NORTH KOREA
Kim’s sister vows response
The powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un yesterday slammed South Korean “scum” for launching anti-regime propaganda leaflets across the border using balloons, warning they would pay “a very high price.” Since late May, Pyongyang has floated numerous balloons carrying trash toward South Korea, saying they were a tit-for-tat action against South Korean leaflets. In a statement carried by state media, Kim Yo-jong said that “dirty leaflets and things of [the South Korean] scum” were found again yesterday morning. “We have fully introduced our countermeasure in such situation. The [South Korean] clans will be tired from suffering a bitter embarrassment and must be ready for paying a very high price for their dirty play,” she said.
FRANCE
Four killed in shooting
Four people, including the shooter, died late on Saturday after a man opened fire on a birthday party in a village, authorities said. The man approached a neighboring house where a 20-year-old was celebrating his birthday with his family in Espinasse-Vozelle. He fired shots at the party guests, killing three of them, and then himself, the local prefecture said. The young man celebrating his birthday and his father were both killed. Police were still piecing together the “how and the why” of the attack, authorities said. The man appears to have shot at passing motorists before the deadly assault.
UNITED KINGDOM
Man held after remains found
Police on Saturday said they have arrested a man in connection with the deaths of two men whose remains were found in two suitcases in southwest England. The Metropolitan Police said armed officers detained a 34-year-old suspect at a train station in Bristol early on Saturday. Police also said more human remains were found at an address in Shepherd’s Bush the previous day, believed to be connected to those found in the suitcases dumped near the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol on Wednesday.
UNITED STATES
Sex therapist Dr Ruth dies
Ruth Westheimer, the wildly successful sex therapist who became a pop culture phenomenon in the 1980s with her bluntly delivered advice on how to spice up the bedroom, has died, US media reported on Saturday. She was 96. People magazine, quoting her publicist and sometime coauthor Pierre Lehu, said she died on Friday. It gave no cause of death, but other reports said she died at home in New York with family members present. The German-born Westheimer, who lost both of her parents in the Holocaust, reached fame in her 50s when she began hosting a pioneering radio show in New York City called Sexually Speaking. Known simply as Dr Ruth, she capitalized on her late-in-life fame, going on to host a television show, appear in many films and coach millions of fans in dozens of books about how to have a more satisfying sex life.
UNITED STATES
Dolphins freed in stranding
Rescuers who helped free more than 100 dolphins from the Cape Cod shoreline in Massachusetts said they have confirmed that the mass stranding that began on June 28 was the largest involving dolphins in US history. The International Fund for Animal Welfare, which helped lead the rescue, said that a final review of data and aerial imagery this week revealed that a total of 146 dolphins were involved in the stranding. The group estimated that 102 dolphins survived the multiday event.
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
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
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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