Scientists exit dome after Mars simulation

Scientists exit dome after Mars simulation

HILO, HAWAII

Six scientists have completed a yearlong Mars simulation in Hawaii, where they lived in a dome in near isolation.

For the past year, the group in the dome on a Mauna Loa mountain could go outside only while wearing spacesuits.

On Sunday, the simulation ended, and the scientists emerged.

Cyprien Verseux, a crew member from France, said the simulation shows a mission to Mars can succeed.

More than 300 attend wake for 2 slain nuns

DURANT, Miss.

More than 300 people came to a small church Sunday evening to say farewell to two nuns killed in their Mississippi home, even though more than half had to watch the service called vigil for the deceased on a monitor outside.

A funeral Mass for Sisters Margaret Held and Paula Merrill, both 68, will be celebrated today at the cathedral in Jackson, even as authorities continue to investigate the crime.

Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, of Kosciusko, Miss., has been arrested and charged in the stabbings. The county sheriff said Sanders confessed the killings although many people are struggling to comprehend why anyone would want to take the two women’s lives.

Erdogan vows to ‘destroy terrorists’

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s president vowed Sunday to “destroy terrorists” after months of deadly attacks throughout the country and reiterated his claim that a child suicide bomber was responsible for last weekend’s explosion that claimed at least 54 lives in the southeast.

Speaking at a rally in Gaziantep where the suicide bombing took place at a Kurdish wedding, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the “terrorists” are being “picked up one by one” by Turkey’s security forces.

“They will all be cleansed out like a cancer cell,” he told a roaring crowd of his supporters. “We will find them and punish them.”

Did negligence play role in quake toll?

AMATRICE, ITALY

Italian authorities are vowing to investigate whether negligence or fraud in adhering to building codes played a role in the high death toll in last week’s earthquake in Italy.

They also called for efforts to ensure organized crime doesn’t infiltrate lucrative construction contracts to eventually rebuild much of the picturesque towns leveled in the disaster.

Meanwhile, rescue workers pressed on with the task of recovering bodies from the rubble, with hopes of finding any more survivors virtually vanished more than four full days after the powerful quake. Over the past two days, they found six more bodies in the rubble of Hotel Roma in Amatrice.

Official: Leader of Boko Haram is hurt

NAIROBI, Kenya

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari said Sunday the military wounded the leader of Boko Haram, his country’s homegrown Islamic extremist group.

Nigeria’s military said last week it had “fatally wounded” Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in an airstrike, but it stopped short of saying that he was dead.

Boko Haram no longer has any Nigerian territory, and the group has split into small groups attacking soft targets, said Buhari on Sunday, speaking on the sidelines of the Tokyo International Conference of Africa’s Development in Kenya.

The Nigerian government is ready to discuss the release of the Chibok girls held hostage by Boko Haram, Buhari said. Chibok is where nearly 300 schoolgirls were abducted from a school in April 2014.

Associated Press