RUSSIA
Security forces storm prison
Security forces yesterday stormed a detention center in the southern region of Rostov, killing inmates who had taken two members of staff hostage, state news agency RIA Novosti reported. The hostages at the pretrial detention center were uninjured, RIA Novosti said, citing the Federal Penitentiary Service. It said that the hostage takers had been “liquidated,” with other local news outlets reporting that at least some of the prisoners had been killed. Earlier, state news agency TASS, citing unnamed sources, said that six hostage takers were armed with a penknife, a rubber baton and a fire axe. The prisoners include men accused of links to the Islamic State group, it said.
UNITED STATES
Nine injured in shooting
Nine people were on Saturday injured, including two young children and their mother, after a shooter opened fire at a splash pad in a Detroit suburb where families gathered to escape the summer heat. Law enforcement tracked a suspect to a home, where the man, whose name was not released, died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said. An eight-year-old boy was shot in the head and in critical condition on Saturday night, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard told a news conference. The boy’s mother also was in critical condition after being wounded in the abdomen and leg, and his four-year-old brother was in stable condition with a leg wound. The other six victims, all 30 or older, were in stable condition, Bouchard said. The shooting, which occurred just after 5pm at a city park, appeared to be random, with the attacker walking to the splash pad and firing as many as 28 times, stopping multiple times to reload, he said. “In terms of the ‘why,’ I don’t know,” he said of the shooter’s motive.
UNITED KINGDOM
Cow-ramming sparks outrage
The interior minister on Saturday demanded an “urgent explanation” after police officers were filmed ramming a runaway cow with their car. The Surrey Police force said it had referred itself to the police ethics watchdog after officers on Friday evening responded to reports of a loose cow “running at members of the public” in Staines-upon-Thames. It said officers spent several hours trying to catch the animal, and eventually “a decision was made to stop it using a police car.” Footage published on social media showed a cow running in a residential road being hit by a police car, getting up and then being hit again. “I can think of no reasonable need for this action. I’ve asked for a full, urgent explanation for this. It appears to be unnecessarily heavy handed,” Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs James Cleverly wrote on X. The footage drew anger in animal-loving Britain. “What sort of monster rams a calf?” BBC nature presenter Chris Packham wrote on X.
UNITED STATES
Trump confuses doctor
Former president Donald Trump on Saturday challenged 81-year-old US President Joe Biden to take a cognitive test, but then confused the name of the doctor who performed his own assessment. Trump extolled his powers of mental recall in a speech in Detroit, challenging Biden to take the same exam he says he underwent in 2018 with then-White House physician Ronny Jackson. However, he immediately flubbed the name of the former official, who is now one of his loyal supporters in Congress. “Doc Ronny Johnson,” said Trump, who turned 78 on Friday. “Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas?” he continued. “He said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history, so I liked him very much.”
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
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