While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, April 26
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A still image from video shows US President Joe Biden announcing his plan to run for re-election in 2024.
PHOTO: AFP
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Biden announces re-election bid, a likely Trump rematch
US President Joe Biden officially announced his bid for re-election, boldly proclaiming, “Let’s finish the job”, in a video released on his YouTube channel on Tuesday morning, as he set up a likely rematch with former president Donald Trump in 2024.
“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we’re in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are,” Mr Biden said as the video showed a montage of Trump supporters storming the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021.
“This is not a time to be complacent,” the President said. “That’s why I’m running for re-election.”
He took direct aim at his rival as well, saying: “Around the country, Maga extremists are lining up to take... bedrock freedoms away.
Radio silence suggests failure of Japan moon landing
A Japanese startup attempting the first private landing on the Moon said on Wednesday it had lost communication with its spacecraft and assumed the lunar mission had failed.
Ispace said that it could not establish communication with the unmanned Hakuto-R lunar lander after its expected landing time, a frustrating end to a mission that began with a launch from the United States over four months ago.
“We have not confirmed communication with the lander,” a company official told reporters, about 25 minutes after the point when the landing was supposed to have taken place.
Turkey’s Erdogan interrupts TV interview citing stomach bug
REUTERS
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday interrupted a live television interview before returning and apologising, saying he had developed a stomach bug.
The 69-year-old Turkish leader on Tuesday gave three campaign speeches heading into a knife-edge parliamentary and presidential election on May 14. He was due to close out the night by appearing live for a joint interview with Ulke TV and Kanal 7.
However, his television appearance began more than 90 minutes behind schedule and then cut into the interviewer’s question 10 minutes into the show.
French teen held after girl, 5, found dead in rubbish bag
AFP
French police have detained a teenage boy after a five-year-old girl was found dead in a bin bag in the east of the country, local authorities and media said on Tuesday.
The girl’s remains were found in an apartment in the town of Rambervillers in the Vosges region, the mayor, Mr Jean-Pierre Michel, told AFP.
He said the parents, a Romanian family living in the town of 5,000 people, had reported their daughter missing shortly prior to her discovery.
Ed Sheeran takes stand in US court for copyright trial
Getty Images via AFP
Ed Sheeran took the stand in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday at the beginning of a copyright trial alleging the British pop star’s hit song Thinking Out Loud ripped off the classic Marvin Gaye tune Let’s Get it On.
Heirs of songwriter Ed Townsend, Gaye’s co-writer on the 1973 hit, allege Sheeran, his label Warner Music Group and music publisher Sony Music Publishing owe them a share of the profits for allegedly copying the song.
The trial is the first of three Sheeran could face from lawsuits over similarities between the two hits.
