POLAND
Borrowing nukes mulled
A Polish official said that the Ministry of Defense is considering asking for access to nuclear weapons through a NATO program which involves non-nuclear states borrowing them from the US. Deputy Defense Minister Tomasz Szatkowski said that the ministry is discussing whether to ask for access to NATO’s so-called “nuclear sharing” program to improve the nation’s ability to defend itself. Polish media said Szatkowski’s comments on Saturday to the private broadcaster Polsat mark the first time a Polish official has said the nation wants to join the program. The 28-member NATO has three nuclear powers, the US, France and the UK, but only the US has provided weapons to allies for nuclear sharing. Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey have hosted nuclear weapons as part of the program.
UNITED STATES
Album sells for US$790,000
A rare pressing of The Beatles’ White Album from Ringo Starr’s record collection has sold at auction for US$790,000. Julien’s Auctions said an anonymous buyer made the purchase on Saturday at a sale in Beverly Hills, California. The mono pressing was the very first in the UK of the 1968 album. The auction house said the White Album sale smashed a record set earlier this year when Elvis Presley’s first acetate recording sold at auction for US$300,000. It followed a sale on Friday of one of Starr’s early drum kits for US$2.2 million to Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay. The two-day auction included over 800 items owned by Starr and his wife, actress Barbara Bach.
UNITED STATES
Actor Freeman lands safely
Actor Morgan Freeman said he was aboard his plane when it had to make an unexpected landing in Mississippi, but nobody was injured. Clarksdale mayor Bill Luckett, a longtime friend of the actor, said the plane made a controlled forced landing before dark on Saturday. Freeman said in a statement that he was headed to Texas to shoot a segment for the television series The Story of God. He said: “Sometimes things don’t go as planned and a tire blew on takeoff, which caused other problems.” He said they “landed safely without a scratch.”
UNITED STATES
Bud Weisser in brewery bust
Police arrested a teenager named Bud Weisser — for allegedly trespassing at a Budweiser brewery, reports said. The 19-year-old was arrested in St Louis, Missouri, after officers responded to reports of an altercation between the brewery’s security officer and a suspect, NBC News and other US media reported. Weisser had allegedly entered a secure area of the brewery and was asked to leave by security. He was taken into police custody after resisting arrest on Thursday and was issued a summons for doing so and for trespassing, NBC said. KTVI, a Fox television affiliate in St Louis, said Weisser has had various run-ins with the law.
UNITED STATES
Kardashian West baby born
Reality TV star Kim Kardashian West and rapper Kanye West on Saturday announced the birth of their child in Los Angeles. Kardashian tweeted “He’s here” on Twitter and an announcement on her Web site read: “Kanye and I welcome our baby boy.” The Web site said mother and son were doing well. The couple did not provide a name for the boy. The couple has a daughter, North West, who was born in 2013.
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
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.