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Global police sting
More than 800 suspected criminals have been arrested in over a dozen countries around the globe during an operation conceived by Australian authorities and the American FBI, after months of monitoring messages from criminal gangs on an FBI-run encrypted messaging app called ANOM. The app was distributed to criminals via middlemen police informants, authorities said. The targets included drug gangs and individuals with links to mafia organizations, from which police seized 32 tons of drugs — including cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines and methamphetamines. Other seized items included 250 firearms, 55 luxury cars and more than $148 million in cash and cryptocurrencies.
Nigeria Twitter ban
Nigeria’s telecommunications companies have blocked Twitter in the country after the platform deleted a tweet from the president, saying it violated its terms of use. The ban has been justified by alleging that “the persistent use of the platform for activities … [is] capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.” People are still able to use the platform using a VPN connection to circumvent the ban, but Nigeria’s attorney general has vowed to prosecute those who find a way to use it.
Canada killing
Four members of a Muslim immigrant family in Canada were killed in an apparent pickup truck attack in the Ontarian city on London. Authorities are investigating the potential terrorism charges against a 20-year-old man, now in police custody, who rammed the car into the family that was waiting to cross the street at an intersection. Salman Afzal, 46; his wife Madiha, 44; their daughter, Yumna, 15, and a 74-year-old grandmother, whose name was withheld, died, while another boy has been hospitalized. “There is evidence that this was a planned, premeditated act, motivated by hate,” Detective Superintendent Paul Waight of the London police department said at a press conference. “We believe the victims were targeted because of their Islamic faith.”
From The World
Addressing migration requires long-term commitment, says analyst on Harris visit to Guatemala
While in Guatemala during her first trip abroad as vice president, Kamala Harris emphasized the need to restore hope for struggling residents of Central American countries, and discouraged them from considering the dangerous trek to illegally entering the United States. She discussed with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei everything from vaccine sharing to corruption in the region.
“Regionally, you’re talking about $13 billion that I believe is lost a year to corruption. That means that there’s no money for education, building a better health care system, infrastructure,” said Adriana Beltran, with the watchdog group The Washington Office on Latin America.
Gruesome boarding school discovery forces Canada to reckon with its cultural genocide history
After the gruesome discovery of the remains of 215 children buried on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, advocates are calling for a mass investigation into other missing children from Canada’s residential schools as the nation reckons with its history of cultural genocide against Indigenous Peoples of Canada. “How could you not know that 215 people are in the ground?” asked Roberta Hill, a former student herself. “So, when the parents are saying, ‘I didn’t get my child back, I want to know where my kid is,’ OK — for 215 children, who’s accountable?”
Global Hit
Let’s talk music! ?
Dr. Enongo Lumumba Kasongo, a musician whose stage name is Sammus, adds a new twist to Afrofuturism, a concept that reimagines a future filled with arts, science and technology seen through a Black lens. The entire sound and persona of her music is built on this idea that Black people can write themselves into the future — even write the future itself.
In case you missed it
Listen: Vice President Kamala Harris in Guatemala on migration mission
Vice President Kamala Harris was in Guatemala on Monday, her first stop in a mission to work on reducing migration to the US by seeking to improve conditions in Central American countries. And, in Burkina Faso on Friday, Islamist extremists killed more than 130 civilians, according to local officials. This was the worst terrorist atrocity in the history of the country. Also, cities around the world are designing reopening plans and imagining postpandemic life. Human behavior is hard to change, but experts say this is an opportunity to create a new normal.
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