PERU
PM pledges free markets
Prime Minister Anibal Torres on Wednesday pledged to pursue free-market policies in his first public remarks a day after a new Cabinet was formed by President Pedro Castillo. Torres also told a government news conference that the administration would promote a strong government that can prevent monopolies and other concentrations of economic power. “Our policy is the free market, free economic enterprise, free business, but with the participation of the state to control monopolies, oligopolies and [other] dominant positions,” Torres said.
UNITED STATES
Soup gaffe draws ridicule
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Wednesday found herself the object of online ridicule after accusing Democratic leaders of “gazpacho” tactics on Capitol Hill, apparently conflating Nazi secret police with the Spanish soup. In an appearance on Tuesday on One America News, Greene described the Washington jail housing Capitol riot suspects as a “DC Gulag,” and denounced House of Representatives Speaker “Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress.” Greene later offered some self-mockery. “No soup for those who illegally spy on Members of Congress, but they will be thrown in the goulash,” she wrote on Twitter.
UNITED STATES
Assassin seeker sentenced
A Louisiana man has received the maximum 10-year sentence for trying to hire an assassin to kill his ex-wife while he was jailed on charges of sexually assaulting her two young daughters. District Judge Terry Doughty on Tuesday sentenced Steven Marcus Kelley, 48, of West Monroe, on a charge of using the mail to commission a murder for hire in December 2019. Kelley was in the Ouachita Parish jail awaiting trial on charges involving the rape and molestation of the girls, aged eight and 12, prosecutors said in October last year. Another inmate had recommended the person whom Kelley offered US$10,000 to shoot his ex-wife, prosecutors said. The person who had been recommended by the inmate brought the letter to police the morning after it arrived, they said.
UNITED STATES
Saget’s death explained
Bob Saget’s death last month stemmed from an accidental blow to the head, his family said in a statement on Wednesday. The comedian and Full House star was found dead on Jan. 9 in a Florida hotel room. He had performed in the area the night before as part of a stand-up tour. “The authorities have determined that Bob passed from head trauma,” the Saget family said. “They have concluded that he accidentally hit the back of his head on something, thought nothing of it and went to sleep. No drugs or alcohol were involved.”
UNITED STATES
Betty Davis dies
Pioneering funk singer, model and songwriter Betty Davis, who was credited with inspiring then-husband Miles Davis’ landmark fusion of jazz and more contemporary sounds, has died. She was 77. Davis died on Wednesday after a brief illness, said Danielle Maggio, a singer, adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh and associate producer of the 2017 documentary Betty: They Say I’m Different. Davis was the rare woman to make funk albums in the 1970s. “The reach of her influence & sonic lineage is immense,” author and critic Hanif Abdurraqib wrote on Twitter. “You’ve heard her, even if you think you’ve never heard her. I’m glad we got her at all.”
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
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