UNITED STATES
Dock collapse kills seven
At least seven people were killed after part of a boat dock collapsed, sending at least 20 into the Atlantic off Georgia. Coast Guard ships were on Saturday night searching for missing people. The incident, which also caused multiple injuries, happened during a celebration of Sapelo Island’s tiny Gullah-Geechee community of black slave descendants, authorities said. A gangway crowded with people waiting for a ferryboat collapsed late on Saturday afternoon on the barrier island, said Tyler Jones, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which runs the ferry. “We and multiple agencies are searching for survivors,” he said.
INDIA
Bomb threats disrupt travel
More than 70 fake bomb threats have been made against flights operated by multiple Indian airlines this week, media reported yesterday, sparking fear among passengers and global delays. All flights landed safely, but the spate of threats has resulted in planes being diverted to Canada and Germany, and fighter jets scrambled to escort aircraft in the skies above the UK and Singapore. Authorities have not said how many threats have been received in the past week, but the Times of India and broadcaster News18 reported more than 70 hoaxes targeting domestic and international flights since Oct. 13. At least 30 hoax threats were made on Saturday alone.
UNITED KINGDOM
Book returned 113 years late
A book borrowed from a school library before World War I has finally been returned — more than a century overdue. A copy of Poetry of Byron was found by a man in Carmarthenshire, Wales, who felt it should be returned to St Bees School, near Whitehaven, England, where it had been lent a schoolboy. Inside the blue clothbound book the name Leonard Ewbank is written, along with the date Sept. 25, 1911. Ewbank died serving in WWI. The school was “honored” to have the book returned, principal Andrew Keep said. “It’s incredible to think that a piece of St Bees’ history has found its way back to us after all these years,” Keep told the BBC. The book could be one of the most overdue library books of all time. In May, a book borrowed from a library in Helsinki was returned 84 years overdue.
UNITED STATES
Cher inducted to hall of fame
Cher, Mary J. Blige and Ozzy Osbourne were among this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, an elite group formally introduced into the music pantheon on Saturday at a star-studded concert gala. Kool & the Gang, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, A Tribe Called Quest and Peter Frampton round out the 2024 class of honorees, artists honored at the ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio. Big Mama Thornton, Alexis Korner and John Mayall received special honors for “musical influence,” as Jimmy Buffett, MC5, Dionne Warwick and Norman Whitfield received awards for “musical excellence.” Dua Lipa started the ceremony with a performance of Believe, with Cher joining the pop star onstage to finish her 1998 smash hit, which was credited as the first song to use auto-tune technology as an instrument. “I changed the sound of music forever,” she said in her acceptance speech, less than a year after railing against the hall for not having yet added her to the ballot. “It was easier getting divorced from two men than it was getting in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” she quipped.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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