CHINA
Mine collapse toll hits 11
The death toll in a coal mine collapse in the country’s east has risen to 11, with 10 miners still trapped underground, state media reported. One week after the disaster, rescue crews were clearing fallen rock from the shaft, with the remaining miners believed to be 74m below the surface, the official Xinhua news agency said late on Friday. It said that rescuers were making progress, but gave no indication of when they expected to break through. More than 300 people were inside the mine at the time of the collapse. The country long had the world’s deadliest coal mines, but safety has improved considerably with more modern equipment, better training and the closure of most of the smallest, most dangerous mines.
IRELAND
O’Connor converts to Islam
Outspoken singer Sinead O’Connor has announced that she has converted to Islam. Having adopted the name Magda Davitt last year, the 51-year-old is now called Shuhada Davitt. She also changed her Twitter avatar to a black-and-white image of the Nike swoosh logo and the slogan: “Wear a hijab. Just do it.” “This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey,” she tweeted. Her Twitter account says the singer now lives in “Direland.”
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Magna Carta’ theft averted
A man suspected of trying to steal a Magna Carta from its display case at Salisbury Cathedral has been arrested after he was wrestled to the ground by cathedral employees, authorities said on Friday. Cathedral alarms sounded on Thursday afternoon when a person armed with a hammer tried to smash the glass box surrounding the Magna Carta, Wiltshire Police said. The document on display at the cathedral is one of four surviving originals. The dean of the cathedral said the suspect was able to smash through one of two protective glass screens housing the precious document. The 45-year-old suspect was arrested on suspicion of attempted theft, possession of a weapon and criminal damage, police said.
AUSTRALIA
Gay penguins become dads
Two male penguins entrusted with the care of a fostered egg have welcomed a tiny sub-Antarctic gentoo chick into the world, Sydney’s Sea Life Aquarium said on Friday. The pair, Magic and Sphen, made headlines around the world earlier this month when aquarium staff gave them the egg, following a successful trial with a dummy egg.
UNITED STATES
Iran-based pages taken down
Facebook on Friday said that it had taken down accounts linked to an Iranian effort to influence US and British politics with messages about charged topics such as immigration and race relations. The social network identified 82 pages, groups and accounts that originated in Iran and violated policy on coordinated “inauthentic” behavior, Facebook head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher said. There was overlap with accounts taken down earlier this year and linked to Iran state media, but the identity of the culprits had yet to be determined, Gleicher said. “It’s often hard to know who is behind this type of activity,” he said in a telephone briefing. Account owners tried to hide their identities by passing themselves off mostly as US citizens and in a few cases as British citizens, he added.
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
‘VERY DIRE’: This year’s drought, exacerbated by El Nino, is affecting 44 percent of Malawi’s crop area and up to 40 percent of its population of 20.4 million In the worst drought in southern Africa in a century, villagers in Malawi are digging for potentially poisonous wild yams to eat as their crops lie scorched in the fields. “Our situation is very dire, we are starving,” 76-year-old grandmother Manesi Levison said as she watched over a pot of bitter, orange wild yams that she says must cook for eight hours to remove the toxins. “Sometimes the kids go for two days without any food,” she said. Levison has 30 grandchildren under her care. Ten are huddled under the thatched roof of her home at Salima, near Lake Malawi, while she boils
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