NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Slain workers: Iraqi authorities have discovered a mass grave with the bodies of 38 Indian construction workers abducted when Islamic State militants overran the northern city of Mosul in 2014, officials said Tuesday. The bodies were found buried near the village of Badush, northwest of Mosul, in an area that Iraqi forces recaptured last July. The killing was a “heinous crime carried out by Daesh terrorist gangs,” said Iraqi official Najiha Abdul-Amir al-Shimari. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. The abducted workers, most from northern India, had been employed by a construction company operating near Mosul when militants captured wide swaths of northern Iraq in the summer of 2014. Relatives said they received panicked phone calls from some of the workers five days after Mosul was captured, asking for help. Dozens of mass graves have been discovered in territory once held by the Islamic State group.
2 Corruption probe: The United Nations’ anti-corruption commission in Guatemala says the government has removed 11 police investigators working with the panel to uncover graft. Commission head Ivan Velasquez said the aim of their removal was “to affect the investigations” that have netted high-ranking politicians and their relatives. Government spokesman Fernando Lucero told Guatemalan newspaper El Periodico on Tuesday the investigators had been reassigned to help with security during the week before Easter. The U.N. panel and local prosecutors are popular among Guatemalans for taking on corruption and bringing down former President Otto Perez Molina. The commission has also investigated President Jimmy Morales for illegal campaign financing. Morales tried to expel Velasquez in August, but the country’s top court blocked that order.
3 Ancient scroll: A fragment of an enigmatic Dead Sea Scroll has gone on public display at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum for the first time since its discovery 70 years ago. The Genesis Apocryphon, the sole copy of an ancient Jewish text elaborating on stories from the first book of the Bible, dates to the first century B.C. and was among the first seven scrolls found in the Judean Desert in 1947. The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of Jewish texts found in desert caves in the West Bank near Qumran in the 1940s and 1950s, date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D. They include the earliest known copies of biblical texts.
4 Pastor accused: An American pastor has been charged in Turkey with engaging in espionage and having links to terror groups, crimes that carry a potential sentence of up to 35 years in prison, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported Tuesday. An indictment accuses Andrew Brunson of working with U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen’s network and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, to stir chaos in Turkey and divide the country, Anadolu Agency reported on Tuesday. 5 Beatle nobility: Call him Sir Ringo now, or Sir Richard to be more precise. Either way, it’s a fitting honor for the former Beatles drummer, who has waited decades for the recognition. Ringo Starr, 77, received his long-awaited knighthood from Prince William Tuesday. He used his real name Richard Starkey for the big event. He said the honor “means a lot.” The other surviving Beatle, Paul McCartney, was knighted in 1997.