UNITED STATES
Ship to help Colombia
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said that the Pentagon will send a hospital ship to Colombia to help cope with strains on medical systems caused by the Venezuelan refugee crisis. Mattis said Colombian President Ivan Duque embraced the proposal during talks on Friday morning in Bogota. Some details of the plan for dispatching the USNS Comfort from Norfolk, Virginia, have not yet been worked out. Mattis said the ship would probably visit other South American countries also feeling the effects of the refugee problem.
UNITED STATES
Radio host shocked
A Wisconsin sports talk radio host had a good reason when listeners heard dead air this week: He had just been struck by lightning. Bill Michaels was hit on Thursday in Eau Claire as he hosted his show from the patio of a golf club as thunderstorms moved in. Michaels told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he was sitting at a metal-mesh table when he was jolted by lightning. He said it burned his arms and fingers and blew out his shoe. Michaels got up, said he could not finish his show and went to a hospital. His wife, Sherry Michaels, said on Facebook that her husband spent four hours in a hospital before being released with a bad headache and some numbness in his extremities.
CANADA
Woman charged over shove
A woman accused of injuring her 16-year-old friend when she pushed the teen off a bridge in Washington state has been charged with reckless endangerment following a shove captured on video that went viral. The KGW television station on Friday reported that charging documents filed by the Clark County Prosecuting Attorney’s office say Taylor Smith created “a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury” to Jordan Holgerson, who was pushed off a bridge on Aug. 7 at Moulton Falls, northeast of Vancouver, Washington, and fell 18m. She sustained injuries ranging from broken ribs to punctured lungs. New video obtained by NBC News shows a woman urging Holgerson to jump. In it a woman tells Holgerson to “just go” and “I’m going to push you.” Video that was posted earlier on YouTube and later removed shows Holgerson standing on the bridge with friends. Then a woman is seen forcefully pushing her off the span.
GEORGIA
Cubes solved under water
An 18-year-old student on Friday solved six Rubik’s Cubes under water in one breath in a bid to set a new Guinness World Record. Vako Marchelashvili was submerged in a glass tank for just over 1 minute, 44 seconds as he flipped, turned and solved the cubes in front of a crowd at the Gino Paradise aqua park in Tbilisi. He said he had been preparing for the challenge for six months, training several hours a day. “I trained a lot planning to break a record and to ensure my safety, because even a small mistake could be dangerous and life-altering,” Marchelashvili said afterward. “I think my result will stay as a record for a long time. I hope to break many other records.” After observing Marchelashvili’s attempt, the Georgian Records Federation issued a diploma confirming his result. The evidence is to be sent to the Guinness World Records headquarters for verification. The current underwater record of five cubes was set by Anthony Brooks in New Jersey in the US in August 2014, according to the Guinness World Record Web site.
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
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