TIJUANA, Mexico: As the US government built its latest stretch of border wall, Mexico made a statement of its own by laying remains of the Berlin Wall a few steps away.
The 3-ton pockmarked, gray concrete slab sits between a bullring, a lighthouse and the border wall, which extends into the Pacific Ocean.
“May this be a lesson to build a society that knocks down walls and builds bridges,” reads the inscription below the towering Cold War relic, attributed to Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero and titled, “A World Without Walls.”
For Caballero, like many of Tijuana’s 2 million residents, the US wall is personal and political, a part of the city’s fabric and a fact of life. She considers herself a migrant, having moved from the southern Mexico city of Oaxaca when she was 2 with her mother, who fled “the vicious cycle of poverty, physical abuse and illiteracy.”
The installation opened Aug. 13 at a ceremony with Caballero and Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s former foreign secretary who is now a leading presidential candidate.
Caballero, 41, is married to an Iranian man who became a US citizen and lives in the United States. She and their 9-year-old son used to cross the border between Tijuana and San Diego.
Since June, Caballero has lived in a military barracks in Tijuana, saying she acted on credible threats against her brought to her attention by US intelligence officials and a recommendation by Mexico’s federal government. Weeks earlier, her bodyguard survived an assassination attempt.
Caballero said that she does not know who wants to kill her but suspects payback for having seized arms from violent criminals who plague her city. “Someone is probably upset with me,” she said in her spacious City Hall office.
Shards of the Berlin Wall scattered worldwide after it crumbled in 1989, with collectors putting them in hotels, schools, transit stations and parks. Marcos Cline, who makes commercials and other digital productions in Los Angeles, needed a home for his artifact and found an ally in Tijuana’s mayor.
“Why in Tijuana?” Caballero said. “How many families have shed blood, labor and their lives to get past the wall? The social and political conflict is different than the Berlin Wall, but it’s a wall at the end of the day. And a wall is always a sphinx that divides and bloodies nations.”
President Joe Biden issued an executive order his first day in office to halt wall construction, ending a signature effort by his predecessor, Donald Trump. But his administration has moved ahead with small, already-contracted projects, including replacing a two-layered wall in San Diego standing 5.5 meters high with one rising 9.1 meters and stretching one kilometer to the ocean.
The wall slices through Friendship Park, a cross-border site inaugurated by then-US first lady Pat Nixon in 1971 to symbolize binational ties. For decades, families separated by immigration status met through barbed wire and, later, a chain-link fence. It is a cherished, festive destination for tourists and residents in Mexico.
At an arts festival in 2005, David “The Human Cannonball” Smith Jr. flashed his passport in Tijuana as he lowered himself into a barrel and was shot over the wall, landing on a net on the beach with US border agents nearby. In 2019, artist Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana covered the Tijuana side of the wall with paintings of adults who moved to the US illegally as young children and were deported. Visitors who held up their phones to bar codes were taken to a website that voiced their first-person narratives.
Cline said he was turned away at the White House when he tried delivering the Berlin Wall relic to Trump and then trucked it across the country to find a suitable home. He said the piece has found “its second life” at the Tijuana park alongside the colorful paintings on the border wall that express views on politics and immigration.
The US government has gradually restricted park access from San Diego over the last 15 years in a state park that once allowed cross-border yoga classes, religious services and music festivals. After lengthy consideration, the Biden administration agreed to keep the wall at 18 feet for a small section where some access will be allowed.
Dan Watman of Friends of Friendship Park, which advocates for cross-border park access, said the 18.3-meter section that will remain at the lower height is only a token gesture. “The park on the Mexican side has become sort of a one-sided party,” he said.
US Customs and Border Protection said that it anticipates replacing the “deteriorated” two-layer barrier by November and that the higher one under construction “will provide much needed improvements.”
Tijuana’s mayor said she understands the need for the US to enforce borders and she has warm relations with US officials, including Ken Salazar, the ambassador to Mexico. She said Salazar asked her to evict migrants who camped with hopes of getting asylum in the US and blocked access to a US border crossing in 2022. She heeded his recommendation.
Any failures at the border are a collective responsibility of governing nations, the mayor said.
“We are against violence, we are against family separation, we are against division, and that’s what the wall represents,” she said.
Berlin Wall relic gets a ‘second life’ on US-Mexico border as Joe Biden adds barriers
https://arab.news/9ahk9
Berlin Wall relic gets a ‘second life’ on US-Mexico border as Joe Biden adds barriers
- Shards of the Berlin Wall scattered worldwide after it crumbled in 1989, with collectors putting them in hotels, schools, transit stations and parks
Drones, planes or UFOs? Americans abuzz over mysterious New Jersey sightings
- The saga of the drones reported over New Jersey has reached incredible heights
- ‘How can you say it’s not posing a threat if you don’t know what it is?’
CHATHAM, New Jersey: That buzzing coming out of New Jersey? It’s unclear if it’s drones or something else, but for sure the nighttime sightings are producing tons of talk, a raft of conspiracy theories and craned necks looking skyward.
Cropping up on local news and social media sites around Thanksgiving, the saga of the drones reported over New Jersey has reached incredible heights.
This week seems to have begun a new, higher-profile chapter: Lawmakers are demanding (but so far not getting) explanations from federal and state authorities about what’s behind them. Gov. Phil Murphy wrote to President Joe Biden asking for answers. New Jersey’s new senator, Andy Kim, spent Thursday night on a drone hunt in rural northern New Jersey, and posted about it on X.
More drone sightings have been reported in New York City, and Mayor Eric Adams says the city is investigating and collaborating with New Jersey and federal officials. And then President-elect Donald Trump posted that he believes the government knows more than it’s saying. “Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!” he posted on his social media site.
But perhaps the most fantastic development is the dizzying proliferation of conspiracies, none of which has been confirmed or suggested by federal and state officials who say they’re looking into what’s happening. It has become shorthand to refer to the flying machines as drones, but there are questions about whether what people are seeing are unmanned aircraft or something else.
Some theorize the drones came from an Iranian mothership. Others think they are the Secret Service making sure President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster property is secure. Others worry about China. The deep state. And on.
In the face of uncertainty, people have done what they do in 2024: Create a social media group.
The Facebook page, New Jersey Mystery Drones — let’s solve it, has nearly 44,000 members, up from 39,000 late Thursday. People are posting their photo and video sightings, and the online commenters take it from there.
One video shows a whitish light flying in a darkened sky, and one commenter concludes it’s otherworldly. “Straight up orbs,” the person says. Others weigh in to say it’s a plane or maybe a satellite. Another group called for hunting the drones literally, shooting them down like turkeys. (Do not shoot at anything in the sky, experts warn.)
Trisha Bushey, 48, of Lebanon Township, New Jersey, lives near Round Valley Reservoir where there have been numerous sightings. She said she first posted photos online last month wondering what the objects were and became convinced they were drones when she saw how they moved and when her son showed her on a flight tracking site that no planes were around. Now she’s glued to the Mystery Drones page, she said.
“I find myself — instead of Christmas shopping or cleaning my house — checking it,” she said.
She doesn’t buy what the governor said, that the drones aren’t a risk to public safety. Murphy told Biden on Friday that residents need answers. The federal Homeland Security Department and FBI also said in a joint statement they have no evidence that the sightings pose “a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”
“How can you say it’s not posing a threat if you don’t know what it is?” she said. “I think that’s why so many people are uneasy.”
Then there’s the notion that people could misunderstand what they’re seeing. William Austin is the president of Warren County Community College, which has a drone technology degree program, and is coincidentally located in one of the sighting hotspots.
Austin says he has looked at videos of purported drones and that airplanes are being misidentified as drones. He cited an optical effect called parallax, which is the apparent shift of an object when viewed from different perspectives. Austin encouraged people to download flight and drone tracker apps so they can better understand what they’re looking at.
Nonetheless, people continue to come up with their own theories.
“It represents the United States of America in 2024,” Austin said. “We’ve lost trust in our institutions, and we need it.”
Federal officials echo Austin’s view that many of the sightings are piloted aircraft such as planes and helicopters being mistaken for drones, according to lawmakers and Murphy.
That’s not really convincing for many, though, who are homing in on the sightings beyond just New Jersey and the East Coast, where others have reported seeing the objects.
For Seph Divine, 34, another member of the drone hunting group who lives in Eugene, Oregon, it feels as if it’s up to citizen sleuths to solve the mystery. He said he tries to be a voice of reason, encouraging people to fact check their information, while also asking probing questions.
“My main goal is I don’t want people to be caught up in the hysteria and I also want people to not just ignore it at the same time,” he said.
“Whether or not it’s foreign military or some secret access program or something otherworldly, whatever it is, all I’m saying is it’s alarming that this is happening so suddenly and so consistently for hours at a time,” he added.
Bollywood actor Allu Arjun held after stampede death at Pushpa 2 screening
- The 42-year-old actor was arrested on suspicion of three offenses
- Allu Arjun is hugely popular in southern India
NEW DELHI: An Indian actor was arrested Friday after his appearance at a movie screening allegedly prompted a stampede by fans that crushed a woman to death, police and local media said.
Huge crowds had gathered at a theater in the southern city of Hyderabad this month to catch a glimpse of actor Allu Arjun as he arrived for the screening of his film “Pushpa 2: The Rule.”
The 42-year-old actor was arrested on suspicion of three offenses, including voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.
The officer added that seven other people had already been arrested in the case.
A video on social media platform X, shared by broadcaster TV9, showed the actor holding a coffee mug as he spoke to officers who arrived at his residence to take him into custody.
The victim of the December 4 stampede was a woman in her 30s attending the screening with her son, who was also seriously injured.
The woman’s family later filed a complaint against Arjun, his security team and the theater management, media outlet India Today reported.
Arjun said he was “deeply heartbroken” two days after the accident.
“While respecting their need for space to grieve, I stand committed to extend every possible assistance to help them navigate through this challenging journey,” he wrote on X.
Arjun is hugely popular in southern India, and the Pushpa film franchise has made millions at the box office.
He won best actor at India’s National Film Awards for his title role in the first instalment of the series, released two years ago.
3 men say in lawsuits that Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs drugged and sexually assaulted them
NEW YORK: Three men sued Sean “Diddy” Combs in New York on Thursday, claiming the hip-hop mogul drugged and raped them.
The lawsuits, which were filed anonymously in a state court, add to a wave of sexual assault litigation against the rapper, producer and record executive as he also faces federal sex trafficking charges in New York.
Thomas Giuffra, a New York attorney who filed Thursday’s lawsuits on the men’s behalf, said Combs used his power and wealth to take advantage of the accusers and then ensured their silence through threats and fear.
“This is a long overdue opportunity for the victims to take the power back after carrying the burden of the assaults in silence for several years,” he said in a statement. “While a lawsuit will not undo the wrongs done to them, it enables the survivors to regain the power and dignity that was stripped from them by Sean Combs.”
Attorneys for Combs, 55-year-old founder of Bad Boy Records, said the claims are baseless.
“These complaints are full of lies,” the lawyers wrote in a statement, declining to elaborate. “We will prove them false and seek sanctions against every unethical lawyer who filed fictional claims against him.”
The lawsuits involve incidents taking place from 2019 to 2022. The men, all identified as John Doe, say they were unwittingly served drugged drinks and then sexually assaulted by Combs and others.
They each seek a jury trial and to be awarded unspecified damages from Combs.
One of the men claims Combs drugged and raped him in 2020 when the two met at Combs’ suite at the InterContinental hotel in Times Square to discuss payments the man was owed as a longtime employee of the entrepreneur.
Another claims he met Combs in 2019 at a Manhattan nightclub and was invited to an afterparty at Combs’ suite at the Park Hyatt hotel, where he was also drugged and raped.
The man said he tried to resist before the drugged drink left him unconscious. He also said he was given $2,500 after the attack by a man who had been recording the bedroom assault.
The third man claims he was drugged and raped by Combs and associates from his record label during a summertime party in 2020 at Combs’ mansion in East Hampton, New York.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he coerced and abused women for years, using a network of associates and employees to hold drug-fueled, elaborately produced sexual performances known as “Freak Offs” involving male sex workers.
Prosecutors say he then silenced his victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
Combs has been seeking to be released until his trial in May but was denied bail a third time last month and remains in a federal jail in Brooklyn.
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Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.
Nearly half of US teens are online ‘constantly,’ Pew report finds
- YouTube was the single most popular platform teenagers use
Nearly half of American teenagers say they are online “constantly” despite concerns about the effects of social media and smartphones on their mental health, according to a new report published Thursday by the Pew Research Center.
As in past years, YouTube was the single most popular platform teenagers used — 90 percent said they watched videos on the site, down slightly from 95 percent in 2022. Nearly three-quarters said they visit YouTube every day.
There was a slight downward trend in several popular apps teens used. For instance, 63 percent of teens said they used TikTok, down from 67 percent and Snapchat slipped to 55 percent from 59 percent. This small decline could be due to pandemic-era restrictions easing up and kids having more time to see friends in person, but it’s not enough to be truly meaningful.
X saw the biggest decline among teenage users. Only 17 percent of teenagers said they use X, down from 23 percent in 2022, the year Elon Musk bought the platform. Reddit held steady at 14 percent. About 6 percent of teenagers said they use Threads, Meta’s answer to X that launched in 2023.
The report comes as countries around the world are grappling with how to handle the effects of social media on young people’s well-being. Australia recently passed a law banning kids under 16 from social networks, though it’s unclear how it will be able to enforce the age limit — and whether it will come with unintended consequences such as isolating vulnerable kids from their peers.
Meta’s messaging service WhatsApp was a rare exception in that it saw the number of teenage users increase, to 23 percent from 17 percent in 2022.
Pew also asked kids how often they use various online platforms. Small but significant numbers said they are on them “almost constantly.” For YouTube, 15 percent reported constant use, for TikTok, 16 percent and for Snapchat, 13 percent.
As in previous surveys, girls were more likely to use TikTok almost constantly while boys gravitated to YouTube. There was no meaningful gender difference in the use of Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook.
Roughly a quarter of Black and Hispanic teens said they visit TikTok almost constantly, compared with just 8 percent of white teenagers.
The report was based on a survey of 1,391 US teens ages 13 to 17 conducted from Sept. 18 to Oct. 10, 2024.
Trump is named Time’s Person of the Year, will ring the New York Stock Exchange bell
- Honors for the businessman-turned-politician represent the latest chapter in his love-hate relationship with New York
- Donald Trump was also Time’s Person of the Year in 2016, when he was first elected to the White House
NEW YORK: About six months ago, Donald Trump was sitting in a courtroom in lower Manhattan listening to a jury make him the first former president convicted of a crime.
On Thursday, he will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange just blocks from that courthouse and as he was recognized by Time magazine as its person of the year.
The honors for the businessman-turned-politician represent the latest chapter in his love-hate relationship with New York. They’re also a measure of Trump’s remarkable comeback from an ostracized former president who refused to accept his election loss four years ago to a president-elect who won the White House decisively in November.
Sam Jacobs, Time’s editor in chief, announced on NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday morning that Trump was Time’s 2024 Person of the Year. Jacobs said Trump was someone who “for better or for worse, had the most influence on the news in 2024.”
Trump is expected to be on Wall Street to mark the ceremonial start of the day’s trading, according to four people with knowledge of his plans who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Trump was also Time’s Person of the Year in 2016, when he was first elected to the White House. He was listed as a finalist for this year’s award alongside notables including Vice President Kamala Harris, X owner Elon Musk, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kate, the Princess of Wales.
The NYSE regularly invites celebrities and business leaders to participate in the 9:30 a.m. ceremonial opening trading. Thursday will be Trump’s first time doing the honors, which have become a marker of culture and politics.
Last year, Time CEO Jessica Sibley rang the NYSE opening bell to unveil the magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year: Taylor Swift.
During Trump’s first term, his wife, Melania Trump, rang the bell to promote her “Be Best” initiative on children’s well-being.
Donald Trump’s trip to New York from his adopted home of Florida to sound the call of capitalism in the mecca of finance tops a string of visits that the former president has made to various spots in the city this year.
Outside of his required presence in a downtown courthouse for his trial, Trump, who is always attuned to the art of a photo op, held campaign events around the city: at a firehouse, a bodega and a construction site. He also held a rally in the Bronx, among the places in the city where Trump made inroads during the election.
To mark the final stretch of his campaign, he held a high-octane rally at Madison Square Garden, which drew immediate blowback after speakers there made rude and racist insults and incendiary remarks.
Trump has long had a fascination with being on the cover of Time, where he first made an appearance in 1989. He has falsely claimed to hold the record for cover appearances, and The Washington Post reported in 2017 that Trump had a fake picture of himself on the cover of the magazine hanging in several of his golf country clubs.
Trump crafted his image as a wealthy real estate developer, which he played up as the star of the TV reality show “The Apprentice” and during his presidential campaign. He won the election in part by channeling Americans’ anxieties about the economy’s ability to provide for the middle class.
After the Nov. 5 election, the S&P 500 rallied 2.5 percent for its best day in nearly two years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 1,508 points, or 3.6 percent, while the Nasdaq composite jumped 3 percent. All three indexes topped records they had set in previous weeks.
Trump, who often regards the stock market as a measure of public support, has said his coming term as president should be dated to the day after the election so he is credited for the gains.
Trump’s campaign promises have included pledges to deliver historic levels of economic growth, and the people he’s selecting to fill out his incoming administration skew heavily from the business sector.
The larger business community has applauded his promises to reduce corporate taxes and cut regulations. But there are also concerns about his stated plans to impose broad tariffs and possibly target companies that he sees as not aligning with his own political interests.
The US stock market has historically tended to rise regardless of which party wins the White House, with Democrats scoring bigger average gains since 1945. But Republican control could mean big shifts in the winning and losing industries underneath the surface, and investors are adding to bets built earlier on what the higher tariffs, lower tax rates and lighter regulation that Trump favors will mean.
In light of his election win, his lawyers have sought to have his conviction in the Manhattan case be thrown out.
