WORLD - The African Mirror

Mar

28

2023

Israel government to delay disputed judiciary bill amid mass protests

WORLD

MAAYAN LUBELL PRIME Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed a decision on bitterly contested plans for a judicial overhaul amid fears that Israel's worst national crisis in years could fracture his coalition or escalate into violence. It was unclear how far the bill's delay to next month's new parliamentary session, after mass protests and growing labour strikes, will satisfy either side or cool a crisis the army chief said on Monday made "this hour different to any before". "From a will to prevent the rift in the nation, I have decided to delay the second and third reading in order to reach a broad…

Mar

28

2023

By The African Mirror

Ukraine shuts ‘post-apocalyptic’ battlefield town to civilians

WORLD

DAN PELESCHUK UKRAINE shut the eastern town of Avdiivka to non-military personnel on Monday, describing it as a post-apocalyptic wasteland, as Kyiv seeks to break the back of Russia's flagging winter offensive before a counterassault of its own. A top Ukrainian general said Kyiv was planning its next move after Moscow appeared to shift focus from the small city of Bakhmut, which Russia has failed to capture after half a year of the war's bloodiest fighting, to Avdiivka further south. Front lines in Ukraine have barely budged for more than four months despite a Russian winter offensive using hundreds of…

Feb

24

2023

By The African Mirror

R. Kelly’s 2nd conviction extends earlier 30-year sentence by a year

WORLD

BRENDAN O'BRIEN A federal judge in Chicago sentenced R. Kelly to one additional year in prison for his conviction on sex crimes, extending a 30-year sentence handed to the Grammy-winning R&B singer after an earlier trial in New York, local media reported. At a 90-minute hearing, Judge Harry Leinenweber of the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago also ordered Kelly to serve 19 years simultaneously with the previous sentence, a local CBS affiliate and other media reported. In September, Kelly - whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly - was convicted in federal court of felony sexual exploitation…

Mar

28

2023

By The African Mirror

Female shooter kills 3 children, 3 adults in Nashville school attack

WORLD

A female shooter killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, before police shot her dead. The assailant appeared to be a teenage girl, police said. Police began receiving calls at 10:13 a.m. of a shooter at The Covenant School, which teaches children up to 6th grade. Officers could hear gunfire coming from the school's second floor, Don Aaron, a spokesperson for Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, told reporters. The shooter had at least two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun, Aaron said. Two officers from a five-member team shot at her in what Aaron described…

Mar

23

2023

By The African Mirror

Charges unlikely Wednesday in Trump hush-money probe as grand jury stays home

WORLD

KAREN FREIFELD FORMER President Donald Trump appeared unlikely to face criminal charges after a law enforcement source said a grand jury investigating alleged illegal hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels would not meet again before Thursday. The grand jury, a panel of U.S. citizens residing in Manhattan, has been considering the evidence in one of many legal probes swirling around Trump as he mounts a comeback bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The grand jury was told to stay home on Wednesday, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the secret proceedings. It was unclear how…

Mar

23

2023

By The African Mirror

Trapped and jobless, Gaza youths look for a way out

WORLD

NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI SABREEN Abu Jazar was only hours from completing the perilous journey from Gaza to meet her husband in Europe last month when her migrant boat flipped and sank 100 metres from the Greek coast. Her body was finally returned home this week. "She phoned me just before travelling and asked me to pray for her," said her mother, sitting in a mourning tent in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. After leaving Gaza in February, via Egypt, Sabreen flew to Turkey where she met her husband, who had migrated to Belgium years ago. They had planned to meet…

Mar

23

2023

By The African Mirror

Russia hits Ukraine with missiles, drones as ‘dear friend’ Xi departs

WORLD

DAN PELESCHUK and SERGIY CHALYI RUSSIA blasted an apartment block in Ukraine with missiles and swarmed cities with drone attacks overnight, in a display of force as President Vladimir Putin bid farewell to his visiting "dear friend" and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Firefighters battled a blaze in two adjacent residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, where officials said at least one person was killed and 33 wounded by a twin missile strike. "Right now, residential areas where ordinary people and children live are being fired at," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted, with security camera video showing one building exploding. "This must not become…

Mar

02

2023

By The African Mirror

Greece train crash kills at least 36, injures scores

WORLD

ALEXANDROS AVRAMIDIS and LEFTERIS PAPADIMAS A Greek passenger train collided head-on with a cargo train late, throwing entire carriages off the tracks and killing at least 36 people, many of them students, in the country's deadliest rail crash in living memory. Officials said the death toll was expected to rise further as temperatures in one carriage rose to 1,300 Celsius after it was engulfed in flames. Passengers described a "nightmarish" crash which shattered their train just before midnight near the central town of Larissa. It was headed to the northern city of Thessaloniki, from the capital Athens, after a long holiday weekend.…

Mar

02

2023

By The African Mirror

Family of late basketball star Kobe Bryant awarded nearly $29 million in photos case

WORLD

BRAD BROOKS LOS Angeles County will pay the wife of late basketball star Kobe Bryant nearly $29 million to settle a lawsuit over allegations that sheriff officers and firefighters shared gruesome photos of the helicopter crash that killed Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter. "Today marks the successful culmination of Mrs Bryant's courageous battle to hold accountable those who engaged in this grotesque conduct," said Luis Li, attorney for Vanessa Bryant, Kobe Bryant's wife. "She fought for her husband, her daughter, and all those in the community whose deceased family were treated with similar disrespect." Li confirmed that the settlement was…

Feb

25

2023

By The African Mirror

U.S. State Department sanctions target Russian cabinet ministers, nuclear arms institutes

WORLD

JONATHAN LANDAY THE U.S. State Department marked the first anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine by sanctioning more than 60 top Russian officials, including cabinet ministers and regional leaders, and three nuclear weapons institutes. Also targeted, a department statement said, were scores of other Russian officials and entities, a Russian involved in the theft of grain from Ukraine and the official who oversees its main nuclear power plant, seized by Russian troops early in the invasion. In other actions, the department slapped U.S. visa restrictions on more than 1,200 members of the Russian military and banned entry into the…