US detectives plan to question Justin Bieber after a press photographer claimed the teen idol hurt him during a scuffle over the weekend, a sheriff’s department spokesman said.
The alleged incident occurred on Sunday at a shopping center near Bieber’s home in Calabasas, northwest of Los Angeles, as the lensman tried to take pictures of the singer and his actress girlfriend, Selena Gomez.
“Singer Justin Bieber and actress Selena Gomez were at The Commons at Calabasas shopping center,” spokesman Robert Wiard of the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff’s station said.
“As the victim attempted to take a picture of Mr Bieber, Mr Bieber and the victim were involved in a physical altercation,” he added.
The 30-year-old photographer, whose identity has not been revealed, called 911 and requested sheriff’s deputies and paramedics.
He complained of pain in his upper torso and was taken to a hospital where he was treated and released, Wiard said.
Bieber left the scene before deputies arrived, the spokesman added, saying that detectives planned to interview other witnesses and the Canadian singer about the incident.
The Hollywood news Web site TMZ.com reported that the man behind the complaint was a professional celebrity photographer.
Citing accounts of witnesses at the scene, TMZ said the paparazzo was blocking Bieber’s car as the entertainer was trying to leave and that a scuffle ensued after Bieber got out of his car, asked the man to leave and the man refused.
TMZ also reported that after the altercation, a lawyer approached the photographer and suggested he could collect a lot of money by calling for an ambulance and filing a police report.
The cherubic-faced singer, discovered in 2008 through homemade music videos he posted on YouTube, released his first album at age 15 and rocketed to international fame.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not