RUSSIA
Putin admits to fall
President Vladimir Putin on Friday told a story about falling from a horse. “They were once filming me, I was training, and it happened that the horse stopped in front of a barrier and I did a somersault, literally a somersault,” Putin was quoted as saying by the TASS news agency. He did not say when the incident had happened, but that he had fallen “fairly comfortably” and told a cameraman who was filming to keep the footage. It was “the first time I heard this answer from him: I’ll delete it immediately,” Putin said.
FRANCE
Candy mistaken for drugs
A 1 million euro (US$1.2 million) drug haul announced by Paris police turned out to be nothing more sinister than some strawberry sweets, officials said on Thursday. The bags of suspected MDMA and ecstasy turned up after a “fruitful investigation” into clandestine parties. In fact the suspicious substance was “crushed [Haribo] Tagada strawberry” sweets, a perennial favorite of French children, prosecutors said.
UNITED STATES
Spock sculpture announced
The Museum of Science in Boston is paying tribute to city native Leonard Nimoy with a 6m sculpture shaped like Mr Spock’s split-fingered “live long and prosper” hand gesture, the museum and the late Star Trek actor’s family said on Friday. The stainless steel monument, designed by artist David Phillips, would be placed in front of the museum. The announcement was made on the same day former Mayor Marty Walsh proclaimed Leanord Nimoy Day in the city. “The ‘live long and prosper’ symbol represents a message that my dad believed so strongly in,” Nimoy’s daughter, Julie Nimoy, said in a statement. “My dad always loved Boston and he would be honored knowing that the Museum of Science would be the permanent home to this memorial.”
UNITED STATES
NASA gives all clear
NASA on Friday gave Earth the all clear for the next century from a particularly menacing asteroid, announcing that new telescope observations have ruled out any chance of Apophis impacting in 2068. That is the same 340m space rock that was supposed to come frighteningly close in 2029 and again in 2036. NASA ruled out any chance of a strike during those two close approaches a while ago, but a potential 2068 collision still loomed. “A 2068 impact is not in the realm of possibility anymore, and our calculations don’t show any impact risk for at least the next 100 years,” Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Pilot’s rant probed
Federal safety officials are investigating a Southwest Airlines pilot who was recorded making a cuss-filled rant about liberals as his plane readied for takeoff in San Jose, California. A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday said that the agency also reported the incident to the airline. Southwest said it was handling the matter internally. The incident happened this month at Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport and was captured by the Live ATC Web site. “F--- this place, Goddamn liberal f----,” the unidentified pilot says on the recording. “F------ weirdos, probably driving around in f------ Hyundais ... go slow as f---.” The pilot also worked in an admiring reference to “coal rolling,” which is modifying a truck to spew out more exhaust. A few seconds later, he can be heard telling air traffic controllers, “Southwest 531 is ready to go.” The plane was cleared for takeoff.
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction
DIVERSIFY: While Japan already has plentiful access to LNG, a pipeline from Alaska would help it move away from riskier sources such as Russia and the Middle East Japan is considering offering support for a US$44 billion gas pipeline in Alaska as it seeks to court US President Donald Trump and forestall potential trade friction, three officials familiar with the matter said. Officials in Tokyo said Trump might raise the project, which he has said is key for US prosperity and security, when he meets Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for the first time in Washington as soon as next week, the sources said. Japan has doubts about the viability of the proposed 1,287km pipeline — intended to link fields in Alaska’s north to a port in the south, where
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