OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – One person was injured when shots were fired during an argument between two groups of people at the Oklahoma State Fair, sending a crowd of people running for safety, police said.
One person was arrested on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon after the Saturday evening shooting, Oklahoma City police Lieutenant Jeff Cooper said. Police initially took two people into custody but Cooper said one of them was later released.
Police have not yet released the suspect’s name.
The injured person was taken to the hospital and remained in critical condition on Sunday, police said.
The shooting happened at an event centre on the fairgrounds.
Captain Valerie Littlejohn said that after the initial shooting, someone fired some rounds into the air as people started running.
Guns are prohibited on the fairgrounds, and there are security and detectors at entrances, police said.
Former United States president Jimmy Carter. PHOTO: AP
PLAINS (AP) – Former United States president Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, made a surprise appearance at the Plains Peanut Festival in their Georgia hometown, the Carter Center wrote in a social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The former president and his wife are seen in a reposted video riding through the festivities in a black SUV.
“Beautiful day for President and Mrs Carter to enjoy a ride through the Plains Peanut Festival! And just a week before he turns 99,” the Carter Center wrote on X after sharing the video taken by a spectator.
The former president is 98 and has been in home hospice care since February. He turns 99 on October 1. The former First Lady has since been diagnosed with dementia.
The couple this summer marked their 77th wedding anniversary, extending their record as the nation’s longest-married first couple.
“It was amazing considering that he is in hospice care, and he is tough enough to come out here. In my opinion, he is one of the toughest men to serve as president, and he is my favourite,” Reed Elliotte, a Corbin, Kentucky resident, told WALB-TV.
Former United States president Jimmy Carter. PHOTO: AP
SANTA MARIA (AP) – Authorities rescued a 17-year-old boy in Southern California after he was kidnapped and held hostage for four days by captors who threatened to harm him if his family did not pay a USD500,000 ransom.
The teen was rescued after law enforcement tracked him and his three kidnappers to a motel in Santa Maria, a city about 225 kilometres northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
The nightmare began when the kidnappers caused a car crash in San Bernardino County, roughly 320 kilometres from Santa Maria, and abducted the teen when he got out of his vehicle to look at the damage, according to the United States Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. A doorbell camera recorded the kidnapping.
The kidnappers called the teen’s mother from a Mexican phone number and demanded USD500,000, saying it should be delivered to Nogales, Mexico, federal prosecutors said.
The men repeatedly called her over the four days and threatening to harm her son if the family did not pay.
The suspects also took a video that showed the teenager being forced to read from a script saying the abduction was his father’s fault, authorities said. The video was sent to the boy’s mother.
The captors, three men in their 20s, were charged federally with kidnapping and could face life in prison if convicted.
Law enforcement used a Facebook Marketplace posting and the doorbell camera footage to track the victim and the suspects to Santa Maria. At least one firearm was recovered from the motel.
Authorities found the boy lying on the floor in a corner of the motel room. The family did not pay the ransom, officials said.
File photo shows French police officers at the crime scene in Magnanville, west of Paris, France. PHOTO: AP
PARIS (AFP) – A French court opened a trial yesterday against the suspected accomplice of the man who in 2016 killed a couple, both police officers, at home outside Paris in front of their child in a crime that shocked the country.
Mohamed Lamine Aberouz, 30, is accused of complicity in killing a public official, terrorist conspiracy and complicity in illegal detention, with the maximum penalty of life in prison.
Wearing a white T-shirt, with long hair tied back and a beard without moustache, he confirmed his name to the packed courtroom before the plaintiffs’ statements.
Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, 42, and his partner Jessica Schneider, 36, a police administrative worker, were stabbed to death at their home in Magnanville northwest of Paris.
The defendant has maintained his innocence since he was charged in 2017.
He said he was at prayers the night of the attack, France’s first-ever killings of off-duty police officers at their home.
File photo shows French police officers at the crime scene in Magnanville, west of Paris, France. PHOTO: AP
The killer, 25-year-old Larossi Abballa, was shot dead when a specialist response unit stormed the house to free the couple’s three-year-old child, who he was holding hostage and witnessed the killings.
Abballa was a follower of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.
Prosecutors argue that Aberouz was the one who singled out Salvaing and Schneider to Abballa as targets for the attack, visiting the house with the killer to identify them to him in photos stored on their computer.
His DNA was found on the wrist rest of their machine, which was also used to announce the couple had been killed.
No other trace of his presence at the scene of the crime has been found, Aberouz’s defenders point out.
His lawyers said Abballa was a “lone wolf” under police surveillance and with a past conviction for conspiracy to prepare terrorist acts.
But investigators argue that Aberouz and Abballa “were both motivated by the same ideology”.
They found out that Aberouz had been in contact through Abballa with a young woman, Sarah Hervouet, who has been jailed for 20 years for knifing a plain-clothes police officer in 2016.
He has already been sentenced to five years for failing to report a terrorist crime – Hervouet’s attempted car bomb attack near the Notre-Dame cathedral in central Paris.
France was from 2015 hit by a spate of attacks carried out by radical extremists inspired by IS, including the November 2015 suicide and gun attacks on Paris that left 130 dead.
LONDON (AFP) – A number of London police have stepped back from firearms duties after a fellow officer was charged with murder over the fatal shooting of a young black man, a force spokesman said.
The protest prompted Interior Minister Suella Braverman to stress that firearms officers have to make “split-second decisions” and “mustn’t fear ending up in the dock for carrying out their duties”.
Police in Britain are not routinely armed and the small proportion who are authorised to carry guns are highly trained.
The specialist firearms officers who have stepped back, around 100 according to one report, handed in their tickets, accreditation that allows them to carry guns while on duty.
In London, in addition to incidents involving the public, they are deployed to protect sites such as Parliament, diplomatic missions and airports.
The officers’ stoppage follows the appearance in court last week of a London firearms officer, named only as NX121, who has been charged over the death of 24-year-old Chris Kaba in September 2022.
File photo shows Chris Kaba. PHOTO: AP
Kaba died hours after he was struck by a single gunshot fired into the vehicle he was driving in south London.
A Met Police spokesman said “a number of officers have taken the decision to step back from armed duties while they consider their position”.
“Many are worried about how the decision impacts on them, on their colleagues and on their families,” the spokesman said.
“They are concerned that it signals a shift in the way the decisions they make in the most challenging circumstances will be judged.”
To help deal with the walkout, firearms officers from neighbouring forces stepped in to help patrol the capital on Saturday night, the PA news agency reported.
The Met was supporting the officers and “fully understand the genuinely held concerns that they have”, the Met spokesperson added. He also said the Defence Ministry had agreed to provide counter-terrorism support.
“Armed forces personnel will not be used in a routine policing capacity,” he added. “We will keep the need for the support under constant review.”
Kaba’s family welcomed the decision to charge the unnamed officer, saying they and the wider community needed to “see justice for Chris”.
THE WASHINGTON POST – Most of us have a love bucket that gets filled by, among other things, words of affirmation, physical acts of affection and meaningful time with our loved ones. Sometimes, though, it feels like the bucket has a hole in it. That’s the reality for people with relationship anxiety.
Relationship anxiety isn’t officially recognised as a disorder or a symptom of a mental health condition, and there’s been little research on the subject.
Some of my patients, though, suffer from it. Relationship anxiety affects their mental health and causes them to struggle with building healthy connections. It can, however, be reduced with therapy, emotional work and constructive support from partners.
AN EXCESSIVE FEAR OF REJECTION
Relationship anxiety is the persistent, pervasive and excessive fear of rejection or unexpected abandonment in a relationship, even when it has historically been stable and loving, according to research by psychologists Rainer Romero-Canyas and Geraldine Downey.
Ironically, this anxiety can lead to problems that may jeopardise the relationship. It’s a classic case of “I create what I fear.”
So why do some people develop relationship anxiety while others feel secure in their partnerships?
One explanation relates to attachment style. During a critical period in our lives – the first two years – when we develop attachments, separation from a primary caregiver could negatively affect our emotional and social development and lead to attachment and anxiety issues, psychologist John Bowlby’s work showed. Many researchers have studied this theory to understand what this anxiety looks like in relationships. Psychologist Mary Ainsworth noticed patterns in children that are associated with their “attachment styles”.
PHOTO: ENVATOPHOTO: ENVATO
The secure attachment style is the healthiest and results from a child having a predictable, warm and consistent primary caregiver who attends to their physical and emotional needs.
Another attachment style, however, is known as anxious ambivalent attachment. A child with this style of attachment has an inconsistent primary caregiver who vacillates between warmth and distance, and behaves unpredictably.
The child feels insecure and often struggles to determine when and how they will get affection and warmth from their caregiver.
Many children with anxious ambivalent attachment grow up to be needy or clingy adults with a fear of rejection and abandonment, and low self-confidence and self-esteem. They tend to project those early childhood experiences onto their partners and require them to fulfill the needs that were not met by primary caregivers.
THE SIGNS OF RELATIONSHIP ANXIETY
These are some signs of relationship anxiety:
-Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment: Those struggling with relationship anxiety are so worried about being left that they try not to disagree, dissent or cause tension in the relationship. For instance, one of my patients said they engaged in unwanted sexual activities at the request of their partner to keep them “satisfied enough to stay.”
-Recurrent, consistent need for reassurance: They have an insatiable need for security and often require continued verbal affirmations that they are loved and that the relationship will not end soon. For example, they may ask their partner, “Would you still love me if I gained weight?”
-Emotional outbursts around minor struggles: When the relationship experiences a rough patch (no matter how small), they have intense emotional reactions disproportionate to the situation.
-Trouble making decisions: People with relationship anxiety lack self-confidence, not motivation. They have ideas and plans, but often need to run those by their partners to ensure they won’t be rejected if they proceed.
-Fear of being left: They typically ruminate on how to survive without their partner and what they would do if the relationship ended. This preoccupation can lead to racing thoughts, a cognitive symptom of anxiety.
-Misreading feedback as a rejection: They tend to see most feedback, even positive comments, as rejection or evidence that their partner is unsatisfied with the relationship.
For example, if their partner says, “I like your shirt today,” they might respond with, “Does that mean you don’t like the way I normally dress?”
RELATIONSHIP ANXIETY CAN BE CRIPPLING
It’s normal to experience anxiety in high-stress situations in a relationship such as when one partner wants to move to a town three hours away from family and friends.
When someone has relationship anxiety, though, the primary stressor is a fear of abandonment, even when there is no pressing evidence that the relationship is headed toward splitsville.
Relationship anxiety and the fear of abandonment underlying it can be crippling. Those who struggle with it desire closeness, but their symptoms tend to push away others, who see them as needy and draining. Many times, they have insight into their behaviour. They can typically admit, “I know I’m a lot” or “I know you get tired of me being so needy.”
They, however, seem to have little to no ability to stop their behaviour. The longer they go without reassurance, the more desperate they become for a shot of assurance.
HOW TO HEAL RELATIONSHIP ANXIETY
Healing from relationship anxiety is tough, but it can happen with effort. Here are some steps to explore:
-Stop venting to friends: Venting may feel cathartic, but it won’t help you because we tend to vent to like-minded people. You also may be venting to someone with similar concerns and could transfer anxiety between the two of you.
-Study yourself: When is the anxiety heaviest? Is it right after an argument? While your partner is traveling for work? When they are working late? Once you figure out the patterns, you can use coping strategies to control your anxiety.
-Don’t make your partner your therapist: They don’t have an objective view of you, and their history with you makes them vulnerable to biases that an objective party wouldn’t have. Even if your partner is a professional therapist, they aren’t your therapist.
-Seek professional therapy: The fear of abandonment and the anxiety it produces has been with you since your childhood. A trusted professional can help you explore your trauma, process those early childhood experiences and learn coping skills for your anxiety.
-Consider pausing your relationship: There’s only one formula for a healthy relationship – one healthy person + one healthy person. It’s much better to pause your relationship, get the help you need and re-engage.
ADVICE FOR PARTNERS
Being the partner of someone with relationship anxiety can be draining. The constant requests to make your partner feel secure can be daunting and suffocating. You may be subjected to crying spells and angry outbursts related to your partner’s fear of abandonment.
Many well-meaning people think if they stop feeding their partner’s need for assurance, the partner will stop asking for it. Withholding emotions and affection does the opposite. It diminishes the other person’s self-confidence, which was low to start, and is often received as mean and uncaring.
It also puts you in the role of the unpredictable caregiver.
Do support your partner in getting therapy and trying other ways of managing their fear of abandonment and anxiety. This may feel uncomfortable at first, but it’s the healthiest move. – La Keita D Carter
WARSAW (AP) – Poland’s Foreign Minister accused Germany of trying to interfere in his country’s internal affairs after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Warsaw needs to clarify allegations that Polish consulates in Africa and Asia sold temporary work visas to migrants for thousands of dollars each.
Poland’s ruling party, Law and Justice, is facing questions about the alleged scheme ahead of an October 15 national election in which it is seeking a third term in power.
Scholz, whose government is under pressure to do more to limit migration to Germany, called on neighbouring Poland on Saturday to provide clarification of what was happening.
“I don’t want people to just be waved through from Poland and only for us to have a discussion about asylum policy afterward,” Scholz said in comments reported by the German news agency dpa.
Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau retorted late on Sunday on X, formerly Twitter, that Scholz’s statement “violates the principles of the sovereign equality of states”.
Rau said he appealed to Scholz “to respect Poland’s sovereignty and refrain from statements that damage our mutual relations”.
Rau himself is under political pressure at home because the alleged visa scheme operated out of the Foreign Ministry.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said last week that Germany was considering establishing short-term border checks with Poland and the Czech Republic to help control the number of migrants from entering the country.
Faeser told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag that setting up temporary police checks at border crossings would help Germany prevent the smuggling and trafficking of people.
She added that the increased border checks would need to be combined with random police checks that are already being carried out.
Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic belong to Europe’s visa-free zone, commonly known as the Schengen Area.
AP – It’s a throwaway line, but maybe a bit too meaningful, under the circumstances. “Gravity is setting in,” said Barney, Sylvester Stallone’s ageing character in Expend4bles, when someone asks how he’s doing.
Indeed. Gravity is setting in throughout Expend4bles, a movie whose most enticing mystery is not the secret identity of its shadowy villain, but how you pronounce the film’s title. Are we supposed to enunciate the mid-word numeral, or is it merely visual? Is this what stands for a smart new spin on a tired franchise? Will we soon have My Big F4t Greek Wedding? Are these questions supposed to distract us from how stunningly mediocre the film is?
Perhaps we digress. This is, obviously, the fourth Expendables film, but our considered scientific opinion is that you needn’t see the first three to catch up.
True, there’s no explanatory intro, but if you’ve seen earlier Expendables films, you’ll know there’s not much to know. These guys are the indestructible mercenaries who swoop in – literally, on Barney’s turboprop plane – to do dirty work in miserable places. The body count is head-spinningly high (this film, directed by Scott Waugh, returns to an R rating after a switch to PG-13 for the last installment). The dialogue is head-spinningly mundane. The flow of testosterone is, well, head-spinning.
Leading the pack, as ever, is Stallone’s Barney Ross and his expert knife-wielding best bud, Lee Christmas – Jason Statham, reveling in his Cockney charm and smiling more than usual. (This is not a bad thing. Statham has a nice smile. This may be the only good thing.) Also back are Dolph Lundgren’s Gunner and Randy Couture’s Toll Road.
Sylvester Stallone is back as Barney Ross in ‘The Expend4bles’. PHOTO: APJason Statham in a scene from ‘The Expend4bles.’ PHOTO: APABOVE & BELOW: Megan Fox, Andy Garcia, and Jacob Scipio; and Iko Uwais plays ruthless arms dealer Rahmat. PHOTO: APPHOTO: APABOVE & BELOW: Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson plays ex-Marine and new team member; and Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson and Levy Tran in ‘The Expend4bles’. PHOTO: APPHOTO: AP
And now, perhaps in a nod to the previously unrecognised fact that half the human race is female, we have Megan Fox as mercenary leader Gina. More on her in a bit. Also providing new blood is Andy Garcia as a prickly CIA handler, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as an ex-Marine and new team member, and two martial arts stars: Iko Uwais as ruthless arms dealer Rahmat, and Tony Jaa as quiet warrior Decha. Other additions: Jacob Scipio is the son of Antonio Banderas’ character from the last film, and Levy Tran is a new female teammate, adept with a whip chain.
Got all that? In a prelude scene in New Orleans, we reconnect with Barney, who now has salt-and-pepper hair, and a bad back – so bad, he enlists Christmas to help him recover his prized skeleton ring at a biker bar, which he’s lost in a thumb-wrestling contest. The thugs dispatched and the ring collected, it’s time to get back to work.
This means a trip to Libya, to “Gadhafi’s old chemical plant,” where aforementioned arms dealer Rahmat (Uwais) is securing detonators for a nuclear weapon. CIA handler Marsh (Garcia) needs the Expendables to stop him. The other thing you should know is that Barney is determined to unmask a shadowy figure codenamed Ocelot who’s maybe pulling all the strings.
Not surprisingly, the Expendables run into resistance. The body count mounts, and then something happens that will change the trajectory of the film. We can’t give it away, but let’s just say it brings Statham’s Christmas to the forefront for much of the film.
But he makes an early error that sidelines him for a bit. Leading the next stage of the mission will be Gina (Fox), his ex (or maybe current?) girlfriend. Gina is introduced to us the only way a woman in a testosterone-dripping franchise like this can be: Sexy AND crazy, yelling like the dickens in a hot little dress. She also wears an absurd amount of makeup, including on the mission. Apparently, there’s a brand of matte lipstick that holds up very well through mortal combat. Which is convenient if your ex-boyfriend may or may not be showing up.
All this action takes place on a freighter where the aforementioned nuclear bomb is being stored. It includes countless killings and also a motorcycle chase (on a freighter!) It all gets very tiresome.
It doesn’t help that the special effects sometimes seem thrown together with about as much care as the script. Some of the most obvious green screens provide inadvertent comedy. As for intended comedy, the only truly funny scene is when Christmas, sidelined, tries out a job as security detail for an obnoxious social media influencer.
The likable British action star is having a busy year. In Expend4bles, as mentioned, they let him smile a lot, and it’s a nice touch. Still, if there’s an Expend5bles, they’re gonna need more than a Statham smile and another mid-word numeral in the title. – Jocelyn Noveck
A burnt tent shelter in the aftermath of a bombardment at a camp for those displaced by conflict in Sarmin in the rebel-held part of Syria's northwestern Idlib province. PHOTO: AFP
BEIRUT (AP) – United States (US)-backed Kurdish-led forces imposed a curfew after clashes erupted again yesterday in eastern Syria, where their fighters had battled for weeks with rival militiamen, Syrian media and activists reported.
The fighting in a region where hundreds of American troops are deployed has pointed to dangerous seams in a coalition that has kept on a lid on the defeated Islamic State (IS) group for years.
The reports said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) imposed the measure in several towns in Deir el-Zour province, including the town of Ziban, close to the Iraqi border where the Americans are based.
Hundreds of US troops have been there since 2015 to help in the fight against the militant IS group. The oil-rich province is home to Syria’s largest oil fields.
Al Mayadeen, a pan-Arab TV station, said several fighters from the Kurdish-led forces were killed after Arab gunmen took over several parts of Ziban yesterday.
Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some of the Arab fighters had crossed from government-held areas.
Local media in the province reported that some Kurdish fighters had fled the area as the clashes intensified.
The clashes first erupted in late August when two weeks of fighting killed 25 Kurdish fighters, 29 members of Arab tribal groups and gunmen, as well as nine civilians, according to the SDF.
The Syrian government of President Bashar Assad in Damascus sees the Kurdish-led forces as secessionist fighters and has denounced their alliance with the US in the war against IS and their self-ruled enclave in eastern Syria.
A burnt tent shelter in the aftermath of a bombardment at a camp for those displaced by conflict in Sarmin in the rebel-held part of Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. PHOTO: AFP
AFP – A recent study reveals good habits to adopt on a daily basis to help you live longer. In fact, doing so could help you gain more than two extra decades.
Numerous start-ups and laboratories are investing millions in attempting to find the miracle solution that will slow down ageing and increase life expectancy. There is talk of cellular reprogramming, or at least of drugs targeting cellular mechanisms.
But while we wait to find out who will win this frantic race for eternal life – or simply a longer life – a scientific study has highlighted some simple but effective lifestyle changes that can be implemented at any age to gain an average of 20 years of life.
All you need to do is adopt a healthy lifestyle, with a balanced diet, steer clear of smoking and ensure good stress management.
UP TO 24 EXTRA YEARS FOR MEN
Presented at Nutrition 2023, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, the research is based on data from 719,147 people enrolled in the Million Veteran Program, a vast survey gathering medical and genetic information from over a million United States (US) veterans.
The researchers specify that the analysis focused more specifically on adults aged between 40 and 99, and observed 33,375 deaths during follow-up. The results of this research are clear: the adoption of eight healthy habits as part of daily life, by the age of 40 at the latest, could enable men to live an average of 24 years longer, and women 21 years longer, than those who had not adopted any of these lifestyle habits.
PHOTO: ENVATO
Interestingly, it’s never too late to embrace a healthy lifestyle, as the estimated gain in life expectancy decreases significantly with age, but remains significant nonetheless.
So what do you have to do to live longer? Nothing out of the ordinary, according to the scientists’ findings. It’s a matter of being physically active, not smoking, managing stress, eating well, sleeping well, not drinking alcohol excessively on a regular basis, not being dependent on opioids, and maintaining positive social relationships.
In other words, it should be sufficient to follow the recommendations of most national and international health authorities, including the World Health Organization (WHO), to maintain good physical and mental health.
While the nature of these habits came as no surprise to the researchers, the estimated gain in life expectancy appears to be far beyond what they had imagined when embarking on this large-scale study.
“We were really surprised by just how much could be gained with the adoption of one, two, three, or all eight lifestyle factors,” said health science specialist at the Department of Veterans Affairs Xuan-Mai T Nguyen.
“Our research findings suggest that adopting a healthy lifestyle is important for both public health and personal wellness. The earlier, the better, but even if you only make a small change in your 40s, 50s, or 60s, it still is beneficial.
PRIORITY TO QUITTING SMOKING AND GETTING ACTIVE
While it’s not always easy to overhaul your lifestyle completely, it may be simpler to take things one step at a time. According to the study, certain habits should be given priority.
The research shows that low levels of physical activity, plus smoking and opioid use have a greater impact on life expectancy than other factors, with a 30 per cent to 45 per cent higher risk of death.
Next come stress, excessive alcohol consumption, poor diet and sleep hygiene, all of which increase the risk of death by 20 per cent, followed by the absence or scarcity of positive social relationships.
While this is the first study to report such an increase in life expectancy through the adoption of these healthy habits, many others have previously highlighted the impact of stress, diet, smoking and physical activity on health.
A large-scale study conducted on over 200,000 people recently revealed that taking 4,000 steps a day could be enough to reduce the risk of death, for example, while separate research highlighted how junk food can affect sleep quality, in addition to its effects on cardiovascular health and diabetes.
