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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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