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8-week-old Devi and her mom Funani entertained dozens of onlookers
Indonesian authorities were on alert Friday for more eruptions from a remote island volcano that forced thousands to evacuate this week, as nearby residents began clearing debris after molten rocks rained down on their villages. And then it rained and rocks fell.
Plus: Nationwide antisemitism; Trump allies join forces with sheriff's group. It's the week in extremism, from USA TODAY.
Here’s what we know so far amid fears of conflict escalating in the region.
The line was orderly at Government Middle School as people waited patiently to vote, even after one of the voting machines malfunctioned. The officers working at the polling station in Chedema village in India's tiny mountain state of Nagaland on Friday had arrived the day before, all of them women on electoral duty for the first time. The four women surveyed the polling station, secured the perimeter and started on the tedious paperwork involved with India's multiphase national election.
The trauma of the massacre at Columbine High School still haunts survivors, witnesses nationwide and students who weren’t alive when it happened.
Firefighters in Copenhagen plan to start taking down scaffolding that is left dangling dangerously Friday outside the ruins of the Danish capital's historic Old Stock Exchange building after a fire tore through it and collapsed much of its structure. “Right now, structural engineers and engineers are assessing how it can be done to cut the scaffolding free,” said Tim Ole Simonsen, a spokesman for the Greater Copenhagen Fire Department. Tuesday's blaze was believed to have started on the roof of the building, which had been wrapped up in scaffolding while the building was being renovated.
The Biden administration said Friday it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres (5.3 million hectares) of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm. The decision — part of an ongoing, yearslong fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state — finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Biden administration prepared to approve the controversial Willow oil project. The approval of Willow drew fury from environmentalists, who said the large oil project violated Biden's pledge to combat climate change.
The Biden administration on Friday took steps to limit both oil and gas drilling and mining in Alaska, angering state officials who said the restrictions will cost jobs and make the U.S. reliant on foreign resources. The measures are aligned with President Joe Biden's efforts to rein in oil and gas activities on public lands and conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters to combat climate change. The Interior Department finalized a regulation to block oil and gas development on 40% of Alaska's National Petroleum Preserve to protect habitats for polar bears, caribou and other wildlife and the way of life of indigenous communities.
An important ally of Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif demanded the government lift a two-month-old ban on the social media platform X, saying on Friday that it violates citizens' right to speech and expression. The ban on X has been in place since February, when the party of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan announced a nationwide protest against alleged election rigging ahead of the Feb. 8 vote that allowed Sharif to come to power. “We demand that the ban on X, which is known as Twitter, should immediately be lifted by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to stop any further violation of human rights,” said Farhatullah Babar, a senior leader of the Pakistan People's Party.
The rights of LGBTQ+ students will be protected by federal law and victims of campus sexual assault will gain new safeguards under rules finalized Friday by the Biden administration. The new provisions are part of a revised Title IX regulation issued by the Education Department, fulfilling a campaign pledge by President Joe Biden.
The Biden administration is banning drilling on nearly half of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
More people living near an erupting volcano on Indonesia's Sulawesi Island were evacuated on Friday due to the dangers of spreading ash, falling rocks, hot volcanic clouds and the possibility of a tsunami. An international airport in Manado city, which is located less than 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the erupting Mount Ruang, is still temporarily closed as volcanic ash was spewed into the air. Satellite imagery from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency showed that the ash has spread to the west, northwest, northeast and southeast, covering Manado and North Minahasa, according to a statement from Indonesia’s Transportation Ministry.
An unclaimed aerial attack in central Iran on Friday comes fresh on the heels of tit-for-tat Iranian and Israeli strikes earlier this month, marking a potentially dangerous escalation of the Middle East conflict.
Sitting around a fire in the hills of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Ibrahim Abu Alyah and some friends stood watch over his herd in the aftermath of a settler attack on their village.People watched powerless as settlers rampaged through the village.
Desperate to end a weeks-long strike by thousands of doctors, South Korea’s government said Friday it will slow down a plan to admit more students to the country's medical schools from next year. More than 90% of the country’s 13,000 medical interns and residents have been on strike since late February, when the government announced a plan to recruit 2,000 more students next year. The government adopted a compromise proposal put forward by the presidents of six state-run universities on Thursday, under which medical schools will increase admissions over several years.
Ukraine’s air force claimed Friday it shot down a Russian strategic bomber, but Moscow officials said the plane crashed in a sparsely populated area due to a malfunction after a combat mission. Previous Ukrainian claims of shooting down Russian warplanes during their more than two-year war have met with silence or denials from Moscow. Meanwhile, Russian missiles struck cities in the central Dnipro region of Ukraine, killing eight people, including an 8-year-old girl, and injuring 25, local officials said.
A group of Japanese doctors has filed a civil lawsuit against U.S. search giant Google, demanding damages for what they claim are unpoliced derogatory and often false comments. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Tokyo District Court, demands 1.4 million yen ($9,400) in damages for 63 medical professionals. Google said in an emailed statement Friday that it is working “24 hours a day” to reduce misleading or false information on its platform, combining human and technological resources “to delete fraudulent reviews.”
Oil prices rallied and equities fell Friday as reports said explosions had been heard in Iran and Syria, fuelling fears of an escalation of the Middle East crisis after last weekend's missile attack on Israel by Tehran."It is now clear that the escalating shadow warfare between Israel and Iran... has finally ignited the powder keg in the Middle East, and we have moved decisively out of the shadows and into the glaring light of open conflict," said Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management.
WARSAW (Reuters) -Two people have been detained in Poland on suspicion of attacking Leonid Volkov, an exiled top aide to the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told reporters on Friday. Volkov suffered injuries from hammer blows in the attack on March 12 outside his home in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. The Kremlin declined to comment.