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.”
‘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
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
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,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
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