KENYA: A fire ripped through a dormitory in a girls’ boarding school in central Kenya today, killing at least 16 students, a government official said.

Education Minister Julius Ogamba said Thursday that 79 others were injured at the Utumishi Girls School, which has more than 800 students in the Gilgil area of central Kenya.

The cause has not yet been established. School fires are an ongoing problem in Kenya, with a primary school blaze having killed 17 students in 2024 

AUSTRALIA: An Australian woman has been remanded after she appeared in a court today charged with traveling to Syria and joining the Islamic State group.

Rayann El Houli was arrested at her Melbourne home eight months after she returned to Australia via Lebanon with her children and another woman, police and her lawyer said.

LEBANON: Israel’s air force carried out an airstrike on a southern suburb of the capital, Beirut, today, the Israeli military said, further straining a fragile ceasefire a day ahead of crucial negotiations in Washington.

The strike hit an apartment building but it was not immediately clear who might have been targeted. Videos from the suburb of Choueifat, close to Beirut’s international airport, showed white smoke billowing from a residential neighbourhood.

BRAZIL: The lower house of parliament approved a constitutional amendment on Wednesday establishing a 40-hour, five-day working week, mirroring other Latin American countries that have shortened working hours.

The amendment is part of a regional political push that has been lauded by labour rights groups but blasted by the business sector.

The Bill will now move to the Brazilian senate for a vote.