UNITED STATES
New ‘Calexit’ submitted
A group of Californians has submitted yet another initiative to secede from the US as the nation is gripped by one of its worst political crises in recent history. The “Calexit” ballot proposal put forward on Thursday by a fringe political group calls for a constitutional convention to overhaul one of the nation’s founding documents on the grounds that it is incompatible with what the Golden State stands for. “The current relationship between the federal government of the United States of America and California prevents California, and other states, from taking ownership over their future and must be revised,” the initiative says.
UNITED STATES
‘Fitzgerald’ sailors let go
The commander of a US Navy ship that collided with a Philippine-flagged cargo ship off Japan, killing seven Americans, is to be relieved of duty and several other sailors face punishment, a senior admiral said on Thursday. Among those being disciplined from the crew of the USS Fitzgerald are its commanding officer, executive officer and senior enlisted sailor, who will all be relieved of their duties aboard the ship, vice chief of naval operations Admiral Bill Moran said.
PORTUGAL
Fires cut off village of 2,000
Forest fires cut off a village of 2,000 people in Portugal, as firefighters on Thursday struggled to control two major blazes in the center of the country, local officials said. With another wave of hot weather forecast, the government declared a state of emergency in some central and northern regions. Summer has seen a record number of fires and Portuguese Minister of the Interior Constanca Urbano de Sousa has blamed arsonists and human negligence for most of them. “It’s impossible to leave or to enter Macao because of the flames and the smoke,” Macao Mayor Vasco Estrela told the Lusa news agency. The fire, which broke out on Tuesday evening, grew stronger through Wednesday and by early Thursday had surrounded the village, he said. Already at the end of last month, a major fire had destroyed between 80 percent and 90 percent of the village, he said.
UNITED STATES
Whale was frequent visitor
A right whale found dead in waters near Cape Cod this week has been identified as a frequent visitor to the area that was first spotted off the Cape in 1992. The Cape Cod Times reported that the 26-year-old female whale named Couplet on Thursday was identified through photographs in a database at the New England Aquarium. It was at least the 13th North Atlantic right whale to be found dead this year off the coasts of Canada and Massachusetts. Couplet’s carcass was discovered on Monday. The cause of death is under investigation. Right whales are among the most imperiled marine mammals. No more than 500 of them still exist in the wild.
UNITED KINGDOM
Malala accepted by Oxford
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousufzai, who was shot by a Taliban gunman for speaking out for girls’ rights to an education, has been accepted by the University of Oxford. The 20-year-old activist shared word of her acceptance on Twitter. She plans to major in philosophy, politics and economics, the favored degree of many of Britain’s top leaders. Yousufzai is to study at Lady Margaret Hall, an Oxford college whose notable alumni include the late Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi.
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