IN BRIEF (Page 11)

NIGER

34 migrants dead in desert

The bodies of 34 migrants, including 20 children, who were abandoned by people smugglers while trying to reach neighboring Algeria, were found in the Niger desert last week, authorities said on Wednesday. Niger's interior ministry said the migrants died trying to cross the desert. "They probably died of thirst, as is often the case, and they were found near Assamaka," a security source said, referring to a border post between Niger and Algeria.

UNITED KINGDOM

Lawmaker shot, critically injured

A British lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party was shot and injured in her constituency in northern England, media reported on Thursday. Jo Cox, 41, a mother of two, was left bleeding on the pavement after the incident in Birstall in Yorkshire, the Press Association cited an eyewitness as saying. "At 12:53 today, police were called to a report of an incident on Market Street, Birstall, where a woman in her 40s had suffered serious injuries and is in a critical condition," the police said in a statement. "A man in his late 40s to early 50s nearby also suffered slight injuries.

UNITED STATES

Body of boy killed by alligator found

A family's desperate search for their toddler son, who was snatched by an alligator off the shore of a lake at a Disney resort, ended on Wednesday when divers found the 2-year-old's body in murky water. Walt Disney World said it has shut down all of its Florida resort beaches and marinas out of precaution after the incident - the first such death in its 45-year history. The boy's father tried frantically to save him after the attack on Tuesday night at a lakeside beach at the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, but could not pry the toddler from the gator's grasp.

FRANCE

Very hot drinks may cause cancer

Very hot drinks probably increase the risk of cancer, a UN agency said on Wednesday, but coffee - once feared to be a carcinogen - is safe if enjoyed at "normal" temperatures. Tea and mate, a popular South American herbal infusion, may also be harmful if drunk hotter than 65C, the International Agency for Research on Cancer reported. "It doesn't matter what the liquid is," said epidemiologist Dana Loomis, who took part in a review of the world's most popular hot beverages. "What matters is the temperature."

INDONESIA

Dozens of whales stranded; 10 die

More than 30 whales have been stranded on a beach on Indonesia's main island of Java and 10 have died. Local Fishery and Maritime management official Wahid Noor Azis said on Thursday a mass rescue operation managed to pull most of the stranded whales into the deep sea. Wahid said the whales began stranding themselves during high tide on Wednesday on the coast of Pesisir village in Probolinggo district in the province of East Java. The whales, numbering about 32 to 35, are likely short-finned pilot whales, which live in tropical and subtropical waters.

(China Daily 06/17/2016 page11)