Turkey has killed around 260 members of the Kurdistan Workers Party in recent bombing campaigns in Turkey and northern Iraq. Officially the operation was started to attack ISIL but over 90% of attacks were against the PKK. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
A Catholic and a Baptist church in Las Cruces, New Mexico are rocked by explosions at a mailbox and a trash can. (USA Today)
Services are held outdoors after Dustin Connor allegedly stole a computer, discharged fire extinguishers, and damaged a cross and other structures at a church in Piqua, Ohio. He is aleady a person of interest in similar vandalism to another church in the town.(The Washington Times and The Dayton Daily News)
In an apparent road rage incident in Reedley, California, an 18-year-old pregnant woman is shot in the left eye after passing a slow-driving SUV which subsequently pulls up alongside and opens fire.(Sky News)
The Athens Stock Exchange reopens after more than a month with share values falling by 22 percent in early trading. (AP)
Puerto Rico fails to make a scheduled payment of US$58 million to service its debts of $72 billion. Moody's considers the commonwealth in default. (BBC)
Disasters and accidents
Flooding caused by heavy monsoon rains has caused over 100 deaths in India over the past week with tens of thousands of people taking shelter in refugee camps. (BBC)
After days of heavy rain, a fifty-year-old building collapses in the Indian city of Thane killing at least twelve people with many more feared trapped in the rubble. (NDTV), (AP)
In a unanimous decision, the jury rules that James Holmes, having already been convicted for the shooting, is still eligible for the death penalty. (CNN)
A street-corner sized sinkhole forms at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 64th Street in Sunset Park in Brooklyn, New York City, ruining the street corner. The northbound N Broadway Local train undergoes delays; there is at least one disconnected pipe and some gas lines requiring repair by National Grid workers. Local police cordon off the area. No fatalities or injuries are reported. (Business Insider, via MSN)
Two express passenger trains (12 coaches of the Kamayani Express; to Varanasi from Mumbai, or Bombay) derail, after being partially swept off a bridge while crossing flooded tracks in India's Madhya Pradesh state leaving at least 31 people killed and about 100 others injured. Related to this incident are monsoon rains and the end of a cyclone which have killed more than 100 people in India. (NDTV), (Reuters via MSN)
Two boats collide between Kiwa and Remba Islands on Lake Victoria leaving several people dead. (The Nation)
Examination of the debris is being carried out, under the direction of a judge, at the Balma, France, aeronautical test facility in the Toulouse area to identify everything they can from the metal: damage, barnacles, etc. (UPI), (Deutsche Welle), (Reuters via MSN)
A Bangladeshi blogger known for his atheist views is hacked to death by a gang armed with machetes, the fourth such incident this year, in the capital Dhaka. (BBC), (The Telegraph), (The Hindu)
The jury in the penalty phase of the trial of Aurora theater shooter James Holmes reaches a verdict to sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. (Reuters), (AP), (WABC)
A hostage rescue operation in central Mali is successfully performed by British SAS forces after gunmen attack a hotel with at least seven people dead. (The Daily Star)
Typhoon Soudelor makes landfall in mainland China in Fujian province with 250,000 having been evacuated from that province and Zhejiang province. (AFP via ABC News)
Voters in Haiti go to the polls for the first election in four years with some polling places in the capital Port-au-Prince forced to close due to violence. (Reuters)
A study, part of the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, examined huge blocks of space as distant as several billion light years away and concluded that the universe is "slowly dying" as more stars gradually go out faster than they are being replaced by light-emitting active ones. In cosmological terms, the demise of the universe (the current age calculated at approximately 13.8 billion years) is billions, perhaps trillions of years away. (The Guardian via MSN), (CNN), (The South African Times Live)
Debris from a Buk surface-to-air missile is found at an unspecified location in eastern Ukraine. According to the Dutch Safety Board and the Dutch prosecutor overseeing the criminal investigation, it may have come from a Buk (possibly of Russian origin) fired by rebel fighters, accidentally or purposefully, in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The investigation remains classified. (AFP via MSN)
In talks held regarding the course of the Syrian Civil War, Russia and Saudi Arabia fail to reach agreement over cooperation in the fight against ISIL, with the Saudi representative refusing any common struggle with Assad's regime. (The News Hub)
Georgia accuses Russia of cutting off its citizens from their farmland by installing border signposts demarcating the breakaway South Ossetia region, calling on Moscow to refrain from "escalation". (The Daily Star)
Law and crime
In Puyallup, Washington, a gunman on a mass shooting spree kills a man, then fired at homes and people before driving a stolen SUV through the garage door, crashing into several cars, and shooting at police until stopped when his SUV was rammed by a police car. (KIRO)
A massive explosion in the Chinese city of Tianjin results in at least 17 deaths, 11 people seriously injured, and hundreds of people being hospitalised. (BBC), (NBC News), (CCTV)
In a two year period, 280 to 300 children have been sexually abused and filmed doing forced sex acts in Pakistan by a gang consisting of 20 to 25 culprits. (CNN), (Anadolu Agency), (BBC)
An unspecified-type Egyptian military aircraft crashes due to a 'technical failure' near the Libyan border killing four crew members and injuring two others. (ABC via AP)
Swedish prosecutors drop some charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as the statute of limitations expire but will continue to investigate rape claims. (Sky News)
Crowds gather throughout Brazil to demand the impeachment of PresidentDilma Rousseff due to a bribery and corruption scandal involving senior members of the governing Workers' Party. Recent polls show her approval ratings below 10%. (France 24)
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service, which announced an extensive computer data breach in May 2015, reveals that the breach is much deeper and more serious, exposing an additional 220,000 individuals. The thieves had infiltrated a now-deactivated online system called "Get Transcript." (AP via MSN), (USA Today)
Fighting intensifies near the ceasefire line in eastern Ukraine with both the Government of Ukraine and the rebels blaming each other. The separatist-held cities of Donetsk and Horlivka have been bombed with hundreds of shells and rockets in the last 72 hours. (The New York Times)
A Boko Haram attack last week on a northeastern Nigerian village, Yadin Kukuwa killed at least 151 people. News of the attack was slow to emerge because the militants destroyed telecom masts around the village. (The Independent), (AFP via Times Live)
Fighting resumes in South Sudan after the failure to reach a deal between tribes loyal to the president and tribes loyal to the former vice-president. (AP via Fox News)
Samsung Bioepis Co., a drug development arm of global giant Samsung, picks four banks to manage an IPO it plans for the United States in 2016. (Reuters)
The United States announces that it is proposing sanctions against those connected to the South Sudan conflict, unless a ceasefire is reached promptly. (Al Jazeera)
Law and crime
Following a July 15 hacking, user data of the infidelity-promoting dating website Ashley Madison is leaked with over 30 million users having their information compromised. (BBC)
Police in the U.S. city of St. Louis, Missouri make nine arrests and use tear gas to disperse protesters after a killing of an armed man allegedly aiming a gun at police officers earlier in the day. (CNN)
Macedonia declares a state of emergency and deploys police units on its borders as immigrants from the Middle East, mainly from Syria and Iraq, block the railway line between Thessaloniki and Skopje. (The News Hub)
North and South Korea exchange artillery fire over the border at Yeoncheon, prompting South Korea to order evacuations of its citizens in the area. (Sky News), (BBC)
The Israeli Army fires Spike missiles on Syrian Army positions in the Golan Heights' Quneitra area in response to several rockets fired from Syria which landed in villages in northern Israel, about 20 km from the border. (BBC)
Thai police say that they suspect that at least 10 people were involved in planning the attack on the Erawan Shrine, but that international terrorists were unlikely to have been involved. (BBC)
Former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle reaches a plea deal with U.S. federal prosecutors in Indianapolis. Fogle will plead guilty to possessing and distributing child pornography and traveling across state lines to have sex with at least two teenage girls. Under the deal, he will serve from 5 to 12½ years in prison, and will also pay $1.4 million in restitution to 14 victims. (CNN)
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that July was the hottest month globally since record keeping began in 1880. Global temperatures were 1.46°F (0.81°C) warmer than the 20th century average. NOAA scientists expect 2015 will go down as the warmest year on record. (CBS News), (NOAA)
Britain'sInformation Commissioner's Office orders Google, Inc. to remove, from its search engines, links to news stories about Google's implementation of a "right to be forgotten" request, that include identifying information about a decade-old shoplifting conviction, which the Information Commission's Office considers as being no longer relevant. The order applies only in the United Kingdom. (Irish Examiner)
An incident in the Quetzaltepeque penitentiary in El Salvador leaves fourteen members of the Barrio 18 street gang killed; the killings are believed to be a result of a power struggle within the gang. (Reuters via Yahoo)
Al-Qaeda militants take over parts of the strategic southern Yemeni port city of Aden. The militants reportedly raised their black flag above the city's port and government buildings. The city was recaptured by pro-government forces last week. (Reuters)
Britain and Iran reopen embassies in each others' capitals that had been closed after Iranian protesters stormed the British embassy on November 29, 2011. (Reuters)
Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the Turkish Foreign Minister, says that Turkey and the U.S. will launch a "comprehensive" campaign to flush out ISIL from a zone in northern Syria near the border. In effect, this means creating a "security zone" by sending foreign soldiers into Syrian territory. (Reuters)
A Federal Security Service court in Russia sentences Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov to 20 years in prison for plotting terrorist acts in Crimea, amid allegations of torture and U.S. claims that he is being held hostage in Russia after having been abducted from Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists. (BBC)
A shooting at a Romani camp in Roye, Somme, France, by a suspect from the same community leaves four people killed and three others severely injured. (The Irish Times), (L'Express)
A U.S. television reporter and her cameraman, Alison Parker and Adam Ward, are shot dead during a live broadcast in Moneta, Virginia; the woman they were interviewing, Vicki Gardner, is wounded. The alleged shooter, Vester Lee Flanagan II, later uploads a video of the murder and commits suicide. (WTKR)
The body count from a van found on an Austrian highway carrying migrants yesterday rises to at least 71. Three people are arrested in Hungary in relation to their deaths. (AP via The New York Times), (ITV)
DominicanPrime MinisterRoosevelt Skerrit reports that Tropical Storm Erika has left at least 12 dead and more than 20 missing. Erika deposited almost 12 inches of rain in less than 10 hours and caused extensive damage across the island as floods wiped out roads, swamped villages, and started mudslides. (CNN)
Exposure to toxic chemicals at a paper mill in central China kills seven people are and injures two others. (AP)
Thirty-eight girls and young women die in a crash and twenty others on board the truck receive injuries while travelling to the traditional Umhlanga ceremony in Swaziland. (AP)
President Trương Tấn Sang of Vietnam signs two directives granting amnesty to 18,539 prisoners including murderers, rapists, human traffickers, and other criminals, but no political prisoners were released. (AP via The New York Times)
European interior ministers and transport officials hold emergency talks in Paris following the recent attack on the Thalys train between Amsterdam and Paris. (BBC)
An Egyptian court sentences Al Jazeera journalists Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy, and Baher Mohamed each to three years jail for "aiding a terrorist organization" and falsifying news. Greste, who earlier was deported to Australia, was tried in absentia. Mohamed, an Egyptian, was sentenced to an additional six months for possession of a spent bullet casing; Fahmy is a Canadian national. (ABC Australia), (Al Jazeera)
Tens of thousands of Malaysians rally in the capital Kuala Lumpur calling for Prime Minister Najib Razak to step down over a financial scandal where a MYR 2.672 billion (USD 700 million) payment was made to his bank account from unnamed foreign donors. (BBC News)
Hurricane Ignacio, which has weakened to a Category 3 (115 mph) storm, is expected to side-step Hawaii this week though will still generate high surf, rain and powerful winds. The Big Island and Maui remain on a tropical storm watch. Ignacio may re-strengthen to a hurricane when he clears Oahu on Wednesday. (The Inquisitr), (Reuters)
Hungary makes a fifth arrest in relation to the death of seventy-one migrants in a truck in Austria. (CNN)
An open truck smashes into the back of a van near Mbabane, Swaziland killing 65 girls and young women traveling to an annual dance festival. (RT), (The Telegraph)
Protestors in Beirut continue their protests against the government due to a lack of effective garbage collection in the city during one of the hottest summers on record. (NPR)
Conservationists report in Oryx, the International Journal of Conservation that the Sumatran Rhino is now considered extinct in the wild in Malaysia. No new wild animals have been spotted since 2007, elsewhere fewer than 100 Rhinos remain in the wild. (MSN)
