List of All Articles with Tag 'world'

Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a leaders’ dinner hosted by his South African counterpart on Tuesday after skipping

Race car driver Ashlea Albertson was on track to compete at a championship event in Indiana on Saturday. A few months later, she would make her way down the aisle at her wedding. But instead, the 24-year-old’s life was cut short on Friday morning in an apparent road rage crash away from the track. Albertson, who drove for the Tony Stewart Racing team, was a passenger in a 2018 GMC Terrain that crashed at around 11.30am on I-65 in Jackson County just south of Seymour, Indiana. The SUV, which was being driven by her fiancé Jake Kelly, 31, crashed after a 2016 Chevrolet Malibu pulled up in the right lane and both vehicles began accelerating, each refusing to let the other pass, according to the Indiana State Police. The two vehicles collided, causing the SUV to flip over, ejecting Albertson. She was flown to the University of Louisville Hospital where she died from her injuries. The next day, the rising star’s No 4 race car sat empty at the All Star Circuit of Champions TQ Midgets event in Shelbyville, Indiana, but was surrounded by flowers and messages left by her loved ones and fans. It was her family’s wish for the race to go on as planned at the Shelby County Fairgrounds, with her father Todd Albertson telling the local Indianapolis station WTHR, “We have to do better.” “She lost her life not on a race track, where we thought she might, but in the middle of a highway because we can’t control our anger,” Mr Albertson said. Famed race car driver Tony Stewart, who is now semi-retired, described Albertson as having an “infectious personality” and the ability to “light up a room.” “She was a great race car driver that was involved in a road rage accident and lost her life,” Stewart wrote in a social media post. “In the past, I’ve also gotten caught up in road rage. I hope that we can honor Ashlea by controlling what we can control on the highway. Losing her is a sobering reminder of how precious life is.” Loved ones said Albertson was “fearless on and off the race track” and that she was “exceptional in a male-dominated sport.” Albertson, who was fourth in the All Star Circuit of Champions standings out of 39 listed drivers going into last weekend’s race, would have been the only female driver on the track that night, her coach Ron Combs said. Mr Combs, who is also an All Star Circuit of Champions official, told local news that her car won’t be raced any more this year, but added that he hopes to see another woman with her dream get behind the wheel someday. “I’m going to think about Ashlea every time I think I’m going to have road rage,” Mr Combs added. “Ashlea will be in the back of my head. Stop, slow down, and do what’s right.” A spokesman for the Indiana State Police told The Washington Post he would “hesitate” to use the phrase “road rage,” then added that “the evidence indicates that both drivers involved in the incident displayed some aggressive driving that appeared to contribute to the crash.” Video recorded by an occupant in another vehicle showed that Mr Kelly, the driver of the SUV, and the driver of the Malibu, 22-year-old Austin Cooper, began accelerating rapidly and refused to allow the other pass on the two-lane road, state police said. The Malibu suddenly changed lanes right into the SUV’s path and the two vehicles collided, causing it to crash. Both drivers submitted to blood tests and toxicology results are pending, state police said. Albertson was to be married to Jake Kelly in March, according to her obituary. “The wedding dress was purchased and their children’s names had been chosen,” it stated. “The impact Ashlea made on those she came in contact with was strong and deep.” Albertson had been a competitive race car driver since 2011 and landed the All-Star Circuit of Champions TQ Midget series in 2017. She had several feature wins and many podium finishes, while driving for Tony Stewart Racing. “The race track was clearly her favorite place to be,” the obit stated. Following her passing, Albertson’s father posted an emotional video on Facebook. “This is one of the hardest posts that I could possibly make, but I have no words to put it out other than making a video to share with everybody who loved her and that she loved in return,” he said tearfully. “I want to thank you from my family, from myself, for making her feel like she was the best racer out there each and every time that she took the track. “We appreciate you. We love you. I’m sorry to inform you this way, but it’s only fair that everybody knows and there be no speculation moving forward. “She was a good kid, a better person. She just loved racing, she loved the community and you all have done so much for her. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Please keep my family, her fiancé, and everybody that is going through this time in your thoughts and prayers. “Those of you who go to the track this weekend and enjoy racing, please know that’s all she ever wanted to do was put on a show … and be loved and respected by each and everyone of you that followed her. … Enjoy life and every moment that it is. It’s precious. We never know when our time is.” A Celebration of Life Service will be held on Sunday at New Palestine United Methodist Church, in New Palestine, Indiana. Attendees are encouraged to wear racing shirts and cheery clothing, as Alberston would prefer, according to her obit. Read More Tony Stewart Racing driver, 24, killed in ‘road rage’ incident on Indiana highway An Ohio school bus overturns after crash with minivan, leaving 1 child dead and 23 injured A teenager killed her boyfriend and his friend in a ‘hell on wheels’ crash. She will serve 15 years to life

(Bloomberg Law) -- Edward Blum’s newest anti-affirmative action group sued Perkins Coie and Morrison Foerster Tuesday, alleging that diversity fellowships

A California woman who was shot and abducted from her boyfriend’s car in a park near Los Angeles has been found dead, police have confirmed. The body of 19-year-old Andrea Vasquez, 19, was discovered in an open field in Moreno Valley, not far from where her family say her phone last pinged. Whitter Police Department say that they have arrested 20-year-old Gabriel Esparza as the main suspect in the case and charged him with murder and kidnapping.

Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc’s Chief Financial Officer Jeff Carr is set to depart the Strepsils maker ahead of

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hit out at Facebook as detrimental to democracy after the news service began blocking access to news stories on its platforms in Canada in the midst of a wildfire crisis. “It is so inconceivable that a company like Facebook is choosing to put corporate profits ahead of ensuring that local news organizations can get up-to-date information to Canadians and reach them,” Mr Trudeau said prior to a cabinet meeting on Prince Edward Island on Monday in comments reported by the New York Post. Mr Trudeau’s anger at Facebook comes as the company has started enforcing a new policy blocking Canada-based users from accessing news stories in response to a recent Canadian law that requires the company to pay publishers for content shared on the platform. Facebook, in response, has sharply reduced its role as a news service in the country — an issue in an emergency like the one Canada is facing now as its summer wildfires have forced the evacuation of some 35,000 families in the western province of British Columbia. “Democracy depends on people being able to trust high-quality journalism and of all sorts of different perspectives and points of view,” Mr Trudeau said on Monday. “But right now, in an emergency situation, up-to-date local information is more important than ever.” The prime minister’s contention is that Facebook’s policy is threatening people’s safety — a charge that a Facebook spokesperson denied in a statement provided to the Associated Press in which they said that Canadian Facebook users can still use the platform “to connect with their communities and access reputable information, including content from officials.” The dispute between Canadian lawmakers and companies like Facebook and Google set to be affected by the payment law has been brewing for months. In comments made last year, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, said the Canadian law “is based on the incorrect premise that Meta benefits unfairly from news content shared on our platforms, when the reverse is true.” In fact, experts say, the popularity of Facebook as a news-sharing platform has helped to drive a number of news agencies out of business while reportedly profiting in some cases from the dispersal of misinformation. Meanwhile, Canadian wildfires continue to burn and push families out of their homes. Per the Post, there have been more than 5,700 fires in Canada this summer that have burned more than 50,000 square miles — with the resulting smoke felt at various points in states across the US. Read More Canadian officials ease wildfire evacuation orders in scenic British Columbia region

By Lori Ewing BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Italy's Olympic champion and showman Gianmarco Tamberi captured his first world high jump title on

A North Carolina man who brought two pipe bomb-like devices to a church earlier this year avoided jail time, after family and community members wrote letters en masse to a local court asking for leniency. Joshua Wayne Hawyley, 37, of Connelly Springs, pleaded guilty earlier this month in Catawba County Superior Court to three counts of possession of a weapon of mass destruction. The father was sentenced to three years of supervised probation, a mental evaluation, and barred from possessing firearms and explosives, as well as prevented from contacting the church where he brought explosive devices earlier this year. “Joshua is a good, caring man and deserves better than this,” his wife Savanah Hawley wrote in a letter to the court, the Hickory Record reported. “His children need him, and he needs his children. Please don’t let him go away for 2.5 years. Jail isn’t the punishment he deserves. He deserves a good doctor and medication.” “(Joshua Hawley) often fixates on various things, due to his mental status,” local resident Jackie Miller added in a letter of her own. “And at that time he was fixated on making smoke bombs — something he apparently did in his youth.” The 37-year-old was arrested in May for bringing multiple pipe bombs to Marketplace Church in Mountain View. The pastor of the church told police Hawley had mental issues and showed up to the church in a “manic state,” telling an employee he brought something for the church and asked security guards where the pastor’s vehicle was, warning the employee the pastor should be careful so the bomb didn’t “blow up in his face,” according to the Morganton News Herald. No one was injured in the incident. “I think in a house of worship people should feel safe and not feel intimidated,” Catawba County Sheriff Don Brown said at the time of the arrest. Four months before the pipe bomb incident, Hawyley had been asked to stop attending the church, after members grew uncomfortable with his behaviour, which included showing up to the facility in military-style attire, wearing a body camera and open-carrying guns and knives. Hawley did not have a formal mental health diagnosis at the time, though family members said in letters to the court they believe he suffers from mental illness including bipolar disorder and border schizophrenia. Read More Marjorie Taylor Greene addresses online conspiracy theory linking her to Jan 6 pipe bomber Convicted Colorado pipe bomber will get new trial 30 years later Hoax bomb threats target major US retailers including Walmart and Whole Foods demanding bitcoin and gift cards

Peloton Interactive Inc. is looking to college campuses as a new source of growth, starting with the University

The daughter of slain California businesswoman Laura “Lauri” Ann Carleton says the man who shot and killed her mother is “irrelevant”. Officials named 27-year-old California man Travis Ikeguchi as the suspect who shot and killed Carleton after making homophobic remarks about a Pride flag hanging outside her Mag.Pi fashion store in Cedar Glen on Friday. Ikeguchi, who was later shot and killed by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies, had made bigoted comments criticising the LGBT+ community and law enforcement on X, formerly known as Twitter, and the far-right platform Gab. In a statement to NBC News, Ari Carleton said the family “doesn’t care” about the suspect. “We will continue to steer the narrative away from him and towards my mother and honouring her. He is irrelevant,” Ms Carelton said. “The media must stop glorifying these individuals by giving them this platform.” San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the homicide as a potential hate crime. Carleton’s senseless murder has since led to an outpouring of grief and anger from her children and family members, Hollywood stars and the LGBT+ community members who have warned that her killing is a marker of the anti-LGBT+ hate currently being spread across the US. Read More A California man spewed anti-LGBT+ hate online. Then he murdered a mom-of-nine over a Pride flag A mother and businesswoman whose LGBTQ advocacy cost her her life: Who was Laura Ann Carleton? When people ripped her store’s Pride flag, Laura Carleton hung up another. This time it ended with her murder A murder over a Pride flag is sadly no surprise to anyone paying attention

Chinese soybean demand growth is expected to wane in the next few years amid slower population growth and

Ukrainian saboteurs coordinated by Kyiv’s military intelligence services are said to have carried out drone attacks on airfields deep inside Russia – one of which appears to have destroyed a supersonic Russian bomber. It is one of a number of recent assaults on Russia and its military hardware, as well as drone attacks on Moscow. The latest such attack on the capital came overnight into Tuesday. Responding to the attack on the Russian airfields, British military intelligence said that the weekend attack is highly likely to have destroyed a nuclear-capable Tu-22M3 supersonic long-range bomber. Kyiv says Russia has used the Tu-22M3 to bomb targets across Ukraine with conventional munitions. Western military experts believe Russia has around 60 of the aircrafts. The destruction of the plane, which can be fitted with conventional or nuclear warheads, underscores the vulnerability to drone attacks of Russia’s fleet of ageing but lethal long-range bombers that are a major part of Moscow’s war effort. Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC showed what appeared to be 10 long-range bombers parked on the apron of the Soltsy air base, about 400 miles from the border with Ukraine, on Wednesday 16 August. By Monday, two days after the attack, all those bombers had left the air base. A large black spot was visible on one of the aprons where one of the bombers had been parked. The attack appeared to prompt Russia to relocate other planes of the same type from the airfield to alternative bases further from Ukraine. Russia's Defence Ministry said the attack on Saturday on one of its military airfields in the Novgorod region had been carried out by a Ukrainian drone and that one plane had been damaged. It gave no more details. In a daily update on Ukraine, British military intelligence said “a Tu-22M3 BACKFIRE medium bomber of Russia’s Long Range Aviation (LRA) was highly likely destroyed at Soltsy-2 Airbase in Novgorod Oblast, 650km (403 miles) away from Ukraine’s border”. “This is at least the third successful attack on LRA airfields, again raising questions about Russia’s ability to protect strategic locations deep inside the country,” it said. Ukraine rarely claims such attacks, even if officials are not against pointing them out, but the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper and Ukraine's NV news outlet reported groups of saboteurs were behind the strikes. They attributed two attacks to the saboteurs: the one on Soltsy air base and one on Monday against the Shaikovka air base in the southwestern Kaluga region that is about 180 miles (300km) northeast of the Ukrainian border. Russia's Defense Ministry didn't comment on the reported attack on Shaikovka, but Russian media did. Ukraine has repeatedly sought to take the war into the heart of Russia this year via drone attacks. It has increasingly targeted Moscow’s military assets behind the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine. Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told the Ukrainian LIGA.net news outlet on Monday that at least one Russian warplane was damaged in the attack on Shaikovka. He said it was carried out by people who worked in close coordination with Ukrainian military intelligence but gave no further details. As for the drone attacks on Moscow – which have increased in recent weeks – Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed a number were shot out of the sky on Tuesday, but falling wreckage of one drone shattered an apartment building’s windows and damaged vehicles in Moscow’s western suburbs. Flights at several Moscow airports were temporarily suspended Tuesday as a security precaution amid the attacks, authorities said. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said that the country’s forces have made progress in its counteroffensive to retake land occupied by Russia during the invasion ordered by President Vladimir Putin – and so proving Kyiv can push back a better-armed and numerically superior enemy. Ukrainian troops have faced vast Russian minefields and trenches in the counteroffensive launched in early June, But Ms Maliar brushed aside any suggestion that Kyiv’s progress was too slow. “It's incorrect to measure this advance by metres or kilometres,” Ms Maliar told Reuters. “What’s important is the very fact that despite everything, we’re moving forward even though we have fewer people and fewer weapons.” Ms Maliar highlighted the situation in eastern Ukraine, where she said Russian forces – who also enjoy air superiority – can fire 400,000-500,000 artillery shells each week or around 10 times more than Ukraine. Earlier on Tuesday, she said Ukrainian troops had gained a foothold in the southeastern village of Robotyne on the road to Tokmak, an occupied rail hub whose recapture would be a milestone in Kyiv’s southward drive to reach the Sea of Azov. The next major settlement is the big regional city of Melitopol. Germany’s foreign minister said on Tuesday Ukraine needed more help penetrating Russian minefields and that Berlin was discussing with its partners how to fulfil Kyiv’s requests for more equipment. Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary Biden to attend next month's G-20 summit in New Delhi, while Harris will head to Jakarta for ASEAN Poland's leader says Russia's moving tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, shifting regional security Iran unveils armed drone resembling America's MQ-9 Reaper and says it could potentially reach Israel