UNITED STATES
Unruly passengers fined
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued its biggest fines yet for unruly behavior in two separate incidents in which passengers allegedly bit, hit and headbutted crew members or other travelers on a pair of flights. The agency proposed civil penalties of US$81,950 and US$77,272 for the two unidentified female passengers. The women can contest the fines. “If you are on an airplane, don’t be a jerk and don’t endanger the flight crews and fellow passengers,” Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said on Friday on an appearance on The View. In one case on July 7 last year, a woman on an American Airlines flight was restrained after trying to open the cabin door. She spit at, headbutted, bit and tried to kick the crew and other passengers, the agency said. On a July 16 Delta Air Lines flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta, a woman had to be physically restrained after trying to exit the plane in flight and biting another passenger multiple times, it said.
UNITED STATES
Suspect freed by mistake
A man accused of shooting and seriously wounding Lady Gaga’s dog walker and stealing her two French bulldogs was mistakenly released from jail, and is being sought, authorities said on Friday. James Howard Jackson, 19, was facing an attempted murder charge when he was released from Los Angeles County’s jail on Wednesday “due to a clerical error,” the county Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. The sheriff’s Major Crimes Bureau is working on finding him, the statement said. Prosecutors said Jackson and two other alleged gang members had driven around looking for expensive French bulldogs to steal, then spotted, tailed and robbed Ryan Fischer as he walked Lady Gaga’s dogs near Sunset Boulevard.
UNITED STATES
Teen killed by stray bullet
A 16-year-old girl was killed and two other teenagers injured by stray bullets in New York on Friday after a man who was arguing with someone opened fire in the street, police said. New York Police Department Chief Keechant Sewell told reporters that the girl was returning from her high school in the Bronx, accompanied by another 16-year-old girl and a boy aged 17. A man on foot in a crosswalk was arguing with someone on the opposite side of the street when he pulled out a gun and fired repeatedly, Sewell said. The first teenager was hit in the chest, and the other two in the leg and buttocks.
GERMANY
Bunkers being reinforced
The country has started working on strengthening its basement shelters as well as building up crisis stocks in case of war, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported yesterday, citing the country’s interior minister. After decades of attrition of Germany’s armed forces, Russia’s war in Ukraine has led to a major policy shift, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledging to increase defense spending and injecting 100 billion euros (US$109 billion) into the army. The government is also looking into upgrading its public shelter systems and would increase spending on civil protection, Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser told the newspaper. “There are currently 599 public shelters in Germany. We will check whether we could upgrade more of such systems. In any case, the dismantling has stopped,” Faeser said. The government is working on new concepts to reinforce underground parking lots, subway stations and basements to become possible shelters, she said, adding that it has given federal states 88 million euros to install new sirens.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
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