SPACE
Astronauts arrive at ISS
Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday, carrying a European, a Russian and an American astronaut for a four-month mission. “Capture confirmed,” said a NASA commentator as the spacecraft docked at the ISS at 4:58pm, live NASA television images showed. The trio — Frenchman Thomas Pesquet, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and US astronaut Peggy Whitson — were launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday.
UNITED STATES
Lewis records found
Officials in Nashville, Tennessee, have discovered never-before-published photographs and records detailing the early arrests of Representative John Lewis, a civil rights icon. Nashville Mayor Megan Barry on Saturday surprised Lewis with the records while he was receiving a literary award for March, a graphic novel about his life in the civil rights movement. Lewis, now 76 and a congressman from Georgia, said he was surprised and nearly cried upon seeing the records. He said he plans to place copies in his Washington office to inspire visitors. Lewis said he had been arrested 45 times for his activism, but his first arrest was in Nashville. City officials plan to display copies of the records in the Nashville Public Library.
MEXICO
Alleged assassin arrested
Authorities say federal forces have arrested an alleged leader of a band of assassins in Acapulco. The government has identified the man only as “Benito N” and it says he was responsible for a significant amount of the bloodshed in the city. A statement released late on Friday said his arrest was one of the state’s top security priorities. Local media says the suspect was the head of assassins for the Beltran Lleyva cartel. Killings are up 5 percent in Acapulco this year over a very bloody last year despite tightened security. Authorities say 790 homicides were recorded between January and last month.
UNITED STATES
Family upset by booing
The father of a California soldier killed in Afghanistan says he felt disrespected and hurt by passengers who booed him and his family when they were getting off a flight while headed to pick up his son’s remains. Stewart Perry, his wife and daughter were on an American Airlines flight on Monday from Sacramento to Philadelphia with a transfer in Phoenix, the Stockton Record reported on Saturday. Perry said the flight arrived in Phoenix 45 minutes late and the crew, fearing the family could miss their connecting flight, asked the rest of the passengers to remain seated to let a “special military family” deplane first. Perry said several passengers in first class booed, complaining that it was “baloney” and that they paid first-class fares. “It was just disgusting behavior from people in first class; it was terrible to see,’’ Perry said. He said his son, Sergeant John Perry, 30, died of injuries caused by an improvised explosive device on Nov. 12 at Bagram Airfield.
UNITED STATES
Call to scrap bar curtains
A group of Utah restaurants wants to scrap a law requiring so-called “Zion curtains” that wall off customers from bartenders preparing drinks. The Salt Lake Area Restaurant Association plans to hire a lobbyist to push the change during the legislative session that starts in January. Association president Tamara Gibo told the Salt Lake Tribune that the 2009 law affects new businesses more than others that were grandfathered in.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
‘EAST SHIELD’: State-run Belma said it would produce up to 6 million mines to lay along Poland’s 800km eastern border, and sell excess to nations bordering Russia and Belarus Poland has decided to start producing anti-personnel mines for the first time since the Cold War, and plans to deploy them along its eastern border and might export them to Ukraine, the deputy defense minister said. Joining a broader regional shift that has seen almost all European countries bordering Russia, with the exception of Norway, announce plans to quit the global treaty banning such weapons, Poland wants to use anti-personnel mines to beef up its borders with Belarus and Russia. “We are interested in large quantities as soon as possible,” Deputy Minister of National Defense Pawel Zalewski said. The mines would be part
Cozy knits, sparkly bobbles and Santa hats were all the canine rage on Sunday, as hundreds of sausage dogs and their owners converged on central London for an annual parade and get-together. The dachshunds’ gathering in London’s Hyde Park came after a previous “Sausage Walk” planned for Halloween had to be postponed, because it had become so popular organizers needed to apply for an events licence. “It was going to be too much fun so they canceled it,” laughed Nicky Bailey, the owner of three sausage dogs: Una and her two 19-week-old puppies Ember and Finnegan, wearing matching red coats and silver
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