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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
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