California
HALF MOON BAY, Calif. – An annual pumpkin-weighing contest in Northern California has a new winner: a third-grade teacher in Washington state who raised a giant one weighing 1,910 pounds.
Cindy Tobeck, 42, who lives outside Olympia, Washington, said her pumpkin grew steadily since she planted it in April, spending much of that time in a greenhouse with heated soil. She said the secret to growing giant pumpkins is using the right seed. Hers came from a 2,230-pound pumpkin that won a different contest last year.
At $6 a pound, Tobeck will receive nearly $11,500 in prize money.
SAN FRANCISCO – Samsung said it is halting sales of the star-crossed Galaxy Note 7 smartphone after a spate of fires involving new devices that were supposed to be safe replacements for recalled models.
Separately, South Korean safety authorities said they found a new product defect in the Note 7 and urged consumers to stop using them. The officials did not publicly identify the defect.
In a statement issued late Monday, Samsung Electronics Inc. said consumers with original Note 7 devices or replacements they obtained after the recall should turn off the power and seek a refund or exchange them for different phones.
Yemen
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Two missiles fired from rebel-held territory in Yemen landed near an American destroyer in the Red Sea, the U.S. Navy said Monday, the second such launch targeting ships in the crucial international waterway in recent days.
The missile launches Sunday came as a ballistic missile fired from Yemen apparently targeted a Saudi air base near the Muslim holy city of Mecca, the deepest strike yet into the kingdom by Shiite rebels and their allies. The rebels fired another two missiles into the Saudi Jizan region along the border on Monday, wounding two foreigners who worked there, the local civil defense said in a statement.
In a statement, the Navy said no American sailors were wounded and no damage was caused to the USS Mason.
United Kingdom
LONDON – After Sunday night’s debate at least one international figure was happy to claim Trump’s performance as a great success: Nigel Farage, the U.K.’s Brexit poster boy. He’s an avid Trump supporter, won over by the GOP candidate’s talk of a border wall and Muslim ban.
On Sunday night, Farage unleashed a stream of video clips on his Twitter feed lauding Trump’s debate performance and even likening him to a “big silverback gorilla, prowling the studio.”
And Trump’s leaked comments about forcing himself on women didn’t seem to bother Farage in the least. “You know what, he’s not running to be Pope,” he told Fox News.
Associated Press, Washington Post
