Italy: A tourist tax that Venice is to introduce in May has been criticised by Italy's Tourism Minister as "useless and damaging". Plans to charge tourists €3 from May 1 were announced by Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor of the city. The fee will rise to €8 during high season and €10 during "critical" times when visitor numbers reach excessive levels. But within 24 hours of the plan's unveiling, Gian Marco Centinaio, Minister for Tourism, called the tax a "useless and damaging measure". He tweeted: "Do we want to become a country that repels tourists?" The controversial tax, which has been approved by Venice city council, is designed to make the millions of day-trippers who descend on La Serenissima each year contribute to the upkeep of the lagoon city. "The aim is to improve the quality of life for residents," said Brugnaro.
North Korea: The nuclear and missile programmes in North Korea "remain intact" and its leaders are dispersing missile assembly and testing facilities to prevent "decapitation" strikes, UN experts said in a new report. The experts' report to the Security Council says the country continues to defy UN sanctions, including through "a massive increase in illegal ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products and coal." The country also continues to violate an arms embargo, a ban on luxury goods and financial sanctions, the experts said.
Mexico: A jury at the US trial of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman concluded its second day of deliberations without a verdict after jurors sent the judge a handful of notes indicating interest in the kingpin's alleged attempts at diversifying his smuggling operation to include methamphetamine. One note asked for a reading of testimony about the Sinaloa cartel's efforts around 2005 to obtain ephedrine from Asia to produce meth. The jury also listened to an intercepted 2011 phone call in which Guzman talked about wanting more customers for "ice" in the US. In addition, the jury was provided transcripts of extensive testimony by two brothers from a Colombian drug-trafficking clan. The pair of narcos detailed how they used a fleet of private planes to supply cocaine to the cartel during the Colombian-Mexican coke boom the 1990s and 2000s. He could get life in prison if convicted on multiple conspiracy charges.
Space: It turns out our Milky Way galaxy is truly warped, at least around the far edges. Scientists in China and Australia released an updated 3D map of the Milky Way. They used 1339 pulsating stars — young, newly catalogued stars bigger and brighter than our sun — to map the galaxy's shape. The farther from the centre, the more warping, or twisting, there is in the Milky Way's outer hydrogen gas disc. Researchers say the pattern is likely caused by the spinning force of the massive inner disc of stars. One astronomer notes we usually think of spiral galaxies as being flat, like Andromeda. At least a dozen other galaxies appear to have warped edges in a similar spiral pattern. The study appears in the journal Nature Astronomy.
