Briefly

TURKIYE

Pupil kills 4, wounds 20 in new school shooting

An eighth-grade student opened fire at random in a Turkish school on Wednesday, killing four people and wounding 20, just one day after a shooter wounded 16 people and then killed himself at another school, officials said. Kahramanmaras Province Governor Mukerrem Unluer said a teacher and three students were killed in the latest attack. The attacker was also dead. Four of the wounded were in serious condition and undergoing surgery, he said. The attacker, possibly 13 or 14 years old, was the son of a former police officer, Unluer said. "We suspect he may have taken his father's weapons," he said.

INDIA

Death toll in power plant blast rises to 19

The death toll from a boiler blast at a power plant in central India has risen to 19, police said on Wednesday, noting 17 others were injured. The explosion occurred on Tuesday at a facility operated by Vedanta Ltd, a subsidiary of London-listed Vedanta Resources, in Chhattisgarh state's Sakti district."The death toll in the power plant blast has reached 19 whereas 17 are undergoing treatment in various hospitals," district police chief Praful Thakur told Agence France-Presse. The explosion likely happened after a pipeline burst, spewing "superheated steam" on people who were having their lunch at the time, The Indian Express reported.

FRANCE

Bill to ease return of colonial-era art

French lawmakers on Monday passed a bill to simplify the return of artworks looted during the colonial era to their countries of origin. France still has in its possession tens of thousands of artworks and other prized artifacts that it looted from its colonial empire. The draft legislation to return them was unanimously approved by the National Assembly, the lower house, late on Monday. The upper house had unanimously passed the measure in January. The bill specifically targets property acquired between 1815 and 1972.

Agencies via Xinhua