UNITED STATES
Grandma foils robbery
Authorities in Georgia say a grandmother foiled a robbery attempt by two armed men by getting into a shootout with them and wounding one man. Police told the Telegraph that Lulu Campbell had just dropped off her grandson at her daughter’s house early on Saturday morning when someone outside her car demanded money and threatened to shoot her. Campbell said the man fired at her, missing. The 57-year-old fired back, striking him in the chest. Her truck sustained eight bullet holes in the hood and one in the grill. Both front side windows were destroyed. The second man fled after she shot at him.
UNITED STATES
Number of illegals falls
A new study shows that the number of Mexican immigrants living illegally in the country has dropped significantly for the first time in decades. The figures represent a dramatic shift as many illegal workers return to Mexico. The analysis of census data from both sides of the border found that about 6.1 million unauthorized Mexican immigrants were living in the country last year, down from a peak of nearly 7 million in 2007. The Pew Hispanic Center report attributed much of the drop to the economic downturn, which has shrunk construction jobs attractive to Mexican workers.
UNITED STATES
Beautiful bulldog crowned
A two-year-old bulldog with a fetching face and a winning personality was crowned the winner of this year’s “Beautiful Bulldog” contest in Des Moines, Iowa. Tyson beat out 49 other pups for the honor on Monday in the tongue-in-cheek contest, now in its 33rd year. The event starts festivities at the annual Drake Relays track and field meet. Tyson beat out a cast of costumed and cleverly named characters, such as RocketMan, Matilda Rose and Chief McBeef.
CANADA
Dairy cow record broken
A Holstein cow named Smurf from a farm east of Ottowa has set a new world record for the most milk produced in a lifetime — 216,891kg over 15 years, and she is still producing. “That’s the equivalent of more than 1 million glasses of milk,” said Smurf’s owner Eric Patenaude, a sixth-generation dairy farmer. Guinness World Records confirmed the record on Monday. The average dairy cow yields about 35,000kg of milk in a lifetime, or less than 50 liters per day. Smurf produces approximately the same daily amount, but has lived three times longer than most dairy cows. It is her “longevity and consistency” that won her the prize, which also earned Smurf “Udder Accolades” from a local newspaper, Patenaude said. “That’s how she’s produced so much milk.”
UNITED STATES
Cuban actors vanish
Two Cuban actors starring in a film about defecting to the US went missing while en route to a New York festival where they were scheduled to appear at the movie’s premiere last week, a spokeswoman for the event said on Monday. Actress Anailin de la Rua de la Torre and actor Javier Nunez Florian, cast members of Una Noche (One Night), failed to appear at the Tribeca Film Festival debut on Thursday, prompting reports that the two may have defected — a case of real life imitating art. The film, directed by New York University film school graduate Lucy Mulloy, follows the journey of three Cuban teenagers trying to escape the poverty of their homeland to start a new life in Miami.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing