MOSCOW (AP) – At least 16 people were killed and six injured on Sunday after a plane crashed in Russia’s Tatarstan region, the RIA news agency cited the emergency services as saying. The aircraft, which came down near the city of Menzelinsky, had been carrying 20 parachutists and two crew members. Six people were in a serious condition, the Health Ministry said. The crash took place at about 9:23am (06:23 GMT). The plane was a Let L-410 Turbolet, which is a twin-engine short-range transport aircraft. The plane was owned by an aeroclub in the city of Menzelinsk, the TASS news agency reported. The state-run Cosmonaut Training Facility has suspended its ties with the aeroclub pending an investigation, TASS cited a source as saying. The RIA agency cited local authorities as saying one of the engines could have failed. Images published by the ministry showed the aircraft broken in half with a severely dented nose.

***
LONDON (The Guardian) – Hospitals in England are struggling to recruit staff for tens of thousands of nursing vacancies amid a mounting workforce crisis in the country. There are nearly 39,000 vacancies for registered nurses in England, according to the most recent figures by the NHS, which also reveal one in 10 nursing posts empty on acute wards in London and one in five nursing posts unfilled on mental health wards in the South-East. Thousands of nursing shifts each week cannot be filled because of staff shortages, according to hospital safe staffing reports seen by the Observer. Concerns about the impact of acute staff shortages on patient care are revealed after experts warned last week that flu could kill up to 60,000 this winter.

***
NEW YORK (AP) – A New York City man has been convicted on charges alleging that he tried to help the Taliban fight American forces. Delowar Mohammed Hossain, 36, was convicted late Friday in Manhattan federal court on charges that he tried to provide material support for terrorism and tried to contribute funds, goods and services to the Taliban. Authorities apprehended Hossain in 2019 at Kennedy Airport, interrupting his plan to travel to Afghanistan. Hossain was freed to home detention in July 2020. After the jury verdict in the one-week trial, sentencing was scheduled for Jan. 12 by U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein. Prior to the trial, the judge granted a request by the government to take steps to protect the identities of witnesses, including a New York City police officer who corresponded with Hossain in an undercover capacity prior to his arrest. According to court papers, Hossain in 2018 started expressing interest in joining the Taliban and sought to recruit someone to do the same, but the person turned out to be a government informant.

***
SRINAGAR (AP) – Government forces have detained at least 500 people in a sweeping crackdown in Indian-controlled Kashmir, local officials said Sunday, following a string of suspected attacks and targeted killings in the disputed region. Assailants fatally shot three Hindus and a Sikh person in the region’s main city of Srinagar this week in a sudden rise in violence against civilians that both pro- and anti-India Kashmiri politicians widely condemned. Officials said they had detained in the last three days over 500 people across the Kashmir Valley for questioning, with the majority of detainees from the main city of Srinagar. According to police, those detained in the ensuing crackdown include members of religious groups, anti-India activists and “overground workers,” a term Indian authorities use for militant sympathizers and collaborationists.

***
SOKOTO, Nigeria (Reuters) – At least 20 people have been killed in Nigeria’s Sokoto state when gunmen attacked a market and torched cars, according to a state official and local member of parliament. The killings in Sokoto state on Saturday came as armed gangs continue to wreak havoc in the northwest of the country. Bandits in the region have stepped up kidnappings of school children and villagers for ransom since December, disrupting everyday life for millions of people. Idriss Gobir, special adviser to the Sokoto police affairs minister, said the attackers rode on motorcycles and shot sporadically, killing several people. “The bandits in large numbers killed at least 20 people that we have seen and counted and set nine vehicles on fire,” he told the Reuters news agency by telephone. Hussain Boza, a local member of parliament in Sokoto, blamed the attack on a lack of adequate security in the state.

***
NEW DELHI (AFP) – The son of an Indian minister has been arrested on preliminary charges of murder, police said Sunday, a week after the death of eight people during a farmers’ protest sparked national outrage. Ashish Mishra was detained in Uttar Pradesh late Saturday over the incident in the northern state’s Lakhimpur Kheri district, where farmers were demonstrating as part of their year-long campaign against contentious agriculture laws. Farmers claimed that a convoy belonging to Mishra and his father -- the junior home affairs minister Ajay Mishra -- slammed into protesters, killing four of them. Angry demonstrators then set fire to several cars and four other people, including a driver and a journalist, were killed, according to authorities and local media reports. Mishra was arrested on grounds of “non-cooperation” and “evasive replies” during an hours-long interrogation, Deputy Inspector General of Police Upendra Kumar Agrawal told reporters. Mishra will face court on Monday and formal charges have to be filed within 90 days.