UNITED STATES
Salesman taken for a ride
A Maserati is missing after police say a man conned a salesman during a test drive. Police in Boca Raton, Florida, said 45-year-old Michael McGilvary II went to a dealership to test drive a US$150,000 Maserati GranTurismo. He and a salesman drove to a marina so McGilvary could supposedly show his girlfriend the car. They walked down the dock, then McGilvary told the salesman he would get his girlfriend. When he did not return after 30 minutes, the salesman searched for McGilvary. The valet told him McGilvary had driven off. McGilvary was arrested on Wednesday on auto theft charges, one day later, but the car was not found.
GERMANY
Car driven into pedestrians
A man drove a car into pedestrians in a central square in Heidelberg on Saturday, injuring three people, then fled and was shot after being tracked down by officers, police said. One of the victims later died. The man, who was driving a rental car, hit three people outside a bakery on Saturday afternoon. A 73-year-old German man died of his injuries in the evening at a local hospital. A 32-year-old Austrian man and a 29-year-old Bosnian woman were slightly injured. The driver, who is believed to have been carrying a knife, then got out of his car, police said. A short time later, he was intercepted by a police patrol and shot by an officer following a short standoff. The suspect, a 35-year-old German whose identity was not released, was taken to a hospital and underwent an operation.
FRANCE
Two terror suspects arrested
Two men who had been arrested on suspicion of planning a terror attack in France were charged on Saturday, legal sources said. The suspects, a 19-year-old and a 27-year-old, were arrested on Tuesday in the coastal city of Marseille and the central city of Clermont-Ferrand. Both men, known to intelligence services for belonging to the Muslim Salafist community, were indicted on charges of criminal association in connection with a criminal terrorist enterprise, as well as for possession of firearms. During raids, police recovered a Kalashnikov rifle and a shotgun, a grenade, a knife, and two bulletproof vests.
UNITED STATES
Fargo police admit error
Fargo police are planning cultural sensitivity training after an officer responding to a report of a fire arrested a man at a Native American sweat lodge. Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney said the man’s disorderly conduct arrest was the result of a misunderstanding, and that the man has been released from jail and will not be charged. “We got some new people on the police force and they don’t know about the sweat lodge. The older guys do, but this is ... he really didn’t know how a sweat lodge works or what happens so we’re gonna go through what this is about and what’s happening out there,” Mahoney told KFGO radio. A sweat lodge is a covered dome, sometimes a tent-type structure, used in Native American cultural ceremonies. Willow branches are used and water is poured over heated rocks to produce steam. This particular sweat lodge was approved by Fargo’s Native American Commission and has been at the site for years, but could use some signage, the mayor said. “If you look at the site you wouldn’t be able to tell that this is a Native American area of worship,” he 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