SUDAN
Thirty killed in airstrikes
At least 30 people were killed in airstrikes on a neighborhood in the south of the capital, Khartoum, yesterday, a local group said. “At about 7:15am, military aircraft bombarded the Qouro market area,” said the local resistance committee, one of the groups that used to organize pro-democracy protests and now provides assistance during the war. It initially said that 11 were killed, but later said revised that tally to 30. Meanwhile, Bashair Teaching Hospital issued an “urgent appeal” for all medical professionals in the area to come and help treat the “increasing number of injured people arriving.”
TURKEY
Cave-stuck researcher moved
An injured US explorer trapped more than 1,000m deep in a cave for eight days has been transported 300m toward the surface, rescuers said yesterday. Mark Dickey, 40, reported falling sick on Sept. 2 while exploring Morca Cave in the Taurus Mountains with an international team. Dickey fell ill at a depth of 1,120m and has been resting at a base camp 1,040m underground. He was moved by rescuers on a stretcher, beginning just before 3:30pm on Saturday over 10 hours. He is now at a depth of 700m and “has a horizontal, but narrow passage between him and the campsite,” where he can rest before continuing the journey up, the Turkish Caving Federation wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
POLAND
Vatican beatifies family
In an unprecedented move, the Vatican yesterday beatified a Polish family of nine — a married couple and their small children — who were executed by the Nazis during World War II for sheltering Jews. During a ceremonious Mass, papal envoy Cardinal Marcello Semeraro read out the Latin formula of the beatification of the Ulma family signed last month by Pope Francis. A contemporary painting representing Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma with their children was uncovered near the altar. It is the first time that an entire family has been beatified.
UNITED KINGDOM
Man arrested for spying
Police on Saturday said that they had arrested a man in his twenties for spying, with the Sunday Times reporting that he was a researcher in the parliament suspected of working for China. “Officers from the Metropolitan Police Service arrested two men on 13 March on suspicion of offences under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act, 1911,” the police said. “A man in his 30s was arrested at an address in Oxfordshire and a man in his 20s was arrested at an address in Edinburgh.” The Sunday Times said the suspect in his 20s had contacts with lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party while working as a parliamentary researcher. If proven, it would represent one of the most serious breaches of security involving a hostile state at the parliament.
UNITED STATES
Two Sept. 11 victims ID’d
Twenty-two years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the remains of a man and a woman who died in the collapse of the World Trade Center have been identified through DNA analysis, authorities said ahead of the latest commemoration of the 2001 disaster. The identities of the two are being withheld at the request of their families. They bring to 1,649 the number of victims whose remains have been identified, of the total 2,753 who died when al-Qaeda operatives hijacked civilian airliners and crashed them into New York’s twin towers, the city’s mayor and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said.
VIOLENT STANDOFFS: The government said 215 students have been injured since the start of the movement last month, including a teenager who lost a hand on Monday Thousands of demonstrators yesterday massed under heavy police surveillance in Paris and cities across France, as unions and teachers joined high-school students who for days have been demanding better conditions in protests punctuated by violent clashes. Students have blocked the entrances to hundreds of high schools for 15-to-17-year-olds since late last month, complaining of missing teachers, overloaded schedules, dilapidated classrooms and buildings that cannot cope with rising temperatures. In the Paris suburb of Creteil, where the protests started last month, students piled barriers outside the Saint-Exupery high school. “We are here to make our voice heard, all too often forgotten,” student Abderrahmane Abdelkader
As shark attack survivor Mel Ismail fought the predator that severed his leg, he noticed something odd. “I saw its eye ... a big black eye,” Ismail said. “But it was winking back at me — I was trying to get my fingers in its eye and just pushing its eye as I was being dragged.” When the shark swam off, he managed to struggle back to shore, the surfer and professional firefighter said in an Australian Broadcasting Corp interview broadcast on Thursday. He was surfing at Glenfield Beach near Geraldton on Australia’s west coast when he was attacked on Sept. 14. He
A Tuvalu government adviser yesterday said it felt like Australia had “taken over” the tiny country’s sovereignty during a visit by leaders to the Pacific island. The official — a senior government adviser who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the media — said they were disappointed in Australia’s handling of the visit. The comments came during a visit by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other leaders to Tuvalu, which has become a symbol of the existential threat posed by rising seas and is a key partner in Canberra’s Pacific strategy. “Just because we signed the
Halfway around the world from Russia, in a Caribbean tourism hot spot, men young and old are being lured by Moscow with tantalizing job offers, only to find themselves en route to the front lines in Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv have recruited thousands of foreign nationals into their armies since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Moscow is accused, in some cases, of using fake job ads to hoodwink men from deprived backgrounds in Africa, Asia and Latin America into traveling to Russia and then forcing them to fight on arrival. From countries such as India, Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, Colombia and