Top News Stories –

German squirrel arrested after woman complained it was stalking her –
An “aggressive” squirrel has been arrested by German police officers after a woman complained it was stalking her. Police in North Rhine-Westphalia received the bizarre emergency call on Wednesday from a woman who claimed the rodent was chasing her. The woman, from Bottrop, tried to give the pursuant rodent the slip but eventually rang the police out of desperation. Officers captured the squirrel and “arrested it,” according to a message posted on the force’s Facebook page. [Daily Telegraph]

Tom Selleck to pay $20k settlement to California after he was accused of water theft –
Actor Tom Selleck will pay $21,000 (£13,500) to a Southern California water district, which voted to settle the lawsuit accusing the American TV actor and film producer of obtaining water he was not entitled to. Selleck, 70, who is most famous for his lead role in the television series Magnum P.I, was accused earlier this month by the Calleguas Municipal Water District in Ventura County of stealing water from a public fire hydrant in Calleguas. The water was purportedly used for his 60-acre avocado ranch in Westlake Village, just outside the region. [Daily Telegraph]
Tom Selleck

Bernard Tomic charged with trespassing and resisting arrest at Miami Beach hotel party –
Australian tennis player Bernard Tomic has been charged with trespassing and resisting arrest following complaints over a noisy penthouse party at a Miami hotel, police said on Thursday. Security guards were called to a £4,500-a-night penthouse in the W Hotel in South Beach early Wednesday following multiple noise complaints. Tomic was described as “aggressive and belligerent” by a Miami police report. The 22-year-old tennis player, ranked 25th in the world by the Association of Tennis Professionals, refused to turn down the music and slammed the door in the guards’ faces, according to an arrest affidavit. [Daily Telegraph]
Bernard Tomic

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Animated Flyover of Pluto’s Icy Mountain and Plains [See story from July 15, 2015]

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• 2014–15 India–Pakistan border skirmishes
  • India and Pakistan exchanged gunfire and mortar bombs along their disputed frontier, killing five civilians and injuring more than a dozen.(Reuters)
• Yemeni Crisis (2011–present)
  • Members of exiled President of Yemen Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi‘s Cabinet tour the southern city of Aden for the first time in several months.(Reuters via Daily Mail)
• Sinai insurgency
  • The Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) has claimed its first naval attack on an Egyptian patrol boat in the Mediterranean, just off the coast of Sinai. (Time) (Ahram Online)
• Boko Haram, Timeline of Boko Haram insurgency
  • Twin blasts at a market in Gombe, Nigeria kill at least 49 people. (BBC)
  • Boko Haram militants kill a dozen villagers in Niger. (Reuters)
• South Thailand insurgency
  • Two Thai Army soldiers are killed in an ambush in Thailand‘s Narathiwat Province. (Bangkok Post)
• At least 11 people are killed and many others injured in a tribal fight in a remote area of Papua New Guinea. (AFP via ABC Australia)

Arts and culture

• Nominations for the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards are announced with Game of Thrones receiving 24 nominations. (Variety)

Business and economy

• The European Union launches an antitrust action against American semiconductor company Qualcomm, for possible abuse of a dominant market position, on the one hand, and predatory pricing, on the other hand. (European Union)

Disasters and accidents

• Sixty-five thousand people in the Indian state of Assam are affected by floods and heavy rainfall. (NDTV)
• Ash from the Raung volcano closes five airports in Indonesia, while ash from the Gamalama volcano closes the Babullah Airport in Ternate.(Channel News Asia)
• 2015 Pacific typhoon season
  • Typhoon Nangka makes landfall on the Japanese island of Shikoku. (Weather.com)]
• The Nexen pipeline at the Long Lake facility near Fort McMurray, Alberta, spills 5,000,000 litres (1,100,000 imp gal; 1,300,000 US gal) of oil emulsion. (CBC)

Law and crime

• 2015 Chattanooga shootings
  • A shooting occurs at a United States Navy recruiting office and a Navy operational support center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, killing four U.S. Marines and the gunman and wounding a police officer, a Marine Corps recruiter and a sailor who is listed in serious condition. (Reuters via MSN) (The Tennessean), (NBC News), (WRCB) (CNN)
• James Eagan Holmes, a former University of Colorado neuroscience student, is found guilty of first-degree murder in the July 2012 Aurora movie theater massacre, which killed 12 and injured 70; he had plead not guilty by reason of legal insanity. (Reuters, via MSN)

Politics and elections

• Japan’s lower house of parliament passes a pair of bills changing the country’s security laws, allowing Japanese soldiers to fight overseas for the first time since the end of World War II under certain conditions, over strong protests from opposition lawmakers, who walked out of the vote, and demonstrators outside the National Diet Building. (BBC) (NHK)

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