Yinchuan: China restaurant gas explosion kills 31

Nine people have been detained over an explosion at a barbecue restaurant in north-west China which has killed at least 31 people.

A gas leak is suspected to have caused the explosion in Yinchuan city on Wednesday night local time.

President Xi Jinping has called for “all-out efforts” in the rescue and an investigation into the blast.

The owner of the Fuyang Barbecue Restaurant was among those in custody, state media reported.

h/t Mauser

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Olivia Chow as Toronto mayor would be an ‘unmitigated disaster,’ Doug Ford says

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has said that if frontrunner Olivia Chow is elected Toronto’s new mayor, it will be an “unmitigated disaster” for the city.

The premier made the comments fairly unprompted while at an unrelated announcement in Burlington Wednesday afternoon.

At the time, he was asked by a reporter about former Toronto Mayor John Tory endorsing candidate Ana Bailao. After talking about how much he admired Tory, the premier moved on to talk about other mayoral candidates.

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Titanic sub search …

A massive effort to find a submersible exploring the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic has entered a critical stage. The vessel went missing deep under the ocean on Sunday with five people on board.

Researchers aboard the Polar Prince – its mothership on the surface – lost contact with the crew shortly after the Titan began its dive. There is limited oxygen on board, and it was estimated that supplies would run out by around 10:00 GMT (06:00 EDT) on Thursday.

Undersea noises have been detected in the search area, but it is not known where they are coming from or what they mean.

Missing Titanic submersible: Why oxygen timeline on sub may not be so fixed

The exact whereabouts of the Titanic submersible and the condition of the five crew onboard are unknown. It is thought that, if the vessel is still intact, it may have just a few hours of oxygen remaining, creating a race against time to find the sub before it is too late.

However, that timeline is not necessarily rigid. Dr Ken LeDez, a hyperbaric medicine expert at Memorial University in St John’s, Newfoundland, has told BBC News that, depending on conditions, some of those aboard could survive longer than expected.

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German court convicts woman of enslaving Yazidi woman

The Koblenz Higher Regional Court on Wednesday sentenced a woman, Nadine K., on Wednesday for being part of the so-called “Islamic State” militant group and taking part in abusing a Yazidi woman.

The court ruled that the 37-year-old had abused a Yazidi woman, forcing her to be a “household slave” while living with the group in Iraq and Syria. She was found guilty of crimes against humanity as well as aiding and abetting genocide.

The Yazidi woman testified at the trial and said she recognized the defendant. She traveled to Koblenz again for the verdict.

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Canada should deny care to pregnant ‘birth tourists,’ doctor argues

Should Canada deny care to ”birth tourists,” pregnant women who visit Canada with the sole purpose of delivering their babies here, thereby obtaining automatic Canadian citizenship for their newborns?

It’s a provocative, and, some say, dangerous suggestion. However, a leading expert in preterm and multiple births is arguing that Canadian hospitals and doctors should have “absolutely zero tolerance” for birth tourism, a phenomenon that is rising once again now that COVID travel restrictions have been dropped.

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Police arrest 45, seize 440 weapons in Canada-wide raids targeting 3D-printed guns

MONTREAL – A Quebec-based anti-gun unit says 45 people have been arrested and 440 guns have been seized in raids targeting manufacturers of 3D-printed or “ghost” guns across eight provinces.

The squad, called the L’Équipe intégrée de lutte au trafic d’armes, told reporters today in Montreal that more than 20 police forces were involved in Canada-wide raids that took place Tuesday.

Time to arrest farmers and seize their Tractor & Combine Ghost Gun machines.

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Lab Leak: Likely

Newly available government cables add to the pile of suggestive evidence.

Three previously unreleased State Department cables, obtained by the public-health group U.S. Right to Know through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, confirm that Chinese officials covered up the outbreak and spread of Covid-19 and that their virology laboratory in Wuhan had close ties to the Chinese military. The cables add to mounting evidence suggesting that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory.

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Hunter Biden Was a Member of $75,000-Per-Year Hollywood Sex Club, Owner Claims

Damon Lawner, an eccentric Los Angeles playboy who until recently ran an exclusive sex club frequented by celebrities, claims Hunter Biden was a member.

The Los Angeles Times described Lawner’s sex club, “Snctm,” as having been “an exclusive club for the super-rich,” with annual membership fees going as high as $75,000. Notables spotted at the club include Bill Maher, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Aerosmith lead-singer Steven Tyler. The sex parties hosted by the club took place in a 6,500-square-foot complex in the same neighborhood as the Playboy mansion. Per the Times, it featured a “built-in sex swing” and a stripper pole.

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The Islamic State lives on

An IS affiliate has just murdered dozens of schoolkids in Uganda.

Another jihadist attack has shaken Uganda. Last Friday, an attack on a school claimed the lives of 41 civilians, mostly pupils. The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – a militia group based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that is linked to the Islamic State (IS) – is thought to be responsible. Clearly, IS lives on through its equally barbaric affiliates. Nations around the world must heed this warning and take on these groups.

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Did the Galileo Project just find the remains of an interstellar craft?

Given all of the other strange news making the rounds this month about space travel, UFOs, and unusual objects, this seems like a rather timely story. Regular readers may already be familiar with Harvard Physicist Avi Loeb. A few years ago, astronomers detected an object hurtling through the solar system which was dubbed Oumuamua. It was unusual because they determined that it had originated from outside our solar system, the first such confirmed interstellar traveler we’d seen. Dr. Loeb caused some waves in the scientific community when he said that his observations of Oumuamua suggested that it might not be a space rock, but instead, possibly a technological object of some kind, potentially from outside our solar system. We’ll never know for sure since it continued on and headed back out into deep space.

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German Officials Estimate 60 Knife Attacks Per Day in 2022

German police crime statistics presented in April grossly undercounted the number of knife attacks perpetrated in the country. The statistics presented by the President of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) Holger Münch and the Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) counted 8,160 knife attacks. Official figures from Germany’s federal states and state criminal investigation offices have revealed that the real number of knife attacks is significantly higher.

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