UNITED STATES
VP slams Florida ‘extremists’
Vice President Kamala Harris said extremists want to “replace history with lies” as she traveled to Florida on Friday to assail Republican efforts to overhaul educational standards. Her trip came two days after the Florida Board of Education approved a revised black history curriculum to satisfy legislation signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The board’s guidelines cover “benchmark clarifications,” including one for middle school students that states “instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Harris said that “adults know what slavery really involved. It involved rape. It involved torture. It involved taking a baby from their mother. It involved some of the worst examples of ... depriving people of humanity in our world. How is it that anyone could suggest that, in the midst of these atrocities, that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?”
CANADA
Officer accused of PRC work
Authorities have arrested a retired police officer on charges of foreign interference on behalf of China, officials said on Friday. William Majcher, 60, is accused of using “his knowledge and his extensive network of contacts in Canada to obtain intelligence or services to benefit the People’s Republic of China [PRC],” the federal police said in a statement. Majcher, a resident of Hong Kong, has been under investigation since 2021, and authorities said he “contributed to the Chinese government’s efforts to identify and intimidate an individual outside the scope of Canadian law.” Majcher is facing charges of committing “preparatory acts for the benefit of a foreign entity,” as well as conspiracy.
UNITED STATES
‘Help me’ sign saves girl
A 13-year-old girl kidnapped in Texas and sexually assaulted was rescued in Southern California when passersby saw her hold up a “help me” sign in a parked car, police and federal authorities said. The rescue occurred July 9 in Long Beach, south of Los Angeles, when officers responded to a trouble call and found the “visibly emotional and distressed girl,” police said in a news release on Thursday. “Through their investigation, officers learned the Good Samaritans were in a parking lot when they saw the victim in a parked vehicle holding up a piece of paper with ‘help me’ written on it. They acknowledged the note and immediately called 911,” police said. Steven Robert Sablan, 61, of Cleburne, Texas, was arrested and was on Thursday indicted by a federal grand jury, the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles said.
UNITED STATES
Tony Bennett dies aged 96
Tony Bennett, the last in a generation of classic US crooners whose ceaselessly cheery spirit bridged generations to make him a hitmaker across seven decades, died in New York on Friday. He was 96. Raised in an era when big bands defined US pop music, Bennett achieved an improbable second act when he started winning over young audiences in the 1990s — not by reinventing himself, but by demonstrating his sheer joy in belting out the standards. At age 88, Bennett in 2014 became the oldest person ever to reach No. 1 on the US album chart through a collection of duets with Lady Gaga, who became his friend and touring companion. Bennett, who revealed in 2016 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, died in his hometown, his publicist Sylvia Weiner announced, without revealing a cause.
Several areas of Thailand’s capital city Bangkok were inundated by continuous rain from Thursday afternoon to yesterday morning that has disrupted traffic and forced some residents to evacuate. Major canals in Bangkok filled with accumulated rainfall exceeding 20cm, officials said yesterday. Floodwaters spread across the city, particularly in the central and eastern parts, blocking roads and stopping traffic. The Thai Meteorological Department warned that the heavy rain would continue in most parts of the country through today, citing a strong low-pressure system over the central region and strengthening southwest monsoon conditions. More than 84,000 people in 21 provinces nationwide were
Japan has started its first nationwide survey of animal cafes amid concerns over animal welfare, hygiene and public health, a government official said, bringing greater scrutiny to the popular but lightly regulated sector. The desktop survey, which began this month, will examine the number of facilities, the types of animals they house and the conditions they are held in, and how visitors interact with the animals. Exotic animal cafes, where visitors can interact with species ranging from otters to owls and marmots, have become popular attractions for Japanese and foreign tourists. However, researchers say some facilities keep threatened species, raising
Yemen’s Saudi-led coalition early yesterday said it had intercepted two ballistic missiles and two drones launched by the Iran-backed Houthis toward the kingdom. The coalition said in posts on social media that the missiles were headed towards Khamis Mushait and the drones toward the capital, Riyadh, adding that it was monitoring the missile threat and drones launched at the kingdom, without providing further details. The Saudi Civil Defense had sent alerts overnight for Khamis Mushait and Abha, but not for Riyadh. The Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen and much of the north, have been launching attacks
OLD WOUNDS: Protestant marchers seized on an overturned injunction to stage a march, which drew thousands of counterprotesters to block the road in Portadown UK leaders called for calm as a tense standoff with residents seeking to halt a pro-British Protestant march through a primarily Catholic area stretched into the night on Sunday, in one of the worst crises for Northern Ireland in the past few years. The tensions were triggered after a Belfast appeal court overturned a High Court injunction in the early hours of Sunday to clear the march by the Orange Order to go ahead for the first time since 1997. The Parades Commission, Northern Ireland’s independent body regulating contentious processions, had authorized 35 Orangemen to march silently along Garvaghy Road in Portadown,
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