WASHINGTON: Former US President Donald Trump’s website featured an image of him with a bloodied face on Monday morning to urge supporters to donate to his campaign and come together in the spirit of unity and peace following this weekend’s shooting.
The website redirected prospective donors to a page on fundraising platform WinRed that shows a black and white image taken by an Associated Press photographer that Trump has described as “iconic.”
It shows the Republican candidate’s face streaked with blood and his fist raised in defiance after a bullet pierced his upper right ear at a rally in Pennsylvania. The image was captioned with the words “FEAR NOT” written in upper case letters.
A message below the image read: “Unity. Peace. Make America Great Again.” The page also carried Trump’s signature and gave visitors to the website options to contribute at different levels.
In an interview published late on Sunday by the New York Post, Trump spoke about the images taken of him immediately after he was shot, including the photo featured on his campaign website.
“A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen,” Trump was quoted as saying in the New York Post. “They’re right and I didn’t die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.”
Trump, who is running against Democratic US President Joe Biden in November’s election, was shot by a 20-year-old man with a semiautomatic rifle on Saturday at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, authorities said.
One Trump supporter who attended the rally was killed, two others were wounded and the suspect was shot dead by security agents. The FBI said it was investigating the shooting as an assassination attempt.
Leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties, including Trump and Biden, appealed to the bitterly divided country to unite and maintain calm after the shooting.
A GoFundMe campaign backed by Trump for the victims of the shooting at the former president’s rally had raised over $3.5 million by the end of Sunday.
Trump website features image of his bloody face to raise funds
https://arab.news/ygrrz
Trump website features image of his bloody face to raise funds
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2024/07/15/4467561-1931608224.jpg?itok=oymUtnI2)
With tourists away, Mount Fuji barrier taken down in Japan
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2024/08/20/4515728-1591323593.jpg?itok=ky65RVWV)
- Fujikawaguchiko put up the large screen in May after residents complained about streams of mostly foreign visitors causing problems
- The town’s struggle with unruly tourists made international headlines as record numbers of tourists headed to Japan over the summer
TOKYO: A barrier erected in Japan to block a popular view of Mount Fuji has been taken down — for now — after succeeding in discouraging unruly tourists, a town official said Tuesday.
Fujikawaguchiko put up the large screen in May after residents complained about streams of mostly foreign visitors causing problems while trying to snap photos of Japan’s famous volcano.
The town lowered the screen on August 15 ahead of a typhoon and has decided not to put it back up.
“We wanted to see what would happen,” the town official told AFP.
“There are still some people who come to the place. But we no longer find many people suddenly rushing out into the traffic to cross the road,” he said.
Pictures taken from the narrow pavement in front of a dentist’s office were popular online, with the snow-capped mountain rising photogenically into the sky from behind a convenience store.
The town’s struggle with unruly tourists made international headlines as record numbers of tourists headed to Japan over the summer, creating some opposition among locals.
The Fujikawaguchiko official said the town can put up the screen again if tourists return and cause more problems.
August’s supermoon is the first of four lunar spectacles
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2024/08/20/4515685-873673914.jpg?itok=4N9d4fMO)
- September’s supermoon will coincide with a partial lunar eclipse
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: Monday’s supermoon is the first of four this year.
During a supermoon, the full moon inches a little closer than usual to Earth. A supermoon isn’t bigger, but it can appear that way in the night sky, although scientists say the difference can be barely perceptible.
September’s supermoon will coincide with a partial lunar eclipse. October’s will be the year’s closest approach, and November’s will round out the year.
More a popular term than a scientific one, a supermoon occurs when a full lunar phase syncs up with an especially close swing around Earth. This usually happens only three or four times a year and consecutively, given the moon’s constantly shifting, oval-shaped orbit.
Ketamine Queen: the alleged dealer charged over Matthew Perry’s death
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2024/08/17/4514617-891490628.jpeg?itok=QTnqo4-n)
LOS ANGELES: A woman allegedly known as the “Ketamine Queen,” who prosecutors say sold “Friends” actor Matthew Perry the drugs that would kill him, didn’t look very regal when she appeared in a Los Angeles court this week.
If they can prove their case against Jasveen Sangha — that she made thousands of dollars from the troubled celebrity, selling him ketamine from her North Hollywood drug emporium — she might never see the outside of prison again.
In the meantime, her court appearance in a green Nirvana sweatshirt and baggy sweatpants was a far cry from the party-filled jet set lifestyle that investigators say she normally leads.
The dual British-American national was one of five people charged in connection with the October 2023 death of the much-loved Perry, who was found unresponsive in the pool of his swanky Los Angeles home.
Others included Perry’s live-in personal assistant, a go-between and two medical doctors who are alleged to have sold $12 vials to the celebrity for as much as $2,000 each, as they exchanged texts wondering “how much this moron will pay.”
But it was the arrest and charging of Sangha that has particularly shone a light on the seedy side of Hollywood glamor.
Court documents allege Sangha, 41, ran a huge drug operation out of her comfortable apartment — dubbed the “Sangha Stash House” — where investigators discovered ketamine, methamphetamine, cocaine and prescription medication like Xanax.
Her source for the ketamine, she told broker Erik Fleming — who is also charged in connection with Perry’s death — was a “master chef” and a “scientist” through whom she boasted she could “fill any order.”
“She only deal[s] with high end and celebs,” Fleming is said to have written to Perry’s personal assistant. “If it were not great stuff she’d lose her business.”
Photos posted on the Internet show Sangha partying with actor Charlie Sheen, a man with well-documented addiction problems.
Her own Instagram account is packed with proof of a glitzy lifestyle that appears to include trips on private jets and plates of caviar in an airport lounge.
Other photos show her sporting a range of designer wear, including jewelry from Van Cleef & Arpels, shoes by Louis Vuitton and clothes from Chanel.
But the high-roller lifestyle was apparently funded through a trade in misery, exploiting the desperation of addicts like Perry.
The dozens of doses of ketamine she allegedly sold him came in unmarked glass vials with a cheap blue plastic cap.
Prosecutors say Sangha was a consummate saleswoman, offering a sample for Perry to try before he committed serious money.
“It’s unmarked but it’s amazing,” she allegedly texted the middleman. “He [can] take one and try it and I have more if he likes.”
And the final batch Sangha is alleged to have supplied — the one that resulted in Perry’s death at just 54 — came with a sweetener: ketamine lollipops, prosecutors say.
Hours after news of the actor’s death emerged, Sangha set out to cover her tracks, investigators say, ordering middleman Fleming to “delete all our messages.”
Two weeks later, she jetted off to Tokyo, posting smiling pictures of her posing in a kimono.
The trip was one of around a dozen foreign jaunts she has taken since Perry died, a Los Angeles judge heard on Wednesday, which have also included Antigua and Mexico.
That judge remanded Sangha in custody on Wednesday and ordered her to stand trial in October, after hearing her deny all charges.
If convicted of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and the other charges she faces, Sangha could be jailed for the rest of her life.
Salvador Plasencia, one of the doctors also charged with supplying Perry, also denied the charges he faces.
The other defendants have either pleaded guilty or agreed to do so in relation to their charges. They face between 10 and 25 years in prison.
Man who pulled gun after Burger King worker wouldn’t take drugs for payment gets 143 years in prison
Man who pulled gun after Burger King worker wouldn’t take drugs for payment gets 143 years in prison
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2024/08/16/4514521-1690029496.jpg?itok=QN_XVjEt)
- In April, a jury found Robertson guilty of 17 crimes, including eight counts of attempted murder
- The sentences for many of the crimes were stacked on top of each other, leading to a long sentence
DENVER: A man who was convicted of pointing a gun at Burger King drive-thru worker who wouldn’t accept drugs for payment and later shooting at other people elsewhere the same night has been sentenced to 143 years in prison.
Prosecutors who announced the sentence Thursday said the drive-thru incident was the beginning of a series of crimes Eugene Robertson carried out in the Denver suburb of Aurora on Oct. 17, 2022. No one was wounded.
In April, a jury found Robertson guilty of 17 crimes, including eight counts of attempted murder. The sentences for many of the crimes were stacked on top of each other, leading to a long sentence. Robertson had faced a maximum sentence of more than 400 years when he was sentenced Aug. 9.
“I hope this century-long prison sentence serves as a warning that my prosecutors and I will not tolerate violent crime in our community,” 18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner said in a statement.
After Robertson pointed the gun at the drive-thru worker, prosecutors said he walked into a convenience store across the street and pointed a gun at the head of a clerk. When Robertson saw there was a surveillance video camera system there, he shot at the screen and left, then shot toward two people outside in the parking lot, Kellner’s office said.
The Sentinel Colorado in Aurora previously reported that a witness at the convenience store store told police there seemed to be “something off” about Robertson and that he was “talking about God” and carrying a Bible with a purple cover.
Later that night, a woman who was friends with Robertson called 911 to report that he had fired shots after she refused to open the door of her apartment, where she was with several people, prosecutors said.
Police spotted Robertson at the woman’s apartment complex. He hid behind some bushes before being arrested, prosecutors said.
China’s growing ‘robotaxi’ fleet sparks concern, wonder on streets
![](https://www.arabnews.pk/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2024/08/16/4514375-1873571429.jpg?itok=ohZrLCt2)
- China’s tech companies and automakers have poured billions of dollars into self-driving technology in recent years
- Debate around safety was sparked in April when a Huawei-backed Aito car was involved in a fatal accident
WUHAN, China: Turning heads as they cruise past office buildings and malls, driverless taxis are slowly spreading through Chinese cities, prompting both wariness and wonder.
China’s tech companies and automakers have poured billions of dollars into self-driving technology in recent years in an effort to catch industry leaders in the United States.
Now the central city of Wuhan boasts one of the world’s largest networks of self-driving cars, home to a fleet of over 500 taxis that can be hailed on an app just like regular rides.
At one intersection in an industrial area of Wuhan, AFP reporters saw at least five robotaxis passing each other as they navigated regular traffic.
“It looks kind of magical, like a sci-fi movie,” a local surnamed Yang said.
But not everyone shares Yang’s awe.
Debate around safety was sparked in April when a Huawei-backed Aito car was involved in a fatal accident, with the company saying its automatic braking system failed.
A minor collision between a jaywalker and a Wuhan robotaxi last month re-ignited concerns.
Taxi drivers and workers in traditional ride-hailing companies have also raised fears of being replaced by artificial intelligence — although the technology is far from fully developed.
Wuhan’s driverless cabs are part of tech giant Baidu’s Apollo Go project, which first received licenses to operate in the city in 2022.
Initially only five robocars ferried passengers around 13 square kilometers (five square miles) of the city of around 14 million.
Baidu says the taxis now operate in a 3,000-square-kilometer patch — more than a third of the total land area of Wuhan, including a small part of the city center.
In comparison, US leader Waymo says the largest area it covers is 816 square kilometers, in Arizona.
When a car reaches its pickup point, riders scan a QR code with their phones to unlock the vehicle — with the front seats blocked off over safety concerns.
The fares are currently heavily discounted, with a thirty-minute ride taken by AFP costing just 39 yuan ($5.43) compared with 64 yuan in a normal taxi.
“They are stealing our rice bowls, so of course we don’t like them,” Wuhan taxi driver Deng Haibing said, using a popular Chinese term for livelihoods.
Deng said he fears robotaxi companies will push traditional drivers out of business with subsidized fares, before raising prices once they achieve domination — similar to the strategy employed by ride-hailing apps in the 2010s.
“Currently the impact isn’t too big because robotaxis aren’t fully popularized and can’t drive everywhere yet,” Deng said.
The robotaxi fleet is a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of taxis and ride-hailing cars in Wuhan.
More and more Chinese cities are rolling out policies to promote self-driving services though, part of a national push for tech supremacy.
Baidu and domestic rival Pony.ai have for years tested models of varying autonomy levels in industrial parks around the country.
Shanghai issued its first batch of provisional permits for fully driverless cars last month, and the capital Beijing has approved fully autonomous robotaxis in suburban areas.
The southwest city of Chongqing and southern tech hub of Shenzhen also have pilot projects underway.
Technology wise, there’s still a long way to go before self-driving taxis become ubiquitous though, according to Tom Nunlist, tech policy analyst at Trivium China.
“Everybody seems to think autonomous driving is inevitable at this point, and frankly, I don’t know that it is,” he said.
“Presently fully autonomous driving tech is simply not ready for large-scale deployment,” he said.
Even in Wuhan’s Apollo Go taxis — which can spot obstacles and wait scrupulously at intersections — ultimate responsibility for safety still lies with human officers monitoring rides remotely.
During one ride in an Apollo Go car, one manipulated the car’s built-in touchscreen to remind AFP reporters to put on their seatbelts.
“Safety personnel provide strong assurances for your ride via remote 5G assistance technology,” the Apollo Go app tells users.
Robotaxis are also far from able to replicate the human touch.
“Some customers have disabilities and (driverless cars) definitely wouldn’t be able to help them, and some passengers are carrying large items,” ride-hailing driver Zhao said.
“Only a human can help.”