News in Brief-(2024-04-06)

Teen hospitalised after savage attack in France
ÉVRY, Apr 05: A 15-year-old teenager has been badly beaten in a town south of Paris and rushed to hospital following a cardiac arrest, in the latest incident of school violence in France. Thursday's attack came at a time of heightened tensions around French schools. Earlier this week a teenage girl was left temporarily comatose after being beaten outside her school in the south of the country. In the new incident, which occurred in the town of Viry-ChYtillon, located around 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Paris, a teenager was attacked by several people as he left school on Thursday afternoon. The public prosecutor's office said it had opened a probe into attempted murder and gang assault. The schoolboy suffered cardiorespiratory arrest, a police source said. — AFP
UK MPs in new cybersecurity scare after sexting scam
LONDON, Apr 05: British police have opened an investigation into explicit messages sent to a lawmaker as part of an alleged sexting scam targeting MPs, in the latest cybersecurity scare to hit parliament. Conservative MP William Wragg acknowledged late Thursday that he had sent personal phone numbers of several colleagues to a men that he met on a gay dating app. Wragg, 36, told The Times newspaper he did so under pressure, as the recipient claimed to have compromising material on him. "I was worried because he had stuff on me. He gave me a WhatsApp number, which doesn't work now," said the MP, who is standing down at the next election. "I've hurt people by being weak. I was scared. I'm mortified," he was quoted as saying. — AFP
India's top court puts order banning Islamic schools on hold
NEW DELHI, Apr 05: India's top court put on hold a lower court's order that effectively banned Islamic schools in the country's most populous state, lawyers involved in the case said on Friday, giving a breather to thousands of students and teachers in the system. The directive comes days before the country begins voting in a national election where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are seeking a third term. The top court was responding to a challenge to the March 22 order of the Allahabad High Court which scrapped a 2004 law governing the schools, called madrasas, in Uttar Pradesh state, where one-fifth of the 240 million population is Muslim. — Reuters
14 killed in truck-bus collision in Bolivia
LA PAZ, Apr 05: Fourteen people were killed and two injured Thursday in a collision between a truck and a bus on a busy road in southwestern Bolivia, police said. Local police official Julio Larrea said there were "nine women, four men (and) a child" among the dead. Larrea said the driver of the truck, which was loaded with salt, had veered across the road and hit the oncoming bus. The accident occurred on a road linking the Andean towns of Oruro and Potosi. "Lane encroachment, excessive speed and a lack of caution," caused the accident, another local police official, Adet Cabrera, told the TV channel Red Uno from the scene of the accident. — AFP