USA TODAY
At least 80 people were killed and 231 injured Saturday when suicide bombers attacked a large demonstration in the Afghan capital of Kabul, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry.
The demonstration was organized by ethnic Hazaras demanding that a major regional power line be rerouted through their impoverished home province. Most Hazaras are Shiite Muslims but most Afghans are Sunni.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement on its Amaq News Agency that two of its fighters detonated explosive belts during the march.
Presidential spokesman Haroon Chakhansuri told the Associated Press that one of the suicide bombers was shot by the police, he told AP. He said that three city district police chiefs on duty at the square were injured and another three security personnel were killed.
If the ISIS claim is accurate, it would mark the first time the extremist organization has mounted an attack in the Afghan capital..
Venezuelans fleeing crisis flood into Colombia: UN
AFP
Bogota
(AFP) - Venezuela's economic crisis has sent a huge but largely ignored
wave of people into Colombia, and many more could be on the way, a
senior UN refugee official said.
"It's
a silent arrival of a lot of people who are crossing the border and
staying illegally on the Colombian side," said Martin Gottwald, the
United Nations Refugee Agency's representative in Colombia.
No
exact figures are available, but the number of Venezuelans fleeing to
Colombia is already "quite large," and Colombia should prepare itself
for more, Gottwald told AFP in an interview.
"The avalanche is probably going to increase, with or without the reopening of the border," he said.
Venezuelan
President Nicolas Maduro closed the countries' border in August 2015
after an attack on an army patrol. He blamed right-wing paramilitaries
from Colombia.
The
leftist leader briefly reopened it last weekend to allow Venezuelans to
stock up on food, medicine and other basic supplies amid severe
shortages in Venezuela.
Gottwald said a sizeable number of Venezuelans who entered Colombia probably never returned.
"If
you consider that 100,000 people crossed the border to stock up on
supplies at the weekend, if a minimal percentage, let's say 10 percent,
stayed (in Colombia), we're already talking about quite large numbers,"
he said.
Venezuelans
are also sneaking across the border even when it is closed, driven
abroad by the economic crisis, violent crime and a health care system
teetering on the brink of collapse.
California governor denies parole for Manson follower
AP
JONATHAN J COOPER
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Leslie Van Houten, the youngest member of the Manson "family" to take part in a series of gruesome California murders in 1969, has been denied freedom again — her past overshadowing her decades as a model prisoner.
Contaminated sticker scare at RNC after cops in Cleveland report burning, numbness
Jason Sickles
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