UNITED STATES
More fire victims found
Crews discovered the remains of more people as they searched the rubble of wildfires that torched hundreds of homes and businesses near the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, bringing the death toll to 11, officials said on Thursday. Authorities set up a hotline for people to report missing friends and relatives, and after following up on dozens of leads, they said many of those people had been accounted for. They did not say whether they believe anyone else is still missing or may have died. “I think it’s fair to say that the search is winding down,” Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters said. “And hopefully we will not find any more.”
UNITED STATES
Lyft lift ends in tragedy
Police in New Jersey are searching for a man who they say fatally shot a woman during an attempted robbery of three passengers in a vehicle operating under the ride-hailing service Lyft. Mercer County prosecutors say the incident began when the unknown assailant hopped into the back of the car on Wednesday night in Trenton and demanded the passengers’ money. A gunshot was fired and the suspect fled as the Lyft driver sped off. Police say 27-year-old Amber Dudley was struck in the torso. A woman was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Police have not released the names of the Lyft driver or Dudley’s fellow passengers.
UNITED KINGDOM
Alert over London pollution
London’s mayor issued air quality alerts across the capital for the first time because of high pollution levels. The alerts were displayed on Thursday at 2,500 bus stop and river pier information signs and at the entrances of all 270 subway stations. Dozens of signs next to the busiest main roads into London instruct drivers to switch engines off when stationary to reduce emissions. The air quality forecast was provided by King’s College London, which said an area of high pressure led to poor pollutant dispersal.
RUSSIA
Spacecraft launch fails
A Russian spacecraft carrying tonnes of food, fuel and supplies — but no astronauts — to the International Space Station failed to reach orbit on Thursday and largely burned up in the atmosphere as it fell back down. The Roscosmos space agency reported that a Soyuz rocket carrying the Progress 65 cargo ship successfully lifted off from Kazakhstan. The first six minutes and 22 seconds of the flight proceeded normally, but shortly after the upper stage separated from the core booster, flight telemetry stopped, leaving ground controllers confused about what had happened. Roscosmos later confirmed that the Progress 65 and its cargo had been destroyed.
COLOMBIA
Torrential rains kill six
Six people, including an eight-day-old baby, were killed when their home was washed away on Thursday by heavy rains in the southern city of Cali. Rescuers pulled three people alive from the collapsed two-story home in a poor neighborhood of the city. Among the dead were five minors including the baby. Heavy rains have been battering several parts of the nation the past few weeks. However, the midday storm on Thursday in Cali was particularly strong and knocked down dozens of trees. Authorities said more than 100 workers were checking to make sure other people were not left homeless or injured.
CHINA
Bus crash kills 18
Authorities said 18 people have died and two more are in hospital after a passenger bus plunged into a lake in Hubei Province early yesterday morning. The provincial government said on its Web site that two people survived the accident near the city of Ezhou and the bus driver has been detained. Much of central China has been enveloped in thick fog for the past few days, although reports did not say if weather was considered a factor in the accident which left the bus almost entirely submerged. It said an investigation has been opened into the cause.
PHILIPPINES
China rescues fishermen
The coast guard said its Chinese counterpart has rescued two Filipino fishermen in bad weather in a disputed shoal in a show of how once-frosty relations have improved after President Rodrigo Duterte reached out to revive ties with Beijing. Philippine coast guard spokesman Armand Balilo said that Chinese coast guard officials notified them of the rescue in the vicinity of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), which is also claimed by Taiwan, off the northwestern Philippines and asked how the two can be handed over to Philippine authorities. Balilo said a patrol ship was sent to pick up the rescued fishermen from the Chinese coast guard, but large waves were preventing the transfer in high seas.
NEW ZEALAND
Buzz Aldrin evacuated
Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, was evacuated from the South Pole to New Zealand where he was in a hospital yesterday in stable condition. Aldrin, 86, was visiting Antarctica as a tourist when he fell ill. He was flown to Christchurch from McMurdo Station, a US research center on the Antarctic coast. Tour company White Desert said Aldrin has fluid in his lungs, but was responding well to antibiotics. He was to remain hospitalized overnight for observation.
KENYA
Iranians face terror charge
Two Iranians have been charged with planning a terrorist act after their arrest for filming the Israeli embassy in the Kenyan capital this week. Sayed Nasrollah Ebrahimi and Abdolhosein Gholi Safaee were charged and remanded in custody by a Nairobi court on Thursday alongside their Kenyan driver, Moses Keyah Mbogah. The three were charged with being “in facilitation of a terrorist act” after “taking video clips of the Israeli embassy using mobile phones,” the court heard. The men were arrested by anti-terrorism police after filming outside the Israeli embassy on Tuesday, allegedly while driving in an Iranian embassy car. They denied the charges in court on Thursday.
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
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
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