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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
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