AP, West Bank
Palestinian teenage protest icon Ahed Tamimi on Wednesday was sentenced to eight months in prison for slapping and kicking a pair of Israeli soldiers outside her West Bank home, capping a case that sparked uproar in Israel, turned the 17-year-old girl into a Palestinian hero and attracted international attention.
Tamimi’s Israeli lawyer, Gaby Lasky, said Tamimi agreed to the sentence as part of a plea deal with prosecutors that allowed her to avoid more serious charges that could have imprisoned her for years. Under the deal, she is due to be released in the summer. She is also being fined the equivalent of about $1,400.
North Korea’s parliament to meet Apr 11
AP, Seoul
North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, the isolated state’s decision-making rubber-stamp parliament, will hold a meeting on April 11, the North’s Central News Agency said on Thursday.
The decision to hold the rare meeting, which will be the first this year, had been made by the assembly’s presidium on March 15, the report said without elaborating.
18 killed in Thai bus crash
AFP, Bangkok
At least 18 people were killed and dozens wounded when a bus travelling in northeastern Thailand veered off the road and smashed into a tree, authorities said Thursday.
The accident occured Wednesday evening in Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima province with the double decker bus carrying around 50 people returning home from a holiday.
2 US tourists die in copter crash
AP, Brisbane
A helicopter carrying American tourists crashed at a coral-viewing site on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, killing two passengers from Hawaii and injuring two others from Colorado, police said.
The helicopter pilot pulled one passenger from the wreckage after Wednesday’s crash but desperate attempts to revive the 65-year-old woman failed, Police Inspector Ian Haughton said Thursday.
A 79-year-old man also died despite bystanders’ attempts to resuscitate him, Haughton said.
