NEW YORK (AFP) – An African-American teen executed in 1931 for the murder of a white woman was exonerated by a Pennsylvania court this week, after decades of lobbying by his only surviving sister. Alexander McClay Williams, age 16, was convicted by a white jury in just four hours, and remains the youngest person ever put to death in the eastern US state. But 91 years later, a county judge dismissed the case and declared Williams was innocent.

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PARIS (AFP) -French officials urged caution Thursday as a record pre-summer heatwave spread across the country from Spain, where authorities were fighting forest fires on a sixth day of sweltering temperatures. The Meteo France weather service said it was the earliest hot spell ever to hit the country, worsening a drought caused by an unusually dry winter and spring, and raising the risk of wildfires. Spain, which has already seen its hottest May since the beginning of this century, was sweating under temperatures forecast as high as 43 degrees Celsius (109 Fahrenheit) and no relief is expected before Sunday, the Aemet weather service said.

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SEOUL, June 17 (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and other senior officials prepared aid to send to 800 families suffering from an unidentified intestinal epidemic, state media reported on Friday, as the country also battles its first COVID-19 outbreak. North Korea revealed this week it was facing an “acute enteric epidemic” on top of a weeks-long outbreak of COVID. It did not elaborate what the disease was, but enteric refers to the gastrointestinal tract. “The officials ... prepared medicines, foodstuff and daily necessities needed for the treatment of the epidemic and stable life to render aid to the people in Haeju City and Kangryong County (of South Hwanghae Province),” the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said. Leader Kim called upon officials “to fulfill their duty in the work for easing the people’s misfortune and sufferings as soon as possible,” it added.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) - One protester was killed in southern India’s Secunderabad city on Friday during clashes with police as demonstrations over a new military recruitment system turned violent, a local government official said. “The body has been shifted to a hospital for post mortem,” the official said, asking not to be named. The death occurred in Secundrabad in southern India, where vastly outnumbered police used batons and fired shots at about 500 protesters who rampaged at a railroad station for more than an hour, police said. Fifteen people were reportedly injured.

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s government is not liable for damages demanded by people whose lives were devastated by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the country’s top court said on Friday, the first such ruling in a series of similar cases. The ruling’s effect as a precedent will be closely watched, media said. A massive tsunami set off by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off Japan’s northeastern coast on March 11, 2011 struck the Fukushima Daiichi power plant of Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), causing the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes.