World News

ISTANBUL — A close aide of killed Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been caught in Istanbul, police said Sunday.

JERUSALEM — Officials came under growing scrutiny Sunday for ignoring warnings about safety lapses at one of Israel’s most visited holy sites, as the country mourned 45 ultra-Orthodox Jews killed in a stampede at a festival there.

NEW DELHI — With Indian hospitals struggling to secure a steady supply of oxygen, and more COVID-19 patients dying amid the shortages, a court in New Delhi said it would start punishing government officials for failing to deliver the life-saving item

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX safely returned four astronauts from the International Space Station on Sunday, making the first U.S. crew splashdown in darkness since the Apollo 8 moonshot.

TEHRAN, Iran — A chemical factory near the central city of Qom caught fire Sunday, Iranian media reported, a blaze that injured at least two firefighters.

KABUL — A searing blaze that roared through dozens of fuel tankers on the northern edge of the Afghan capital of Kabul killed seven people and injured 14 others, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.

BEIJING — China’s Shandong aircraft carrier group has recently conducted routine annual exercises in the South China Sea, the People’s Liberation Army said Sunday, after Beijing criticized the U.S. for sending Navy ships into the strategic area.

BRUSSELS — Police have detained 132 people who took part in an illegal party in a Brussels park to protest COVID-19 restrictions, authorities said Sunday.

IDLIB, Syria — A COVID-19 vaccine campaign kicked off in Syria’s last rebel-held enclave on Saturday, with a 45-year-old front-line nurse becoming the first to receive a U.N.-secured jab.

BEIJING — An extreme thunderstorm hit an eastern Chinese city, leaving 11 dead and 66 injured, with strong winds causing buildings and trees to collapse, officials said.