Thailand
Nation mourns monarch
Grieving Thais went to work dressed mostly in black Friday morning, just hours after the palace announced the death of their beloved King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the politically fractious country’s unifying figure and the world’s longest-reigning monarch. He was 88. Traffic and businesses appeared to be running normal, but many Thais were dressed in muted colors and there was a somber mood on the streets following an outpouring of sorrow on Thursday when the king’s death was announced.
Bermuda
Hurricane damages homes
Hurricane Nicole roared across Bermuda on Thursday, pummeling the resort island with winds up to 115 mph that snapped trees and peeled off roofs before the storm spun away into open water. The Category 3 system also flooded homes, damaged boats that broke away from their moorings and knocked out power to more than 27,000 customers who live in the British territory, which has sturdy infrastructure and is accustomed to heavy weather. By late Thursday afternoon, crews were clearing roads under clearer skies.
Syria
Car bomb kills at least 17
Syrian activists say at least 17 people, most of them fighters, have been killed in a car bomb blast at a rebel checkpoint near the Turkish border. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said it could confirm 14 militants were killed in the attack on the road connecting the rebel-held town of Azaz to the Bab al-Salameh border crossing. It is one of the more important junctions between Syria’s rebels and their Turkish backers.
England
Gorilla escapes enclosure
A silverback gorilla escaped from an enclosure at London Zoo on Thursday, sparking a frantic search by keepers and armed police. Some visitors were locked down in a cafeteria until the animal was sedated and recaptured. The male gorilla, Kumbuka, was subdued by a tranquilizer gun and recaptured within an hour, zoo officials said. Malcolm Fitzpatrick, the zoo’s curator of mammals, said there were no injuries to visitors or zoo workers, adding that Kumbuka recovered quickly.
Compiled from wire reports