PANAMA
Immigrants not threat: pope
Pope Francis on Friday said that it was “senseless” to condemn every immigrant as a threat to society. Francis was speaking after leading a solemn ceremony for hundreds of thousands of young pilgrims at World Youth Day. The Catholic Church wants to foster a culture “that welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates, that does not stigmatize, much less indulge in a senseless and irresponsible condemnation of every immigrant as a threat to society,” he said. In a wide-ranging speech to round off a massive gathering of young people in a Panama City park, the pope also made a plea for the environment that he said was “trampled underfoot by disregard and a fury of consumption beyond all reason.” Society in general “has lost the ability to weep and to be moved by suffering,” Francis said. Instead of solidarity “from an opulent society,” many encountered rejection, sorrow and misery “and are singled out and treated as responsible for all society’s ills,” he said.
UNITED STATES
Flight attendant dies in air
A Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu to New York City was diverted to San Francisco after a male flight attendant died of an apparent heart attack, officials said on Friday. Hawaiian Airlines Flight HA50 on Thursday night landed after a crew member had “a suspected heart attack,” San Francisco International Airport spokesman Doug Yakel said. Medical personnel attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation during the flight, but suspended those efforts prior to landing. The San Mateo County coroner declared the crewmember dead on arrival, Yakel said. Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman Ann Botticelli said that Emile Griffith had been with the company for 31 years. “Emile both loved and treasured his job at Hawaiian and always shared that with our guests,” Botticelli said. The airline has made counseling available for Griffith’s colleagues, she said. The airplane was carrying 253 passengers and 12 crewmembers when it departed Honolulu on Thursday. The passengers who landed in San Francisco five hours after takeoff were put on other flights, Yakel said. Andrea Bartz, who was on the flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport, and another passenger complained on Twitter that the airline played ukulele music during the emergency. “Hawaiian Airlines is still playing the ukulele/traditional singing soundtrack meant for boarding and deplaning, and I’ll tell ya, it’s not making anyone calmer,” she said.
UNITED STATES
One dead after train hits bus
One student was killed and two other individuals were injured after an east Texas school bus was hit by a train on Friday, authorities said. The Tyler Morning Telegraph reported that the collision took place at about 4pm, when the bus was at a train crossing in Athens, about 112km southeast of Dallas. At a news conference on Friday evening, Athens Police Chief Buddy Hill said that a 13-year-old male middle-school student was killed, adding that a nine-year-old girl in elementary school was injured and flown to a Dallas hospital, where she was in a critical, but stable condition. No other students were on the bus, the Athens school district said. The bus driver was also injured and taken to a hospital, where he was in a stable condition, Hill said. “My heart is broken for the families,” district Superintendent Blake Stiles said. The names of the two students and the bus driver were not immediately released. Authorities were still determining a cause of the collision. There were no wooden gate arms or warning lights at the train crossing where the collision took place, Hill said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing