Nigeria
Schoolgirls, parents reunited
Joy, jubilation and dancing erupted Sunday when a group of Nigerian parents were reunited with 21 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram 2½ years ago and freed in the first negotiated release organized by the government and the Islamic extremist group. The girls were hugged and embraced by their parents when they were presented by the government, according to video obtained by the Associated Press. The girls were released Thursday and flown to Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, but it’s taken days for the parents to arrive. Most arrived Sunday after driving hours, said community leader Tsambido Hosea Abana.
Turkey
Suicide blasts rattle nation
A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday during a Turkish police raid against suspected Islamic State members near the Syrian border, killing three police officers and wounding nine other people, an official said. In a separate explosion, a man suspected of being responsible for an IS suicide bomber cell in Gaziantep blew himself up about 12 miles away in another district of the city, provincial governor Ali Yerlikaya said in a televised statement. No one else was killed or wounded in the second blast.
China
Astronauts head into space
China launched a pair of astronauts into space Monday on a mission to dock with an experimental space station and remain aboard for 30 days in preparation for the start of operations by a full-bore facility six years from now. The Shenzhou 11 mission took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northern China at 7:30 a.m. aboard a Long March-2F carrier rocket. It will dock with the Tiangong 2 space station precursor facility within two days.
VATICAN CITY
Pope makes seven saints
Pope Francis canonized Argentina’s “gaucho priest” Sunday, bestowing sainthood on the poncho-wearing pastor with whom the first Argentine pope shares many similarities. Francis honored Jose Gabriel del Rosario Brochero along with six others in a Mass before a crowd of 80,000 in St. Peter’s Square, saying the new saints, “thanks to prayer, had generous and steadfast hearts.” Also made into saints were two Italian priests, Lodovico Pavoni and Alfonso Maria Fusco, French martyr Salomone Leclercq, French nun Elisabeth of the Trinity, Spanish bishop Manuel Gonzalez Garcia and Mexican layman Jose Sanchez del Rio.
Compiled from wire reports