World Briefs

A 61-year-old US distance swimmer ended her attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida early yesterday about halfway into the journey, she said on Twitter, after suffering from shoulder pain and asthma.

Ocean swells also dogged Diana Nyad on her second attempt to cross the treacherous, shark-infested Florida Straits before she was finally brought aboard a boat, vomiting, at about 12.45 a.m., CNN reported.

But the swimmer, who had said she hoped to bring Cuba and the United States closer together with the athletic feat, said she did not regret trying. “It felt like this was my moment. I don’t feel like a failure at all. But we needed a little more luck,” Nyad said in a Twitter post. (AFP)

Mystery blast

An exploding meteor was believed to be responsible for a huge bang that reverberated around the Pacific island nation of Niue last week, according to police.

Niue police chief Mark Chenery said the loud bang on Wednesday night woke the island’s 1,200 resid-ents and he initially thought a boat had exploded in the harbour.

Mr Chenery said there was widespread speculation about the cause of the noise but the Carter observ-atory in New Zealand had told him it was likely to have been a meteor exploding 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) high in the atmosphere. (AFP)

Airport grenade

A suspected World War II hand grenade was found by workers digging near Gatwick Airport.

Bomb disposal experts carried out a controlled explosion of the device close to the railway station of the West Sussex airport.

Planes were temporarily grounded as the grenade, discovered by UK Power Networks staff, was made safe by explosive ordnance division operators. Train services were also halted, and a Gatwick Airport spokeswoman said there was a slight delay to flights. (PA)

Happy return

A nine-year-old boy who left his wallet containing hundreds of dollars at a Virginia store got it back after he sent them a letter.

The boy, identified only as Charlie, said he left the wallet on the counter while he was getting a drink. His letter, which contained his photograph, was posted on the store’s front door and the wallet was later returned by an unnamed woman. (PA)

Bridal gone

A Malaysian man is suing his former fiancée for more than £220,000 for leaving him just six hours before their wedding.

His lawyer said 32-year-old Masran Abdul Rahman and his family were distressed and deeply embarrassed.

Masran had invited 1,200 guests to the reception and was seeking compensation for damages and defamation from Norzuliyana Mat Hassan and her father. (PA)

Show’s over

Officials in the Philippines have shut down an art exhibition deemed offensive for combining Christian symbols with phallic objects.

The show, launched in June, has prompted threats and hate mail against the artists and the state-run Cultural Centre of the Philippines, and has been condemned by politicians and Roman Catholic Church leaders. Critics vandalised an installation by removing a wooden penis from a poster depicting Jesus Christ. Another sculpture portrayed Christ as Mickey Mouse. (PA)

Jet drama

A passenger aircraft had to make an unscheduled landing after the pilot noticed a crack in the windscreen.

The Air Southwest flight from Newquay in Cornwall to Glasgow, which had 24 passengers and three crew members on board, was diverted to Dublin after the fault was discovered in one of the multiple layers of the windscreen panels. A company spokesman said: “As a precaution, the crew decided to divert.” (PA)

School data

A secondary school has been rebuked after the details of thousands of people, including pupils, were left exposed when a hacker targeted its website. Bay House School in Hampshire was found to have breached the Data Protection Act by the Information Commissioner’s Office. The hacking attack, by a pupil at the school, saw the names, addresses, photographs and medical information of 7,600 pupils exposed, plus personal details of pupils’ parents and teachers.

In all, around 20,000 people were affected, the ICO said. (PA)

Cyberattacks

China said yesterday it was hit by nearly 500,000 cyberattacks last year, about half of which originated from foreign countries including the United States and India.

The news comes just days after US firm McAfee said it had uncovered a massive global cyber spying campaign it described as a “five-year targeted operation” by one unnamed actor – which many analysts said was China. According to a government report, most of the attacks on China came in the form of Trojan software – a malicious programme that masquerades as an application — the official Xinhua news agency said. Nearly 15 per cent of the destructive programmes came from IP addresses in the United States, while another eight per cent originated in India, said the report by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Centre. (AFP)

Fair dismissal

The former governor of the Tower of London has lost his claim for unfair dismissal. A central London employment tribunal rejected Major General Keith Cima’s challenge that he should not have lost his job following allegations he called Beefeaters the “lowest of the low ” and branded them “thick”.

He was sacked at the end of last year for derogatory comments about the Yeoman body. (PA)