AFGHANISTAN
Targeted bombing kills 22
An Afghan official said a bombing in the northern Kunduz province has killed 22 members of illegal armed groups, including four leaders. Provincial governor spokesman Abdul Wadood Wahidi said the bombing late on Saturday targeted a meeting of criminal groups that in the past have clashed with both national security forces and Taliban insurgents. He said seven others were wounded by the blast in Khan Abad district. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed the attack. The Taliban have stepped up attacks across the country since US and NATO forces shifted from a combat to a support and training role at the end of last year.
BRAZIL
Bus station porno-hacked
Hackers infiltrated the travel information video screens at a bus station and replaced arrival and departure times with hardcore pornography. The sex footage ran for 15 minutes on Friday evening at the Boqueirao station in the southern city of Curitiba. The depot was packed with travelers at the time. The police cybercrime unit has been notified and is trying to trace the hacker or hackers, the municipal transport company said. A Curitiba city hall official said the company with the contract to operate the screens has also been notified and told it must improve its security. Social media lit up with screen grabs of the pornography and jokes about the hack. With a population of about 2 million, Curitiba is the capital of Parana state and one of the largest cities in the south of the nation.
BAHRAIN
Newspaper to publish again
Bahrain has given permission to a pro-opposition newspaper to resume publishing after a two-day ban that drew criticism from human rights groups, state media said. A statement from the Information Affairs Authority reported by the official BNA news agency said that the decision had been taken after al-Wasat’s editors undertook to respect the law on publications. Announcing the paper’s suspension on Thursday, the authorities had accused it of “violation of the law and repeated dissemination of information that affects national unity and the kingdom’s relationship with other countries.” Bahrain has seen frequent unrest since the Sunni minority rulers of the small Gulf kingdom crushed a Shiite-led uprising for reform four years ago. At the height of the 2011 uprising, al-Wasat was suspended by authorities, and its chief editor Mansoor al-Jamri was tried and fined for allegedly publishing false information. It was later allowed to reopen.
UNITED STATES
Mom charged with baby death
The mother of a three-week-old boy who died after plummeting from a fourth-floor window in New York was charged on Saturday with intentionally killing her child. The woman, Rashida Chowdhury, 21, is accused of throwing the boy out the window, the police said. The infant, identified by the police as Rizwan Ahmad, was found in a pool of blood outside his family’s apartment building in Queens at about 4am on Friday by a neighbor who heard a thump in the courtyard. The city medical examiner ruled the death a homicide on Friday night. An autopsy showed that Rizwan, who was born on July 18, died from blunt impact to his head and torso that left him with skull fractures, among other injuries. Chowdhury was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in New York for a psychiatric evaluation on Friday because she was acting strangely, the police said, and then taken to a station house for questioning.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the