NESTOR FORMS, THREATENING GULF COAST
Tropical Storm Nestor bore down on the northern Gulf Coast with high winds, surging seas and heavy rains Friday night, threatening to hit an area of the Florida Panhandle that was devastated one year ago by Hurricane Michael.
But unlike Michael, a powerful storm that left thousands of people homeless and nearly wiped the Panhandle city of Mexico Beach off the map, Florida wasn’t bracing for a catastrophe.
As of Friday night, the state had activated its emergency operations center — but only at its lowest level.
Officials: Blast at Afghan mosque kills 62 during prayers.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN»
An explosion rocked a mosque in eastern Afghanistan as dozens of people gathered for Friday prayers, causing the roof to collapse and killing 62 worshippers, provincial officials said. The attack underscored the recordhigh number of civilians dying in the country’s 18year war.
Attahullah Khogyani, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar Province, said the militant attack wounded 36 others. He said it was not immediately clear if the mosque was attacked by a suicide bomber or by some other type of bombing.
Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, strongly condemned the attack on his official Twitter account.
Woman pleads to homicide in botched buttocks injection.
YORK» A NEW woman who fled from New York to London rather than face charges in a botched silicone injection that killed a Maryland woman pleaded guilty Friday to criminally negligent homicide, prosecutors announced.
Donna Francis, 39, pleaded guilty to administering the buttocks injections that killed 34-year-old Kelly Mayhew on May 30, 2015, in a basement in Queens.
Mayhew traveled with her mother from Suitland, Md., and paid Francis $1,600 for a buttocks augmentation procedure, prosecutors said.
Marches and strikes rattle Catalonia amid separatist anger.
BARCELONA,
Masses of flagwaving demonstrators demanding Catalonia’s independence and the release from prison of separatist leaders jammed downtown Barcelona on Friday as the northeastern Spanish region endured its fifth consecutive night of unrest.
Chaotic scenes of violence erupted after more than a half-million protesters, including families with children, marched in the Catalan capital, according to local police. Many were clad in pro-independence “estelada” flags and shouted “Independence!” and “Freedom for political prisoners!”
Thunberg calls for climate action in oil-rich Alberta.
EDMONTON, ALBERTA»
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg stayed away from any direct criticism of Alberta’s oil sands as the teenager took her message to the oil-rich Canadian province.
The 16-year-old told thousands of people in front of the provincial legislature in Edmonton on Friday that the future of the planet is at stake.
Alberta has the world’s third-largest oil reserves.