AFP, Washington
President Barack Obama will next week travel to Flint, Michigan, where a crisis over tainted water has become a focus of the 2016 election campaign, the White House said on Wednesday.
Responding to a letter from eight-year-old Flint resident Mari Copeny, Obama said he would visit the majority African American northern city on May 4.
“I want to make sure people like you and your family are receiving the help you need and deserve,” Obama wrote.
Russia launches 1st rocket from new space facility
AP, Moscow
Russia on Thursday successfully launched the first rocket from its new space facility after a last-minute delay the day before.
The Soyuz 2.1a booster blasted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far Easter in the early hours Moscow time on Thursday. The Roscosmos space agency said in a statement that the three satellites the rocket was carrying orbited several hours later.
Bulgarian town bans face veil in public
AFP, Sofia
A Bulgarian town that is home to a Roma minority practising an ultraconservative form of Islam on Wednesday banned Islamic face veils in public, a first in the country.
The town council of Pazardzhik in southern Bulgaria voted overwhelmingly in favour of the ban in all administrative buildings, schools, shops and on the street. Driving with a full-face veil, or niqab, was also outlawed.
Lebanese army kills IS leader
Reuters, Beirut
Lebanese forces killed an Islamic State leader on Thursday in an army operation in the mountainous border region with Syria, Lebanon’s National News Agency and a security source said.
The man was named as Nayif al-Shaalaan, and identified as Islamic State’s leader in the area by the security source. State media said he also went by the name Abu Fawz.
