MEXICO
Blast injures five captives
A gas explosion ripped through a house where dozens of abducted migrants were being held captive in a city near the Texas border on Monday, injuring five people, two of them gravely, authorities said. Grupo Coordinacion, a joint governmental security agency in the state of Tamaulipas, said in a statement that the afternoon blast blew out the windows and doors of the home in Reynosa, which is across from McAllen, Texas. Three of the five were hospitalized, and all were from Guatemala. Authorities were trying to locate an unknown number of migrants who may have been injured, but ran away after the blast. Investigators determined the house was being used by a criminal gang to hold captive at least 60 migrants of different nationalities who were trying to get to the US. The migrants told police they were abducted a week ago.
WORLD
Shark attacks hit record
Last year saw a record-
setting 98 unprovoked shark attacks worldwide, including 30 in Florida alone, data released by the Florida Museum of Natural History on Monday showed. The previous record was 88 attacks in 2000, scientists say. International Shark Attack File curator George Burgess said attacks were expected to continue to increase as human populations grow and shark populations recover. Of the six fatalities last year, two happened off the Indian Ocean island of Reunion; the others occurred off Australia, Egypt, New Caledonia and the US. The US led the world with 59 attacks, including those in Florida, eight in each of the Carolinas and seven in Hawaii. California and Texas each had two attacks, and New York and Mississippi each had one. Australia and South Africa followed the US, with 18 and 8 attacks respectively.
UNITED STATES
Sikh barred over turban
A Sikh Indian-American actor and designer on Monday said he was barred from boarding an Aeromexico flight from Mexico City to New York because he refused to remove his turban. “This morning in Mexico City I was told I could not board my @aeromexico flight to NYC because of my turban,” Waris Ahluwalia wrote in his Instagram account. The 41-year-old bearded actor posted a picture of himself holding up his boarding pass and another in front of an Aeromexico customer service desk. The House of Waris chief was heading to New York’s fashion week. The Mexican airline issued a statement late on Monday saying that it was obligated to follow “federal requirements in terms of security determined by the US Transportation Security Administration to review passengers.” The airline said it “regrets the inconvenience that any passenger may perceive from the application of these procedures” and it vowed to transport all passengers regardless of their religious beliefs.
AUSTRALIA
Use sunscreen: Jackman
Movie star Hugh Jackman, who has again undergone treatment for skin cancer, yesterday urged people to wear sunscreen and have regular check-ups. The 47-year-old first had a basal cell carcinoma removed in 2013 after his wife, Deborra-Lee Furness, told him to get a mark on his nose checked. He has been treated several times since. “An example of what happens when you don’t wear sunscreen,” he tweeted, alongside a photo of himself with a plaster over his nose. “Basal Cell. Mildest form of cancer. USE SUNSCREEN PLEASE!!” Jackman grew up in Australia, which has one of the highest incidences of skin cancer in the world.
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.