CANADA
Sikh activist’s home targeted
Shots appear to have been fired at the home of a Sikh separatist activist, police said on Monday, following recent allegations by Ottawa and Washington that Indian dissidents living abroad in both countries have been targeted for assassination. Constable Tyler Bell-Morena said Peel Regional Police were alerted by construction crews about what appeared to be “a bullet hole in a window of the home” of Inderjit Singh Gosal in Ontario, and are investigating. Gosal is also a close associate of prominent Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US Sikh activist in New York whom US authorities say was the target of a thwarted assassination plot in the US last year. There were no injuries in the shooting as the Ontario home is under construction and currently unoccupied.
UNITED STATES
Kennedy apologizes
Robert Kennedy Jr’s presidential ambitions resulted in public family drama after a political action committee aired a Super Bowl advertisement invoking the Democratic family’s legacy to implicitly compare the independent candidate to his assassinated uncle, former president John F. Kennedy. The 30-second spot, financed by the American Values 2024 Super Political Action Committee (PAC) that is backing Kennedy, featured a shortened version of a campaign song that the 35th president used in his 1960 campaign. The spot also mimicked cartoon and newsreel effects using black-and-white pictures of Robert Kennedy Jr similar to the former president. However, in a notable departure from John F. Kennedy’s bygone Democratic Party dynasty, the ad urged Americans to “Vote Independent.” After the game, Robert Kennedy Jr responded to online criticism, including from one of his cousins, emphasizing that his campaign did not produce the spot, which cost an estimated US$7 million. “I’m so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain,” Kennedy wrote late on Sunday night on X, formerly Twitter.
UNITED STATES
Pastor arrested for narcotics
A Connecticut pastor has been arrested on allegations that he sold crystal methamphetamine out of his church’s rectory, police said. The reverend of a United Methodist Church in Woodbury was taken into custody on Friday last week after police received a tip about the drugs, authorities said. The pastor was charged with possession of narcotics with intent to sell, possession of a controlled substance and use of drug paraphernalia, among other charges. The reverend was released on US$10,000 bail and was ordered to appear in Waterbury Superior Court on Friday next week.
GREECE
Gunman kills three
A man shot three people dead at the premises of a shipping company in a coastal suburb of Athens on Monday before killing himself, a Greek police source said. The shooter broke into the building in Glyfada belonging to European Product Carriers and killed two men and a woman before barricading himself inside, the source said. Greek media reported the gunman was an Egyptian employee of the company who had been made redundant and that he was found dead in the basement with his weapon next to him. A police source said that preliminary findings pointed to a suicide. Police earlier said officers entered the building and evacuated two women the shooter had locked in the toilets. Nearby roads were closed and a large police presence surrounded the building.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
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