SPACE
Astronauts arrive at ISS
Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday, carrying a European, a Russian and an American astronaut for a four-month mission. “Capture confirmed,” said a NASA commentator as the spacecraft docked at the ISS at 4:58pm, live NASA television images showed. The trio — Frenchman Thomas Pesquet, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and US astronaut Peggy Whitson — were launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday.
UNITED STATES
Lewis records found
Officials in Nashville, Tennessee, have discovered never-before-published photographs and records detailing the early arrests of Representative John Lewis, a civil rights icon. Nashville Mayor Megan Barry on Saturday surprised Lewis with the records while he was receiving a literary award for March, a graphic novel about his life in the civil rights movement. Lewis, now 76 and a congressman from Georgia, said he was surprised and nearly cried upon seeing the records. He said he plans to place copies in his Washington office to inspire visitors. Lewis said he had been arrested 45 times for his activism, but his first arrest was in Nashville. City officials plan to display copies of the records in the Nashville Public Library.
MEXICO
Alleged assassin arrested
Authorities say federal forces have arrested an alleged leader of a band of assassins in Acapulco. The government has identified the man only as “Benito N” and it says he was responsible for a significant amount of the bloodshed in the city. A statement released late on Friday said his arrest was one of the state’s top security priorities. Local media says the suspect was the head of assassins for the Beltran Lleyva cartel. Killings are up 5 percent in Acapulco this year over a very bloody last year despite tightened security. Authorities say 790 homicides were recorded between January and last month.
UNITED STATES
Family upset by booing
The father of a California soldier killed in Afghanistan says he felt disrespected and hurt by passengers who booed him and his family when they were getting off a flight while headed to pick up his son’s remains. Stewart Perry, his wife and daughter were on an American Airlines flight on Monday from Sacramento to Philadelphia with a transfer in Phoenix, the Stockton Record reported on Saturday. Perry said the flight arrived in Phoenix 45 minutes late and the crew, fearing the family could miss their connecting flight, asked the rest of the passengers to remain seated to let a “special military family” deplane first. Perry said several passengers in first class booed, complaining that it was “baloney” and that they paid first-class fares. “It was just disgusting behavior from people in first class; it was terrible to see,’’ Perry said. He said his son, Sergeant John Perry, 30, died of injuries caused by an improvised explosive device on Nov. 12 at Bagram Airfield.
UNITED STATES
Call to scrap bar curtains
A group of Utah restaurants wants to scrap a law requiring so-called “Zion curtains” that wall off customers from bartenders preparing drinks. The Salt Lake Area Restaurant Association plans to hire a lobbyist to push the change during the legislative session that starts in January. Association president Tamara Gibo told the Salt Lake Tribune that the 2009 law affects new businesses more than others that were grandfathered in.
‘CHINESE ASSET’: The senate cited Bamban Mayor Alice Guo in contempt after a police raid revealed a scam center operating at a facility on land she partially owned The Philippine Senate yesterday threatened to arrest a mayor for contempt during a hearing investigating her alleged ties to Chinese criminal syndicates. The arrest threat came after Bamban Mayor Alice Guo (郭華萍) failed to appear for a second consecutive hearing, citing stress. The case that began in March, when authorities raided a casino in Guo’s farming town of Bamban, has shed light on criminal activity in the mostly Chinese-backed online casino industry in the Philippines. It gained national attention after one senator asked whether Guo might not have been born in the Philippines and could even be a Chinese “asset,” an accusation she
‘DO WHATEVER’: US Representative Nancy Pelosi said on MSNBC the decision was up to Joe Biden, but her lack of a full statement backing him is likely to send a signal The re-election campaign of US President Joe Biden on Wednesday hit new trouble as US Representative Nancy Pelosi said merely “it’s up to the president to decide” if he should stay in the race, celebrity donor George Clooney said he should not run, and Democratic senators and lawmakers expressed fresh fear about his ability to challenge former US president Donald Trump. Late in the evening, US Senator Peter Welch called on Biden to withdraw from the election, becoming the first Senate Democrat to do so. Welch said he is worried because “the stakes could not be higher.” The sudden flurry of pronouncements, despite
‘STARWARS’: The weapons would make South Korea the first country to deploy and operate laser weapons, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said South Korea is to deploy laser weapons to shoot down North Korean drones this year, becoming the world’s first country to deploy and operate such weapons in the military, the country’s arms procurement agency said yesterday. South Korea has called its laser program the “StarWars project.” The drone-zapping laser weapons that the South Korean military has developed with Hanwha Aerospace are effective and cheap, with each shot costing 2,000 won (US$1.45), and also quiet and “invisible,” the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said in a statement. “Our country is becoming the first country in the world to deploy and operate laser weapons, and
US ELECTIONS: US President Joe Biden mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Zelenskiy as Russian President Vladimir Putin at a NATO summit on Thursday US President Joe Biden vowed he would remain in this year presidential race, but two critical mistakes in the span of two hours deepened concerns about his mental acuity that threaten his campaign. Biden, 81, saw the culmination of this week’s NATO summit as a chance to reassure allies who for two weeks had fretted about his abilities following his first debate performance against former US president Donald Trump. Over a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and a nearly hour-long news conference, he spoke confidently on a range of complex issues from the tax code and trade policy to