BRAZIL
Shots fired at two buses
Gunshots on Tuesday hit two buses in a caravan for former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s campaign tour, Worker’s Party officials said. No one was hurt. Lula was not in either of the two buses, which were carrying guests and journalists, spokesman Jose Crispiniano said. Lula has been traveling to rally support for another presidential run in October, but the former president has been convicted of corruption, and it looks increasingly likely that he is to be jailed and barred from contesting the election. “If they think that that they can do away with my will to fight, they are wrong,” Lula said at a rally on Tuesday night.
UNITED STATES
Trump eyes wall budget
President Donald Trump has raised the idea of using the Pentagon budget to pay for the US-Mexico border wall he has vowed to build. However, departments have limited authority to reprogram funds without congressional approval. Pentagon spokesman Chris Sherwood referred questions on the wall to the White House, where spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she was “not going to get into the specifics of that.”
UNITED STATES
Zuckerberg set to testify
Published reports say Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is planning to testify before Congress about how his company collects and uses people’s data. Citing unnamed sources, CNN said in a report on Tuesday that Zuckerberg has “come to terms” with the fact that he will have to testify in a matter of weeks. A Facebook representative said the company has received invitations to appear before Congress and is talking to lawmakers, but would not confirm Zuckerberg’s attendance. Zuckerberg said last week in a CNN interview that he would be “happy to” testify if he was the right person to do it. The company is facing unprecedented scrutiny following reports that a data-mining firm used ill-gotten data from tens of millions of its users to try to influence elections.
UNITED STATES
Princess tweet deleted
A Pennsylvania branch of Planned Parenthood says a tweet declaring the need for a Disney princess who has had an abortion was not appropriate and the organization has taken it down. An executive for Planned Parenthood Keystone said the group believes pop culture plays a “critical role” in educating the public, but Melissa Reed, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Keystone, said the seriousness of the point they were trying to make was not appropriate for the subject matter. The tweet read: “We need a Disney princess who’s had an abortion. We need a Disney princess who’s pro-choice. We need a Disney princess who’s an undocumented immigrant. We need a Disney princess who’s actually a union worker. We need a Disney princess who’s tran.”
UNITED STATES
Pot paradise plans on hold
Plans to turn the old California ghost town of Nipton into a marijuana paradise are on the back burner for now, although visitors to the area an hour outside Las Vegas are still encouraged to toke up privately. David Gwyther, president of American Green, which bought Nipton last year, on Tuesday said getting the myriad of approvals needed to turn it into a marijuana-themed resort could take some time. In the meantime he said plans are proceeding to renovate the town. Nipton recently got licenses to sell liquor and lottery tickets. It is also building a swimming hole and improving its small hotel.
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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