Denmark: Gas pipelines stop leaking
HELSINKI -- Authorities in Denmark announced Sunday the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipelines have stopped leaking, a day after officials said the ruptured Nord Stream 2 pipelines also appeared to stop leaking.
"The Nord Stream AG company has informed the Danish Energy Agency that a stable pressure now appears to have been achieved on the two Nord Stream 1 pipelines. This indicates that the blowout of gas from the last two leaks has now also been completed," the Danish agency tweeted Sunday.
The Danish agency said Saturday that the Nord Stream 2 ruptured natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea appears to have stopped leaking natural gas.
Undersea blasts that damaged the Nord Stream I and 2 pipelines last week have led to huge methane leaks. Nordic investigators said the blasts have involved several hundred pounds of explosives.
Turkey: 23 Kurd militants 'neutralized'
ISTANBUL -- Turkish warplanes "neutralized" 23 Kurdish militants in a raid 90 miles inside Iraq, the Turkish Defense Ministry said Sunday.
The ministry usually refers to killed militants as "neutralized." It said the number of casualties in the mission in the Asos region of northern Iraq, which is controlled by the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, was expected to rise.
A video accompanying the ministry's tweet showed F-16 fighters taking off and a number of explosions in a mountainous area. The ministry referred to a statement from Defense Minister Hulusi Akar on Thursday in which he said airstrikes had hit 16 targets in the Asos region.
Turkey has been conducting a series of operations in northern Iraq since 2019, saying the military is targeting the Kurdistan Workers' Party to prevent it from launching cross-border attacks on Turkey. In April, Operation Claw-Lock was launched, which involved ground and air forces.
The party has waged an on-again, off-again insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people. The group is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
42 bodies found in mass grave in Libya
BENGHAZI, Libya -- Libya's Missing Persons Authority announced Sunday the discovery of 42 bodies buried in a mass grave in the central coastal city of Sirte, a former stronghold of the ousted Islamic State group.
In a statement, the authority's spokesperson said the 42 bodies had been exhumed from a school site in the city following a "tip off" from an investigation conducted with captured Islamic State fighters.
Sirte, the birthplace of former longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, fell under Islamic State control between 2015-16, as the extremist group sought to profit from the chaos that engulfed the oil-rich nation since the fallout of the 2011 revolution.
The Islamist group was eventually expelled from the city in December 2016 by forces fighting for the former U.N.-backed Government of National Accord. Hundreds of alleged former Islamic State fighters remain incarcerated in Libyan prisons, many of whom are awaiting trial.
The spokesman for the Missing Persons Authority, Abdulaziz El Mabrouk, said all 42 bodies had since been transferred to a nearby hospital and samples of their blood, teeth and bones were collected to identify the missing victims. A further 11 corpses were found near the same site in May, he added. No information was provided on the cause of death for any of the bodies.
Hurricane takes aim at Mexican resorts
MEXICO CITY -- Hurricane Orlene lost some punch, but remained a dangerous Category 3 storm on Sunday as it headed toward Mexico's northwest Pacific coast between the tourist towns of Mazatlan and San Blas.
After growing into a hurricane Saturday, Orlene quickly added power, peaking as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph early Sunday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. But winds slipped back to 115 mph by late Sunday.
The storm was moving over or near the Islas Marias, a former prison colony being developed as a tourist draw.
Orlene was forecast to hit Mexico's Pacific coast sometime today along with a sparsely populated, lagoon-dotted stretch of mainland south of Mazaltan by later today.
By late Sunday, Orlene was centered about 80 miles west-northwest of Cabo Corrientes -- a point of land that juts into the Pacific just south of Puerto Vallarta -- and was headed north at 8 mph early Sunday.
A hurricane warning was in effect from San Blas to Mazatlan.
The center said the storm would likely begin weakening as its moved closer to land. But it was still projected to hit as a hurricane.
It could bring flood-inducing rainfall of up to 10 inches in some places, as well as coastal flooding and dangerous surf.
The hurricane center reported that hurricane-force winds extended out about 15 miles from the center and tropical storm-force winds out to 70 miles.