FRANCE
No-show stops rape trial
The trial of a man accused of recruiting strangers to rape his heavily sedated wife was yesterday suspended after he failed to show up in court due to ill health. The presiding judge had adjourned the trial of Dominique Pelicot until yesterday after the accused was excused from attending proceedings for most of last week because of his deteriorating health. However, his lawyer said that Pelicot, 71, was still not well enough to attend. “He will not be there today,” Beatrice Zavarro said, unless “he is taken by force” from his cell. She said Pelicot was suffering from “a clot in the bladder” and the beginning of a kidney infection. “I have been advised that Mr Pelicot has refused his extraction” from his cell, presiding judge Roger Arata said.
BOTSWANA
1,094-carat diamond found
Lucara Diamond Corp has recovered another mammoth diamond from a local mine, its second major find in a month. The latest gem weighed 1,094 carats and was found at the Karowe mine, Lucara said in a statement. While it is smaller than the 2,942-carat stone discovered at the same site last month, it is still about a third the size of the biggest-ever found, the Cullinan Diamond of South Africa. Lucara’s Karowe project is famous for giant stones, and the company’s shares jumped more than a third last month when the initial mammoth finding was announced. CEO William Lamb said the latest discovery further validated an expansion of the site’s underground capacity, which would extend the life of the project to at least 2040.
UNITED STATES
Subway shooting injures 4
Four people were wounded at a Brooklyn subway station on Sunday when police officers shot at a man threatening them with a knife, the authorities said. The people hit by police gunfire included the man with the blade, one of the officers and two innocent bystanders. The bloody confrontation began when two officers confronted a man who had entered the station without paying his fare, officials said. One of the bystanders, a 49-year-old man, was hospitalized in critical condition. The man suspected of evading his fare, 37, was shot several times, but was in stable condition. A 26-year-old woman suffered a graze wound. The wounded police officer had a bullet enter his torso under his armpit and lodge in his back, but was also expected to recover. New York City Police Department Interim Police Commissioner Thomas Donlan promised a thorough investigation into the shooting. “But right now, we are grateful that our officer will be OK,” he told reporters.
HUNGARY
Short-term rentals banned
Residents of Budapest’s sixth district have narrowly voted to ban short-term rentals from 2026 in a decision that could have wider ramifications for the housing market in one of Europe’s most popular tourist destinations. Eurostat figures show almost 719 million guest nights spent in the EU were booked via online platforms Airbnb, Booking, Expedia and Tripadvisor last year, with Paris leading EU capitals with more than 19 million guest nights. Within central Europe, Budapest was the most popular for short-term stays, with 6.7 million guest nights. Results published on the Budapest district’s Web site early yesterday showed 54 percent of voters backing the ban with 20.52 percent turnout, which the district said was well above levels seen at other local initiatives. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government is mulling regulation on short-term rentals, which it blames for a housing shortage and high prices.
‘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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