Ecuador prison director shot dead as she drove with coworker, second such killing this month
CBSN
The director of Ecuador's biggest prison was killed in an armed attack on Thursday, the second such killing in under two weeks in the Latin American country, the SNAI prison agency said.
Maria Daniela Icaza, director of the infamous Litoral penitentiary in the port city Guayaquil died of injuries sustained "following an armed attack on the road" leading to the nearby town of Daule, the agency said.
She died while being taken to hospital, the agency said in a WhatsApp message, adding that an official from the prison service who was travelling with her was injured in the incident.
Tel Aviv — Israeli military strikes killed more than 600 people in the Gaza Strip in the first 10 days of 2025, pushing the death toll over 46,000 since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian territory's health ministry, and one new estimate suggests it could be much higher. Israel launched the war after Hamas carried out its unprecedented terrorist attack, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.
Kano, Nigeria — Authorities in northern Nigeria's largest city have begun evacuating more than 5,000 street children seen as a "security threat" and a growing concern as an economic crisis forces more to fend for themselves. The Hisbah, a regional police force tasked with enforcing Islamic Sharia law, have carried out midnight raids on motor parks, markets and street corners in the regional capital, Kano, since the beginning of the year, evacuating children as they sleep.
Berlin — Poland's President Andrzej Duda has called for a special exemption to let Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend events in the country marking 80 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, without facing the risk of arrest under an International Criminal Court warrant. Poland will host a memorial service eight decades after Allied forces seized the notorious camp from German troops and liberated the surviving prisoners on January 27, 1945.
Ramstein Air Base, Germany — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday said Donald Trump's return to the White House would open "a new chapter" and reiterated a call for Western allies to send troops to help "force Russia to peace." He made the plea as the Biden administration announced what will likely be its last major military aid package for Ukraine — a promise of weapons and other support worth $500 million.
Paris — Jean-Marie Le Pen, the historic leader of France's far-right political movement, died Tuesday at the age of 96, the French news agency AFP said, citing his family. Le Pen, who had been in a care facility for several weeks, died Tuesday "surrounded by his loved ones," the family said in a statement.