UNITED STATES
Fox settles defamation case
Fox News has reached a settlement with Venezuelan businessman Majed Khalil, the network said on Sunday, ending a defamation case in which Khalil said he was falsely accused on air of helping to rig the 2020 US presidential election against former US president Donald Trump. Khalil had filed a defamation suit against the news outlet and former host Lou Dobbs, arguing in filings that they had fabricated claims that he and other Venezuelans were involved in “orchestrating a non-existent scheme to rig or fix the election” against the former Republican president. A short letter sent to US District Judge Louis Stanton in Manhattan on Saturday said the parties had reached a “confidential agreement to resolve this matter” and expected to file a joint stipulation of dismissal next week.
UNITED STATES
Puppy survives police chase
A puppy that was thrown out of a moving pickup truck in Los Angeles during a high-speed police chase “miraculously” survived, authorities said. The Los Angeles police department on Saturday said that on April 7, just after midnight in a southeast part of the city, officers chased a suspect who was wanted in connection to an attempted murder and carjacking that occurred the previous month. The pursuit crossed through multiple cities across Los Angeles county, including Inglewood and Westchester, when a puppy was placed in a brown Michael Kors designer bag and then “tossed from the suspect’s moving vehicle,” police said. The puppy, an eight-week-old beige mixed breed, “miraculously emerged unharmed and was rescued by responding officers,” the police department said. The puppy is reportedly in the care of South Los Angeles Animal Services.
UNITED STATES
Senior resumes bank heists
A 78-year-old woman with two past bank robbery convictions faces new charges after authorities alleged she handed a teller a polite note demanding cash during a recent Missouri heist. Bonnie Gooch has been jailed on a US$25,000 bond after she was charged with one count of stealing or attempting to steal from a bank in the holdup on Wednesday in Pleasant Hill, local media reported. She was convicted of robbing a California bank in 1977 and one in a Kansas City suburb in 2020. Her probation in the second heist ended in November 2021. Court documents filed in Cass County in the latest case said the robbery note demanded “13,000 small bills,” adding: “Thank you sorry I didn’t mean to scare you.” Surveillance video also recorded her banging on the counter, asking the teller to hurry, prosecutors said. She smelled strongly of alcohol when officers stopped her less than 3.2km away, with cash scattered on the vehicle’s floorboard, they added. “It’s just sad,” Pleasant Hill Police Chief Tommy Wright said.
UNITED STATES
Hawaii surfer bitten by shark
A surfer was in serious condition after being bitten in the leg by a shark on Sunday morning off Honolulu, authorities said. The 58-year-old man was attacked shortly before 7am near Kewalo Basin, Honolulu Emergency Medical Services said. Paramedics responded and “administered life-saving treatment to a patient who was surfing and suffered shark bite to right leg.” it said in a statement. “Honolulu Ocean Safety will continue to patrol the waters off of Kewalo Basin and Ala Moana after this morning’s shark bite. Lifeguards posted signs in the area,” EMS spokesperson Shayne Enright said.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
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