UKRAINE
Air force downs Su-34 jets
Air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said three Russian Su-34 fighter jets were downed in the south of the country at about noon on Friday. He said a message found on a downed Russian drone read “Die, bitches.” “Great idea! Here is our response!” he wrote on Telegram. In his nightly address on Friday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked the soldiers who shot down the Russian fighters in the Kherson region. “It’s the gain of our air force and the direct action of the Odesa Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. Thank you, guys,” he said. “May every Russian pilot be well aware of our response to every Russian killer — none of them will go unpunished.”
UNITED KINGDOM
New Banksy nabbed
Elusive artist Banksy displayed his latest work on a London street corner, but it was taken less than hour after he confirmed its installation on Friday. A red stop sign with three military drones on it was taken in the middle of the day by a man with bolt cutters as witnesses took photographs and filmed the incident in the Peckham section of south London. People commenting on Banksy’s Instagram accurately predicted that it would not be there long after the artist posted a photo of it. A man who only wanted to be known as Alex said he was among the many onlookers who watched in awe as a man in a red and black jacket climbed up on a bike next to the post where the sign was bolted to and began hitting it with his hands. “We said: ‘What are you doing?’ but no one really knew what to do, we sort of just watched it happen,” Alex said. The man then left and returned a few minutes later with bolt cutters to finish the job.
UNITED STATES
Charlie Sheen attacked
Actor Charlie Sheen was attacked in his luxury Malibu home, and the suspect was arrested and charged with assault and burglary, police said on Friday. Officers were called to the Two and a Half Men star’s home for a “battery/disturbance,” the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. Suspect Electra Schrock was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, force likely to create great bodily injury and residential burglary, the sheriff’s office said. Entertainment outlet TMZ said Schrock, 47, is one of Sheen’s neighbors, who had “forced her way into his home and attacked him when he opened the door... We’re told she ripped Charlie’s shirt and attempted to strangle him.” Sheen was seen by paramedics, but not taken to a hospital, it added. TMZ said this was not the first confrontation between the neighbors, reporting that previous incidents had included a sticky liquid being squirted on Sheen’s car.
UNITED STATES
Vin Diesel accused of assault
Action star Vin Diesel has been accused of sexually assaulting his assistant more than a decade ago, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday. Asta Jonasson said her first assignment after being hired by the Fast and Furious star’s company was to travel to Atlanta in September 2010. There, she was tasked with helping Diesel leave a hotel in the early morning hours after entertaining multiple women in a suite. “Alone in the hotel suite with him, Vin Diesel sexually assaulted Ms Jonasson,” the suit said. The following day, Samantha Vincent, the actor’s sister and president of One Race, the firm that employed Jonasson, allegedly called and fired her. Diesel’s lawyer Bryan Freedman said there is evidence which “completely refutes” the allegations, a statement published by Variety said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
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