UNITED STATES
Trump to sue TV network
Billionaire real-estate mogul Donald Trump is planning to sue Spanish-language TV network Univision for dropping coverage of the Miss USA pageant he part-owns, his lawyer said on Thursday. “We intend to pursue all legal rights and remedies available to Mr Trump pursuant to the terms of the license agreement as well as a defamation case against Univision,” his lawyer, Michael Cohen, said in a statement. The network had said it would not air the pageant and has ended its business relationship with the Miss Universe Organization, which produces the Miss USA pageant, due to what it called “insulting remarks about Mexican immigrants” by Trump, a part owner of Miss Universe. During his presidential campaign kickoff speech last week, Trump accused Latino immigrants of bringing drugs, crime and rapists to the US. He called for building a wall along the southern border of the US. Trump says he was only criticizing US policies concerning Mexico, not its people. He says Univision is in default of a five-year contract.
UNITED STATES
Giant gem tussle continues
The fight over a giant emerald is not over. A state judge in Los Angeles last month found that a trading company, FM Holdings, had established clear title to the so-called Bahia Emerald, which weighs 341kg and has been appraised at US$372 million. However, Brazil contends the emerald was illegally mined and smuggled out of the country, and wants it back. On Thursday, a federal judge in Washington issued a restraining order that prevents anyone from transferring, selling or otherwise disposing of the gem until the Brazilian criminal case is settled. The order also requires the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to keep storing the emerald. The government sought the order at the request of the Brazilian government. A call to an attorney for FM Holdings was not immediately returned.
ENGLAND
Beware big bird, Britons told
Police in central England have warned locals to beware of a large, aggressive bird which has gone on the run, saying it posed a “very real threat to the public.” The 1.83m rhea, a tall, flightless bird native to South America, went missing from a private collection in Carlton-in-Lindrick, Nottinghamshire, on Tuesday and has not been seen since.
GERMANY
Hoover scares off thieves
A shop assistant in a late-night convenience store chased away two armed robbers demanding money with the hose of a vacuum cleaner she was using to clean her shop in Berlin’s Neukoelln district, police said on Wednesday. One of the two would-be robbers was brandishing a pistol and demanded she turn over the money from her cash register in the attempted robbery just after midnight on Tuesday.
UNITED STATES
‘Avengers’ star dies
Patrick Macnee, star of the 1960s TV series The Avengers, has died. He was 93. His son Rupert said in a statement that his father died on Thursday at his home in Rancho Mirage. The British-born actor was best known as dapper secret agent John Steed in the long-running television series. His son says Macnee died of natural causes with his family at his bedside. The Avengers, which began in 1961 in England, debuted in the US in 1966. It ran for eight seasons and continued in syndication for decades afterward.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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