News in Brief

Date: 25 July 2022 - 21:54

News ID: ۱۰۵۱۰۰

LOS ANGELES (Guardian) -- At least two people were killed and several others injured in a shooting at a park in Los Angeles, officials said.Seven people were taken to local hospitals after gunfire erupted at an informal car show at Peck Park in the San Pedro neighborhood on Sunday, the Los Angeles fire department said.Two of them – a man and a woman – later died of their wounds, department spokesperson Brian Humphrey said.The shooting victims – four men and three women – ranged in age from 23 to 54, he said, but could offer no information about what caused the confrontation.Peck Park is about 20 miles (32km) south of downtown Los Angeles, California.The shooting is the latest to hit the United States this summer, following mass shootings in Highland Park, Illinois, Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.The wave of incidents has renewed a fierce debate over why such mass casualty events keep occurring in the U.S., and the need for new gun access legislation.

***
LONDON (Dispatches) -- More than two in five airport workers are considering quitting, research suggests, which could escalate delays already seen at terminals due to low staffing numbers.A survey of 1,700 workers by the UK jobs site CV-Library found reasons for wanting to leave the industry included wanting better pay and less stress.However, only 5% of respondents blamed the current situation at UK airports, where there have been long delays in recent months.Two out of three of those surveyed claimed they had not had a pay rise in the past 12 months.Lee Biggins, chief executive of CV-Library, said: “With the industry in such disarray, it comes as no surprise that so many airport workers are considering leaving.“Attempts to turn things around have so far missed the mark and, with peak season now upon us, urgent action is required.“Based on our data and the voice of both current and ex-airline and airport workers, if salary levels and benefits were enhanced, the crisis could be severely dampened.”

***
MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the state funeral of Japanese former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Kremlin said on Monday.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia is yet to decide the country’s presence at the funeral. Japan’s Sankei daily reported on Saturday that Tokyo was leaning toward not allowing Putin to attend the funeral, set for Sept. 27. Abe was gunned down at a campaign rally this month.

***
ATHENS (AFP) -- Greek firefighters on Monday battled a raging fire threatening the Dadia National Park, known for its black vulture colony, as the country scorched under a blistering heatwave.The Mediterranean country is reeling under a heatwave that began on Saturday and is expected to last 10 days. Temperatures were set to rise to 42 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Fahrenheit) in some regions and the country is battling three major wildfires.Scientists say human-induced climate change is amplifying extreme weather -- including the heatwaves, droughts and floods seen in several parts of the planet in recent weeks -- and say these events will become more frequent and more intense.On Monday, 320 firefighters, two water-bombing planes and four helicopters were deployed to contain the fire at the Dadia park, which broke out on Thursday.

***
BEIJING (AFP) -- Astronauts entered the new lab module of China’s space station for the first time Monday, in a major step towards completing the orbital outpost by the end of the year.The station is one of the crown jewels of Beijing’s ambitious space programme, which has landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon, and made China only the third nation to put humans in orbit.Once completed, Tiangong -- or “heavenly palace” -- will be constantly crewed by rotating teams of three astronauts, who will conduct scientific experiments and help test new technologies.Wentian, the second of Tiangong’s three main sections, docked with the station’s core module Tianhe on Monday after successfully launching from southern China a day earlier, state media reported.A few hours after docking, the three astronauts -- who have been living in the core module since June -- opened the hatch and entered Wentian, footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed.

***
YANGON (AFP) -- Myanmar’s junta has executed four prisoners including a former lawmaker from Aung San Suu Kyi’s party and a prominent activist, state media said Monday, in the country’s first use of capital punishment in decades. The executions sparked widespread condemnation, heightened fears that more death sentences will be carried out and prompted calls for the international community to take sterner measures against the already isolated junta. The four were executed for leading “brutal and inhumane terror acts”, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said, without saying when or how the men were killed. The junta has sentenced dozens of anti-coup activists to death as part of its crackdown on dissent after seizing power last year, but Myanmar had not carried out an execution for decades.