NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Gaza protest: Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinian teenagers on Friday as thousands held demonstrations along the perimeter fence separating Gaza and Israel. Hassan Shalabi, 14, was shot in the chest in southern Gaza Strip and Hamza Ishtiwi, 18, was killed in east Gaza City, the Gaza Health Ministry said. He was hit with a bullet in the neck. The ministry added that 17 other protesters were wounded. Friday’s protests drew thousands of Palestinians who gathered at five locations along the fence, throwing rocks toward the Israeli forces stationed behind the frontier. The Israeli troops responded with barrages of tear gas and live fire. The protest campaign, launched by Gaza’s Hamas rulers last March, has become a weekly event. They have seen the death of about 190 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier. The militant Hamas group demands an end to the IsraeliEgyptian blockade imposed on the territory since 2007.
2 Train crash: Two passenger trains rammed headon into each other on a track near Barcelona on Friday, killing one person and injuring about 100 others, most of them slightly, authorities said. The commuter trains collided in the evening between the towns of Sant Vicenc de Castellet and Manresa, northwest of Barcelona, emergency services for the region of Catalonia said in a tweet. Three of the injured passengers were in serious condition. Around 100 others escaped injury, officials said. One train was heading to Barcelona and the other was going to Manresa, in northeastern Spain, when they ran into each other on the same track.
3 Serial killer: Bruce McArthur, a 67-year-old landscaper who had pleaded guilty to eight murders that brought fear to Toronto’s gay community, was sentenced Friday to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. The court heard that McArthur carefully planned his killings. On his computer, investigators found file folders for his eight victims containing photographs of each of them. Many of the photos were taken after their deaths, with the bodies of six of them posed with a fur coat and props. Prosecutors offered no insights into what drove McArthur, a father of two who left his wife in 2000, to become a serial killer.
4 Candidate record: Election officials in Ukraine said Friday that 44 candidates have registered to compete in the March presidential election — a record for the nation. The latest polls show that comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who plays the nation’s president in a popular TV series, has surged ahead of both incumbent President Petro Poroshenko and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the run-up to the March 31 vote. Zelenskiy’s popularity has been driven by both his TV star status and public dismay with current leaders. Ukraine has seen economic troubles and a sharp drop in living standards after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and Russia’s support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
5 U.S. air strikes: The United States military says targeted air strikes against suspected al-Shabab extremists in Somalia have killed 15 fighters. A U.S. Africa Command statement says the air strikes occurred in Lower Shabelle region, on Wednesday and in the vicinity of Bariire in the same region on Thursday. The al Qaeda-affiliated group once controlled large swathes of Somalia. African Union forces have succeeded in pushing it from major cities. Al-Shabab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa, continues with attacks in Somalia and neighboring Kenya.