CHINA
Astronauts arrive at station
Three astronauts, including the country’s only female spaceflight engineer, yesterday entered the Tiangong space station following an early-morning launch into orbit. The Shenzhou-19 mission took off with its trio of space explorers at 4:27am from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Xinhua and China Central Television reported. Among the crew is Wang Haoze, 34, the nation’s only female spaceflight engineer, the China Manned Space Agency said. The crew arrived at 12:51pm and met with the astronauts from the previous Shenzhou-18 mission, “starting a new round of in-orbit crew handover,” Xinhua reported.
Photo: AFP
AUSTRALIA
Police recover stolen coins
Police yesterday said that they had recovered more than 40,000 stolen limited-edition coins based on the hit children’s animated series Bluey. The Bluey coins, with a face value of A$1 (US$0.65) each, were found on Tuesday afternoon in a storage business in the Sydney suburb of Wentworthville, a police statement said. Bluey is the name of a blue heeler puppy who lives with her cattle dog family in Brisbane, where the series is produced. The 40,061 recovered coins were still in the Royal Australian Mint plastic bags that they had been stolen in three months earlier, police said. Police were notified on July 12 that 63,000 of the yet-to-be-released series of coins produced by the national mint in Canberra had been stolen from a warehouse in the Sydney suburb of Wetherill Park, not far from where the coins were recovered. Police formed Strike Force Bandit to investigate. Bandit is the name of Bluey’s father. Three people have been charged over the theft.
UNITED KINGDOM
Shipyard blaze hurts two
Two people have been hospitalized after a fire broke out at the shipyard that builds Britain’s nuclear-powered submarines, but there is “no nuclear risk,” police said yesterday. Cumbria Constabulary said that a “significant” fire broke out soon after midnight at the BAE Systems shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness, northwest England. Two people were taken to hospitals with suspected smoke inhalation and there were no other casualties, it said. It advised people living nearby to stay indoors, and keep doors and windows closed.
UNITED STATES
Jaywalking allowed in NY
Jaywalking — or crossing a street outside of the crosswalk or against traffic lights — is now legal in New York City. Legislation passed by the city council last month officially became law over the weekend after New York Mayor Eric Adams declined to take action — either by signing or vetoing it — after 30 days. Council Member Mercedes Narcisse, who sponsored the legislation, said that the new law ends racial disparities in enforcement, as more than 90 percent of the jaywalking tickets issued last year went to black or Latino people. “Let’s be real, every New Yorker jaywalks. People are simply trying to get where they need to go,” she said in an e-mailed statement. “Laws that penalize common behaviors for everyday movement shouldn’t exist, especially when they unfairly impact communities of color.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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