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.
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