NIGERIA
Polio cases reported: WHO
The country has reported the first two cases of polio after more than two years, in an area newly liberated from Islamic extremists who attacked polio vaccinators in the past, the government and the WHO said on Thursday. The country’s removal from the WHO’s list of polio-endemic countries in October last year had meant the entire African continent was free of the crippling disease. Two children have been paralyzed by polio in northeastern Borno State in two different local government areas that had been cut off by Boko Haram’s Islamic extremist uprising, Minister of Health Isaac Adewole said in a statement on Thursday night. “Our overriding priority right now is to rapidly boost immunity in the affected areas to ensure that no more children are affected by this terrible disease,” he said. Adewole said he has ordered the deployment of a national emergency response team.
UNITED KINGDOM
London IS schoolgirl dead
One of three schoolgirls who left London in February last year to join the Islamic State (IS) militant group has died, her family lawyer said on Thursday. Attorney Tasnime Akunjee said the family of Kadiza Sultana learned of her death in Raqqa, Syria, a few weeks ago. She was believed to have been killed by a Russian airstrike in Raqqa, ITV News reported earlier on Thursday. Sultana was making plans to return home and her family was communicating with her to discuss her possible escape from Raqqa, according to an interview published by ITV with Sultana’s sister, which includes recordings of purported telephone calls between the sisters. Sultana, 16, along with two other friends, flew from London’s Gatwick Airport to Turkey on Feb. 17 last year.
UNITED STATES
Terrorist ID sparks lawsuit
A Muslim woman is suing the city of Chicago and six officers who falsely singled her out as a potential terrorist on July 4 last year as she left a subway station wearing a headscarf, face veil and carrying a backpack. Itemid al-Matar’s federal lawsuit filed on Thursday says officers pulled off her religious garb, arrested her and later strip-searched her. The 32-year-old was acquitted of obstructing justice. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said “blatant xenophobia, Islamophobia and racial profiling” motivated the arrest. A public police report said officers “were on high alert of terrorist activity” on the national holiday and that al-Matar was exhibiting “suspicious behavior.” The Chicago Police Department declined to comment, but said in a statement that police “strive to treat all individuals with the highest levels of dignity of respect.”
UNITED STATES
Bathroom request denied
A South Texas school board has denied a request from a woman who wants her transgender daughter to use the girls’ restroom. Kim Shappley’s daughter, Kai, is about to be in kindergarten. She was born as Joseph five years ago. The mother says right away she knew Kai had a different identity than “boy.” The Pearland Independent School District board listened to Shappley on Tuesday, but did not alter its policy. In a statement, the district said children are to use the bathroom matching the gender of their birth certificate. It said transgender children in kindergarten can use gender-neutral bathrooms in their classrooms. Shappley on Thursday said that her daughter has lived as a girl for two years. Shappley has not yet picked an elementary school for her daughter.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
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