The black box of a Tara Air plane that crashed in Nepal on Sunday has been recovered, civil aviation authorities have confirmed to the BBC. Search teams first located the crash site on Monday. The remains of all 22 people onboard have been found since. The plane was on a 20-minute flight when it lost contact with air traffic control five minutes before it was due to land. Four Indians, two Germans and 16 Nepali passengers were on board the plane. “[The] cockpit voice recorder, also known as [the] black box of the plane has been recovered from the crash site,” Deo Chandra Lal Karna, spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority Nepal (CAAN) told BBC Nepali. “We are preparing to airlift the black box to Kathmandu from a helicopter.” Local rescuer Indra Singh Sherchan said mountain guides and security officials had “cut out” the black box from the wreckage of the plane that was “stuck on the mountain cliff”. The plane – which was made by Canadian aircraft firm de Havilland – had departed the tourist town of Pokhara at around 0955 local time on Sunday (04:10 GMT). It was bound for Jomsom – a popular tourist and pilgrimage site. The news sparked a frantic search for the plane and its passengers, which was frustrated by bad weather and mountainous terrain.(BBC)…[+]

The head of the Methodist Church in Nigeria, Samuel Kanu, has been abducted along with two other priests on their way back from a church event. The men were travelling on a major highway on Sunday in the south-eastern state of Abia when they were kidnapped, local police told the BBC. It is not clear who is responsible, but separatist groups frequently carry out abductions in the region. Police say they have launched a rescue mission to find the clerics. “His Eminence, Samuel Kanu, is a peace-loving Christian leader” whose abduction “came as a shock”, the Very Rev Nosakhare Nosayaba of Abuja’s Methodist Cathedral of Unity told the BBC. “We are holding an hourly chain-prayer for him and the other priests he was kidnapped with. He was actually preparing for his retirement later this year.” Kidnappings, often for ransom, are common in many parts of Nigeria.(BBC)…[+]

A French journalist working in Ukraine has been killed near the battle-hit city of Severodonetsk in the east. Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, 32, was covering an evacuation operation for broadcaster BFMTV when he died. Officials say he suffered a fatal wound to the neck after shrapnel pierced the armoured vehicle he was travelling in. His colleague Maxime Brandstaetter was also injured, report say. It was Mr Leclerc-Imhoff’s second trip to Ukraine to cover the war. He had been working for BFMTV for six years. Paying tribute to him online, BFMTV wrote: “This tragic event reminds us of the dangers faced by all journalists who have been reporting this conflict at the risk of their lives for more than three months now.”(BBC)…[+]

An ailing killer whale has been found dead after swimming up the River Seine in Normandy, France, activists say. The four-metre male orca was first spotted two weeks ago near the river’s mouth, but made its way dozens of miles upstream towards the city of Rouen. A plan to guide it back to the sea using sound stimuli failed, and experts concluded it was seriously ill. The authorities had been preparing to euthanise the animal but activists say it died of natural causes. Environmental campaign group Sea Shepherd tweeted that the orca’s corpse was found at 11:48 local time (09:48 GMT) on Monday. Reuters quoted the group’s leader Lamya Essemlali as saying that by Monday it was “a ghost of an orca” and died before any attempt could be made to put it to sleep.(BBC)…[+]

India’s anti-drug agency has dropped charges against Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son in a drugs case. Aryan Khan, 24, was arrested in October 2021 for allegedly doing recreational drugs at a party. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had charged him under laws “related to possession, consumption and sale of illegal substances.” On Friday, the NCB cleared him in the case, saying “no drugs had been found on Aryan Khan”. A charge sheet filed in court by the agency on Friday named 14 accused in the case but left out six others, including Aryan Khan, “due to lack of evidence.” Officials from NCB had on 2 October 2021 raided a cruise ship, saying they had been tipped off that there were drugs on board. Aryan Khan had been searched and interrogated before he boarded the ship – and eventually taken into custody by the NCB. Khan was one of several people arrested in the case and spent nearly three weeks in jail. He was later released on bail.(BBC)…[+]

The death of a black man who was forced into a police car boot where a gas grenade was set off has sparked outrage in Brazil. Police stopped Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, 38, in the street in the north-eastern city of Umbaúba, Sergipe state, on Wednesday. Video footage showed two officers holding down the boot the man was in as thick smoke billowed from the car. An autopsy report on Thursday confirmed Mr Santos died of asphyxiation. Brazil’s federal highway police said a disciplinary proceeding has been opened to investigate the officers’ conduct. An investigation has also been opened by the federal police into the circumstances of Mr Santos’ death. There are conflicting reports of the incident. A police statement said that Mr Santos had been arrested because he had “actively resisted” the police’s approach, and that because of his “aggressiveness… immobilization techniques and instruments of less offensive potential” were used to restrain him. But Mr Santos’ nephew, Wallison de Jesus, told local media he had been at the scene, and his uncle had been riding a motorcycle when federal highway police officers stopped him and asked him to lift his shirt. He said his uncle took prescription medication for schizophrenia, and got nervous when the officers found the medication.(BBC)…[+]

The husband of one of the teachers slain in Tuesday’s mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, has reportedly died of a heart attack. Joe Garcia was the husband of Irma Garcia, who taught for 23 years at Robb Elementary School. Mrs Garcia was one of two teachers killed by a teenage gunman in the shooting that left 21 people dead – including 19 children. The couple – who were married for 24 years – are survived by four children. By Thursday night, an online fundraiser for the Garcia family had raised nearly $1.6m (£1.3m) out of an initial modest goal of $10,000.(BBC)…[+]

A court in India has sentenced senior Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik to life imprisonment after convicting him of funding terrorism. He was found guilty of participating in and funding terrorist acts and involvement in criminal conspiracy. Malik told the court he gave up arms in the 1990s. He was convicted last week. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Muslim-majority Kashmir since an armed revolt against rule by India, which is mostly Hindu, erupted in 1989. The court in the capital Delhi gave Malik, 56, two life sentences and five 10-year jail terms, all to be served concurrently, NDTV reported. “Verdict in minutes by Indian kangaroo courts,” Malik’s wife Mushaal Hussein wrote on Twitter, saying he would never surrender.(BBC)…[+]

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in a shooting on Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The children who died were aged between seven and 10. Some of them had just received awards for great school work. One victim was a 10-year-old boy who loved to dance. Another was a girl who died while trying to call the police. It is the deadliest shooting at a US elementary school since 20 children and six adults died at Sandy Hook school a decade ago. There were two pairs of cousins among the children killed in the attack. Some parents were at the school hours before the shooting, watching with pride as their children held up their honour roll certificates at an awards ceremony. Hours later, they were back there. One of them was Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, in the fourth grade, who had earned an A certificate. “We told her we loved her and would pick her up after school,” her mother Kimberly wrote on Facebook. “We had no idea this was goodbye.” Her cousin, meanwhile, described her as a “bright light in everyone’s life”.(BBC)…[+]

The head of the World Bank has warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could cause a global recession as the price of food, energy and fertiliser jump. David Malpass told a US business event on Wednesday that it is difficult to “see how we avoid a recession”. He also said that a series of coronavirus lockdowns in China is adding to concerns about a slowdown. His comments are the latest warning over the rising risk that the world economy may be set to contract. “As we look at the global GDP… it’s hard right now to see how we avoid a recession,” Mr Malpass said, without giving a specific forecast. “The idea of energy prices doubling is enough to trigger a recession by itself,” he added. Last month, the World Bank cut its global economic growth forecast for this year by almost a full percentage point, to 3.2%.(BBC)…[+]