NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Royal wedding security: British officials say armed and undercover police officers will patrol train stations with routes leading to Windsor when Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle on May 19. British Transport Police said Thursday there will be a visible deployment of officers along with canine units and specialists trained to detect dangerous behavior. There will also be specialist teams ready to deal quickly with reports of unattended items being found in stations or on the railways. Officials expect more than 100,000 people to travel to Windsor to try to see the royal couple. Extra trains will be added.
2 Indonesia quake: A shallow earthquake in central Indonesia killed three people and damaged more than 300 homes, disaster officials said Thursday as they declared a two-week emergency for the affected areas. Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said the magnitude-4.4 quake that occurred Wednesday at a depth of 2.4 miles was centered about 32 miles north of Kebumen, a densely populated district of Central Java province. Indonesia is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location along the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”
3 Authorizing comments: The parliament in Belarus has passed a measure prohibiting Internet users from commenting on forums without authorization and requiring online publications to register with the government as mass media. The law passed on Thursday was harshly criticized by the Belarusian Association of Journalists, which called it a further “tightening of the screws” in the country. Under authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, Belarus has suppressed opposition and clamped down on independent journalists. It was not immediately clear how authorization of comments on Internet forums would be enforced.
4 Everest climbers: Nepal’s government on Thursday honored two climbers who were the first to scale Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen 40 years ago. Minister for Tourism Rabindra Adhikari praised the climbers at a ceremony in the capital, Kathmandu. Italian Reinhold Messner and Austrian Peter Habeler reached the summit without use of supplementary oxygen, while others on their team used bottled oxygen. Until then, all climbers carried oxygen cylinders to aid them at high altitudes where oxygen levels are low. Since Everest was first scaled in 1953, thousands of climbers have reached the summit and hundreds more make attempts every year. This year nearly 350 foreign climbers have already been issued climbing permits. Most still use supplementary oxygen.
5 Irreversible damage: An underwater heat wave that damaged huge sections of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef two years ago spurred a die-off of coral so severe that scientists say the natural wonder will never look the same again. Scientists said nearly one-third of the reef ’s coral were killed when ocean temperatures spiked in 2016, a result of global warming, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The damage to the reef, one of the world’s largest living structures, has also radically altered the mix of its coral species, scientists said. The reef is home to thousands of species, including sharks, turtles and whales. Australia relies on it for about 70,000 jobs and billions of dollars annually in tourism revenue, all now threatened by years of accumulated damage.