The US Justice Department asked an appeals court on Monday to freeze a ruling by a federal judge in Texas that would ban a widely used abortion pill.. The Justice Department asked the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to stay the district judge's order pending a full appeal in a case that is likely to eventually reach the Supreme Court. cl/ec
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Monday claimed the lives of a Palestinian teenager and a British-Israeli mother who succumbed to injuries from a West Bank gun attack that earlier killed her two daughters.. - British-Israeli mother dies - The operation came as a Jerusalem hospital confirmed that a British-Israeli woman, Lucy (Leah) Dee, had died after being seriously injured in a shooting attack Friday in the West Bank that killed her two daughters, aged 16 and 20.
At least four people were killed and 15 others injured Monday by a bomb blast in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, officials said.. "Initial probe suggests that the explosion was caused by an IED (improvised explosive device) that had been planted on a motorcycle and was detonated using remote control," police official Azfar Mehsar told AFP. "At least four people were killed in the incident -- that includes two policemen and two civilians," he added.
A fifth person has been found dead and one is still missing after an avalanche near Mont Blanc in southeastern France, the local prosecutor's office said Monday.. After the discovery of four victims on Sunday, prosecutor Karline Bouisset said the body of a 39-year-old woman had been found and "a sixth person is still missing."
Northern Ireland on Monday marks the 25th anniversary of its landmark 1998 peace accords, with the UK province mired in political dysfunction and security concerns which threaten to overshadow the historic milestone.. The following week, Northern Ireland will continue its peace accord commemorations with a three-day conference starting April 17 hosted by former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Two bodies were found in the rubble of a building that collapsed in Marseille following a major explosion, French authorities said early Monday, as rescue workers scrambled to find at least six people still unaccounted for. . Emergency workers had continued rescue operations through Sunday night into the early hours of Monday with the help of a crane and lights, but a persistent fire underneath the rubble hampered their work, making it difficult for firefighters to deploy sniffer dogs.
China was due to hold live-fire drills on Monday to round off three days of military exercises in response to Taiwan's president meeting with the US House speaker.. - Live-fire exercises - Exercises on Monday will include live-fire drills off the rocky coast of China's Fujian province, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the Matsu islands and 190 kilometres from Taipei.
Thousands of opposition supporters rallied Sunday in the Georgian capital Tbilisi as the Black Sea nation's government faces mounting accusations of backsliding on democracy.. The ruling Georgian Dream party's government faces accusations of jailing opponents, silencing independent media, covertly collaborating with the Kremlin and leading the country astray from its EU membership path.
Four people were killed and more injured in an avalanche Sunday near Mont Blanc in southeastern France, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.. Nine people apart from the four killed were "involved" in the avalanche, which measured 1,000 metres (yards) long by 100 metres wide, the prefecture of the Haute-Savoie department told AFP. The people involved, whose identities have not yet been determined, were hiking near the Glacier d'Armancette as part of one or several groups.
The aroma of corek, a spiced bun the Armenian community makes for Easter, is once again wafting through the streets of Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey.. "The church represents a link to the lost Diyarbakir and that goes for all the inhabitants, Christians or Muslims," said Silva Ozyerli, an Armenian from Diyarbakir who travelled from Istanbul to celebrate Easter.
