UNITED STATES
Stray bullet kills toddler
A 15-month-old girl was killed on Saturday by a stray bullet that pierced a wall in her family’s apartment in northern New Jersey, authorities said. The bullet, which investigators think was fired outside the building, struck the child at about 4:30pm while she and her parents were in their second-floor apartment in Irvington, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray said in a statement with Irvington Police Director Tracy Bowers. The girl, identified as Sanai Cunningham, was pronounced dead at Newark Beth Israel Hospital, the officials said. On Saturday, investigators had not identified a motive for the shooting or who fired the gun. The Essex County Homicide Task Force was investigating the shooting, the officials said.
BERMUDA
Tropical storm approaches
Tropical Storm Fay headed toward a close brush with the country before dawn yesterday, as the British island territory off the US coast prepared for heavy rains, high winds and rough surf. Fay was centered about 65km south of Bermuda early yesterday and moving north-northeast at 28kph. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 110kph. A tropical storm warning was in effect.
UNITED STATES
‘Dead’ son alive and well
An Alaskan couple who had been told by police that their son had died in a car crash was stunned when they went to inform his girlfriend and their son opened the door. Karen Priest said her husband, Jay, started sobbing, and she was in shock. “There are no words,” she said on Friday. “We just kept staring at him.” Justin Priest, 29, said he had gotten up to let out his puppy at 5:30am when his parents and brother knocked. They started screaming when he opened the door. The Priests had been awakened at 3am on Thursday by a knock on the door. An Alaska State Trooper informed them that Justin had died. They started calling out-of-state relatives. The Priests went to tell another son, Cody, who collapsed when he heard the news, Karen said. The parents and Cody drove to find Justin’s long-time girlfriend, Julia, so she could hear the news in person. Jay knocked on the door. “It opens, and right here is Justin. I don’t even see it, but Jay is sobbing. It doesn’t compute to me. Then I see him,” Karen said. “You want it to be true, but you go: ‘Am I hallucinating?’ Justin didn’t know what was going on.” “I didn’t know why they were yelling and screaming,” Justin Priest said. “I was mostly asleep. They were yelling: ‘Praise Jesus, it’s a miracle.”’ Juneau police have apologized for the anguish the mistake caused. Police had wanted troopers to contact the Priest family to find out if the crash victim was their son, but the request was unclearly transmitted or misinterpreted and the officer took the assignment as a death notification, Juneau Chief Bryce Johnson said.
UNITED STATES
Courthouse made ‘embassy’
A vacant Santa Fe courthouse was transformed this week into a US embassy in the Middle East, thanks to the magic of television. Crews have been filming in downtown Santa Fe for the USA Network pilot, Stanistan, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. The dramedy follows CIA officers, Department of State employees and journalists working out of a compound. Dexter star Jennifer Carpenter headlines the series. It also co-stars Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights) and Jonathan Cake (Desperate Housewives). An entrance of the former courthouse was guarded by gray walls topped with barbed wire. A government seal was attached to the main doors with numerous sandbags lining the walkway.
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