MEXICO
10 killed in rally race attack
At least 10 people were killed and nine wounded on Saturday when shooters attacked a group of amateur rally drivers in the northern town of Ensenada, near the US border, authorities said. The motorists, who were participating in a race, were parked on the side of a highway when a group of men got out of a pickup truck and opened fire. Baja California prosecutors’ office, which has been hard hit by drug violence, announced the formation of a “special investigation group” to identify the killers and determine the motives behind the shooting, Ensenada authorities said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Novelist Amis has died
British novelist Martin Amis, who brought a rock ’n’ roll sensibility to his stories and lifestyle, has died. He was 73. His death on Friday at his home in Florida, from cancer of the esophagus, was confirmed by his agent, Andrew Wylie, on Saturday. Amis was a leading voice among a generation of writers that included his good friend the late Christopher Hitchens, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie. Among his best-known works were Money, a satire about consumerism in London, and London Fields. Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Amis’ 2014 novel The Zone of Interest premiered on Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival. The film, about a Nazi commandant who lives next to Auschwitz with his family, drew some of the best reviews of the festival.
UNITED KINGDOM
Sinn Fein beats out DUP
Pro-Ireland party Sinn Fein on Saturday won the largest number of local council seats in Northern Ireland, outstripping pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) rivals in a historic first for the province. By a wide margin of gains, the party supplanted the DUP as the dominant force in local government. Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the paramilitary Irish Republican Army, had won 143 of 462 seats across 11 local councils with just six seats left to declare. Sinn Fein leader Michelle O’Neill called the result “momentous,” telling the BBC her party’s campaign had “resonated with the electorate.”
UNITED STATES
Cobain guitar auctioned
A guitar smashed on stage by Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain sold for nearly US$600,000, several times its original estimate, an auction house said on Saturday. The busted black Fender Stratocaster has been put back together, but is no longer playable. It was signed by all three members of the Seattle grunge outfit as they rocketed to global fame. Julien’s Auctions said it had expected the instrument to sell for US$60,000 at the event in front of a live audience at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City. Instead, it went for US$595,000, Julien’s said in a statement, calling the total “astounding.”
FRANCE
Vaccinate birds: WOAH
Governments should consider vaccinating birds against bird flu to avoid the virus — which has already killed hundreds of millions of birds and infected mammals worldwide — turning into a new pandemic, World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Director General Monique Eloit said. “We are coming out of a COVID crisis where every country realized the hypothesis of a pandemic was real,” she said. “Since almost every country that does international trade has now been infected, maybe it’s time to discuss vaccination, in addition to systematic culling which remains the main tool” to control the disease, she said.
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
RUSHED: The US pushed for the October deal to be ready for a ceremony with Trump, but sometimes it takes time to create an agreement that can hold, a Thai official said Defense officials from Thailand and Cambodia are to meet tomorrow to discuss the possibility of resuming a ceasefire between the two countries, Thailand’s top diplomat said yesterday, as border fighting entered a third week. A ceasefire agreement in October was rushed to ensure it could be witnessed by US President Donald Trump and lacked sufficient details to ensure the deal to end the armed conflict would hold, Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs Sihasak Phuangketkeow said after an ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur. The two countries agreed to hold talks using their General Border Committee, an established bilateral mechanism, with Thailand
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