NEWS OF THE DAY
1 Boat capsizes: A boat carrying African refugees headed to Europe capsized off the Mediterranean coast near the Egyptian city of Alexandria on Wednesday, killing at least 42 people, Egyptian authorities said. Experts say smugglers in Egypt mostly use old fishing vessels, stuffed way beyond capacity both below and above deck. The boat was reportedly carrying 600 people.
2 Mustard gas: The Islamic State fired a munition at an Iraqi air force base being used to prepare forces for the offensive to retake Mosul that tested positive for mustard gas, the U.S. Defense Department said Wednesday. The Iraqi air base at Qayyarah West came under fire on Tuesday. An initial test of the munition, which the Pentagon says was either a rocket or a mortar round, returned a positive result “for a mustard agent.” A second test, however, was negative. Additional tests have been ordered. No members of the coalition forces were injured in the attack, and none showed signs of mustard gas exposure. The personnel who conducted the tests underwent a routine decontamination process.
3 Border fence: Hungarian prison inmates are ramping up their production of razor wire, working around the clock as Hungary prepares to build a second fence on the border with Serbia to keep out refugees. Human rights organizations consider Hungary’s fences erected last year as the first step in efforts by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government to dismantle the country’s asylum system. Orban’s antirefugee policies have been building toward a referendum to be held Oct. 2 in which the prime minister hopes to gather political support for his opposition to any future EU plan to resettle refugees among its member states.
4 Embassy attack: An attacker armed with a knife tried to enter the Israeli Embassy in Turkey on Wednesday before being shot and slightly wounded by Turkish security, Turkish and Israeli officials said. The Ankara governor’s office identified the man as Osman Nuri Caliskan, a Turkish national born in 1975, and said that a preliminary investigation indicated that he appeared to be mentally unstable and has no known links to any terror group.
5 In the dark: Repair crews worked through the night trying to restore electricity to Puerto Rico’s 3.5 million people after a fire at a power plant blacked out the entire U.S. territory. Officials said they hoped to restore service by morning, but some schools canceled classes for the day as a precaution. The Electric Power Authority said investigators were trying to determine what caused the fire that broke out Wednesday afternoon at a power plant in southern Puerto Rico that serves a majority of customers on the island.
6 God’s got mail: Israel’s postal service is delivering letters to a unique address that hasn’t changed in thousands of years. Ahead of the Jewish high holidays, it delivered some of the dozens of letters it receives each year that are addressed to God to the Western Wall, where visitors traditionally place handwritten notes of prayer and wishes in the cracks between its stones. The letters arrived from all over the world, including Russia, China, France, Nigeria and the United States. Most had no return address and were addressed to “God,” “Jesus” or “Our Dear Father in Heaven.” The Western Wall, in Jerusalem’s Old City, is a retaining wall of the Second Jewish Temple expanded by Herod the Great.