UNITED STATES
Actress makes SNL debut
Sasheer Zamata made a low-key, but notable debut on Saturday Night Live as the first black female cast member since 2007. As usual for a newcomer to the show, Zamata kept a low profile on Saturday’s broadcast. She participated in sketches in roles including Rihanna and a teenager at a slumber party. The 27-year-old comedian and improv performer was signed earlier this month in the wake of criticism of the show for its lack of ethnic diversity. Black male cast members Kenan Thompson and Jay Pharoah were among those voicing complaints last year. The NBC series has had only four black women cast members in its 39 seasons. The most recent was Maya Rudolph. The biracial actress left in 2007. The show has also recently hired two black female writers.
UNITED STATES
Armed thieves target mall
Police say five men with guns and sledgehammers entered a crowded Tennessee mall to rob a jewelry store. WREG-TV in Memphis reported that customers took cover amid the sound of breaking glass as the men targeted Reed’s Jewelers. A police news release said no injuries were reported. The release said officers responded to the mall at about 7:39pm. Police said the suspects were five men dressed in black hooded sweatshirts and black clothes and that they were armed with guns and sledgehammers. The disturbance happened about an hour before closing at the mall, which is east of downtown.
JAPAN
Hunt ‘inhumane’: US envoy
US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy has tweeted her concern at the “inhumaneness” of a village’s traditional dolphin hunt. “Deeply concerned by inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing. USG [US government] opposes drive hunt fisheries,” she tweeted on Friday. Kennedy took up the diplomatic post late last year. Every year the fishermen of Taiji corral hundreds of dolphins in a secluded bay, select a few dozen for sale to aquariums and marine parks and stab the rest to death for meat. Fishermen and divers in the village have caught at least 25 dolphins this year in a process to select captives before the mass slaughter, environmentalists said on Saturday. Activists from the environmental group Sea Shepherd streamed live footage of the dolphin capture in Taiji, which drew worldwide attention in 2010 when it became the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary The Cove. The selection appeared to continue yesterday and volunteers working with Sea Shepherd believed the slaughter was to begin today. The fishermen defend the hunt as a cultural tradition, and The Cove was met by protests from right-wing activists when it was screened in 2010.
MEXICO
Firefights kill four
Authorities say at least four men died in a series of shootouts in the city of Agua Prieta, across the border from Douglas, Arizona. Sonora State police said in a statement on Saturday that two groups of criminals clashed before dawn in several of the city’s neighborhoods. At least three bystanders were wounded. The statement said that three of the dead men were from the neighboring state of Sinaloa and that the fourth victim had not been identified. Police found the bodies scattered throughout Agua Prieta. Authorities did not say what groups participated in the firefights, but the area has seen an increase in violence as the Sinaloa and Zetas drug cartels fight over turf.
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