Dozens die in Siberia mall blaze

MOSCOW— At least 37 people died when a fire burned through a shopping mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo on Sunday, Russian authorities said.

Many of the victims were children, and at least 29 people were still missing after the blaze in the industrial city of about half-a-million people, over 2,000 miles east of Moscow, the Interfax news agency reported. The missing had little chance of survival, it said, citing a source in the rescue team.

The fire started around 5 p.m. on the fourth floor of the mall, which includes a three-screen cinema complex, a skating rink and an entertainment center for children.

Speaking to the relatives of the missing, Vladimir Chernov, a deputy governor of the Kemerovo region, said the fire had started in the children’ s entertainment room, where there was a trampoline with foam rubber.

“The preliminary version is that one of the children had a lighter,” Mr. Chernov told the relatives, according to Interfax. “The fire started from the trampoline pool, filled with foam rubber, which got lit up as gunpowder.”

Mr. Chernov said that the fire alarm then did not work and that the cinema hall’s doors were shut.

Catholic youths speak out

On Saturday, hundreds of young Catholics gathered to give Pope Francis a piece of their minds.

They called for a more transparent and “authentic” church, one with a bigger role for women and more wisdom about the benefits and challenges of technology. They called for more flexibility, too, arguing that “unreachable” moral standards should not be the only way to live an authentically Catholic life.

These findings were part of a 16-page report assembled by 300 young people at a week-long conference sponsored by the Vatican. It drew, too, on online submissions from 15,000 others.

Houthi missile attack?

AL MUKALLA, Yemen — Saudi Arabia said its air defenses destroyed seven ballistic missiles late Sunday, fired fromneighboring Yemen and targeting at least four Saudi cities including the capital, Riyadh.

Fragments of one missile over Riyadh reportedly killed oneperson and wounded two.

If confirmed, the missile bar rage, apparently launched by Yemen’s Houthi insurgents ,would be one of their most audacious attacks against Saudi Arabia since the Kingdom began bombing Houthi targets exactly three yearsago in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country.