NEWS OF THE DAY
1 Royal assent: A bill authorizing Britain to start its exit from the European Union received royal assent and became law Thursday, empowering Prime Minister Theresa May to begin divorce proceedings from the bloc. House of Commons Speaker John Bercow announced that the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act has received the assent of Queen Elizabeth II. May is now free to invoke Article 50 of the EU’s key treaty, triggering two years of exit negotiations.
2 Pirates release tanker: Somali pirates who seized a Comoros-flagged oil tanker earlier this week after five years without a major hijacking in the region have released the ship and its crew without conditions, officials said late Thursday. Security official Ahmed Mohamed said the pirates disembarked the ship, which was heading to Bossaso port, northeast Somalia’s commercial hub, with its eight Sri Lankan crew members aboard. Mohamed said the release occurred after negotiations by local elders and officials with the pirates, who seized the tanker on Monday. The pirates were given passage to leave once they disembarked, he said.
3 3-person baby: Britain’s Newcastle University said on Thursday that its scientists received a license by the nation’s fertility regulator to create babies using DNA from three people, the first time such approval has been granted. The new procedures are intended to prevent women from passing on fatal genetic diseases to their children and fix problems linked to mitochondria, the energy-producing structures outside a cell’s nucleus. Faulty mitochondria can result in conditions including muscular dystrophy and major organ failure. Last year, American doctors created the world’s first baby using such techniques after traveling to Mexico to perform the methods, which have not been approved in the U.S.
4 Letter bomb: French prosecutors are investigating a possible Greek link after a letter exploded Thursday at the Paris’ office of the International Monetary Fund, lightly injuring one person. The IMF incident came as a Greek anarchist group claimed responsibility for a letter bomb sent to the German Finance Ministry the day before. The Paris prosecutor’s office said investigators found “residues of Greek stamps” on the letter bomb at the IMF’s office in the French capital.
5 Deadly air strike: An air strike on a mosque in a rebel-held area of northern Syria on Thursday killed at least 35 people, first responders and activists said. The Syrian Civil Defense, volunteer paramedics known as the White Helmets, said first responders were racing to the scene after the air strike in the Jeeneh area, near the rebel-held province of Idlib. Jeeneh is in the western Aleppo countryside, which along with Idlib is home to hundreds of thousands of Syrians displaced by fighting. The civil war has killed some 400,000 people, wounded more than a million and displaced half the country’s population.
6 School shooting: A 16year-old student who had troubled relations with his peers opened fire at a high school in southern France on Thursday, wounding three other students and the principal who tried to intervene, officials said. None of the injuries is life-threatening, officials said. Police moved into the Alexis de Tocqueville school in the town of Grasse and quickly arrested the stillarmed suspect, identified as Killian Barbey. Officials said the young man was armed with a rifle, several pistols and a small grenade.