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.
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
RSS