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.
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
RSS