CORONADO, California: A woman pretended she owned a Southern California home so a locksmith would make her new keys. Then police locked her up. Officers arrested a 43-year-old woman on suspicion of burglary Thursday night in Coronado, a resort city across the bay from San Diego. The brazen burglary was foiled when the real homeowner called Coronado police and said her neighbor noticed suspicious activity at the home. The homeowner was out of town, yet the neighbor saw the home’s lights being turned on and off. Officers arrived and the neighbor — a relative of the homeowner’s — gave them a spare key. But it didn’t fit the front door’s lock, and metal shavings and pieces of an old lock were on the ground nearby. As police walked around the home, they saw back doors open and a fireplace turned on as music played inside. After calling for a helicopter and a K-9 unit, officers saw someone moving around on the second floor in what was supposed to be an empty house with only one spare key. Police called out to the person inside, who came out a few minutes later and was arrested. The woman claimed there were two kids in the house, but a police search turned up empty. The woman told police the home was hers and said she’d called a locksmith earlier to change the front door’s locks. No word if the burglar gave anyone a spare key.
REHOBOTH BEACH, United States: President Joe Biden took his on-and-off tensions with billionaire Elon Musk to another level Friday, wishing the SpaceX founder “lots of luck” on the Moon after he expressed pessimism about the US economy down on Earth. Musk has made clear he’s no Biden fan and a report Friday from Reuters said he told Tesla executives he has a “super bad feeling” about the US economy and wants to slash the electric auto maker’s workforce by 10 percent. Biden, celebrating May jobs data that economists see as potentially indicating a healthy path forward for the post-pandemic economy, responded to Musk’s reported comment by pointing to growth among Tesla rivals. “Let me tell you, while Elon Musk is talking about that, Ford is increasing their investment overwhelmingly,” Biden said. “The former Chrysler corporation, Stellantis, they are also making similar investments in electric vehicles,” Biden said. “So, you know, lots of luck on his trip to the Moon,” Biden said of Musk, whose SpaceX has been picked by NASA to build the lander for a Moon trip.
LONDON: Cheers greeted Prince Harry and his wife Meghan outside St. Paul’s Cathedral on Friday as they made their first public appearance in Britain for two years. But opinions were split among the throng of fans waiting at the London landmark to catch a glimpse of the royals, reflecting a generational divide. The couple’s return for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations was always going to be watched closely as a test of their popularity. They stood down as working royals in 2020 and settled in California, and their very public criticisms since have outraged fans of the monarchy. “They got a really big cheer,” said Ana, a 23-year-old from Mexico studying in the UK, who was watching with a friend. On Thursday, the couple kept a low profile at the Trooping the Color parade, which began festivities to mark the queen’s record-breaking 70-year reign. But Ana said the “backseat” role was “unfair.” “They should all be treated the same,” she told AFP. Harry’s grandmother restricted appearances on the balcony of Buckingham Palace on Thursday to “working royals” only. The St. Paul’s service was the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s only official participation in the four days of celebrations. “They are part of the royal family,” said Amy Thomas, 17, who traveled to London from northern England with her mother for the event. “They should be able to do a bit of a different concept of what the royal family is now. “I just think the presentation of the royal family is old-fashioned. They’re just kind of stuck in their ways. “Harry and stuff and all that went on. I think you can tell it needs to be dealt with differently.” These opinions stood at odds with a YouGov poll published this week that suggested nearly two-thirds of Britons (63 percent) viewed both Harry and Meghan negatively. But there is a generational gap. Among those aged 18 to 24, the couple are largely seen positively. Among the over-65s, more than 60 percent hold a negative view. Gwyneth Cookson, 65, from Motherwell, near Glasgow in Scotland, said proudly she had shaken hands with Meghan at Edinburgh Castle. “I’m a fan,” said Cookson, wearing a sparkly Union Jack badge. She was there with her daughter and grandson holding a toy corgi. “Hopefully there will be a wee reconciliation.” Other older royal watchers were noticeably chillier. “I’m not really interested anymore,” said Ruth Horsfield, from Lancashire in northwest England, who came to London on a pensioners’ coach tour. “Nothing against them but they’ve got their own lives now. They don’t feel part of it any more. “They’ve divested themselves of it really. I don’t think they should make any money out of it.” “I think they’re just gradually being forgotten about,” added her friend Glynis Morgan from Yorkshire. “As long as they don’t rake muck and do too much damage to the queen.” Wearing a purple jubilee T-shirt and matching cap and a Swatch watch featuring the queen and a corgi, Coleen, from the Canadian city of Toronto where Meghan once lived, was clearly not a fan. “I don’t think she did anyone any favors,” she said quietly. “I think he picked the wrong wife.” Sitting beside her, Lorraine Frame from Northern Ireland cut in: “They have their own agenda. “They’re coming back because they’re scared of missing something and they are not welcome. I certainly booed them.” Wearing a Union Jack t-shirt and reading a newspaper royal supplement, she said she also came especially for the jubilee. “I don’t think they can be trusted because of their dealings with Netflix, what they may or may not say, and I think shame on them. I mean Harry was brought up better,” she said. Harry “wants his cake and he wants to eat it,” she said. Megan, she claimed, “came into this royal family thinking she could change hundreds of years of history and tradition — and she didn’t.” “Let her have her day today and the sooner they get back to America the better.”
LONDON: Crafting three in just 70 seconds, a refugee from Iraq and Domino’s employee has been crowned the world’s fastest pizza maker.
Zagros Jaff, 33, had never seen a pizza before he arrived in the UK 17 years ago, but having spent the last 15 years at Domino’s Portsmouth branch, “he has learnt a thing or two,” Metro reported on Friday.
Wowing judges and a crowd of 8,000 at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Jaff fought off pizza makers from around the globe to claim his crown and win $3,000.
Celebrating his victory, he said: “It was a great feeling — I am so excited to have won. I practised for all these years continuously, so it was such a great moment.”
Finalists had to hand-stretch fresh dough as well as sauce and place toppings on three large pizzas.
Hitting 70 seconds required Jaff to practice twice a week for at least seven weeks prior to the competition, with his speed theoretically meaning he could produce 150 per hour.
He said had one of his pizzas not been “just a few grams overweight” he would have got it down to 56 seconds, with speed just one element as quality, sauce application and toppings’ portioning were also factored in.
Competitors were given a time penalty or risked having pizzas disqualified if they were not perfect.
Jaff has previously won awards for Domino’s manager and supervisor of the year, and won the chain’s European record three years running.
OXON HILL, Maryland: One speller ran off the stage in the middle of her time at the microphone, saying she needed to pee. Another tried to walk back to her seat after spelling her first word correctly, only to be reminded she had a vocabulary word next. During one particularly brutal stretch, 10 consecutive spellers heard the bell that signals elimination. The Scripps National Spelling Bee used to begin with a handshake. Now it starts with a slap to the face. Leaner and meaner in its post-pandemic iteration, the bee returned to its usual venue on Tuesday for the first time in three years, and spellers were greeted with a new preliminary-round format that gave them no time to get comfortable. “The prelims is no joke. Every stage of the bee is so important,” said Dhroov Bharatia, a 13-year-old from Plano, Texas, who finished fourth last year.
In years past, the early onstage spelling rounds did little beyond weeding out the weakest or most nervous spellers. The real action was a written test that determined who would make the cut for the semifinals. But during last year’s mostly virtual bee, the bee’s new executive director eliminated the test, and that structure continued as 229 spellers took the stage for this year’s fully-in-person competition. Eighty-eight of those spellers advanced to Wednesday’s quarterfinals, a success rate of 38 percent. Spellers had to get through three words in one turn at the microphone to continue in the bee. First, they were given a word from a provided list of 4,000 — more than twice as many as in years past. Then, they had to answer a multiple-choice vocabulary question about a word on the same list. Finally, they had to spell a word that could be found anywhere in Webster’s Unabridged dictionary. Annie-Lois Acheampong, one of three spellers from Ghana, didn’t get that far in her first try. She labored successfully through her first word, “coulrophobia” — fear of clowns — and then was asked to define “edamame.” She smiled initially, but when she crossed her legs and couldn’t stand still, it was clear something else was going on.
“I think I’m going to pee myself,” the 13-year-old eighth grader said. “Can I go pee? I’m very sorry.” She scurried off the stage before she got an answer from the stunned judges, who paused the competition and conferred about how to handle the situation. “That was a first,” head judge Mary Brooks, who’s been involved with the bee for 50 years, said later. The judges ultimately decided to let Annie-Lois return after the day’s last scheduled speller. She got her substitute vocabulary word right but faltered on the spelling of “apery” to conclude the day’s action. Although Annie-Lois could have been eliminated for exceeding the 30-second time limit for the earlier vocabulary question, Brooks said the speller’s clock was paused because she was experiencing a legitimate emergency. There is precedent for pausing the clock during what Brooks called “extenuating circumstances,” notably in 2004 when Akshay Buddiga fainted on stage but recovered to finish in second place. Braydon Syx of West Blocton, Alabama, might not get that far, but his time in front of the microphone on Tuesday encapsulated the newly riveting drama of the early rounds. The 13-year-old seventh grader took his first plane ride to compete in this year’s bee. Braydon’s first word was “ormolu” — a gold-colored alloy of copper, zinc and sometimes tin. He spelled out “O-R-M” and then took a long, excruciating pause before spitting out the final three letters. He stretched his arms out to his sides after identifying the definition of the word “tremulous” — not a bad description of his demeanor at the microphone. “It was really scary,” Braydon said, “but I also felt really happy at the same time. It was a weird feeling.”
Then came “bromegrass” — any grass of a large genus of grasses native to temperate regions. Something about the word was bothering him. “Can you say it again?” he asked. “Can you say it again another time?” He took a deep breath. “Can you say it one more time?” Afterward, Braydon explained his dilemma: “On ‘bromegrass,’ I didn’t know whether he was pronouncing it with an ‘m’ or an ‘n.’” Still, through some combination of hard work, luck and perseverance, Braydon will spell again on Wednesday. Akira Harris won’t be so fortunate. The eighth grader from a Department of Defense middle school in Stuttgart, Germany, began by spelling “rednigote” correctly, then turned around and headed for her seat.
“Akira, we need you for your word meaning round,” a judge told her. She stood silently, looking miserable, after she was given three potential definitions for the word “bandicoot.” She made a guess — “A?” — before she was told she had to read the multiple-choice answer under that letter, which was wrong. Akira returned to the audience and buried her head in her mother’s shoulder. Once her group of spellers was finished, Akira made another beeline — this time for the exits.
GENEVA: Swiss customs authorities said Tuesday they had discovered a nearly 700-year-old antique Japanese samurai sword during a routine vehicle search, after it was smuggled into the country. The Federal Office for Customs and Border Security said in a statement the Katana sword, dated to 1353 and valued at 650,000 euros ($700,000), had been discovered in a car with Swiss plates during a routine search near Zurich. Several other objects were also found in the car, including an antique book, a contract and the sales invoice. The driver, accompanied by his daughter, had not registered the objects at the Thayngen border crossing from Germany, the statement said. Customs authorities had launched a criminal investigation and determined that the driver was not the owner of the objects, but had picked up the sword in Stuttgart at the request of his employer. Customs experts consulted found the import of the antique sword should be considered a violation of Switzerland’s Cultural Asset Transfer Act (KGTG). The law aims to preserve the cultural heritage of mankind and to prevent theft, looting and illegal import and export of cultural property. Following the investigation, regional authorities had imposed fines of over 6,000 Swiss francs ($6,250, 5,800 euros) on the employer for the violation of the KGTG. The customs authorities meanwhile said they had collected nearly 54,000 Swiss francs in VAT from the driver, who faced up to 800,000 francs in further fines.