Shelling heard outside Ukrainian city one day after cease-fire called
KIEV, Ukraine — Witnesses in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol reported sustained explosions outside the city and a volunteer battalion of Ukrainian fighters said Grad rockets were fired at its positions late Saturday, little more than a day after Ukraine and Russian-backed separatist rebels signed a cease-fire following more than four months of fighting in the country’s east.
The cease-fire had appeared to be holding during much of the day.
Mariupol is a port city of about half a million on the coast of the Sea of Azov. Rebels recently opened a new front on the coast, leading to fears that the separatists were trying to secure a land corridor between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in March.
Crews search for private plane that crashed off Jamaica
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Rescue crews searching off Jamaica’s coast on Saturday said they could no longer see debris spotted earlier, stymieing efforts to solve the mystery surrounding a small plane carrying a prominent upstate New York couple that went on a ghostly 1,700-mile journey after the pilot was apparently incapacitated.
Jamaican officials said possible wreckage from the single-engine turboprop Socata TBM700 was sighted Friday evening by a military aircraft flying off the island’s northeast coast, drifting roughly 24 miles off the coastal town of Port Antonio.
The island’s military said in a statement that Jamaican and U.S. officials felt the sighting was “consistent with that of a high-impact debris field.”
But on Saturday Jamaica Coast Guard Commander Antonette Wemyss-Gorman said that the pieces of floating debris could no longer be seen.
Religious groups urge Supreme Court to intervene in gay marriage dispute
SALT LAKE CITY — The Mormon church and four religious organizations are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and settle once and for all the question of whether states can outlaw gay marriage.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in a statement Friday, said it joined a friend-of-the-court brief asking the high court to hear Utah’s marriage case.
Also taking part in the filing were The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Ethics &Religious Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
Each teaches that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Heavy monsoon kills 128 in Pakistan,
108 in India
ISLAMABAD — Heavy monsoon rains and flash floods have killed 128 people in Pakistan and 108 people in India, officials said Saturday, as forecasters warned of more rain in the coming days and troops raced to evacuate people from deluged areas.
The annual monsoon season has struck hard across the region, leaving people to wade through rushing water in towns and villages across Pakistan and in Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir, where authorities say they are seeing some of the worst flooding in decades.
Ahmad Kamal, a spokesman for Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority, said at least 69 people have died in the eastern Punjab province since Thursday. Another 48 died in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir and 11 died in northern Gilgit Baltistan province.He said officials believe most were killed when the roofs of their homes collapsed. He said the deluge has injured 261 people across the country.
By wire sources
