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.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home