UNITED STATES
Pepe copyright enforced
An artist who created a cartoon frog that was appropriated by white racists has forced a Texas man to quit distributing a children’s book based on the character. Attorneys for artist Matt Furie said he enforced his copyright of Pepe the Frog and forced former Texas educator Eric Hauser to quit distributing his self-published book, The Adventures of Pepe and Pede. A statement released on Monday by Furie’s Boston-based lawyers, Louis Tompros and Don Steinberg, says Hauser’s book was hateful, racist and Islamophobic. Hauser’s lawyer declined comment. Pepe the Frog first appeared more than a decade ago in an online cartoon.
UNITED STATES
Band halts song use
The University of Maryland marching band will at least temporarily stop playing the state’s official song, which includes a reference to “Northern scum” and other pro-Confederate lyrics. University spokeswoman Katie Lawson said school officials have suspended the playing of Maryland, My Maryland to “evaluate if it is consistent with the values” of the school. The marching band played the song during football pregame shows. The song was written in 1861 by James Ryder Randall, who was despondent about the death of a friend shot while protesting Union troops in Baltimore. It refers to then-US president Abraham Lincoln as a “despot.” Drum major Brian Starace told the Baltimore Sun he supported the move, saying the song was never something he was “too proud to be playing.”
UNITED STATES
Crude, but ‘ours’
A southern California congressman has some rough language to describe President Donald Trump, but in a flattering way. Republican Representative Duncan Hunter used a profane seven-letter term for part of the human anatomy to describe the president in remarks to a group of party members last week. Hunter went on to say Trump is one of their own. The San Diego Union-Tribune on Monday reported that the remark at a Murrieta, California, sports bar on Friday was received mostly favorably by the Riverside County Young Republicans. Responding to a question from the audience, Hunter said Trump “is just like he is on TV… He’s an a------, but he’s our a------.”
CHILE
Logging trucks torched
Twenty-nine trucks were burned in the Los Rios region early on Monday, a week after 18 trucks were torched in neighboring areas. Authorities said the latest arson attack happened before dawn in a region that borders an area where activists in the Mapuche indigenous group are demanding recovery of ancestral territory. Prosecutors say a handwritten pamphlet signed by the Mapuche group Weichan Auka Mapu was found at the site. The group has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks in the bordering Araucania region.
UNITED STATES
Runner dies in pool
Police in Arizona say Olympic middle-distance runner David Torrence has died after being pulled from a swimming pool at a condominium complex in Scottsdale. They say the 31-year-old Torrence, who represented Peru at the Rio Summer Olympics, came to Scottsdale a few weeks ago to train. Staff at the Center Court Condominiums called 911 about 7:30am on Monday after seeing a man at the bottom of the pool. Firefighters say Torrence was pronounced dead at the scene. Police are investigating the death, but say there are no obvious signs of foul play.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in