Nation and world news in brief for November 22
Urologist who abused patients is sentenced to life in prison
NEW YORK (NYT) — A urologist convicted of sexually abusing seven patients, including five who were minors, was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday, prosecutors said.
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The doctor, Darius A. Paduch, a fertility specialist, molested boys and young men for years at two prominent New York hospitals, prosecutors said. Hundreds of other young men and boys have also accused Paduch, 57, of abuse spanning more than 15 years in scores of lawsuits.
Paduch “was a sexual predator who preyed on patients seeking treatment for sensitive medical issues,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement Wednesday. “He used his position as a renowned urologist at prestigious hospitals to sexually assault vulnerable patients, including children, to gratify his own sexual desires.”
In May, a jury found him guilty of five counts of inducing a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity and six counts of enticing people to travel to engage in unlawful sexual activity. The trial lasted just two weeks.
On Wednesday, his sentence was handed down by Judge Ronnie Abrams in federal court in Manhattan.
Elon Musk blasts Australia’s planned ban on social media for children
SYDNEY (Reuters) — U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, has criticised Australia’s proposed law to ban social media for children under 16 and fine social media platforms of up to A$49.5 million ($32 million) for companies for systemic breaches.
Australia’s centre-left government on Thursday introduced the bill in parliament. It plans to try an age-verification system to enforce a social media age cut-off, some of the toughest controls imposed by any country to date.
“Seems like a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians,” Musk, who views himself as a champion of free speech, said in a reply late on Thursday to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s post on X about the bill.
Several countries have already vowed to curb social media use by children through legislation, but Australia’s policy could become one of the most stringent with no exemption for parental consent and pre-existing accounts.
Kim accuses US of stoking tension, warns of nuclear war
SEOUL (Reuters) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has accused the United States of ramping up tension and provocations, saying the Korean peninsula has never faced such risks of nuclear war as now, state media KCNA said on Friday.
In a speech at a military exhibition on Thursday in Pyongyang, Kim said his previous experience of negotiations with Washington only highlighted its “aggressive and hostile” policy against Pyongyang, KCNA said.
“Never before have the warring parties on the Korean peninsula faced such a dangerous and acute confrontation that it could escalate into the most destructive thermonuclear war,” Kim said, according to KCNA.
“We have already gone as far as we can on negotiating with the United States, but what we became certain of from the result is not the superpower’s willingness to coexist, but its thorough stance of power and aggressive and hostile policy toward us that can never change.”
During U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, he and Kim held three unprecedented meetings in Singapore, Hanoi, and at the Korean border in 2018 and 2019.
But their diplomacy failed to achieve any concrete outcome due to differences between U.S. calls for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons and Kim’s demands for sanctions relief.
Greene to work with Musk’s new government efficiency panel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Thursday she will chair a U.S. House of Representatives panel on government efficiency, working with billionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in their effort to streamline the U.S. government.
Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Ramaswamy, a former Republican presidential candidate and biotech executive, were tasked by President-elect Donald Trump with creating a panel of outside advisers to make recommendations on how to reduce the size of federal workforce and slash regulations.
Second wind storm to pummel Pacific Northwest
(Reuters) — A second powerful wind storm, called a “bomb cyclone,” will hit the U.S. Pacific Northwest by Thursday evening, even as hundreds of thousands of people remain without power from the torrential rain and snow still falling from the first one.
The first bout of winds had eased across the region of southwest Washington and Oregon by midday on Wednesday in a system pushed into the U.S. by the first “atmospheric river” storm of the season.
But images of cars and houses crushed by fallen trees in Washington filled social media. Two women died in separate incidents of tree falls near Seattle and others were injured.
About 260,000 homes and businesses remained without power in Washington, Oregon and Northern California on Thursday afternoon, down from 600,000 earlier.
