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    Gold Mine Collapse in Mali Kills at Least 43

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    The accident took place in an open-pit area people had gone into in search of gold. Informal mining is a common and dangerous practice in much of West Africa.At least 43 people, mostly women, were killed after an informal gold mine collapsed in western Mali on Saturday, the head of an industry union said.The accident took place near the town of Kéniéba in Mali’s gold-rich Kayes region, Taoule Camara, the secretary general of the national union of gold counters and refineries, told Reuters. The women had climbed down into open-pit areas left by industrial miners to look for scraps of gold when the earth collapsed around them, he said.A mines ministry representative confirmed the accident had taken place between the towns of Kenieba and Dabia, but declined to give further details, as ministry teams at the scene had not yet shared their report.Informal mining, also known as artisanal mining, is a common activity across much of West Africa and has become more lucrative in recent years because of a growing demand for metals and rising prices. Deadly accidents are frequent, as such miners often use unregulated methods and work in unsafe conditions.Thirteen artisanal miners, including women and three children, died in southwest Mali in late January, after a tunnel in which they were digging for gold flooded. More

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      2-Year-Old Gorilla Dies After Being Struck by Hydraulic Door at Zoo

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      A Calgary Zoo staff member mistakenly activated a door that struck the western lowland gorilla named Eyare, a report found.A 2-year-old gorilla died of traumatic injuries last week at the Calgary Zoo in Alberta, Canada, after being struck by a hydraulic door that a staff member mistakenly activated, according to the zoo.The western lowland gorilla, named Eyare, who was the offspring of gorillas at the zoo, had been interacting with other gorillas on Nov. 12 in an enclosure where they are fed, observed and trained outside their habitat.A staff member was trying to separate Eyare, who weighed about 30 pounds, from the other gorillas for a vaccination training session.“A team member intended to activate a door that they were looking at, but accidentally used the control lever for a different door,” Colleen Baird, the zoo’s director of animal care, said in an interview on Saturday. “And as that door was closing, Eyare was passing through, and she was struck by it.”Teams attempted lifesaving measures, but Eyare died shortly after 9:30 a.m.Ms. Baird said that the staff member operating the door was “devastated,” and that the person was immediately removed from the workplace. The staff member was not a new employee, and was comfortable working with gorillas, Ms. Baird said.The staff member will undergo additional training before returning to work in that area of the zoo, which is home to six other western lowland gorillas.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      3 People Killed and 4 Injured in Mississippi Bridge Collapse

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      A bridge over the Strong River in Simpson County that was being demolished collapsed in a “work site accident,” the authorities said.Three people were killed and four were critically injured after a bridge in Mississippi that was being demolished collapsed on Wednesday afternoon, the authorities said.The bridge, on State Route 149 over the Strong River in Simpson County, “collapsed this afternoon in a work site accident,” according to the Mississippi Department of Transportation.“Sadly, there were fatalities as a result of the accident, and we extend our deepest condolences to the families who have lost loved ones,” the department said in a statement.Terry Tutor, the Simpson County coroner, told the Times that seven men were working on the bridge, using heavy machinery to tear it down, when it gave way and plummeted nearly 40 feet. Three of the men died, and four were injured, Mr. Tutor said.The remains of two victims had been recovered as of 7:30 p.m. local time, and emergency responders were working to recover the third victim, Mr. Tutor said. “Keep us in your prayers,” he said.It was not clear who the men worked for. Sheriff Paul Mullins of Simpson County told WLBT, an NBC affiliate station in Jackson, Miss., that the four people injured were in critical condition. The sheriff’s department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday evening.It was unclear on Wednesday evening what had caused the collapse. A spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Transportation declined to answer additional questions on Wednesday evening but said that it would share more information when it becomes available.According to the department, the bridge has been closed to traffic since Sept. 18 as part of a bridge replacement project. The contractor was in the process of demolishing the bridge when it gave way, the agency said.Terry Tutor, the Simpson County coroner, was on the scene, a representative with the coroner’s office said. Mr. Tutor did not immediately respond to requests for comment.An inspector with the transportation department was at the work site when the bridge collapsed but was unharmed, the department said.Simpson County, in south-central Mississippi, has a population of about 26,000 people, according to census data. More

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      Boot Found at Everest Could Be From Sandy Irvine, Who Vanished 100 Years Ago

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      When Sandy Irvine went on a pioneering expedition to Mount Everest’s summit in 1924, he and his partner vanished. The recent discovery may shed light on the ill-fated adventure.A well-preserved boot found by a group of climbers on Mount Everest could be a clue to solving one of the most enduring adventure mysteries in the history of exploration of the world’s highest peak.The climbers who made the discovery in late September have reason to believe that it could contain some of the remains of Andrew Comyn Irvine, 22, whose ascent with an expert climber in an attempt to be the first to reach the summit in 1924 led to their disappearance.The recent explorers, from a National Geographic film crew, were on a glacier below the north face of Everest when they spotted a brown leather boot sticking out of the ice.Looking closer, they noticed a sock with a patch sewed to it that spelled “A.C. Irvine” in stitched red letters.“We just kind of walked around, like for a few minutes, being like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Jimmy Chin, a mountaineer and filmmaker, said of the find. “We just stumbled upon one of the great discoveries of our time.”In April 1924, Mr. Irvine, a talented engineer but inexperienced climber from Birkenhead, England, who was better known as Sandy, joined George Mallory, a British mountaineer renowned for having reached 27,000 feet above sea level on Mount Everest in 1922.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Explosion at an Iranian Mine Kills Dozens, State Media Says

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      A methane leak set off the explosion, the country’s official media said, and a rescue effort was underway for those believed to be trapped in the mine.A methane explosion at a coal mine in eastern Iran killed dozens of miners, and the death toll was expected to rise, Iranian state media said on Sunday.The miners died of suffocation from the rapid release of methane and carbon monoxide, according to a report by Iran’s state news agency, IRNA. IRNA, which said earlier Sunday that 51 miners had been killed, later put the figure at 34. Other state media had estimates of the number of people killed that ranged from 30 to 51.At the time of the explosion on Saturday, in the eastern Iranian city of Tabas, there were 69 workers in the mine, IRNA said.Many may still be trapped, according to Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.It was not possible to independently verify details of the incident.Officials say they are trying to work quickly to rescue the workers trapped in the mine, which is operated by the Madanjo Company, according to the Fars news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran ordered an investigation into the explosion, IRNA reported. Mohammad-Ali Akhondi, a crisis management official, urged caution about the rescue efforts, IRNA reported.“The reality is that it is a difficult task to rescue the injured,” he said, according to IRNA. The report said rescuers would need to go about 2,300 feet diagonally and 820 feet vertically underground to reach the trapped workers.Industrial accidents are common in Iran, and many construction and mining sites operate with outdated and inadequate materials.In 2017, dozens of miners were killed and many were hurt after an explosion at a coal mine near the northern Iranian town of Azadshahr, in the Golestan Province. More

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      5-Year-Old Killed After Bounce House Goes Airborne in Maryland

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      Children were inside the play structure at a baseball game when it was carried 15 to 20 feet in the air the by the wind. One child died and another was injured.A 5-year-old boy was killed at a professional baseball game in Maryland on Friday after a bounce house was picked up by a wind gust while children were inside of it, the authorities said.Children fell from the inflatable play structure when it was launched 15 to 20 feet in the air before landing on the baseball field at Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf, Md., where the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs were playing Friday night, according to a statement from the government of Charles County, Md.The 5-year-old boy, who has not been identified, was airlifted to Children’s National Hospital in Washington and later pronounced dead, according to Jennifer L. Harris, the press officer for Charles County, and the county’s news release. A second child was also airlifted to the same hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries.The death took place while the Blue Crabs were playing against the York Revolution in an Atlantic League of Professional Baseball game in Waldorf, about 25 miles south of Washington. The teams then halted play, and the Blue Crabs postponed their games over the weekend.“Our entire organization shares our condolences with the family mourning the loss of a child, and concern for the child who was injured,” Courtney Knichel, general manager of the Blue Crabs, said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with them all.”The bounce house was on an elevated, fenced-off surface above right field, according to a report from WRC-TV, NBC’s Washington affiliate. After being lifted off the ground, it crashed on the field near the first-base line.The bounce house is usually set up in an area for children to play in during games, Ms. Harris said in an email.A spokesman for the Blue Crabs could not be immediately reached for comment.Bounce houses have gone airborne and killed children before. This past April, a 2-year-old was killed and another child was injured in Arizona when the wind picked up the bounce house they were in and threw it into a neighboring lot. In 2021, five Australian children died after a bouncy castle was propelled 30 feet in the air during their school’s end-of-the-year celebration.Regency Furniture Stadium in 2008. On Friday, one child died and another was injured during a baseball game at the stadium.Mark Gail/The The Washington Post, via Getty ImagesA study by the University of Georgia found at least 479 injuries and 28 deaths happened in wind-related bounce house incidents around the world between 2000 to 2021.The Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent federal regulatory agency, recommends that bounce houses should not be used when maximum wind speeds exceed 15 to 25 miles per hour. The group advises that if “the tops of the trees are swaying” it may not be safe to use a bounce house. Bounce houses should be secured with at least six anchor points, according to the Amusement Devices Safety Council, Britain’s workplace health and safety regulator. More

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      12 Officials Sentenced for Roles in Devastating Libya Flood

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      The officials were punished nearly a year after two dams above the seaside city of Derna failed in a storm, killing thousands and destroying much of the area.Twelve Libyan officials were convicted and sentenced on Sunday for their roles in a disaster that killed thousands of people and wrecked a huge swath of eastern Libya, the country’s top prosecutor said.But the verdict left untouched Libya’s entrenched political class, which many Libyans blame for a decade of political stagnation, corruption, violence and chaos that, directly or indirectly, probably contributed to the catastrophe, in which two dams collapsed.The convictions came nearly a year after rainfall from a major storm last September inundated the aging dams above the seaside city of Derna, causing them to fail and sending an avalanche of water hurtling to the areas below. While the official death toll stands at 4,352, according to the United Nations, more than 8,000 people remain missing, many of their bodies believed to have been swept out to sea.The flood destroyed much of Derna and the surrounding areas and displaced nearly 45,000 people. All in all, the disaster affected about 1.5 million people, 22 percent of Libya’s population, a January report by the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations found.A statement from the office of Libya’s attorney general, Sadiq Al-Sour, said the 12 people convicted on Sunday had been responsible for managing the country’s dams. Though prosecutors did not name them or describe the charges, a Libyan TV channel, Al-Ahrar, reported that among those convicted was Ali Al-Hibri, the general manager of a government fund that had previously been tasked with rebuilding Derna after fighting related to Libya’s years of civil war.Al-Ahrar reported that Derna’s mayor at the time was also convicted on Sunday, as were Mr. Al-Hibri’s predecessor and an employee of the Libyan Central Bank.The defendants were fined and handed prison sentences ranging from nine to 27½ years, with some ordered to return money they had obtained through “illicit means,” the statement said, suggesting charges related to corruption. The court also acquitted four defendants, it said.But the convictions provided little of the accountability many Libyans had sought after the disaster, which occurred despite years of warnings that the dams above Derna needed maintenance and repair. Libya’s top leaders remain in power, though many say that they enabled corruption and neglect that led to the disaster, and that they then botched the response.The flooding damaged or destroyed 18,500 homes, about 7 percent of the country’s entire housing stock, the January report by the international bodies said. The report estimated that the disaster had cost Libya more than $1.6 billion in damages and economic losses.Eleven months after the flooding, reconstruction has barely begun, and most of those displaced are still living in temporary housing or have no homes to return to.Islam Al-Atrash contributed reporting from Tripoli, Libya. More

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      Video Shows Yellowstone Explosion That Sent Tourists Running for Safety

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      The explosion at Biscuit Basin, which sent a column of boiling water, mud and rock shooting into the sky on Tuesday, was caught in dramatic videos.Tourists at Yellowstone National Park ran for cover after a hydrothermal explosion sent a column of boiling water, mud and rock into the air.Vlada March via StoryfulA hydrothermal explosion shot a towering column of boiling water, mud and rock into the air at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming on Tuesday morning, destroying a section of boardwalk and sending dozens of tourists running for safety, officials said. No injuries were reported, according to the United States Geological Survey, but the area remained closed to the public.The explosion occurred around 10 a.m. in the Biscuit Basin area of the park. Several tourists captured video of the event, and in some footage an adult, Vlada March, can be heard shouting at her two children to run.Ms. March, a tourist who recorded the event on her cellphone, said she was taking a guided tour with her family when the guide pointed out steam rising from the ground.“‘Oh look,’ he said. ‘This is unusual.’ I took out my phone like everyone does. Suddenly it became a huge, dark cloud full of rocks,” she said in a phone interview. “It was a huge cloud, it covered the sun. For a few moments, you couldn’t see the sun it was so dark.”Ms. March, of Palm Desert, Cal., said she shouted for her two young sons to run, and looked frantically for her 70-year-old mother, whom she had lost sight of. When her mother reappeared, Ms. March said, “she was covered in ash, head to toe.”The explosion was a couple of miles north of the Old Faithful Geyser, which regularly shoots steam into the sky. “This is quite a bit different than Old Faithful,” said Michael Poland, the scientist in charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, who said the hydrothermal event took place near Black Diamond Pool in Biscuit Basin.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Before the Alec Baldwin Trial’s End, 2 Jurors Had Doubts About His Guilt

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      When the judge threw out the case, the jurors said, they had doubts that Mr. Baldwin was guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of the cinematographer on the set of the film “Rust.”When the judge threw out the involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin earlier this month after finding that the prosecution had withheld evidence that could have helped his defense, it left key questions that have hung over the case for more than two years unresolved.But two members of the jury who spoke about the case publicly for the first time on Saturday said in interviews that they had been far from convinced — given the evidence they had heard before the trial was brought to its abrupt end — that Mr. Baldwin was guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a film set.“As the week went by, it just didn’t, it didn’t seem like a very strong case,” Johanna Haag, known to the court as juror No. 7, said in a phone interview on Saturday.Gabriela Picayo, who was identified in court documents as juror No. 9, said that she too had been having serious doubts about the case against Mr. Baldwin before it was dismissed.A critical moment for her during the trial, she said, was when she learned that the armorer who had loaded a live round into the gun that day, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, had already been convicted of involuntary manslaughter. “I’m still here, I’m still open to hearing and obviously trying to stay unbiased,” Ms. Picayo said of her thinking at the time, “but I was starting to move towards the direction of thinking that this was very silly and he should not be on trial.”The trial centered on what happened on Oct. 21, 2021, when Mr. Baldwin was rehearsing on the set of the film “Rust” in New Mexico with a gun that he had been told was “cold” — meaning that it should have contained no live ammunition — when it suddenly fired a bullet that killed Halyna Hutchins, the movie’s cinematographer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More