IRELAND
Priest jailed over threats
A priest was jailed on Thursday for hiring men who said they were Irish Republican Army (IRA) paramilitaries to issue death threats and intimidate his nephew into dropping legal action. Former hospital chaplain Father Francis Kelleher, 59, pleaded guilty to four counts of coercion at the Circuit Court in Cork. The court heard that Kelleher paid three men who said they were from the Continuity IRA, a breakaway faction of the IRA, to threaten his nephew Niall Kelleher in 2012 and 2013. Niall Kelleher was planning to take a civil case against his uncle and had sent the priest a solicitor’s letter before the threats began. Police arrested Francis Kelleher in November 2013 and the priest admitted that he had paid 4,000 euros (US$6,100) to have his nephew threatened. Judge Sean O Donnabhain described what happened as “appalling behavior” and said it was a “profoundly upsetting case.”
MEXICO
Cops, vigilantes clash
Police waged a gunfight on Thursday with rural vigilantes in a poor state plagued by drug cartels, leaving eight people dead, officials said. The vigilantes, known as “community police,” took up arms in several mountain villages and along the coast of Guerrero state in 2013, alleging that authorities were doing nothing to protect them against cartels that carried out extortion, kidnappings and killings. In Thursday’s clash in Igualapa, police tried to stop a pickup truck carrying members of one of these rural policing units. The vehicle did not stop, and the men in it opened fire on police, triggering a gunfight that lasted 12 minutes, the secretariat of state for public security said. Six of the vigilantes and two police officers were killed, a secretariat official said. Several other vigilantes managed to flee, while a police commander was seriously wounded.
UNITED KINGDOM
Never mind the gap
The famous gap that train passengers have been told to mind for decades could be in jeopardy, after successful trials of a safety device to fill the gaps on London train platforms. The rubber devices, appropriately known as gap-fillers, are fixed to the sides of platforms near the doors and have apparently eradicated accidents during a year-long trial. Heathrow Express, which runs trains between the west London airport and Paddington station, said the rubber strips that had been tested in Terminal 5 would be installed across its network at a cost of £58,000 (US$88,721), and could be rolled out nationwide on other lines. Accidents from passengers slipping between the train and the platform accounted for almost half of the fatality risk on modern trains, the firm said, while less serious incidents caused delays while passengers were being cut free or treated.
UNITED STATES
Streaming site shuts down
Grooveshark, an early leader in music streaming that enraged major labels for letting users upload copyrighted songs, abruptly shut down late on Thursday after years of litigation. The Web site went dark with a message posted saying that, in a settlement with the three major record label conglomerates, Grooveshark was ceasing operations immediately and handing all copyrighted work to the companies. “We started out nearly 10 years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music,” the message said. “But despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service. That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation,” it said.
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