UN: More than 90% of people killed by Afghanistan quake were women and kids

ISLAMABAD (AP) — More than 90% of the people killed by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake in western Afghanistan last weekend were women and children, U.N. officials reported Thursday. Taliban officials said Saturday’s earthquake killed more than 2,000 people of all ages and genders across Herat province. The epicenter was in Zenda Jan district, where 1,294 people died, 1,688 were injured and every home was destroyed, according to U.N. figures. Women and children were more likely to have been at home when the quake struck in the morning, said Siddig Ibrahim, the chief of the UNICEF field office in Herat, said.

Beavers reintroduced to west London for first time in 400 years

LONDON (AP) — Environmentalists and London’s mayor have helped bring beavers back to the city for the first time in some 400 years in an effort to improve the British capital’s biodiversity. Mayor Sadiq Khan participated in releasing a family of beavers into a wetland area in Ealing, a residential area of west London, on Wednesday. The hope is that the rodents will help improve the wetland’s ecosystem and establish habitats for other creatures, including fish, birds and amphibians.

Romania finds more drone fragments on its soil after Russian hits southern Ukraine

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanian authorities said Thursday they found a crater from a suspected drone that may have exploded on impact on its territory near the border with Ukraine, reviving concerns about possible spillover of Russia’s war in Ukraine onto a NATO member country. The pre-dawn discovery of the crater 1.8 miles west of the village of Plauru, which sits across the Danube River from the Ukrainian port of Izmail, was made after the Romanian Defense Ministry said it detected a series of drones heading toward Ukrainian river ports.

Intense shelling has displaced 70,000 in northwest Syria, UN agencies warn

DANA, Syria (AP) — United Nations humanitarian officials sounded an alarm Thursday over a humanitarian crisis in rebel-held northwestern Syria, warning that intense shelling by government forces displaced almost 70,000 people in recent weeks. The Syrian government, backed by Russia, pounded the country’s northwest this month, especially after a drone attack targeted a military college graduation ceremony in the heart of the government-held city of Homs. At least 89 officers and civilians were killed, making it one of the deadliest attack in the war-town nation in years.