RUSSIA
Astronauts return to Earth
Three astronauts yesterday returned to Earth after more than six months aboard the International Space Station. A Russian Soyuz capsule with NASA’s Serena Aunon-Chancellor, Russian Sergey Prokopyev and German Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency (ESA) landed on the snow-covered steppes in Kazakhstan, about 140km southeast of the city of Dzhezkazgan. They touched down a minute ahead of schedule at 11:02am. The crew radioed that they were feeling fine. Russian rescue teams in helicopters and all-terrain vehicles rushed to the landing site to extract the astronauts from the capsule charred by a fiery ride through the atmosphere. The trio had spent 197 days in space. It was the first mission for Aunon-Chancellor and Prokopyev, while Gerst flew his second to a total of 362 days in orbit, setting the ESA’s flight duration record.
UNITED KINGDOM
Drones halt Gatwick flights
Gatwick Airport in Britain was forced to ground flights after reports of drones flying over the airfield, the airport said yesterday. Flights into the airport, which is south of London, were diverted to other cities across the country, while passengers waiting to take off faced long delays just days ahead of Christmas, the UK’s Press Association news agency reported. “Following reports of two drones flying over the Gatwick Airport airfield, we have had to suspend flights while this is investigated,” Gatwick Airport said in a statement late on Wednesday night. “We apologize to any affected passengers for this inconvenience, but the safety of our passengers is our foremost priority.” The runway has since reopened, but passengers continue to face delays while airlines “catch up on the flight schedule,” the airport said yesterday morning. Sussex Police was investigating the incident, it added. Gatwick is the eighth-busiest airport in Europe.
UNITED STATES
Officers die in railway pursuit
Edward Brown of Chicago, 24, was on Wednesday charged with two felony weapons contraventions in connection with the deaths of two Chicago police officers who were hit and killed by a speeding commuter train earlier this week. Officers Eduardo Marmolejo, 37, and Conrad Gary, 31, were investigating a report of gunfire near railroad tracks on the city’s Far South Side on Monday when they were hit by a southbound train going at least 96.5kph, police said. The two officers, assigned to the Chicago Police Department’s Calumet District, were on foot and on the tracks during rush-hour while pursuing a suspect along the Metra railway line when they were killed, police said.
UNITED STATES
Obama visits kids as Santa
Former US president Barack Obama on Wednesday took on a new high-profile role as Father Christmas for a surprise visit to sick children in Washington. Sporting a festive Santa hat and armed with a sack of gifts, he delighted young patients at Children’s National hospital with gifts and hugs. “I just want to say thank you to all of you guys,” Obama told staff, who greeted him with rapturous cheers, in a video he shared on his Twitter account. “We’ve had the chance to talk to some of the wonderful kids and their families,” he said. “As the dad of two girls, I can only imagine in that situation to have nurses and staff and doctors and people who are caring for them, and looking after them ... that’s the most important thing there is.”
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