Postcard from Jack
LONDON: A postcard which could have been written by notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper is up for £1 000
(R17 000) at auction next week.
Historical experts have validated the postcard, which was once used as police evidence in 1888 in an attempt to capture the murderer.
“Beware there is (sic) two women I want here they are bastards, and I mean to have them my knife is still in good order it is a students (sic) knife and I hope you liked the kidney,” the postcard states. “I am Jack the Ripper.”
Gang rape uproar
MADRID: Protests have erupted across Spain after a court cleared five men of gang raping a teenager at the 2016 running of the bulls festival in Pamplona.
Instead, the court in the northern region of Navarra sentenced the men, who had recorded videos of the attack on their mobile phones and laughed about it afterwards on a Whatsapp group, with the lesser crime of sexual abuse. – Independent
Man on rail tracks
LONDON: A man was reportedly run over hundreds of times by London Underground trains after staff mistook his body for a fox, last December.
A train was halted in a tunnel after a rear trip switch was activated. A manager was dispatched 160m into a tunnel between Holborn and Russell Square stations to investigate
He believed he saw the carcass of a fox and indicated trains could resume.
Peter Rabbit scare
SYDNEY: Australian cinemagoers who had taken their children to watch
Peter Rabbit were left ashen faced after the projectionist mistakenly showed the trailer for terrifying new horror film Hereditary.
“It was dreadful,” one audience member said. “Parents were yelling at the projectionist to stop, covering their kids’ eyes and ears. Some parents fled the cinema with their kids in tow.”
Cosby conviction
NEW YORK: Women against sexual assault and harassment are hailing Bill Cosby’s conviction on charges he drugged and molested a woman as validation of the #Metoo movement.
Andrea Constand says Cosby knocked her out with pills and sexually assaulted her.
Cosby claims the encounter was consensual but was convicted on Thursday and could face years in prison.
Militants arrested
ANKARA: Turkey’s staterun news agency says authorities have detained four suspected senior Islamic State extremists in an operation in the city of Izmir.
Anadolu Agency said on Friday the suspects included the group’s “emir”, or ruler, of Deir el-zour, a major city in eastern Syria. The other three were senior operatives.
Truth and folklore
BEIJING: China is to pass a law making it a crime to attack heroes and martyrs as the Communist Party steps up efforts to police historical discussions and enforce ideology. The legislature is reviewing a proposal to ban questioning of folklore surrounding the formation of the People’s Republic by Communist revolutionaries.
All watch WWE
JIDDAH: Women and children were on hand to watch World Wrestling Entertainment’s “Greatest Royal Rumble” in Saudi Arabia.
A previous WWE event held in the ultraconservative kingdom in 2014 was for men only. But Friday night’s event in Jiddah included both women and children.
–Sputnik/xinhua/reuters/ap/dpa/african News Agency/ana