NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Hottest day: Australia experienced its hottest day on record and temperatures are expected to soar even higher as heatwave conditions embrace most of the country. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said the average temperature across the country of 105 Fahrenheit Tuesday beat the record of 104 Fahrenheit from Jan. 7, 2013. On Wednesday temperatures soared to 118 Fahrenheit in Birdsville, Queensland, 116 Fahrenheit in Mandora, Western Australia and similar levels in southern and central Australia.
2 Volcano victims: New Zealand authorities said Wednesday they believe the two bodies that remain missing after a deadly volcanic eruption last week have been washed out to sea and may never be found. Eighteen people died and others suffered severe burns after the Dec. 9 eruption on White Island. Police Deputy Commissioner Mike Clement said he believes a storm soon after the eruption washed the bodies down a stream and into the Pacific Ocean. White Island, also known by its Maori name, Whakaari, is the tip of an undersea volcano about 30 miles off New Zealand’s North Island and was a popular tourist destination before the eruption. Many of those killed and injured were from the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Ovation of the Seas.
3 McDonald’s tragedy: They were two teenagers working the overnight shift at a McDonald’s in Lima, Peru, when they were electrocuted by a loose cable over the weekend. The deaths of Alexandra Porras Inga and Gabriel Campos Zapata inside a popular McDonald’s have shaken Peru, a nation already mired in a debate about how to tackle precarious labor conditions, particularly at the large companies that have aided Peru’s supercharged growth. And they come as McDonald’s faces increased scrutiny over treatment of workers around the world. Jobs in the informal sector remain the most readily available. But critics say that the appeal of these jobs has left workers, particularly young workers, open to exploitation. Police have opened an investigation into the deaths.
4 Rape case: India’s Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the final appeal of one of the four men sentenced to death for the 2012 fatal gang rape of a woman on a moving bus in New Delhi, paving the way for the four to be hanged. The gruesome case made international headlines and exposed the scope of sexual violence against women in India, prompting lawmakers to stiffen penalties in rape cases. The victim, a 23yearold physiotherapy student whom Indian media dubbed “Fearless,” because law prohibits rape victims from being identified, was heading home with a male friend from a movie theater when six men lured them onto a bus. They beat the man with a metal bar, raped the woman and used the bar to inflict massive internal injuries to her. The pair were dumped naked on a road, and the woman died two weeks later.
5 Churchstate separation: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday he does not support a proposal to further relax Mexico’s strict legal separation of church and state, throwing cold water on a bill that would upend longstanding political dogma in the country. López Obrador said the initiative, presented last week by a senator from his leftist Morena party, is something that “was resolved over a century and a half ago.” The proposal would modify a law to eliminate historic language enshrining the “separation of the State and churches.” The proposal would allow religious groups greater access to the media, relax regulations on church ownership of property, and provide for cooperation between church and state on cultural and social development.