CHINA
Gas blast kills at least 12
At least 12 people were killed and nearly 140 injured yesterday, when a gas line explosion ripped through a residential compound in Hubei Province at about 6:30am, local officials said. Rescue efforts were continuing, the disaster management bureau in the city of Shiyan said in a statement, although it was unclear how many people might still be trapped under the debris. Videos filmed by witnesses and verified by Beijing News show several buildings reduced to rubble and rescue workers carrying shocked survivors on stretchers. The blast ripped through one of the city’s vegetable markets that was filled with shoppers and local residents eating breakfast, an eyewitness told the Global Times. “I heard a loud bang and immediately ducked under the table, thinking it was an earthquake,” a man who owns a small restaurant near the explosion site told the newspaper.
SYRIA
Shells hit hospital, 18 dead
Shelling of the rebel-held city of Afrin on Saturday killed at least 18 people, many of them when a hospital was hit, a war monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that a doctor, three hospital staff, two women and two children died at al-Shifaa Hospital in the city which is held by Turkish-backed rebels. A rebel commander also died at the hospital, the observatory said, adding that 23 people were injured. “The shelling targeted several areas of the town and hit the hospital,” observatory director Rami Abdel Rahmane said. “Most of the victims died in shelling on the hospital,” the Britain-based monitoring group said in a statement. The artillery fire originated from Aleppo Province “where militia faithful to Iran and the [Syrian] regime are deployed, near the zones run by Kurdish forces,” it said. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces denied any involvement in the shelling.
UNITED STATES
Biden to honor Pulse victims
President Joe Biden said on the fifth anniversary of a mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that he would sign a bill naming the site as a national memorial. The deadliest attack on the LGBTQ community in US history left 49 people dead and 53 people wounded. Biden said in a statement on Saturday that he has “stayed in touch with families of the victims and with the survivors who have turned their pain into purpose” and described the club as “hallowed ground.”
UNITED STATES
Man’s novel stress tactic
A Chicago bus driver looking for a way to relieve stress during the COVID-19 pandemic jumped into Lake Michigan for a 365th straight day on Saturday. Dan O’Conor said he started jumping into the lake at Montrose Harbor on the city’s North Side last year to relieve stress. “It was during the pandemic, it was during the protest, it was during an election year... So it was somewhere where I could come down here and block all that noise out and kind of be totally present with me in the lake, and find some moments of Zen,” the father of three said. He continued jumping into the lake through the fall before the hard part: hacking a hole in the ice on the frozen lake that was big enough for him to jump through during the winter. “People started asking me what this was benefiting and how they could support... When I started posting the videos on Twitter and Instagram... I got more wind in my sails there because people started commenting like: ‘This makes my day, it’s nice to see this,’” he said.
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
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number