Daily News Highlights – April 9, 2015 Edition

In a unanimous verdict, an American jury on April 8 convicted Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of 30 counts related to the worst attack in the US since the 9/11 bombings. The 21-year-old former student may face the death penalty during the second phase of his trial. The Muslim immigrant of Chechen descent, who took US citizenship in 2012, stood in a dark blazer, occasionally fidgeting and hooking one hand into his trouser pocket as the clerk read out the verdict. Three people were killed and 264 others wounded, including 17 who lost limbs, in the twin blasts at the city’s marathon nearly two years ago.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Only a minority of countries in the world had passed the test of providing universal education, a United Nations report on April 9 said. In 2000, 164 countries agreed at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Education Forum to ensure basic education for all by 2015. But in its latest annual report, the UN body said only around half of the countries have succeeded in fulfilling that pledge. Governments need to prioritize the poorest, especially girls, the UN said.

Read the full story on Rappler.

The family of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina on death row in Indonesia, made a tearful appeal for her life on April 8. “Please don’t kill my sister. She is innocent. If you kill her, you will have blood on your hands,” Veloso’s elder sister Marites Veloso-Laurente told Agence France-Presse in a plea to Indonesian President Joko Widodo. The 30-year-old mother of two was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death in 2010 for attempting to smuggle 2.6 kilograms of heroin into Indonesia. She is among a batch of foreigners facing imminent execution. Her father said: “If my daughter was involved in drugs, we wouldn’t be this poor.”

Read the full story on Rappler.

At a House hearing on the Mamasapano clash, an officer of the Philippine National Police Special Action Force (SAF) told an Army colonel to “man up” as he disputed claims that the SAF failed to provide information that could have saved commandos trapped in a gun battle with rebels on January 25. The PNP and the Philippine military continued to offer different versions of what happened that day, with the military insisting they tried to help even while some SAF troops rested “under banana trees” at the height of the encounter. 

Read the full story on Rappler.

The world’s richest man, Bill Gates, was spotted in Los Baños, Laguna – the hub of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) – on April 8 and spent at least 6 hours with the IRRI staff, according to reports. A private jet with registration number N887WM and tied to Gates was in the country as early as April 4, the same reports said. With Gates at IRRI was Dr. Pamela Anderson, the agricultural development director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation is supporting IRRI’s food and nutrition security programs with an annual commitment of $18 million.

Read the full story on Rappler.

If former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada was allowed to be placed under house arrest while on trial for plunder, so can former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Her lawyers made this argument in a motion with the Sandiganbayan seeking to place the jailed ex-president under house arrest. Now representative of the 2nd district of Pampanga, Arroyo is currently detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center over a P366-million plunder charge. Her camp said she is suffering from “multiple cervical spondylosis” and continues to be in a delicate condition.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Three prominent Filipino technopreneurs are bullish about the digital economy in the country, saying it faces bright prospects for various reasons – one of them is the fact that the Philippine has the fastest growing Internet population in the world, growing at 531%. Nix Nolledo, Manny Ayala and Paul Rivera note that in emerging markets such as the Philippines technopreneurs are creating solutions to basic problems, such as providing wider market access to micro-businesses, which can be felt in big and meaningful ways. And the two main drivers of Internet access – the cost of a smartphone and the cost of accessing Internet are continuing to drop, Nolledo said.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Yuhei Takashima, a former school principal who allegedly paid for sex with 12,000 women in the Philippines was arrested by police in Japan on April 8. Takashima, 64, had been going on 3 sex tours a year to the Philippines since 1988, according to reports. He meticulously catalogued nearly 150,000 photographs of his exploits over a 27-year period in around 400 separate albums. He was arrested over claims that at least one of the women he had sex with was as young as 13.

Read the full story on Rappler.

In an interview with USA Today, Freddie Roach, longtime coach of Manny Pacquiao said the boxing champ does not particularly like Floyd Mayweather due to Mayweather’s history of domestic violence. Roach says this is probably what triggers Pacquiao’s fierce focus in training camp for the highly-anticipated match versus the unbeaten American boxer. “Manny is really against domestic violence. It is a big issue maybe in the Philippines for him and being a congressman he can control some of that stuff. That is a big plus for me that Manny does not like the guy, I think the killer instinct is going to come back a lot faster,” Roach said during the interview.

Read about it on Rappler and USA Today.

It was a secret wedding held at the couple’s Palm Springs mansion. Various reports said the 71-year-old Barry Manilow married his manager and the president of Barry Manilow Productions, Garry Kief, in a private ceremony attended only by about 50 guests. Suzanne Somers was the best man, the same reports said. Manilow and Kief have been a couple for 3 decades.

Read the full story on Radaronline.