A passenger recently had such a harrowing experience.

It was on an Alaska Airlines flight, travelling from Seattle to Las Vegas, that a man attempted to kill a fellow passenger with a makeshift weapon after a violent altercation mid air.

Julio Alvarez Lopez, the accused, was arrested at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas on January 24, a report in the New York Post said.

Lopez was charged with one count of assault with a dangerous weapon.

So what was his modus operandi?

Lopez was “fidgety” throughout the flight, and kept on putting and removing his gloves, using the bathroom for a long period during the flight’s descent.

“He sat down, got up a second time, and went to the restroom, where he was reportedly gone for ‘a while’,” Fox News reported.

After Lopez returned to his seat, he began “punching and hitting” the man seated across the aisle, and tried to stab him in the eye.

“During the altercation, the victim’s wife was screaming at the defendant to stop hitting her husband. A witness unbuckled her seatbelt and yelled at the defendant to stop,” an FBI agent wrote in court documents.

Lopez also struck the woman, who was trying to protect their seven-year-old son.

He told investigators that he was seeking asylum in the US, and added that he believed the co-passenger was with ‘the Cartel’ and was following him, as per Fox News.

The passenger who was attacked is alive, but he was severely injured.

“Both the parties have agreed on a power-sharing formula as we have the required number of seats in the National Assembly (NA) to form the government,” PML-N President and former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Tuesday evening during a joint press conference in Islamabad.

Following days of negotiations between the two parties, it has been decided that Sharif will be the joint candidate for both parties for the slot of Prime Minister and PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari will be the joint candidate for the President’s slot, Xinhua news agency reported.

Sharif said that the independent candidates, who emerged victorious in majority by securing m ore than 100 seats, were invited to form the government, but they failed to achieve the required numbers.

He added that other parties such as the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, the Pakistan Muslim League, and the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party supported PML-N and PPP in the government-making endeavour.

Acknowledging that the road ahead for the coalition government will be challenging, Sharif said that the coalition alliance is prepared to confront and overcome the obstacles together.

The upcoming government will work together to pull the country out of the ongoing crises, he said, expressing the hope to be able to deliver.

Speaking on the occasion, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said the details of the sharing of key constitutional offices between the PPP and PML-N will be announced in the coming days.

Expressing hopes for success in addressing Pakistan’s challenges, the PPP Chairman said that the news of the political alliance of the PPP with the PML-N to form a coalition government will lead to a positive response from the markets and bring stability.

Earlier, the Election Commission of Pakistan announced the result of 265 out of 266 seats for the NA after the country held general elections on February 8 to elect a government for the next five-year term, with no political party securing a simple majority, compelling parties to make alliances to form the government in Centre.

The Qatar court on Monday released all eight former Indian Navy personnel in its custody, out of which seven have returned to India, said a statement by the MEA.

The MEA said in a statement, “The Government of India welcomes the release of eight Indian nationals working for the Dahra Global company who were detained in Qatar. Seven out of the eight of them have returned to India. We appreciate the decision by the Amir of the State of Qatar to enable the release and home-coming of these nationals.”

Earlier, the capital punishment for the jailed Indian Navy veterans was commuted to an extended prison term after diplomatic talks between Qatar and India.

Out of the total eight former Indian Navy officers imprisoned in Qatar, seven have returned to India, said MEA in its statement. Arrangements are being made to bring the last released veteran home.

The eight Indian nationals, formerly Indian Navy personnel, were imprisoned in Qatar in October 2022 after being accused of allegedly spying on a submarine programme. The Indian nationals were deemed guilty of espionage by the Qatari court, and were sentenced to death on charges not yet made public.

The MEA expressed that the ruling of the court was “deeply shocking”, and said that they would explore all legal options to get the charges against the former Indian Navy personnel dropped.

The Dahra Global case saw a major development last year when the court in Qatar commuted the death sentence of the Indian nationals after intervention by the Indian government. The sentence was reduced to jail terms.

Notably, the verdict comes a day after Khan was given a prison sentence of 10 years in a case related to leaking state secrets.

“Another sad day in our judicial system history, which is being dismantled,” a spokesperson for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party told media.

It was not immediately clear if Khan’s sentences were to run consecutively or concurrently following a trial held inside the jail where he has been detained for much of the time since his arrest in August. But Khan’s lawyer Salman Safdar confirmed to AFP he had been sentenced alongside his wife, Bushra Bibi, who had been on remand throughout the trial.

“Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi have been sentenced. Bushra Bibi has not been arrested as yet,” Safdar said.

The pair married in 2018, months before Khan was elected prime minister. Bibi, a faith healer who met Khan when he approached her for spiritual guidance, is rarely seen in public.

Khan, nephew of legendary Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, also slapped the individual as he walked out of the room to look for the bottle. In another scene, some people were seen attempting to intervene and trying to pull the singer away to save the student.

As this video went viral, the internet started criticising the singer.

Later he posted a video, featuring his student as well as his father, and it described the incident as a personal matter between a teacher (ustad) and his disciple (shagird). “He is like my son. This is how the relation is between a teacher and his disciple. If a disciple does something good, I shower my love on him. If he does something wrong, he is punished,” he said.

Khan further said that he had apologised to him after the incident.

The individual also admitted to misplacing a bottle containing holy water, leading to the incident, but clarified that there was no ill-intention behind his actions. “He’s like my father. He loves us a lot. Whoever spread this video is trying to defame my ustad,” he added.

Khan’s father also supported him, highlighting the relation between the ‘ustad and shagird‘ in the field of Qawwali.

Macron late Monday accepted the resignation of Elisabeth Borne, 62, after serving less than two years in office, ahead of a widely expected cabinet reshuffle that seeks to breathe new life into the final three years of his mandate.

“Now the focus is on dismantling Hamas in the centre of the Gaza Strip and in the south of the Gaza Strip,” he said, while acknowledging that the task will take time.

About military efforts to dismantle Hamas in the central and southern Gaza Strip, Hagari said “we will do it in a different way” without elaborating.

According to him, the refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip are crowded and full of terrorists, while in the south, the large urban landscape of Khan Yunis has an elaborate underground network of tunnels. “It takes time,” he was quoted as saying.

Earlier on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government had directed the army to “eliminate Hamas”, return all the hostages and ensure that Gaza will “never again be a threat to Israel”. The war must not be stopped until we achieve all of the goals,” he said in a statement.

The agency said around 171 aircraft worldwide would be affected, with each inspection taking four to eight hours.

The FAA is requiring immediate inspeAlaska and United Airlines fly the largest number of MAX 9 planes, while Icelandair and Turkish Airlines have smaller fleets of these aircraft. Boeing has so far delivered some 218 737 MAX 9 planes worldwide, the company told AFP.

US-based Alaska Airlines grounded all 65 of its Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes on Friday after a flight carrying 171 passengers and six crew was forced to make an emergency landing, with passengers saying a window panel blew out after takeoff.

Alaska Flight 1282 had departed from Portland International Airport and was still gaining altitude when the cabin crew reported a “pressurization issue,” according to the FAA.

The plane quickly returned to Portland, and there were no major injuries.

Images posted on social media showed a side panel of the plane blown out, with emergency oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling, AFP reported.

“Following tonight’s event on Flight 1282, we have decided to take the precautionary step of temporarily grounding our fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft,” Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement Friday.

“Each aircraft will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections,” he said.

Alaska Airlines said Saturday that more than a fourth of its Max 9 fleet had been inspected since the incident, with nothing noteworthy being found.

About military efforts to dismantle Hamas in the central and southern Gaza Strip, Hagari said “we will do it in a different way” without elaborating.

According to him, the refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip are crowded and full of terrorists, while in the south, the large urban landscape of Khan Yunis has an elaborate underground network of tunnels. “It takes time,” he was quoted as saying.

Earlier on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government had directed the army to “eliminate Hamas”, return all the hostages and ensure that Gaza will “never again be a threat to Israel”. The war must not be stopped until we achieve all of the goals,” he said in a statement.

“I have decided that now is the right time. On 14 January 2024 – 52 years after I succeeded my beloved father – I will step down as queen of Denmark,” she said.

“I leave the throne to my son, Crown Prince Frederik,” she said.

In July, she became the longest-sitting monarch in Denmark’s history.

In Denmark, formal power resides with the elected parliament and its government. The monarch is expected to stay above partisan politics, representing the nation with traditional duties ranging from state visits to national day celebrations.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen thanked the queen for her life-long dedication to duty.

“It is still difficult to understand that the time has now come for a change of throne,” Frederiksen said in a statement, adding that many Danes had never known another monarch.

“Queen Margrethe is the epitome of Denmark and throughout the years has put words and feelings into who we are as a people and as a nation,” she said.

Born in 1940 to Denmark’s former monarch King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid, Margrethe has throughout her life enjoyed broad support from Danes, who are fond of her tactful and yet creative personality.

She is also known for her love of archaeology and has taken part in several excavations.

She became heir to her father in 1953 at the age of 31, after a constitutional amendment allowed women to inherit the throne.

In 1967, she married French diplomat Henri de Laborde de Monpezat, who served as her royal consort until his death in 2018.

The couple’s two sons are Crown Prince Frederik, who will become King Frederik X, and Prince Joachim. Frederik married Mary Elizabeth Donaldson, an Australian, in 2004.