YORK, South Carolina - A South Carolina woman pleaded guilty to fatally poisoning her husband by putting eye drops into his water for days. She was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Lana Sue Clayton, 53, pleaded guilty on Thursday (Jan 16) to voluntary manslaughter and tampering with a food or drug, news outlets reported.

York County detectives said Clayton admitted to giving her husband Steven Clayton drinks laced with Visine.

She poisoned him with Visine for three days in July 2018 before the poison eventually caused his death, prosecutors said.

Clayton said her husband was abusive and she didn't mean to kill him.

"I did impulsively put the Visine in Steven's drink, but I just did it to make him uncomfortable," Clayton said in court. "I never thought it would kill him."

She was originally charged with murder but accepted a plea deal.

Her lawyers in court said Clayton was a good person having worked as a Veterans Affairs nurse in Charlotte.

​They said she was abused as a child, raped on a military base and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. She attempted to kill herself during the investigation in August 2018.

Court records show the couple lived on property worth more than US$1 million (S$1.35 million) and Mr Clayton, 64, has over a US$1 million in other assets. He was a retired businessman from Florida.

Clayton knew the Visine would kill her husband and continued to poison him, prosecutors said. They accused her of destroying his will so she could inherit his money.

"How can you maintain you did this to teach him a lesson, when it is obvious from the facts that you let him suffer for three days," Judge Paul Burch told Clayton in court. "You ignored him."

SINGAPORE - Two passengers were taken to hospital after a road accident involving an SBS Transit bus, lorry and car at the junction of Braddell Road and Bishan Road on Thursday (Jan 16).

The police have arrested the lorry driver, a 23-year-old Indian national, for dangerous driving.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) and police were alerted to the accident at around 3.30pm. A 22-year-old male lorry passenger and a 46-year-old female bus passenger were conscious when taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, the police said.

The other bus passengers were evacuated and the bus was taken off service.

Eyewitnesses said that the collision between the lorry and the bus at the junction pushed the lorry to the opposite side of the road, causing it to hit the stationary car that was waiting for the traffic light to turn green.

Madam Jenny Toh, the driver of the stationary car, told reporters: "It happened too quickly that I had no time to react. My car was bought only two years ago. I could not even reverse in time to avoid them. I am just lucky that I am okay." The 53-year-old, although visibly upset, did not sustain any visible injuries.

The lorry driver, an Indian national who has been in Singapore for 1½ years, told reporters that he just obtained his Singapore driving licence three months ago and has been driving for about 20 days. He works for Lim Kim Huat Building Construction and was driving to a nearby construction site when the accident occurred.

The driver sustained light injuries - a small cut on his left hand - and was seen walking with a slight limp.

By 5.30pm, both the bus and the car were no longer at the scene. The car was towed away and the driver drove the bus away.

The police are investigating the accident.

The death of a woman motorcyclist on a quiet stretch of road in Yishun ahead of her wedding next month has left her family wondering how it happened.

Miss Fadhillah Muhammad Hussain, 28, a nurse, was found unconscious a short distance from her dark green Honda CB150R in Yishun Avenue 8.

Though the accident happened during evening peak-hour traffic on Tuesday, no witness has come forward so far.

Her cousin, Mr Jad Hamzah, 50, a technician, said her family members are devastated by the tragedy and find it hard to accept that she could have crashed on her own.

"She got the bike about three years ago after getting her motorcycle licence, and she had always been a safe rider who used all the proper gear," he told reporters yesterday.

Mr Jad said Miss Fadhillah was riding home after collecting her new passport from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority in Kallang Road for her honeymoon in Italy.

"I was at the mosque attending a class when I received a call from my sister at about 6.15pm," he said.

"She told me Fadhillah had left us after getting into an accident. I broke down and cried."

The police were informed of the accident at 5.25pm, and officers then found Miss Fadhillah lying unconscious on the road.

She was taken to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital where she later died from her injuries.

Police investigations are ongoing. Reporters understands the circumstances of the accident have not been fully established.

But Miss Fadhillah's family is not discounting the possibility that she might have been a victim of a hit-and-run and are appealing for witnesses who could shed light on her death.

Mr Jad said: "We appeal to witnesses to please come forward, because we don't know what happened. I have only a video that was sent by someone when the ambulance was already at the scene."

He said he went to the scene on Tuesday night to look for witnesses but found that a construction site was the only significant landmark nearby.

Mr Jad said there were no cameras in the area, and his attempts to find witnesses from the construction site were futile.

HUMBLE AND QUIET

He described his cousin as a humble and quiet girl who lived with her mother in Yishun.

"She also has a driver's licence but decided to switch to a motorcycle as driving is quite expensive," he said.

"We are very sad. Everything was prepared, the wedding was just around the corner, and she was going to Italy and Europe with her husband-to-be.

​"Everyone in the family is still shocked and her fiance is heartbroken. We really hope we can find out what happened so that we can get closure."

This is the third reported accident involving motorcyclists in a week.

Reporters previously reported that another female biker, Ms Ismawati Ali, had a narrow escape when she was almost hit in the face by an iron pipe or rod while riding on the Pan-Island Expressway last Thursday.

The object struck the accountant on her left shoulder, leaving her with a wound that required 12 stitches. The 40-year-old later made a police report.

On Sunday, a 25-year-old motorcyclist was involved in an accident with a lorry on the PIE at 10.10pm. He was taken conscious to hospital but died the next day.

The police said a 26-year-old driver was arrested for drink driving and dangerous driving causing death. Investigations are ongoing.

MADRID - A flying plate of metal may have killed a man some 2km away from the site of a huge chemical plant explosion in northeastern Spain when it was hurled out by the blast and crashed into his apartment building, local authorities said on Wednesday (Jan 15).

The explosion in Tarragona on Tuesday also killed a worker at the plant and injured eight others, the local authorities said.

The Vall d'Hebron hospital in Barcelona then confirmed on Wednesday evening that a third person had died after suffering "extensive burns" in the blast, which sent flames and plumes of black smoke billowing for kilometres.

A large metal plate is believed to have been propelled into the third floor of an apartment block 2km away by the explosion, collapsing its floor and killing a man in the apartment below, the Tarragona authorities said in a statement.

They said they were still investigating the cause of the man's death. He was the only person in the apartment at the time as his wife was out, the statement added, and there was no-one in the apartment above where the metal plate landed.

It's "almost unbelievable," Pau Ricoma, the mayor of Tarragona told news agency Efe, but added it was the "most likely hypothesis."

Catalan police posted a photo of the metal plate on Twitter, saying it measured 122cm by 165cm and was 3cm thick. They did not say how much it weighed.

Local authorities said on Twitter that the other person killed had been located but not identified yet: "There is structural risk in the area and work is being done to stabilise the area and safely reach the victim."

​The chemical plant complex was operated by petrochemicals firm Industrias Quimicas del Oxido de Etileno (IQOXE), a producer of ethylene oxide, a highly flammable gas used to make, among other things, ethylene glycol used in computers and vehicles.

The CEO of IQOXE, owned by Spain's CL Grupo Industrial, said the company had opened an internal investigation into the explosion.

"We deeply regret the loss of one of our co-workers and the suffering of those who are injured," Jose Luis Morlanes told reporters.

The explosion took place in a part the complex that had begun operations in June 2017 and had been operating normally, he added, prior to Tuesday's explosion of a 20-tonne tank full of ethylene oxide.

A rescue operation on Wednesday (Jan 15) afternoon had onlookers in Kallang craning their necks.

They watched as a woman in a yellow T-shirt hung on to the air-conditioning ledge of a unit on the 15th floor of Block 7 King George's Avenue.

Two other persons could be seen sitting on the ledge as they held onto the woman whose body was dangling in the air.

In a clip shared by Reddit user obiwanguacamole, several officers were seen assessing the situation from the window.

A male Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officer climbed out to the ledge, and squeezed his body between the open window pane and the air-con compressor to reach the woman.

It was difficult to move around within the tight space on the ledge, so the compressor was removed for the rescue.

Once it was out of the way, the officer swiftly heaved the woman onto the ledge by the back of her shorts.

As she was pulled to safety, a round of claps rang out.

The person who recorded the clip could also be heard calling the SCDF officer a hero for his brave act.

A SCDF spokesperson told AsiaOne that they received a call for assistance on Jan 15 at 1.25pm and saw a person on the window ledge when they arrived at the scene.

The person was rescued by SCDF, the police, and members of the public by manually pulling the person to safety, the spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, the police told reporters that a 62-year-old woman was subsequently arrested under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Act.

The police are looking for a man to assist with investigations into a case of voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous means reported along Pasir Panjang Road on Dec 26, 2019.

Anyone with information is requested to call the police Hotline at 1800-255-0000 or submit information online via www.police.gov.sg/iwitness.

All information will be kept strictly confidential.

GENEVA, Switzerland - There may have been limited human-to-human transmission of a new coronavirus in China within families, and it is possible there could be a wider outbreak, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause infections ranging from the common cold to SARS.

A Chinese woman has been quarantined in Thailand with a mystery strain of coronavirus, Thai authorities said on Monday, the first time the virus has been detected outside China.

In all, 41 cases of pneumonia have been reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, which preliminary lab tests cited by state media showed could be from a new type of coronavirus, and one patient has died.

There have since been no new cases or deaths, Wuhan health authorities said on Tuesday.

"From the information that we have it is possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families, but it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission," said Maria Van Kerkhove, acting head of WHO's emerging diseases unit.

The WHO is however preparing for the possibility that there could be a wider outbreak, she told a Geneva news briefing. "It is still early days, we don't have a clear clinical picture."

Some types of the virus cause less serious diseases, while others - like the one that causes MERS - are far more severe.

​The UN agency has given guidance to hospitals worldwide about infection prevention and control in case the new virus spreads. There is no specific treatment for the new virus, but anti-virals are being considered and could be "re-purposed", Van Kerkhove said.

With Chinese New Year approaching on Jan. 25, when many Chinese tourists visit Thailand, the WHO called on Thai authorities, the public and holidaymakers to be on alert.

Richard Brow, the agency's representative in Thailand, said anyone with a fever and cough who had spent time in Wuhan should get checked out by a health worker.

SINGAPORE: Instead of going home after a night out visiting families for Hari Raya, a previously convicted Peeping Tom went to a nearby block intending to peek at girls inside their flats.

Muhammad Nur Shafiq Omar, a 24-year-old full-time national serviceman with the Singapore Civil Defence Force, was on Wednesday (Jan 15) sentenced to six weeks' jail.

He also received an additional enhanced sentence of 20 days' jail as he had committed the fresh crime while on remission for other offences.

The court heard that Shafiq had gone visiting for Hari Raya on Jun 17 last year when his friend dropped him off at his block in Choa Chu Kang at around 4am.

"However, instead of going back home, the accused decided to go to the nearby (block), with the intention to peep at girls inside their units," said Deputy Public Prosecutor Tay Jia En.

At about 4.30am, Shafiq came across a flat where a 20-year-old woman lived. Court documents did not specify which floor this was on.

​He noticed that the bedroom lights were still on, and found that the sliding window of the bedroom was unlocked.

Shafiq then pushed open the sliding window and extended his hand into the flat to push the curtains away.

The victim was in her bedroom when she heard the sound of the window opening and saw Shafiq's hand reaching in.

She screamed in alarm, and Shafiq fled from the flat.

The victim's sister called the police minutes after and asked for them to come quickly.

Shafiq had committed a similar act at around 4am on Jun 1, 2019, by sliding open a bedroom window to insult a woman's modesty.

He pleaded guilty to one count of house-trespass, with another count of attempting to insult a woman's privacy taken into consideration.

The prosecution asked for at least six weeks' jail and an enhanced punishment of 27 days, saying that the offence here was premeditated with Shafiq going to the victim's flat with a clear intention to peek at girls.

The offence was committed at around 4.30am, where the residents were vulnerable, and the offence alarmed the victim.

ACCUSED HAS NOT LEARNT FROM PROBATION, REFORMATIVE TRAINING: PROSECUTOR

Mr Tay pointed out that Shafiq has previous similar convictions: In 2014, he was given probation for trespassing into a washroom for women and peeking at girls. He was also ordered to undergo offence-specific treatment for his sexual offending.

A year later, he was sentenced to a stint in a reformative training centre (RTC) for nine counts of lurking house-trespass, and was most recently given 15 months' jail in 2019 for charges of lurking house-trespass and traffic offences.

Mr Tay said Shafiq had "not learnt from his rehabilitative stints with probation and RTC, where he had the benefit of targeted intervention programmes to address his risk of sexual offending as well as his pro-criminal attitudes".

Instead, he continued to trespass upon private property and committed the house-breaking charge while on bail for the insulting modesty charge.

Shafiq's lawyer Caryn Lee of Tembusu Law asked instead for four weeks' jail and an enhanced sentence of 10 days, saying her client was "young, naive and immature".

She said he "grew up in a family that did not have adequate adult supervision, therefore he foolishly committed the (previous offences)".

He's now turning 25, and has "since matured and definitely still has the propensity to reform".

Ms Lee said Shafiq has shown signs of reform, taking on a part-time job to chip in for household expenses, and that his parents have taken on a more active role in supervising him.

The judge granted his request to defer sentence to Feb 3, as Shafiq has a wedding to attend.

For house-trespass, he could have been sentenced to up a year's jail, fined S$3,000, or both.

SINGAPORE: The traffic at both land checkpoints at Woodlands and Tuas is expected to be heavy during the Chinese New Year holidays, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said on Wednesday (Jan 15).

Traffic departing from Singapore is expected to be heavy between Jan 17 and Jan 28, while arrival traffic is set to be heavy between Jan 25 and Jan 28.

With a large number of people passing through the land checkpoints and security checks, there can be delays, ICA explained.

“About 415,000 travellers use the land checkpoints daily and this number increases during the festive peak periods.

“For the Friday before Christmas last year, we cleared 475,000 travellers across the land checkpoints – the highest number we have seen in recent years,” ICA said.

“With security checks coupled with large number of travellers using the checkpoints at the same time, traffic build-up is inevitable and delays can be expected.

“Travellers should factor the additional time needed for immigration clearance into their plans.”

To play their parts and avoid causing delays, ICA advised travellers to “check and ensure that they bring their rightful passports with a remaining validity of six months or more”.

It also reminded people of prohibited items, like “firecrackers, ‘pop-pop’ or controlled items such as ‘bak kwa’, eggs and potted plants”.

“If travellers bring in dutiable or controlled items, they should proactively make declarations to our officers prior to checks,” the authority added.

AVOID QUEUE-CUTTING

Motorists were also warned against queue-cutting during the peak periods and to check on the traffic situation at the checkpoints before starting their journeys.

ICA said it “will continue to take necessary measures to improve clearance efficiency as much as possible without compromising security”.

It added: “Our checkpoint officers will continue to monitor traffic conditions on a real time basis and ensure optimal deployment of resources.

“We will also continue to work with the Traffic Police to ensure road discipline at the critical junctions leading to the land checkpoints.”

LIMA - Six tourists, including a French woman, have been arrested over accusations that they damaged Peru's cultural heritage by defecating in a sacred temple at the iconic Machu Picchu sanctuary.

"The six tourists are being detained and investigated by the public ministry for the alleged crime against cultural heritage," Cusco regional police chief Wilbert Leyva said on Monday, quoted by the local Andina news agency.

The tourists were arrested on Sunday (Jan 12) after park rangers and police found them in a restricted area of the Temple of the Sun, an important site at the Inca citadel.

Leyva said authorities had come across a "fracture" in a piece of stone that had "broken off a wall and caused a crack in the floor".

Cultural authorities from Cusco, the region where Machu Picchu is located, said faeces were found in the Temple of the Sun.

The group was made up of one French, two Brazilians, two Argentines and a Chilean, according to police.

They face at least four years in prison if found guilty of damaging Peru's heritage.

Several parts of the semicircular Temple of the Sun are off limits to tourists for preservation reasons.

Worshipers at the temple would make offerings to the sun, which was considered the most important deity in the Inca empire as well as other pre-Inca civilisations in the Andean region.

​The Machu Picchu estate - which includes three distinct areas for agriculture, housing and religious ceremonies - is the most iconic site from the Inca empire that ruled a large swathe of western South America for 100 years before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

Machu Picchu, which means "old mountain" in the Quechua language indigenous to the area, is at the top of a lush mountain and was built during the reign of the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438-1471).

It lies around 100km from the Andean city of Cusco, the old Inca capital in southeastern Peru.

The site was rediscovered in 1911 by the American explorer Hiram Bingham. UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site in 1983.