NEW YORK (Reuters) - Police and federal agents searched into the early hours of Wednesday for a man who set off smoke bombs and sprayed fellow passengers with gunfire aboard a New York City subway car, injuring more than 20 people before he fled the scene. The attack erupted during the Tuesday morning commuter rush as the Manhattan-bound “N Line” train was pulling into an underground station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, the latest burst of seemingly random violence that has plagued the city’s transit system in recent years.

 

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ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivory Coast Prime Minister Patrick Achi tabled his resignation and that of his government on Wednesday, President Alassane Ouattara said during a cabinet meeting during which he accepted the resignation. The President did not provide reasons for the resignation but said he would name a new Prime Minister next week who would then present around 30 new ministers. The 66-year-old was appointed Prime Minister in March last year.

 

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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin has resigned in the wake of his arrest in a federal corruption investigation, creating a political crisis for Gov. Kathy Hochul seven months after she selected Benjamin as a partner to make a fresh start in an office already rocked by scandal.

Benjamin, a Democrat, was accused in an indictment of participating in a scheme to obtain campaign contributions from a real estate developer in exchange for Benjamin’s agreement to use his influence as a state senator to get a $50,000 grant of state funds for a nonprofit organization the developer controlled.

 

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LONDON (Al- Jazeera) - Two Illinois men who helped bomb a Minnesota mosque in 2017 were sentenced to about 16 years and roughly 14 years in prison – far below the 35-year mandatory minimum that each man faced – after victims and prosecutors asked for leniency because the men cooperated and testified against the mastermind of the attack. Michael McWhorter, 33, was sentenced to just under 16 years in United States prison and Joe Morris, 26, was sentenced to about 14 years. Both testified in the 2020 trial against Emily Claire Hari, who was known as Michael Hari at the time of the attack, the leader of a small Illinois militia group called the “White Rabbits”.

 

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COLOMBO (Al- Jazzear) – Angry over a worsening economic crisis, residents of Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, have transformed the streets in front of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office into a protest camp. Hundreds have stayed put there since Saturday despite bouts of heavy rain, saying they will not leave until the president and his powerful brothers resign. The waterfront area, known as the Galle Face Green, is home to some of Colombo’s most expensive hotels, including the Shangri-La and the Kingsbury. Now, dozens of colourful tents, many filled with donations to sustain protesters, occupy its lawns and streets.