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.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home