Daily News Highlights – October 22, 2015 Edition

Chinese Consul General Song Ronghua was shot in Cebu along with two others on October 21, police said. Song was wounded while two of his colleagues died in the attack: the deputy consul and the consulate finance officer. The Philippine National Police spokesman said two Chinese nationals were arrested following the attack: one of them is the husband of a diplomat at the consulate, while the other was a woman who also worked at the embassy.

Read the full story on Rappler.

The Bureau of Immigration has ordered the deportation of United States Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton, the primary suspect in the murder of Filipino transgender woman Jeffrey “Jennifer” Laude in October 2014. But the order will only be implemented upon clearance from the Olongapo City Regional Trial Court Branch 74, which is hearing the murder case against the US national. The deportation order stems from a complaint filed by the Laude family with the BI on October 29, 2014. The bureau earlier issued a charge sheet against the US marine for undesirability.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Three days after Typhoon Lando (Koppu) battered the northern and central regions of Luzon in the Philippines, government and aid workers were able to reach some of the towns – in the provinces of Aurora and Isabela, for instance – that had been isolated due to landslides and floods. The number of casualties reported by regional and national authorities increase as more affected areas are reached by rescuers, such as in the Cordillera and Central Luzon.

Read stories on rescue and relief on Rappler’s Project Agos.

Several police officials, including a dismissed officer with close ties to President Benigno Aquino III, face charges over their alleged involvement in the sale of 1,004 AK-47s to communist rebels. The former and current officers, non-enlisted personnel, and non-uniformed personnel of the Philippine National Police officers whom the Ombudsman will slap with criminal charges were either part of, or connected to, the Civil Security Group and the Firearms and Explosives Office when the firearms were being purchased in “trickles” from 2011 to shortly before the May 2013 elections.

Read the full story on Rappler.

The Commission on Elections law department filed cases motu proprio, or on its own, to disqualify 125 aspirants who filed certificates of candidacy for president last week. They will be subject to Comelec hearings to assess if they will be considered nuisance bets. If the poll body decides to finally disqualify them, only 5 candidates will be left to vie for the presidency. The Comelec has also subpoenaed presidential race front runner Grace Poe to appear and submit a counter-affidavit. She is facing 3 disqualification cases before the commission.  

Read the full story on Rappler #PHvote.

China vowed Wednesday, October 21, to take a 1/3 stake in Britain’s first nuclear power plant in decades, with Prime Minister David Cameron hailing a “historic deal” on the project led by French energy giant EDF. The announcement came on the second day of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s business-themed state visit to Britain, which Cameron said had seen deals signed worth £40 billion (54.6 billion euros, $61.9 billion). EDF in a statement announced the blockbuster nuclear agreement, signed in the presence of Xi and Cameron, as London rolled out the red carpet to Chinese investors and showcased joint projects including zero-emission classic London red buses and black taxis. The agreement for the gigantic nuclear project, whose construction costs total £18 billion, is expected to be finalized in the next few weeks.

Read the full story on Rappler.

US Vice President Joe Biden announced Wednesday, October 21, that he will not run for the White House in 2016, removing a potential obstacle to frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s path to the Democratic presidential nomination. “I believe we’re out of time, the time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination,” Biden said in the White House Rose Garden with President Barack Obama and his wife Jill at his side. The 72-year-old Biden said his family was still mourning the loss of his son Beau, who succumbed to brain cancer in May. He made an impassioned plea for more research and funding to put a stop to the disease. “Beau is our inspiration,” Biden said, but added that while his family was working through the grieving process, the time to mount a viable campaign had run out. “We found purpose in public life,” he said. 

Read the full story on Rappler.

A big asteroid is hurtling toward Earth and will shave past our planet on Halloween, but astronomers say there’s no need to be spooked – it’s definitely not on a collision course. The space rock is about the size of a football stadium and is moving at an “unusually high” speed of 78,000 miles per hour (126,000 kilometers per hour), said NASA. Early estimates put the asteroid – called 2015 TB145 – at about 1,542 feet (470 meters) in diameter, according to the astronomy website Earth and Sky. The good news is this asteroid will pass at a very safe distance of about 310,000 miles (nearly 500,000 kilometers), or 1.3 times the span between the Earth and the Moon. The asteroid will actually pass closer to the Moon than the Earth, skimming by at a distance of 180,000 miles.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Facebook users on the iPhone app version of the social network will now be able to enjoy fast-loading articles on their news feed, thanks to Facebook’s Instant Articles initative. In an announcement post on Tuesday, October 20, Facebook explained that, from now on, “people will see a lightning bolt on the top right corner of some stories shared in News Feed. The lightning bolt indicates it’s an Instant Article. When you tap the story, it loads ten times faster than a standard mobile web article.”  

Read the full story on Rappler.

Six religious leaders in Singapore who used $36 million in church funds in a failed bid to turn the pastor’s glamorous wife into a global pop star were convicted Wednesday, October 21 of fraud. After a two-year trial that captivated Singapore with tales of lavish spending and financial deceit, pastor Kong Hee and 5 aides were found guilty of diverting Sg$24 million ($17 million) to finance his wife Sun Ho’s music career, which was portrayed as a religious mission. The six were also found guilty of misappropriating another Sg$26 million from City Harvest Church to cover their tracks, prosecutors said. Ho, who starred in a music video with rapper Wyclef Jean, was not charged.

Read the full story on Rappler.