CANADA
Parliament speaker resigns
Anthony Rota resigned as parliament speaker on Tuesday, days after publicly celebrating a Ukrainian veteran who fought for the Nazis during World War II. During a visit to parliament by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week, Rota hailed an elderly Ukrainian immigrant named Yaroslav Hunka from his district as a hero, prompting a standing ovation. However, it was later revealed that the veteran had served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. “It is with a heavy heart that I rise to inform members of my resignation as speaker of the House of Commons,” Rota said on the parliamentary floor. He expressed his “profound regret for my error” and the pain he caused to Jewish communities.
UNITED STATES
Asteroid canister opened
NASA scientists on Tuesday pried open a space probe carrying the largest asteroid samples ever brought back to Earth, finding black debris. Researchers “found black dust and debris on the avionics deck of the Osiris-Rex science canister when the initial lid was removed today,” NASA said, without specifying whether the material definitely belonged to the asteroid. The bulk of the sample requires “intricate disassembly” of the probe. Osiris-Rex launched in 2016, landing on the asteroid Bennu and collected about 250g of material from its surface.
UNITED STATES
Mass thefts reported
Groups of teenagers on Tuesday swarmed into stores in Philadelphia’s Central City, stuffing plastic bags with merchandise and fleeing, although police made several arrests, authorities and witnesses said. An Apple Store was hit at about 8pm and police chased fleeing teenagers, recovering dropped iPhones and a “pile of iPads” at one spot, a police statement said. More than 100 people looted a Lululemon store, NBC10 Philadelphia reported, citing a police officer. Video posted on social media showed masked people in hoodies running out of Lululemon and police officers grabbing several and tackling them to the sidewalk, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. A security guard was assaulted at a Foot Locker store, it reported. The thefts occurred on the same day that Target announced it would close nine stores in four states, including one in New York City’s East Harlem neighborhood, and three in the San Francisco Bay Area, saying that theft and organized retail crime have threatened the safety of its workers and customers.
BRAZIL
Organ flight succeeds
Firefighters said they took a helicopter to the top of a mountain in Rio de Janeiro state this month to tell Ricardo Medeiros de Oliveira that they had found him a much-awaited new kidney. Oliveira, a 48-year-old tourist guide who has been waiting for a transplant for nine years, was hiking in a remote mountain area when he received a notification informing him that there was a compatible organ for him, but without immediate communication with Oliveira, firefighters decided to pick him up directly. “He would have lost this organ if he had not gotten to the hospital in time,” firefighter spokesperson Major Fabio Contreiras said. Oliveira arrived in time to the hospital and his surgery succeeded. “It was a huge mix of emotions, I didn’t know whether to laugh, whether to cry, whether to believe,” Oliveira said. That was “the greatest adventure of my life.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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