UNITED STATES
Carl Weathers dies at 76
Carl Weathers, the actor who played boxer Apollo Creed in the Rocky franchise, going toe-to-toe with Sylvester Stallone in some of cinema’s most memorable — and bloody — boxing moments, has died, his family said on Friday. He was 76. Weathers, who also starred in the 1987 film Predator, opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, was recently seen on the small screen in Star Wars spin-off series The Mandalorian, a role for which he scored an Emmy nomination. “We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of Carl Weathers,” his family said, according to Deadline. “Carl was an exceptional human being who lived an extraordinary life. Through his contributions to film, television, the arts and sports, he has left an indelible mark and is recognized worldwide and across generations.” The statement gave no cause of death, but added that he had died peacefully in his sleep on Thursday. After a brief stint in US football’s NFL, where he played linebacker for the Oakland Raiders, Weathers embarked on a screen career that would span five decades and include more than 75 appearances in movies and TV.
DENMARK
Money launderers sentenced
A court found two people guilty of being part of a scheme to use Danske Bank A/S unit in Estonia to launder as much as 29 billion kroner (US$4.2 billion), the latest development in what was one of Europe’s biggest dirty money scams. The Copenhagen City Court sentenced a woman to nine years of prison and a man to seven years, according to a ruling posted on Friday and linked to a verdict from 2022 in which a Lithuanian national was jailed for eight years. The two were not identified by name. The woman operated as many as 40 companies out of Copenhagen, which all had accounts in Estonia and were owned by foreigners. The man acted as a dummy director in most of the firms. The court said the two were aware that transactions at the companies occurring from 2008 to 2016 possibly were acts of laundering. “It wasn’t proved nor attempted to be proved that the sums the companies received and transferred came from criminal matters,” the court ruling said. “But based on the information about the companies and the transactions on their accounts, the court assumed the transactions had the characteristics of money laundering.” Denmark’s largest lender in late 2022 settled a US$2 billion fine with US and Danish authorities after it was revealed that a large part of 200 billion euros (US$216 billion) of transactions through its Estonian branch were suspicious.
DR CONGO
UN helicopter shot
Members of an armed group fired on a UN helicopter in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo early on Friday, injuring two South African peacekeepers, one seriously, the UN said. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN peacekeeping department assumes the attack was carried out by members of the M23 rebel group in the Karuba region of North Kivu Province. Eastern DR Congo has struggled with armed violence for decades as more than 120 groups fight for power, land and valuable mineral resources, while others try to defend their communities. The armed groups have long waged campaigns of violence in the mineral-rich region and have been accused of mass killings. Dujarric said the helicopter that was hit was able to land safely in Goma, and the peacekeepers were receiving medical attention.
‘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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