UNITED STATES
Hearst heir dies at 77
John Randolph Hearst Jr, a grandson of media titan William Randolph Hearst and heir to the family fortune, has died, the Hearst Corp said on Saturday. He was 77. Hearst died on Friday in New York City, the Hearst Corp said in a statement on its Web site. The cause of death was not disclosed. John “Bunky” Hearst spent most of his career at the company his grandfather founded. Besides serving on the board, he was a trustee of The Hearst Family Trust and a director of the Hearst Foundations. He also worked for Hearst publications, including as a news photographer for the New York Daily Mirror in the 1950s and as an editor for Motor Boating & Sailing magazine. He suffered a debilitating stroke in 1989, but several months later, he married 50-year-old Barbara Hearst. The marriage lasted until 2004, when Barbara Hearst filed for divorce, accusing him of constructive abandonment and cruel and inhumane treatment.
CANADA
Protester found dead
A woman at the Occupy Vancouver camp died on Saturday after being discovered in an “unresponsive” condition, police say. The cause of death has not been determined, but there is no evidence to indicate foul play, police said. The woman in her 20s was found in a tent by another protester. Paramedics took her to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, Vancouver police said in a statement. Lauren Gill, an organizer at the camp, said the woman apparently died of a drug overdose. She said the death highlights the need for more addiction services because drugs were such a big issue in the city.
COLOMBIA
Landslide leaves many dead
A landslide caused by heavy rains left 14 people dead and dozens more missing in the northwest on Saturday, a Red Cross official said. Cesar Uruena, a Red Cross rescue director, said the landslide buried more than 14 homes in the city of Manizales in Caldas state, 165km northwest of Bogota. Rescuers have reports of 14 people dead and 13 injured, Uruena said. “We are talking about an average of 60 people missing. This could be a bit speculative, but the number is high,” Uruena said by telephone. Caldas emergency services director Sandra Lopez said heavy rains pounded the area the night before and caused a part of a mountain to collapse onto the houses.
MEXICO
Eight killed at game
Gunmen who killed eight people and wounded seven at a pickup volleyball game in Sinaloa state were targeting the men at the game, authorities said on Saturday. Sinaloa prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera said while it had not been ruled out that the volleyball players and spectators were caught in a crossfire, witnesses have told authorities the assailants arrived with two people with covered faces who pointed out to the gunmen who to shoot. “The attackers knew perfectly well who they were going to kill,” Higuera said, adding that the shooting appears to be part of a conflict between rival groups. No motive has been given for Friday’s attack in Culiacan, but Sinaloa is the home of the powerful Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Elsewhere, federal police arrested a suspected local chief of the La Familia cartel in Chalco, Mexico state. A statement from the Public Security Secretariat said the suspect, Hector Russel Rodriguez Baez, alias “El Toro,” headed one of La Familia’s most violent cells. Rodriguez was allegedly in charge of drug sales and extortion in the area, and was involved in at least 20 murders, the statement said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion