16-year-old Japanese snowboarder suffers horrifying fall in men's halfpipe and gets taken out on stretcher

16-year-old Japanese snowboarder Yuto Totsuka suffered a horrifying fall in the men's halfpipe final at the Winter Olympics on Wednesday in Pyeongchang.

On his second run of the final, Totsuka dropped in and went for his first jump, twisting several times in the air. Totsuka missed his landing, however, crashing into the lip of the halfpipe, which NBC described as "frozen concrete."

Totsuka smacked into the ground, falling face-first into the middle of the halfpipe, lying still.

Here's a sense of how high Totsuka had gotten:

South Korea sentences Ex-President's best friend to 20 years Imprisonment

The secret confidante of ousted South Korean president Park Geun-Hye was convicted on Tuesday and jailed for 20 years for her key role in the scandal that brought down the head of state.

Choi Soon-Sil, who became close to Park through her father, a shadowy religious figure was vilified during the massive nationwide protests that rocked Asia’s fourth-largest economy and culminated in Park’s impeachment last year.

The Seoul Central District Court found Choi guilty of abuse of power, bribery and interfering in government business. The verdict is a potential pointer to the decision in Park’s separate trial since 15 of the 18 charges Choi faced mirror counts on the ex-president’s own indictment. Judge Kim Se-Yoon told a packed courtroom that Choi took advantage of “long private ties” with Park to force companies to donate funds to foundations she controlled and used for personal gain.

United Airlines engine disintegrates over Pacific, forcing emergency landing

A United Airlines plane flying to Hawaii was forced to make an emergency landing after its engine began to fall apart mid-air.

After what was described as “the scariest flight of my life” by one passenger, photos and videos taken through the windows showed an exposed engine shaking in mid-air after the “engine cowling” broke away.

The drama on board the Boeing 777-222 began after a loud bang was heard roughly 35 minutes before the flight was scheduled to land in Honolulu. The pilots immediately sent out a distress call and were forced to make an emergency landing.

A Google engineer on board the flight, Erik Haddad, who had a clear view of the exposed engine, apparently remained calm throughout the incident, uploading a series of photos to Twitter and quipping: “I don’t see anything about this in the

manual.”

Climber killed in fall, others stranded on Mount Hood, Oregon

A climber was killed after falling up to 1,000 feet on Mount Hood in Oregon and up to 15 other people remained stranded on the face of the mountain in difficult conditions on Tuesday, authorities said.

The injured man was airlifted off the snowy 11,000-foot mountain in northern Oregon to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland and pronounced dead on arrival, Brian Jensen of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said.

The Portland Oregon newspaper, citing state search and rescue coordinator Scott Lucas, reported that by the time rescue crews had arrived, the climber was bleeding, had injuries to his face and that his respiration was on and off.

Man slit step-grandmother's throat and tried to remove her head as he 'thought she was a witch'

A paranoid schizophrenic slit his step-grandmother’s throat with a hunting knife because he believed she was a witch, a court heard.

Jonathan Griffiths, 23, admitted manslaughter after killing Janice Griffiths - also known as Rose.

The 59-year-old victim had raised Griffiths, who is being held at Ashworth Hospital in Liverpool, since he was a baby.

Sentencing him at Cardiff Crown Court, Judge Eleri Rees said: “It is shocking and tragic that she should die at the hands of someone she did so much for during her life.”

The court heard the incident occurred at their home at Ty Rhiw in Taff's Well, near Cardiff , on June 12 last year, Wales Online reported .

Michael Jones QC, prosecuting, said Mrs Griffiths was the defendant’s legal guardian.

Cancer-fighting robots thinner than human hair are able to fight cancer by destroyed tumours in the body

Robots one-thousandth the width of a human hair are now able to fight cancer by destroying tumours in the body.

Scientists have built nano-robots from DNA sheets shaped into tubes and injected into the bloodstream.

The tubes carry a blood-clotting enzyme, thrombin, and are painted with proteins which home in on a separate protein found only in tumour cells.

When the robots reach their target and bind to its surface they spring open and deliver the enzyme which clots the blood supply to the tumour and causes it to have a mini heart attack and die. The nanorobots work fast, congregating in large numbers to surround a tumour just hours after injection.

They were found to be safe in tests on mice and pigs, with no evidence of spreading to the brain where they could cause a stroke. The treatment blocked tumour blood supply and generated tumour tissue damage within 24 hours, while having no effect on healthy tissue.

Philippines: Rodrigo Duterte orders soldiers to shoot female rebels 'in the vagina'

President Rodrigo Duterte has been branded a misogynist and “macho-facist” after he ordered soldiers to shoot female communist rebels in the vagina.

In a speech to over 200 former communist soldiers in Malacañang last week, the Philippines president gave a directive of what to do with female guerrilla fighters.

“‘There’s a new order coming from the mayor, ‘We will not kill you. We will just shoot you in the vagina,’ ” said Duterte. He went on to say that without their vaginas, women would be “useless”.

Duterte mentioned the Visayan word “bisong”, meaning vagina, repeatedly throughout the speech, although it was later censored from an official Palace transcript, replaced simply with a dash. However, the remarks were recorded as having drawn laughter from the audience.