Top News Stories –

Carrie Fisher, Star Wars actress, dies aged 60 –
US actress Carrie Fisher, best known for her role as Princess Leia in the Star Wars series, has died aged 60, days after suffering a cardiac arrest. Fisher was taken ill on a flight from London to LA on Friday and was taken to hospital when the plane landed. But a family statement said with “deep sadness” she died on Tuesday morning. As well as starring in other films such as The Blues Brothers and When Harry Met Sally, Fisher also wrote four novels and three memoirs. The daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher made her film debut opposite Warren Beatty in 1975’s Shampoo. But far greater fame was to follow when she played Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, a role she reprised in last year’s reboot The Force Awakens. She endured a difficult private life, and has often discussed her years of mental illness and drug addiction. [BBC]
Fisher with fellow Star Wars actors Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford, July 2015

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Yemeni Civil War
  • Government forces push to capture a Houthi enclave in Bayhan District, on the border between Shabwa and Marib provinces, resulting at least 28 Houthi militants and 12 Yemeni soldiers killed. (Dunya News)

Arts and culture

• Carrie Fisher, the actress and writer best known for playing Princess Leia in the Star Wars franchise, dies following complications from a heart attack. (E! News)

Business and economy

• The U.S. Federal Trade Commission gives the antitrust go ahead to Abbott Laboratories in its acquisition of St. Jude Medical. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

• 2016 Pacific typhoon season, Typhoon Nock-ten (2016)
  • The Philippine Coast Guard looks for 18 missing sailors from a ship sunk by Typhoon Nock-ten (Nina). At least seven people are confirmed to have died in the storm. (AP via Daily Mail)
• At least 27 people are killed after drinking toxic alcohol in Pakistan. (The New York Times), (UPI)

International relations

• Israel‘s Foreign Ministry announces that it is “reducing” ties with some of the UN Security Council countries that voted to pass United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334. (Business Insider), (NBC News)
• Japan–United States relations
  • Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe makes a landmark visit to Naval Station Pearl Harbor in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, offering “sincere and everlasting condolences” to the victims of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese empire on December 7, 1941. (BBC)

Law and crime

• Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the Christian Governor of the Indonesian capital Jakarta, will face prosecution for blasphemy. (ABC)
• Former President of Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is indicted on corruption charges. (The Telegraph)
• Cuba‘s National Assembly of People’s Power approves a law banning commemorative statues of late President Fidel Castro, and the naming of public places after him, in accordance with the wishes of Castro, who died last month. (Reuters)

Science and technology

• The cheetah faces extinction after it is discovered that only 7,100 specimens are left alive in the wild as a result of a sudden crash in population. (BBC)

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