MEXICO
University shooting kills two
Mexico City officials said at least two people have died in a shooting on Friday following a dispute on the vast National Autonomous University campus. The university said the two people involved were not part of the university community, but has not identified them. The city prosecutor’s office said two men aged 20 and 29 died at a hospital after the incident, which occurred near the university’s Department of Accounting and Administration. Both institutions have said they are investigating. The university has about 350,000 students, although many of them attend school at sites outside the main campus, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
UNITED STATES
Brown to subsidize actors
Brown University on Friday announced that it would provide scholarships to cover tuition for all master’s degree students studying acting and directing. The Ivy League university in Rhode Island said it wants to ease student debt, diversify the pool of actors and directors in training, encourage innovation in the arts and ultimately redefine whose stories are told on stage. The university is to begin providing the funds in the 2018-2019 academic year for students in the Brown/Trinity Repertory Company master of fine arts programs in acting and directing. The university anticipates 40 to 50 students will receive the scholarships, which would also be extended to future students. Patricia Ybarra, chair of Brown’s theater arts and performance studies department, said even successful artists often cannot repay debt, which deters students from low and middle-income families from applying to master of fine arts programs.
UNITED STATES
Chase kicked in self-defense
A New York man said he kicked actor Chevy Chase in self-defense after the comedian climbed into a vehicle and tried to punch him during a profanity-laced traffic dispute. Chase told police he was cut off by another driver on Feb. 9. Thinking his car might be damaged, he said he followed the car across the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, with both drivers pulling over in South Nyack. A passenger in the truck, Michael Landrio, told the New York Post that the former Saturday Night Live star got into their vehicle and tried to punch him. Landrio said that is when he kicked Chase, sending him flying. A spokeswoman for Chase said the actor did not get into the vehicle and did not try to attack Landrio. Landrio was charged with harassment. Chase was not charged.
UNITED STATES
Retiree wins sweepstakes
A Pennsylvania retiree has won US$1 million up-front and US$5,000 per week for the rest of her life through the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. Members of the marketing company’s Prize Patrol on Friday surprised 72-year-old Jo-Ann Snyder at her home in Wilkes-Barre with oversized checks, flowers and balloons. Snyder said she and her husband, Michael Snyder, a part-time mechanic, can now fulfill their dream of traveling US Route 66 from Chicago to California. Jo-Ann Snyder is to get to choose an heir who will also get US$5,000 per week for the rest of their life. The retired optical company worker had only one gripe during the excitement: She said it would have been nice to have some advance notice so she could have done her hair.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
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