Top News Stories –

Kentucky pet store worker nearly crushed to death by python –
A man working at a Kentucky pet store has been seriously hurt after a massive python he was feeding nearly crushed him to death. Police said they were called to Captive Born Reptiles and found the snake wrapped around the man. Terry Wilkens was not breathing when the officers pried the snake off him but he resumed breathing shortly afterwards, officers said. The python weighed about 125lb (56kg) and measured 20ft (6m) long. “It was only by the grace of God that one of the officers knew how to deal with snakes,” Newport Kentucky Police Chief Tom Collins told the Cincinnati Enquirer. Officer Gregory Ripberger grabbed the snake by its head and uncurled the python from Mr Wilkens. [BBC]
Jungle Carpet python

Instagram says @music is just the start for music on the app –
The boss of Instagram has said “it’s just a matter of time before music becomes even more dominant” on the app. Kevin Systrom’s social media site has just turned five. But he told Newsbeat: “We never knew music would take off in the way it did but now 25% of our top [most followed] accounts are music related”. In April, Instagram launched @music, which Kevin explained set out to “feature off-the-beaten path, hard-to-find accounts.” [BBC Newsbeat]

Author jailed for flashing after prostitute disputes small penis claims –
A serial flasher has been jailed after a woman appeared in court and gave a detailed description of his penis. Hinton Sheryn, 68, had denied he would get his penis out in public – because he was embarrassed it was “unusually small”. But officers managed to find a prostitute he used who came to court at the last minute and contested his claims. The female sex worker described his manhood and told Plymouth Crown Court it was a “normal” size. Her late intervention helped convict the successful author, who has now been jailed for 17 years after being convicted of 18 crimes. The former pop promoter was so notorious for exposing himself in the village near Plymouth, Devon, where he lived in the 1970s and 1980s he was known as “the flasher”. [Daily Telegraph]

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• Yemeni Civil War (2015)
  • A hotel where Vice President of Yemen and Prime Minister Khaled Bahah was staying in Aden which was also being used as a de-facto military base by Arab coalition forces is hit by multiple explosions killing at least 15 coalition soldiers. Although theHouthis were first suspected and accused of being behind the attack, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has since claimed responsibility, marking the first attack on Arab coalition forces in Yemen by the extremist group. (CNN) (Al-Arabiyah News)
  • In the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital, Sanaa, at least seven people are killed following a suicide-bomb attack on the al-Nour mosque. (Reuters)
• Syrian Civil War, Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War
  • NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says Russia’s pair of violations of Turkish airspace over the weekend do not look like accidents. Russia, which said it’s looking into claims of a second violation, reported the first violation lasted a few seconds and was due to poor weather. (BBC)
  • Russian warplanes bomb Islamic State positions in the central Syrian city of Palmyra and in the northern Aleppo province, releasing videos that show them destroying 20 vehicles and 3 weapons depots. (Reuters)
  • Turkey says its jets patrolling the Turkish-Syrian border were directly threatened by a Russian MiG-29 and later by an an anti-aircraft missile system which locked-radar on the Turkish jets. (Independent)
• Iraqi Civil War (2014–present)
  • Russia says it would consider extending its air-strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria to Iraq if it receives such a request from the Iraqi government. Iraqi President, Fuad Masum has recently said he would welcome this assistance. (Reuters)
• Boko Haram insurgency
  • A Boko Haram attack near Lake Chad kills at least 11 Chadian troops while 17 Boko Haram militants are also reportedly killed in the fighting following the pre-dawn strike on Chadian army positions. (AFP via Yahoo)

Business and economy

• The European Court of Justice decides an international agreement, generally known as a Safe Harbor rule, used by thousands of companies for moving people’s digital data between the European Union and the United States is invalid, effective immediately. The decision throws into doubt how global technology giants like Facebook, Amazon and Google can collect, manage, and analyze online information from their millions of users in the 28-member bloc. Decisions by this court, the highest legal authority in the EU, cannot be appealed. (The New York Times) (USA Today) (BBC) (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

• Typhoon Mujigae (2015)
  • Sixteen campers are missing in south China‘s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region following a flash flood in a camping reserve. (Xinhua)
• October 2015 nor’easter, Hurricane Joaquin
  • Thirteen people are reported to have died during this storm, 11 in South Carolina and two in North Carolina. At least 18 dams have breached or failed since Saturday. Communities downstream face a mass of water working its way toward the low-lying coast. (CNN)
  • Hurricane Joaquin missed the East Coast but brought tropical moisture aimed directly at South Carolina. (ABC News)
• 2015 El Cambray Dos landslide
  • The death toll from Thursday’s landslide in the Guatemalan village of El Cambray Dos increased to 152 with more than 300 people missing. No survivors have been found at the site. Search crews have found entire families who died huddled together and buried alive. The Guatemala’s National Disaster Reduction Commission, known as the Conred, declared the area uninhabitable. (BBC) (Reuters) (Press TV)

International relations

• Israeli–Palestinian conflict
  • Israel destroys the homes of three Palestinian terrorists. Rassen and Udai abu-Jamal who committed the 2014 Jerusalem synagogue attack and Moatez Hijazi who committed the excavator rampage in Jerusalem during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.(Jerusalem Post)

Law and crime

• 2015 Burkinabe coup d’état
  • Associated Press reports that coup leader General Gilbert Diendéré has been formally charged. (AP via ABC News America)
• Former President of the United Nations General Assembly John William Ashe is charged with taking US$1.3 million in bribes from Chinese businessmen. (AFP via Channel News Asia)

Science and technology

• Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald win the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of neutrino oscillations. (AP via Yahoo! News)

Sport

• 2015 FIFA corruption case
  • South Korean FIFA presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon admits that he is facing charges before FIFA’s ethics committee but denies wrongdoing. (Reuters via Daily Nail)

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