8 PEOPLE DIE IN CHICAGO APARTMENT FIRE

CHICAGO» Eight people, including six children, were killed when a fire broke out before dawn Sunday at a Chicago apartment in one of the deadliest fires in the nation’s third-largest city in years, officials say.

Two other people were hospitalized in very critical condition, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Merritt said. One of the children who died was an infant, according to Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago.

“We have not had this in many, many, many years — this amount of fatalities and injuries in one location,” he said.

A makeshift memorial along a nearby sidewalk included crosses for each child who died — a small Mickey Mouse doll set next to one. The Rev. Clifford Spears of Saint Michael Missionary Baptist Church led a crowd that gathered in prayer, the Chicago Tribune reported. A candlelight vigil was planned for Sunday night.

Iran lawmakers fire finance minister as economic woes mount.

IRAN» Iran’s TEHRAN, parliament voted Sunday to fire the country’s finance minister amid an economic freefall fanned by America’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal with world powers, dealing another blow to President Hassan Rouhani’s embattled administration.

It’s unlikely that parliament’s dismissal of Masoud Karbasian will staunch the bleeding with Iran’s rial currency falling to new lows against the U.S. dollar as chronically high unemployment and inflation haunt the country.

However, it shows Iran’s Shiite theocracy’s growing recognition of the anger felt across the country of 80 million, which has seen months of sporadic protests challenging it.

A subdued Zimbabwe inaugurates Mnangagwa after disputed vote.

ZIMBABWE» HARARE, Zimbabwe on Sunday inaugurated a president for the second time in nine months as the country once jubilant over the fall of longtime leader Robert Mugabe is now largely subdued by renewed harassment of the opposition and a bitterly disputed election.

The military-backed President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who again took the oath of office, faces the mammoth task of rebuilding a worsening economy and uniting a nation divided by a vote that many hoped would deliver change.

The 75-year-old Mnangagwa, who took power from his mentor Mugabe with the military’s help in November, said “my arms are outstretched” to main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa after the Constitutional Court on Friday rejected opposition claims of vote-rigging and upheld the president’s narrow July 30 victory.

Colombia anti-corruption referendum comes up shy on votes.

» An anti-corruption BOGOTA, COLOMBIA referendum in Colombia drew millions to the polls Sunday but fell just short of a required participation threshold to push forward measures aimed at improving transparency and stiffening penalties for whitecollar criminals.

Nearly 11.7 million Colombians cast ballots overwhelmingly in favor of seven initiatives proposed to stamp out corruption in the upper echelons of power, failing to draw the 12.1 million voters needed to pass the initiatives, according to quick-count results from over 99 percent of polling stations.

With minuscule drop, “Crazy Rich Asians” is No. 1 again.

YORK» The opening weekend NEW for “Crazy Rich Asians” was historic. Its second weekend was even more impressive.

The romantic comedy sensation slid just 6 percent from its chart-topping debut to again lead the box office with $25 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. Almost as many people turned out over the weekend for “Crazy Rich Asians” as they did for its opening Friday-to-Sunday bow — an unheard-of hold for a non-holiday release.