NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
_1 Asylum seekers: The U.S. government has sent about 900 mostly Central American and Cuban migrants back to the northern Mexico border city of Matamoros since expanding its controversial “remain in Mexico” program to the easternmost point on the shared border two weeks ago, Mexican authorities say. They are among nearly 3,000 people with pending U.S. immigration proceedings who have been sent back to wait in Mexico’s Tamaulipas state, where the U.S. State Department warns Americans to avoid all travel due to high levels of violence and kidnapping. Under the program, migrants who turn themselves over to U.S. authorities and request asylum, are returned to Mexico after being given a court date. To pursue their asylum cases they have to wait in Mexico, crossing only for court dates in what is a monthslong process.
_2 Another rocket test: North Korea says leader Kim Jong Un supervised another test firing of a new multiple rocket launcher system that could potentially enhance the country’s ability to strike targets in South Korea and U.S. military bases there. The report by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday came a day after the North fired its third round of weapons tests in just over a week. On Friday, President Trump praised Kim, arguing the tests weren’t part of the commitments that he and Kim made at their 2018 summit in Singapore.
_3 American rapper: Rapper A$AP Rocky and two other U.S. suspects were freed from jail until Aug. 14, when judges are expected to announce a verdict in the assault case against them, a Swedish court announced Friday. Stockholm prosecutors asked that the 30yearold rapper, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, get a sixmonth sentence during closing arguments. Mayers said he thought community service would be a proper punishment. The development comes after a witness in the case revised her story from initial police reports, testifying in a Swedish court Friday that she didn’t actually see the American rapper hitting a man with a bottle.
_4 No boys: A mayor in a small southwestern Polish village is promising a surprise award for the couple who next have a boy where only girls have been born for nearly a decade. Authorities in the village of Miejsce Odrzanskie, which has around 300 residents, can’t explain why no boys have been born there since 2010, but they are beginning to worry about filling farming jobs in the future. Mayor Rajmun Frischko, a father of two girls, told TVN24 on Friday that he will have a nice surprise ready for those who next have a boy.
_5 Jailed teen: A lawyer for one of two Bay Area teens jailed in the investigation of an Italian police officer’s slaying has petitioned for his client’s release. Francesco Petrelli said Friday he didn’t know when a tribunal would hear the appeal on behalf of Gabriel Christian NataleHjorth, 18. NataleHjorth and Finnegan Lee Elder, 19, are being held in a Rome jail while prosecutors probe the slaying of an unarmed officer, Mario Cerciello Rega, who was knifed 11 times on July 26. Prosecutors contend Elder stabbed the officer during a scuffle while NataleHjorth allegedly punched and kicked the officer’s partner. The plainclothes officers were investigating an alleged extortion attempt by the teens involving a stolen backpack. Elder claims selfdefense and both teens say they didn’t realize the two men were police officers.