Pakistani militant leader survives attack from within group
Pope urges Christians to think of tragedies affecting children
Vatican City — Pope Francis urged Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus by thinking about the plight of today’s children, bemoaning how some must escape bombs or flee in migrant boats and how others are prevented from being born at all.
Francis celebrated a somber Christmas Eve Mass in a packed St. Peter’s Basilica, processing to the altar behind cardinals draped in golden vestments as the Sistine Chapel choir sang “Gloria” and the church bells rang out across Rome.
The Mass late Saturday was the first major event of the Christmas season. He will give his noon Urbi et Orbi (To the city and the world) blessing on Christmas Day.
Engineer in fatal train derailment to get disability pension
New York — An engineer who fell asleep at the controls of a speeding train in New York City, causing a derailment that killed four people, will receive a lifetime disability pension from the commuter railroad that employed him, a published report said.
The Journal News reported Friday that William Rockefeller will receive $3,200 a month for life from Metro-North Railroad.
Rockefeller was at the controls of a Metro-North train that derailed in the Bronx in December 2013, killing four passengers and injuring dozens. Prosecutors said Rockefeller fell asleep at the controls but declined to prosecute him.
In September, Rockefeller’s union said he was seeking the disability for a post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the accident on Dec. 1, 2013.
54,000 to be evacuated Christmas morning for WWII bomb
Frankfurt, Germany — More than 54,000 people in the southern German city of Augsburg will have to leave their homes Christmas morning while authorities defuse a giant 1.8-ton aerial bomb from World War II.
The city’s medieval cathedral and City Hall are in the area to be sealed off. Police said everyone must be out by 10 a.m. Police say it was impossible to say exactly how long it would take to make the bomb safe.
Finding bombs from the war is not unusual
Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan — A spokesman for a Pakistani militant group says their chief has survived a gun attack while traveling in Afghanistan.
Ali Bin Sufyan said the chief of the Lashker-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi group, Yousuf Mansoor Khurasani, came under attack by one of the group’s members in Afghanistan’s Zabul province Saturday. He said the attacker was killed by the retaliatory fire of Khurasani’s bodyguard.
The attack exposes cracks in the unity of the militant group, which in recent months has been involved in major attacks in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, such as those on the Quetta police training center and the Shah Noorani shrine, which killed dozens.
Typhoon heading for Philippines, will pass near capital Manila
Manila, Philippines — A powerful typhoon was heading for a Christmas Day collision with the central Philippines.
Nock-Ten has intensified into a super typhoon with maximum sustained winds of 108 miles per hour and gusts of up to 133 mph as it heads for landfall over Cataduanes Island in the central Bicol region. It’s then forecast to drag across the southern portion of the main Luzon island as it passes close to the capital, Manila, and begins to weaken.
The typhoon strength is equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane in the Atlantic.
California group to send greetings into space
After decades of fruitless scanning the skies for alien messages, scientists say it’s time to try a basic rule of etiquette: Say “hello” first.
A new San Francisco-based organization called Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence plans to send signals to distant planets, rather than waiting for them to call Earth.
By the end of 2018, the project aims to send some conversation-starters via radio or laser signals to a rocky planet circling Proxima Centauri, the nearest star other than the sun, and then to more distant destinations, hundreds or thousands of light years away.
It would be the first effort to send powerful, repeated and intentional messages into space, targeting the same stars over months or years.