MEXICO
Police killed in ambush
Chihuahua State prosecutors on Friday said that four state police officers were killed and six wounded in an ambush overnight in a rural part of the state. The state prosecutors’ office said the attack was apparently carried out by the “La Linea” gang, which works for the Juarez drug cartel. The ambush occurred late on Thursday in the mountains near the town of Creel when the officers were returning to their base after depositing three suspects at a local jail in the city of Cuauhtemoc. The Juarez cartel is based in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, but has expanded into other parts of Chihuahua.
UNITED STATES
Film critics lack diversity
The University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative on Friday expanded on its previous findings regarding diversity in film criticism to give a more detailed look at what researchers concluded is a not level playing field for critics. The study, the second part in a three-part series, evaluated the Rotten Tomatoes reviews for the top 300 highest-grossing films from 2015 to last year. It found that 67.1 of the critics were male and 32.9 percent were female, and that of critics with an “ascertainable” race or ethnicity, 23.2 percent were from minority groups while 76.8 percent were white. Entertainment trade publications contained the lowest percentage of female “top” critics on Rotten Tomatoes, while general news outlets fared the best with 34.6 percent of reviews written by female “top” critics, the study showed.
UNITED STATES
Students save moving bus
A southeast Texas school district said three students took control of a moving school bus after the driver became unconscious and later died. The school district in Sealy, about 80.5km west of Houston, on Friday said that bus driver Gerald Gardner had just picked up students at a junior-high school and was leaving the campus when he became unconscious. The three students took the wheel and safely parked the bus, it added. District officials said three other individuals arrived at the scene and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Gardner after taking him off the bus. He was later pronounced dead. A cause of death was not immediately known. The school district said in a statement that it was “extremely grateful” for Gardner’s years of service.
UNITED STATES
Cardi B attack foiled: source
Singers Nicki Minaj and Cardi B were on Friday night involved in an altercation that got physical at a New York Fashion Week party and left Cardi B with a mark on her head. A person who witnessed the incident, who asked for anonymity, said Minaj was finishing up a conversation with someone when Cardi B tried to attack her, but Minaj’s security guards intervened. Video circulating on social media shows Cardi B lunging toward someone and being held back at the Harper’s Bazaar Icons party. Cardi B reportedly threw one of her shoes at Minaj. Another video shows the rapper being escorted out of the event by security. Cardi B was seen leaving the party with what appeared to be a bump on her head. She was barefoot. She and Minaj have been rap rivals since Cardi B began achieving huge success over the past year. In a post on Instagram, Cardi B alluded to the fight and said she was incensed because her mothering skills were being disparaged. She and rapper Offset recently had their first child together, a girl. Minaj has not yet commented on the incident.
AFGHANISTAN
Bus crash kills 13
At least 13 people were killed yesterday when a passenger bus collided with a truck parked on a road in the nation’s south and overturned, officials said. Another 25 were wounded in the incident in Zherai district of Kandahar Province, provincial police spokesman Abdul Bashir Khaksar told reporters. The truck was stationary when it was hit by the bus at about 6am, Kandahar governor spokesman Mohammad Aziz Azizi said. The bus was carrying about 40 passengers from neighboring Helmand Province to Kandahar and overturned after the collision, he told reporters. Azizi put the death toll at 15. Women and children were among the casualties, he said. It was unclear how many of the casualties were on the bus.
PAKISTAN
Chinese envoy visits
The Chinese government’s top diplomat was in the nation yesterday for the first high-level meetings between the neighbors since Prime Minister Imran Khan took office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Beijing has pledged US$57 billion in loans for Islamabad as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, deepening ties at a time when relations with Washington are fraying over how to deal with militants waging war in Afghanistan. Chinese State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) three-day visit follows a meeting on Wednesday between Khan and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Wang will hold “delegation-level talks” with Minister of Foreign Affairs Shah Mehmood Qureshi and will also call on the prime minister and Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the foreign ministry said. “Our two sides will exchange views on bilateral relations and the international and regional issues of mutual interest,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) told a news conference in Beijing. Pakistan is battling a worsening balance of payments crisis that might push it to seek a fresh bailout from the IMF, or other lenders. Pompeo’s trip, along with the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was the first high-level US visit to the new government, with the secretary of state saying he was hopeful for “a reset of relations” between the two nations.
VIETNAM
Russian weapons ordered
The nation has placed orders for Russian weapons and military services worth more than US$1 billion, Russia’s TASS news agency reported, as the Southeast Asian country bolsters its defense capability. “We have a portfolio of orders worth more than [US]$1 billion,” TASS cited Dmitry Shugayev, head of Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, as saying on Thursday. The report came during a visit to Russia by Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. It did not give any details of the deals. The two nations have had close relations for decades. Russia is Hanoi’s biggest weapons supplier and Russian companies are involved in several energy projects in the nation. Hanoi had earlier bought six state-of-the-art Kilo attack submarines, along with several warships, jet fighters and other military equipment from Russia. “The two sides have confirmed their commitment to continue developing their military ties,” the Communist Party said in a statement on Friday, after a meeting in Russia between Trong and Russian President Vladamir Putin. Vietnam has been one of the world’s most active arms importers over recent years, amid China’s increasingly aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea, where the neighbors have long-standing rival claims.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
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