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News from the weekend
Incoming not found – parcel delivery man beaten up by the homeowner
A parcel delivery man at work: A house owner beat up a parcel delivery person in Bingen am Rhein because he thought the man was an intruder (symbolic picture)
© Sven Hoppe / DPA
Today’s news in star-Ticker.
Today’s news in star-Ticker:
2:05 p.m.: Kentucky asks Biden for federal aid after deadly tornadoes
After tornadoes with probably dozen dead, the governor of the US state of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, asked US President Joe Biden for support. “Kentucky needs federal aid to respond to this event,” said a letter to Biden released by the governor on Saturday. Power outages are widespread. 17 of the 120 counties in the state were affected by the disaster. Beshear declared a state of emergency in Kentucky and activated the National Guard to assist affected communities. Beshear assumed in the letter at least 50 dead. At a press conference, he said that the number of victims would probably be closer to 70 to 100.
Kentucky Civil Protection Director Michael Dossett told CNN that tornadoes had carved a 200-mile (320 kilometers) swath from southwest to northeast in the southeastern state. He spoke of one of the “darkest days” of Kentucky. Other states were also hit by the devastating storm system on Saturday night. CNN reported dozens of tornadoes in six states.
11:19 a.m.: Entrance not found – parcel delivery boy beaten up by the house owner
A house owner beat up a parcel deliverer in Bingen am Rhein because he thought the man was an intruder. According to the police, the messenger wanted to deliver a delivery on Saturday – but could not find the front door. So he went around the building and looked for the entrance in the winter garden. The owner noticed the stranger, yelled at him and gave him several powerful blows.
Even the police, which had been alerted in the meantime, could not appease the angry man and therefore filed two criminal charges on Friday: one against the house owner for assault and one against the messenger for trespassing.
10 a.m.: Ukraine: Zelenskyj does not rule out a referendum on eastern Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj can envisage a referendum for the autonomy of the breakaway eastern Ukrainian territories. “I am not ruling out a referendum on the Donbass as a whole,” said the 43-year-old in an interview with TV station 1 + 1 on Friday. There could also be referendums on Crimea or on ending the war in general. At the same time, the head of state emphasized that giving up territory was out of the question for his country.
9.23 a.m.: After a fire in a Brazilian disco with 242 dead: Long prison sentences for four people responsible
Almost nine years after a devastating fire in a Brazilian discotheque that killed 242 people, the four people responsible have been sentenced to long prison terms. The two owners of the “Kiss” nightclub and two musicians were found guilty of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter by a court in Porto Alegre on Friday.
“The guilt of the accused is great. So many lives were not accidentally wiped out,” said Judge Orlando Faccini when the verdict was pronounced. The two nightclub owners are jailed for 22.5 and 19.5 years respectively. The musicians were each sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The fire in January 2013 in the southern Brazilian city of Santa Maria is one of the deadliest disasters in the history of Brazil. Illegal fireworks set fire to the club’s easily inflammable ceiling insulation during a music show.
Numerous guests who attended a student party at the club were burned or suffocated from the smoke, and hundreds more were injured. The club only had two badly signposted emergency exits; the fire extinguishers were broken.
8.14 a.m.: China describes US democracy as a “weapon of mass destruction”
After the democracy summit organized by the USA, China described US democracy as a “weapon of mass destruction”. “‘Democracy’ has long since become a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ that the US is using to interfere in other countries,” said a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Saturday.
The USA organized the democracy summit in order to “draw lines of ideological prejudice, to instrumentalize democracy and to use it as a weapon and to cause division and confrontation”. Beijing will “firmly oppose any kind of pseudo-democracies,” said the spokesman.
China – like Russia – had already sharply criticized the summit organized by US President Joe Biden in advance and described US democracy as “corrupt” and “failed”. Instead, Beijing promoted its own version of “holistic popular democracy”.
7.49 a.m.: 15-year-old slips off the road with her car in snowy conditions
When there was snow, a young person without a license slipped off the road in a car in the Bavarian Upper Palatinate. When determining the personal details, it turned out that the driver was only 15 years old, said a police spokesman on Saturday. The young person was out on Saturday night in the Regensburg district near Wiesent. Nobody was harmed during the accident. The 15-year-old expects a complaint for driving without a license. The police did not know whether there were other people in the car with the young person.