Explosion rocks World Cup viewing venue in Nigeria

June 18, 2014 at 12:00a.m.

DAMATURU, Nigeria

A suicide bomber detonated a tricycle taxi packed with explosives at an outdoor World Cup viewing center in a northeast Nigerian city Tuesday night, and witnesses said several people were killed.

Hospital workers said the death toll likely will rise with 15 people critically wounded and casualties still coming in to the main hospital at Damaturu, capital of Yobe state.

Police Assistant Superintendent Nathan Cheghan confirmed the explosion but said rescue workers were being careful for fear of secondary explosions. Islamic extremists of the Boko Haram group frequently time secondary explosions to kill people who rush to the scene of a bomb blast.

Cheghan said he had no casualty figures.

There was no immediate claim for the blast that witnesses were blaming on Boko Haram fighters who have targeted football viewing centers and sports bars in the past.

3 face executions

ST. LOUIS

Convicted killers in three states were facing executions within a 24-hour period starting Tuesday night, potentially the first lethal injections in the nation since a botched execution in Oklahoma seven weeks ago.

All the states planning executions — Florida, Georgia and Missouri — refuse to say where they get their drugs, or if they are tested. Lawyers for two of the condemned inmates have challenged the secretive process used by some states to obtain lethal-injection drugs from unidentified, loosely regulated compounding pharmacies.

Plane crashes into Long Island yard

EAST PATCHOGUE, N.Y.

A pilot radioed for help Tuesday just before his small plane crashed into the yard of a Long Island home and burst into flames, killing him.

“I need your help, sir,” the pilot, identified by police as Hanan Shoshany, said in an air-traffic-control recording archived on the website LiveATC.net.

“Are you declaring an emergency?” a controller responded.

Moments later, after Shoshany radioed that he would return to the airport from which he took off, the plane crashed between two houses on a tree-lined street in East Patchogue.

A mother and infant inside one of the homes were not injured, Brookhaven Town spokesman Kevin Molloy said.

Canada OKs oil pipeline to Pacific Coast

TORONTO

Canada’s government approved a controversial pipeline proposal Tuesday that would bring oil to the Pacific Coast for shipment to Asia, a major step in the country’s efforts to diversify its oil exports if it can overcome fierce opposition from environmental and aboriginal groups.

Approval for Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project was expected as Canada needs infrastructure in place to export its growing oil-sands production. The project’s importance has only grown since the U.S. delayed a decision on TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline that would take oil from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The northern Alberta region has the world’s third-largest oil reserves, with 170 billion barrels of proven reserves.

Enbridge’s pipeline would transport 525,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta’s oil sands to the Pacific to deliver oil to Asia, mainly energy-hungry China.

Associated Press