News in Brief

Date: 17 May 2021 - 21:59

News ID: ۹۰۳۰۶

MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Three people were killed in a knife attack on Monday near a train station in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, the TASS news agency cited law enforcement as saying. Police detained a man who had attacked people with a knife, the report said. The stabbings happened amid an argument over alcohol, a law enforcement agency was cited as saying.

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SIBLEY (Reuters) -- A Union Pacific train hauling hazardous materials derailed and then caught fire in the city of Sibley, Iowa, authorities said, leading to the evacuation of dozens of people although there were no reports of injuries or fatalities. The derailment, involving 47 rail cars, took place in the afternoon in Sibley, Union Pacific said, adding the cause of the incident was under investigation. Within an hour, local officials texted an evacuation order to people nearby. An area comprising about a 5-mile radius around the scene of the derailment was evacuated as a precaution, according to ABC News. “There were no injuries to the crew,” Union Pacific said in an emailed statement, adding that Union Pacific was working with first responders at the scene. “Approximately 80 people were evacuated”, the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said in an email. Ken Huls, the fire chief in Sibley, said the train was carrying fertilizer and ammonium, the radio station KIWA reported.

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STOCKHOLM (Dispatches) -- Nearly 3,000 barrels of “life-threatening” nuclear waste have reportedly been misplaced in Sweden, raising concerns about potential environmental impacts and prompting calls for an urgent re-inspection of the radioactive material. A stock control inspection has recently found that 2,800 barrels containing historical radioactive waste from the 1970s and 1980s were stored incorrectly in a warehouse in Forsmark, Uppland County. The Forsmark nuclear plant and repository, located some 100 kilometers north of Stockholm, contains over 30,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste. While the material is believed not to pose a threat to humans or nature today, it could very well do so in the future if placed and handled incorrectly.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- A wildfire in Los Angeles, California, gained momentum and about 1,000 residents were put under evacuation orders and two suspects were detained as arson investigators and police looked into the cause of the blaze. “We did have one individual who was detained and released. However, we now have a second individual that is being questioned,” a representative of the Los Angles Fire Department said late on Sunday. The department’s arson investigators and the Los Angeles Police Department were investigating the blaze, which has been called the Palisades Fire. Mandatory evacuations were ordered for an area near Topanga Canyon with other residents on standby to leave. Topanga Canyon is a remote, wooded community with some ranch homes about 20 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, on the border with Malibu. The fire began late on Friday and had grown to 1,325 acres with 0% containment by Sunday afternoon, the Los Angeles Times reported. There were no reported deaths or casualties.

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MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- Moscow’s prosecutor on Monday submitted a huge amount of new material to a court hearing a request to outlaw Western-backed Alexei Navalny’s political movement, Navalny’s lawyers said. The court is considering the prosecutor’s request to declare Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation and regional campaign groups as “extremist”. Navalny and his allies deny the allegations, which they have cast as an attempt to try to blunt their political opposition to the ruling United Russia party ahead of parliamentary elections in September. Navalny’s lawyers posted photographs on social media of the prosecutor’s new material -- six gigantic wads of A4 paper. The next court hearing will take place on June 9, the lawyers said.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A former Florida official central to the federal probe into whether U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz trafficked a minor for sex was to plead guilty on Monday and agree to cooperate with prosecutors, which may spell trouble for the Republican congressman. Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Florida’s Seminole County, would plead guilty to charges including sex-trafficking of a minor at a court hearing at 10 a.m. EST (1400 GMT) in federal court in Orlando, Florida, according to an agreement submitted in court on Friday. Greenberg said he would cooperate with federal prosecutors and admitted to introducing the minor he trafficked to other adult men who engaged in sex acts with the minor in Greenberg’s presence, court papers showed. The papers did not identify the other adult men. The plea deal marks a turning point in the sprawling federal investigation that has roiled Florida politics and ensnared Gaetz, 39, one of former President Donald Trump’s staunchest defenders in Congress. Investigators are seeking to determine whether Gaetz had sex with the same 17-year-old Greenberg was accused of trafficking, according to news reports and a law enforcement source who spoke with Reuters. Greenberg’s lawyer, Fritz Scheller, suggested to reporters last month that Greenberg cooperating with federal investigators could have implications for Gaetz.