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Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets across the US to call for tighter gun control. The March For Our Lives movement was formed after a high-school shooting in Parkland, Florida last month. Student leader and Parkland survivor Emma Gonzalez gave a powerful speech at the main Washington DC event. She listed the names of the 17 victims - and then stayed silent on stage for six minutes, 20 seconds - the time it took for them to be shot and killed. More than 800 sister protests were planned nationwide and abroad, with solidarity events taking place in Edinburgh, London, Geneva, Sydney and Tokyo.

At least 14 people have been killed in a car bomb blast outside a popular hotel in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, according to a government official. The explosion on Thursday happened near Weheliye hotel on the busy  Maka Al-Mukarrama Road. A spokesman for the Somali interior ministry confirmed the death toll to Al Jazeera, adding that 10 others were wounded in the blast.  Witnesses at the scene said the powerful blast struck a street filled with civilians.  "Most of the casualties are ... people who were spending time to take tea, there was devastation and buildings were damaged," Mohamednur Abdirahman told AFP News Agency.  "The blast was so huge, a vehicle containing explosives went off near a teashop in front of Weheliye hotel, leaving more than 10 people dead. I saw people being rushed to hospital and some of them were already dead," another witness, Abdulahi Moalim, told AFP.  The attack was claimed by al-Shabab, Reuters news agency reporte...

The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal on Wednesday quashed the sentence of two years imprisonment with option of N750,000 fine imposed by the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, on a former official of the Police Pension Office, Yakubu Yusuf,  for stealing N24bn pension funds. A three-man panel of the Court of Appeal headed by Justice Abdu Aboki, in a unanimous judgment, described the High Court’s sentence as unreasonable and substituted it with a total of six years’ imprisonment with an addition of N22.9bn fine. Justice Emmanuel Agim, who delivered the lead judgment of the court, ruled that “the sentences levied” by the High Court “are clearly light and lenient ones.” The justice ruled that this  allowed “the convict, who had admitted misappropriating or stealing N24bn, the option to pay the sum of N250,000 per count of offence in lieu of serving a prison term of two years for the offence,” to enjoy the huge balance he had in his possession. H...

Dapchi village in Yobe State has been filled with excitement since some abducted pupils at the Government Girls Science and Technical College in the village regained their freedom. They were released in the early hours of Wednesday. One hundred and ten pupils were abducted from the school on February 19, 2018, by Boko Haram insurgents, while efforts to locate them by security agencies failed until they were released by their captors. As of 8.50pm on Wednesday, the Federal Government had confirmed the release of 105 schoolgirls and a boy, making a total of 106 released persons. Earlier, the Federal Government in a statement by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had said 76 of the girls had been freed. Later in an interview with State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Mohammed said 91 girls and a boy were freed by the terrorists. However, in another statement, the minister said the number had increased to 101 wit...

A New Jersey church was in disbelief after a baby Jesus statue stolen nearly 90 years ago from the place of worship was returned Wednesday. The Rev. Alex Santora said a suspicious package was delivered to Our Lady of Grace Church in Hoboken, with no return address. He called the shipping company to see where it came from but only found it was sent from Crystal Springs, Fla., NJ.com reported. The reverend then called the police to inspect the mysterious parcel. NOR’EASTER UNCOVERS ‘GHOST TRACKS’ ON NEW JERSEY BEACH After police determined the package was safe, it was opened to reveal the baby Jesus statue and a note dated Jan. 2, 2018, detailing how the sender’s grandfather received it in the 1930s. The sender wrote the Jesus statue was stolen from the church’s outdoor nativity display in the early 1930s. THIRD STATE INDICTS EX-NEUROLOGIST ON SEXUAL ASSAULT CHARGES "It came into [my mother's] father's possession somehow, and I don't know why he didn...

An air strike on a school in Syria's Eastern Ghouta late Monday killed 15 children and two women who were using its basement as a bomb shelter, a monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bombing raid hit Arbin, a key town in the dwindling rebel-held enclave of Ghouta that has been under attack by government troops for over a month. "Three missiles from a single air strike hit the school, where the underground level was being used as a shelter," said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based monitor. "Rescue workers are still searching for survivors," he told boomleft The Observatory, which identifies air strikes based on flight patterns, munitions used, and aircraft, said Monday night's raids were suspected to have been carried out by Russia. Moscow has said it is helping Syria's government "finish off" fighters in Ghouta but has denied carrying out air strikes against civilians.  Since February ...

President Trump fired off angry tweets Sunday morning railing against the Justice Department special counsel’s Russia investigation and attacking the integrity of former FBI director James B. Comey and his former deputy, Andrew McCabe, charging that their notes from conversations with him were “Fake Memos.” For the second straight day, Trump was unrestrained in his commentary about Robert S. Mueller III’s expanding investigation, which is probing not only Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible links to the Trump campaign, but also whether the president has sought to obstruct justice. Subscribe to the Post Most newsletter: Today’s most popular stories on The Washington Post After Trump’s personal attorney, John Dowd, called Saturday for an end to the Mueller probe, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Sunday urged the president and his legal team to cooperate fully with the investigation and warned of serious ramifications if they did not. ...