Briefly

FRANCE

Woman beheaded in Nice church attack

A knife-wielding attacker beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a suspected terrorist incident at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday, police and officials said. Mayor Christian Estrosi, who described the attack as terrorism, said on Twitter it had happened in or near Notre Dame church, the largest in the city. An investigation has been opened into the attack. The attack followed the killing of French school teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded in Paris this month by a suspected extremist after he used caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a class on freedom of expression.

SOUTH KOREA

17-year jail term on ex-leader upheld

South Korea's top court upheld a 17-year sentence on former president Lee Myung-bak for a range of corruption crimes in a final ruling on Thursday that will send him back to prison soon. Lee has been convicted of taking bribes worth millions of dollars from big companies including Samsung, embezzling corporate funds of a company that he owned and taking bribes from South Korea's spy agency. The crimes occurred before and during his 2008-13 presidency. Thursday's ruling is final and cannot be appealed. Lee was initially sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2018. He was bailed out of jail several months later but was taken back into custody in February this year.

UNITED STATES

Zeta weakens into a tropical storm

Fast-moving Zeta weakened to a tropical storm as it barreled its way toward the northeast on Thursday morning after ripping through Louisiana and Mississippi, where storm-weary residents were advised to stay indoors overnight while officials assessed the havoc the storm had wrought. It raged onshore on Wednesday afternoon in the small village of Cocodrie in Louisiana as a strong Category 2 storm and then moved swiftly across the New Orleans area and into neighboring Mississippi, bringing with it both fierce winds and a storm surge.

AUSTRALIA

Towering reef find offsets coral gloom

Scientists found a detached coral reef on the Great Barrier Reef that exceeds the height of the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower, the Schmidt Ocean Institute said this week. It was the first such discovery in more than 100 years. The "blade like" reef is nearly 500 meters tall and 1.5 kilometers wide, said the institute founded by ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy. It lies 40 meters below the ocean surface and about 6 km from the edge of the Great Barrier Reef. The discovery came after a study this month found the Great Barrier Reef had lost more than half its coral in the past three decades.

Agencies - Xinhua