UNITED STATES
Two die in stabbing attack
Two people died on Friday and another was hurt in a stabbing incident on a Portland light-railway train after a man yelled racial slurs at two young women who appeared to be Muslim, one of whom was wearing a hijab, police said. Officers arrested a man Friday afternoon who had run from the train, the Oregonian newspaper reported. Police on Friday night were still working to identify the man and the people who were attacked. Before the stabbing, the assailant on the train was ranting on many topics, using “hate speech or biased language,” and then turned his focus on the women, police Sergeant Pete Simpson told the Oregonian. “In the midst of his ranting and raving, some people approached him and appeared to try to intervene with his behavior and some of the people that he was yelling at. They were attacked viciously.” One person was dead at the scene and another died at a hospital, Simpson said.
UNITED STATES
Planes, subs and cocaine?
A drug trafficker last year plotted to move US-bound cocaine between South and Central America with submarines and planes, the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn said. The office on Friday said that Gustavo Bermudez-Vanegas was awaiting arraignment on a cocaine-distribution conspiracy charge. He was arrested in Colombia and extradited to New York on Thursday. His attorney did not immediately return a call seeking comment. The plot centered on moving cocaine through Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela on its way to Mexico and the US, court documents said.
UNITED STATES
Pentagon to test interceptor
The Pentagon is planning its first test of a system for shooting down an intercontinental-range missile (ICBM). The goal is to more closely simulate a North Korean ICBM aimed at the nation, officials said. The system has a spotty track record, succeeding in nine of 17 attempts against missiles of less-than-intercontinental range since 1999. The most recent test, in June 2014, was a success, but that followed three consecutive failures.
MEXICO
Drugs said behind killings
Drug violence might be behind the killing of four taxi drivers in the picturesque central town of San Miguel de Allende, a popular tourism destination that is home to thousands of US retirees, authorities said on Thursday. Mayor Ricardo Villarreal said that while the investigation into the Wednesday night slayings was continuing, the bloodshed appeared to be a “score settling” within the world of street-level drug sales. Villarreal said in an interview with Radio Formula that because San Miguel is a tourist destination, it is prone to small-scale drug sales. The four slain taxi drivers were targeted, not the victims of random attacks, he said.
UNITED STATES
‘Anti-fascist’ charged
A former San Francisco Bay Area community college philosophy teacher and “anti-fascist” advocate on Friday was charged with hitting several people in the head with a bicycle lock during a clash between supporters and detractors of President Donald Trump. Berkeley police officers on Wednesday arrested Eric Clanton, 28, at his Oakland, California, home. Police seized “flags, patches, pamphlets” and labels associated with “anti-fascist and anarchist political groups,” according to the complaint filed by prosecutors charging Clanton with four felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the