LIBYA
IS claims deadly attack
The Islamic State (IS) group on Saturday claimed responsibility for an attack on a town in the southern desert that killed nine people and in which several people were kidnapped, according to a resident. The militant group, which made its claim in a statement on its news agency Amaq, said 29 people had been either killed or wounded in Friday’s attack. A military source said the assailants had occupied a police station in the oasis town of Tazerbo, north of Kufra, until residents expelled them. A resident said nine people had been killed in all and 10 wounded.
UNITED KINGDOM
Director Nicolas Roeg dies
Nicolas Roeg, a director of provocative and otherworldly films who gave Mick Jagger and David Bowie enduring screen roles, has died. He was 90. The British director of Don’t Look Now and many other films died on Friday night, his son, Nicolas Roeg Jr, told the Britain’s Press Association. “He was a genuine dad,” he said on Saturday. “He just had his 90th birthday in August.” During the 1970s, Roeg sent Jenny Agutter and his son Luc Roeg on the Australian Outback odyssey Walkabout, and gave Jagger a big-screen role in the thriller Performance.
INDIA
Police face off with tribe
Police officers had a nervous long-distance face-off with the tribe that killed a US missionary, in their latest bid to locate his body on a remote island. The police team, which took a boat just off North Sentinel island on Saturday, spotted men from the Sentinelese tribe on the beach where John Allen Chau was last seen, the region’s police chief Dependra Pathak said. Using binoculars, officers — in a police boat about 400m from the shore — saw the men armed with bows and arrows, the weapons reportedly used by the isolated tribe to kill Chau as he shouted Christian phrases at them. “They stared at us and we were looking at them,” Pathak said. The boat withdrew to avoid any chance of a confrontation.
UNITED STATES
Deli owner thwarts robbery
A deli owner whipped out a machete and chased away a would-be robber who has been charged with holding up five New York businesses in the past two months. Ana Guevara told Newsday that she now realizes she and her husband could have been killed in the confrontation at Deli and Pupuseria in Huntington Station on Long Island on Wednesday. Manuel Guevara said suspect Carlos Garcia had a fake gun. The 35-year-old Garcia was charged on Thursday in robberies at two cellphone stores, two delis and a laundromat. A suspected getaway driver, 53-year-old Angela Reilly, was also arrested.
UNITED STATES
Dog treks nearly 2,000km
Eighteen months after Sinatra the brown-and-white husky disappeared from his home in New York, he ended up wandering in a Florida neighborhood, where 13-year-old Rose Verrill took him in. It turned out Sinatra once belonged to 16-year-old Zion Willis, who died in a gun accident in Brooklyn, New York, in 2015. He was to be reunited with her family in Baltimore yesterday. No one knows how the dog traveled 1,931km from New York to Seffner, which is near Tampa, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Sinatra was a 14th birthday gift for Zion. One day a year-and-a-half after Zion’s death, the dog left and never came home. It was a tragic loss for Zion’s grieving parents.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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