UNITED STATES
Mick Jagger in treatment
The Rolling Stones are postponing their latest tour so Mick Jagger can receive medical treatment. The band on Saturday announced that Jagger was told by doctors that “he cannot go on tour at this time.” Jagger “is expected to make a complete recovery so that he can get back on stage as soon as possible,” the band said. No more details about 75-year-old Jagger’s condition were provided. The Stones’ No Filter Tour was expected to start on April 20 in Miami. “I really hate letting you down like this,” Jagger tweeted. “I’m devastated for having to postpone the tour but I will be working very hard to be back on stage as soon as I can.”
NICARAGUA
Four hurt during protest
A day after the government pledged to restore the right to protest, at least four people were hurt and 10 detained during a demonstration calling for the release of prisoners, the opposition said on Saturday. One of the wounded was linked to the government, said Silvia Gutierrez of the UNAB opposition umbrella group, who provided the toll and the number of detainees. The clash came a day after President Daniel Ortega’s government and the opposition reached an agreement to restore protest and press freedom rights while disarming paramilitaries, following a year-long political upheaval that left hundreds dead. The injuries occurred at a commercial center in downtown Managua, where more than 150 people had gathered ahead of a march.
ITALY
Anti-gay meet protested
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday marched in the northern city of Verona to protest a meeting of the US-based anti-gay, anti-abortion World Congress of Families. However, while the Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini addressed the congress, coalition partners the Five Star Movement denounced the organization’s values. A colorful procession of feminists and LGBT advocates from several European countries marched through the city center to state their opposition to the ultra-conservative policies of the movement. Advocates came from as far afield as the UK, Croatia, Germany, Poland and Switzerland to protest.
UNITED STATES
Priest faces federal trial
A priest who was captured after fleeing the country decades ago is facing a federal trial on charges that he sexually abused a New Mexico boy in the early 1990s at an air force base and veterans’ cemetery. Arthur Perrault, a one-time pastor in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated sexual abuse and others counts. His trial is set to begin today in Santa Fe with jury selection. The church sent Perrault to New Mexico in the 1960s for treatment at a center for pedophile priests. Federal authorities have said in court documents that he had as many as eight other victims.
BRAZIL
Coup celebrations allowed
A federal judge on Saturday overruled a lower court ruling that had banned celebrations called by President Jair Bolsonaro to mark the 55th anniversary of the coup that instituted the country’s 1964-to-1985 military regime. Judge Ivani Silva da Luz banned celebrations on Friday, saying they were not “compatible with the process of democratic reconstruction.” However, Judge Maria do Carmo Cardoso on Saturday overruled Da Luz and said there were no “objective reasons” for prohibiting the celebrations.
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
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
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