Three children die in fire; mother’s condition critical

Three children, aged 5, 8 and 12, have died in a residential fire in Scotland, police said Saturday.

Police Scotland said the blaze broke out Friday evening in an apartment in Paisley, 10 miles west of Glasgow.

The force said Fiona Gibson, 12; Alexander James Gibson, 8; and 5-yearold Philip Gibson were taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, but died soon after being admitted.

A 39-year-old woman, reported by the BBC to be the children’s mother, was in critical condition in another hospital.

Police said the cause of the fire was being investigated.

KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S. State Department says COVID-19 infections have been reported at its embassy in the Afghan capital and affected staff include diplomats, contractors and locals.

The State Department did not say how many were affected. An official at the embassy in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, said up to 20 people were infected, the majority of them Nepalese Gurkhas, who provide embassy security.

“The embassy is implementing all appropriate measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19,” the State Department said in a statement late Friday.

The infected staff are in isolation in the embassy while the remainder on the compound are being tested, said the embassy official. That official added that embassy staff were told they can expect tighter isolation orders.

Afghanistan has 28,424 confirmed coronavirus cases. International aid organizations monitoring the pandemic’s spread in the country say the numbers are much higher because of a lack of testing capabilities as well as access to testing.

Observers also fear the highly contagious coronavirus has spread throughout the country with the return of nearly 300,000 Afghans from Iran, the hardest-hit country in the region.