and avoid an unprecedented fifth consecutive round of balloting. Rivlin is now tasked with choosing the prime ministerdesignate he thinks has the best chance of assembling a majority in the 120seat Knesset. Among the contenders is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of Likud and Israel’s longestserving premier who is shadowed by his ongoing corruption trial.
INDONESIA
Jet’s voice recorder found
Indonesian navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder of a Sriwijaya Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in January, killing all 62 people on board, officials said Wednesday. Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said divers retrieved the cockpit recorder near where the flight data recorder was recovered three days after the accident.
Military coup thwarted
Niger’s security forces thwarted an attempted military coup at the West African country’s presidential palace overnight just two days before the newly elected president is to be sworn into office in a peaceful transfer of power, the government said Wednesday. The coup attempt raises fear of more violence coinciding with newly elected President Mohamed Bazoum’s inauguration on Friday. Already his administration faces unprecedented threats from Islamic extremists near its troubled border with Mali.
Niger has a long history of the military seizing power by force since its independence from France in 1960.
Recreational pot to be legal
New Mexico’s Legislature has approved the legalization of recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older in a bill that the governor plans to sign, extending the legal cannabis market across the American Southwest. The state House concurred with Senate amendments Wednesday to provide the Legislature’s final approval. A companion bill would automatically erase some past marijuana convictions and reconsider criminal sentences for about 100 prisoners.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham had called a special session this week to push for legalization of marijuana in efforts to spur employment and a stable new source of state income.
New Mexico will join 16 states that have legalized marijuana, mostly through direct ballot initiatives. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a legalization bill Wednesday, and a proposal in Virginia is awaiting the governor’s signature.
CALIFORNIA Man charged after crash
A Mexican man was charged Tuesday with coordinating a smuggling effort that left 13 people dead when their overloaded SUV was struck by a bigrig after crossing the border into California. Jose Cruz Noguez, 47, of Mexicali, was arrested Monday night as he crossed into the U.S. at the Calexico Port of Entry. He appeared Tuesday in federal court in El Centro and faces conspiracy and smuggling charges involving serious injury or placing lives in danger, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.
Prosecutors say Cruz organized a smuggling run in which 25 people were crammed into a 1997 Ford Expedition that drove through a hole cut in a border fence on March 2.
WASHINGTON Transgender policy changes
The Pentagon on Wednesday will sweep away Trumpera policies that largely banned transgender people from serving in the military, issuing new rules that allow transgender people who meet military standards to enlist and serve openly in their selfidentified gender, and have wider access to medical care and assistance with gender transition, defense officials said.