SEVEN DEAD, MORE THAN 100 RESCUED IN FERRY FIRE
MANILA, PHILIPPINES » At least seven people were killed and more than 100 were plucked out of the sea Monday after a passenger ferry caught fire in the Philippines.
The Mercraft 2 was carrying 124 passengers and 10 crew members when it set off from Polillo Island at dawn for the port of
Real in Quezon province when the accident occurred, the coast guard said. The fire quickly engulfed the ferry, forcing its passengers to jump into the sea, officials said.
A team of investigators was on the scene to determine what caused the fire. Some 120 people had been rescued as of midmorning.
Opponents of federal vaccine mandate seek rehearing. NEW ORLEANS » A federal appeals court is being asked to reconsider its decision allowing the Biden administration to require that federal employees get vaccinated against COVID-19.
A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month vacated a lower court ruling blocking the mandate and ordered dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the policy, which was ordered by President Joe Biden in September.
However, that 2-1 ruling by the appellate panel doesn’t take effect until May 31. On Saturday, opponents of the mandate, led by a group called Feds for Medical Freedom, filed a petition asking that the April ruling be vacated and that the full court hear new arguments in the case.
Expert: Monkeypox likely spread by sex at two raves.
LONDON » A leading adviser to the World Health Organization described the unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox in developed countries as “a random event” that appears to have been caused by sexual activity at two recent raves in Europe.
Dr. David Heymann, who formerly headed WHO’S emergencies department, told The Associated Press that the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission at raves held in Spain and Belgium. Monkeypox has not previously triggered widespread outbreaks beyond Africa, where it is endemic in animals.
Egypt promises to allow protest, push pledges as COP27 host.
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND » Egypt, host of the next United Nations summit on climate change, will push countries to make good on their pledges to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions, facilitate “non-adversarial” talks on compensation to developing countries for global warming impacts and allow climate activists to protest, said the incoming president of COP27.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who is also the president-designate of the next annual Conference of the Parties, to be held in November, called the overall goal “implementation.”
Shoukry said the last summit finalized many commitments made during the Paris Agreement in 2015, which aimed to reduce emissions aimed at limiting global warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.
“The commitments and the pledges now have to be implemented in all sectors of the climate change agenda, whether it’s in adaptation, mitigation or finance, loss and damage,” Shoukry said.
Ex- city official in Florida sentenced to three years for killing shoplifter.
A former city commissioner in Lakeland, Fla., was sentenced Monday to three years in prison after he admitted to fatally shooting a man he suspected of stealing a hatchet from his shop in 2018.
The former commissioner, Michael Dunn, pleaded guilty in March to a charge of manslaughter with a firearm, according to Polk County court records.
In October 2018, Dunn was working at the ArmyNavy surplus store he coowned in Lakeland when he saw the man, Christobal Lopez, conceal a hatchet, the Lakeland Police Department said at the time.
Dunn stopped Lopez and asked him if he was going to pay for the item, the police said. As Lopez tried to leave the store, Dunn pulled Lopez’s sleeve and shot him. Lopez died at the scene.
Ex-british lawmaker sentenced to 18 months for sexual assault.
A former British lawmaker was sentenced Monday to 18 months in prison for sexually assaulting a teenager, one of several cases of sexual misconduct involving members of Parliament that have reignited calls for change in the historically male-dominated halls of Westminster.
The former Conservative lawmaker, Imran Ahmad Khan, was found guilty of trying to force the 15-year-old boy to drink alcohol before sexually assaulting him at a house in 2008, prosecutors said.
Years later, when the accuser saw that Khan had been elected as a member of Parliament in 2019, he decided to pursue the complaint out of concern that Khan was not fit to serve in public office, prosecutors said.