Foreign News
Alabama mother with rare double womb gives birth to two babies in two days
A US woman with a rare double uterus has given birth twice in two days – after a “one in a million” pregnancy and a total of 20 hours in labour.
Kelsey Hatcher, 32, delivered one daughter on Tuesday, and a second on Wednesday, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Hospital. The girls are described as fraternal twins – with rare separate birthdays.
Announcing the arrival of her “miracle babies” on social media, Ms Hatcher hailed the medics as “incredible”. Hatcher said the family was now back at home and could “enjoy the holidays”. She had previously expected a Christmas due date.
The mother was told at age 17 she had a double uterus (uterus didelphys) – which the UAB described as a rare congenital anomaly affecting 0.3% of women and the odds of becoming pregnant in both uteri – a dicavitary pregnancy – were even slimmer, at “one in a million”, according to the UAB.
Reported cases worldwide are extremely rare. In 2019, a doctor in Bangladesh told the BBC a woman had given birth to twins almost a month after delivering a premature baby in her other uterus.
Ms Hatcher had three previous, healthy pregnancies. This time, she believed herself to be pregnant in only one uterus – until a routine ultrasound revealed there was also a baby in her second. “I gasped… We just could not believe it,” she recalled.
She went on to document her unusual journey on Instagram. One update at 38 weeks asked: “What the heck?! HOW have we made it this far?!”
The UAB described her pregnancy as routine. Prof Richard Davis, who co-managed the delivery, pointed out that each baby had enjoyed “extra space to grow and develop”. This was because each baby had a womb to itself, he said – unlike in a typical twin pregnancy.
Ms Hatcher’s labour was induced at 39 weeks, and required double the monitoring and charting at the hospital – as well as double the staffing.
Her obstetrician described “a cheer from everyone in the room” when the first baby was delivered vaginally at about 19:45 local time on 19 December. The second came by C-section more than 10 hours later, at about 06:10 the following morning.
Prof Davis said the girls could be called fraternal twins – a term used when each baby develops from a separate egg, each fertilised by a separate sperm.” At the end of the day, it was two babies in one belly at the same time,” he said. “They just had different apartments.”
(BBC)
Police are investigating a “mass casualty incident” in which “several people were killed” after a car was driven into a crowd in Vancouver.
Authorities in the Canadian city said “multiple others” were injured during the incident, which occurred at approximately 20:14 local time on Saturday (03:14 GMT on Sunday) at a street festival.
Police said a 30-year-old male suspect was in custody and that they were “confident that this incident was not an act of terrorism”. It is unclear how many people have been killed.
Police said the suspect had driven into pedestrians at the annual Lapu Lapu festival, which celebrates Filipino culture, at East 43rd Avenue and Fraser, in the south of Vancouver.
Steve Rai, Vancouver Police’s interim chief, told a news conference that there had been one vehicle and one suspect involved in the incident. He said more details would be released in the morning.
The owner of a food truck selling bao buns at the festival, Yoseb Vardeh, told the BBC World Service that the attack happened right in front of his van.
“This guy, he killed some of my customers,” he said. “There was people waiting for their buns that got hit.”
Mr Vardeh added: “I stepped outside of my food truck and I just saw bodies underneath people’s food trucks, husbands crying out for their wives or their kids… It was just horrible.”
Unverified footage posted on social media showed a number of police cars, ambulances and fire engines at the scene, with injured people lying on the ground.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement on X that he was “devastated to hear about the horrific events at the Lapu Lapu festival in Vancouver”.
He continued: “I offer my deepest condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured, to the Filipino Canadian community, and to everyone in Vancouver. We are all mourning with you.”
He also thanked emergency responders for their “swift action”.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said he was “shocked and deeply saddened by the horrific incident”, adding in a post that his “thoughts are with all those affected and with Vancouver’s Filipino community during this incredibly difficult time.”
One of Vancouver’s city councillors, Peter Fry, told the BBC that local residents were struggling to process what had happened.
“This celebration was a huge, fun, vibrant, family-orientated street party, and it was a fantastic event. To see it turn so horrible so quickly and unexpectedly has, I think, our entire city is in shock,” he said.
Lapu Lapu Day is celebrated every year in the Philippines on 27 April to commemorate Lapu-Lapu, a national hero who resisted Spanish colonisation.
The festival was officially set up in Vancouver in 2023. Its website says it “symbolises the cultural harmony and mutual respect that thrive in the province of British Columbia”.
In the wake of the attack, leaders of different political parties have also been sharing messages of condolence.
Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, called the incident a “senseless attack”, while the leader of the British Columbia New Democratic Party, David Eby, said he was “shocked and heartbroken”.
New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh – who had attended the festival but was not present when the incident occurred – said he was “horrified to learn” that innocent people had been killed and injured.
“As we wait to learn more, our thoughts are with the victims and their families – and Vancouver’s Filipino community, who were coming together today to celebrate resilience,” he added.
Singh, Poilievre and Carney are all running in Canada’s federal election on Monday. Singh’s constituency of Burnaby Central lies just east of where the incident took place.
[BBC]
Donald Trump has questioned Vladimir Putin’s willingness to end the war in Ukraine following his meeting with the country’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral.
Posting on social media after leaving Rome, Trump said he feared Putin was “tapping me along” after Moscow’s strikes on Kyiv earlier this week, adding there was “no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas”.
Earlier in the day Trump and Zelensky were seen in deep discussion in St Peter’s Basilica shortly before the funeral began.
The White House described the 15-minute meeting with Zelensky as “very productive”. The Ukrainian president said it had the “potential to become historic”.
It was Trump’s first face-to-face encounter with the Ukrainian president since February’s acrimonious Oval Office showdown.
Writing on his Truth Social account, Trump said the Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities “makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?'”.
Trump had previously said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” following three-hour talks between his envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian president on Friday.
The Kremlin meanwhile said on Saturday that Putin had confirmed Russia’s readiness to enter into direct talks with Ukraine “without preconditions” to Witkoff.
During their last face-to-face meeting at the White House, Trump had told Zelensky “you don’t have the cards” and that he was not winning against Russia.
Trump repeated that message this week, saying the Ukrainian leader had “no cards to play”. He has previously blamed Ukraine for starting the war and has accused Zelensky multiple times of being an obstacle to peace negotiations.
But the White House struck a more positive tone about Saturday’s meeting, while Zelensky described the sit down as a “very symbolic” and one which could prove significant “if we achieve joint results”.
Two images were released of the meeting, showing the US leader in a blue suit and Ukrainian president in a black top and trousers, locked in intense conversation while sitting opposite each other.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also posted an image of the meeting on X with the caption: “No words are needed to describe the importance of this historic meeting. Two leaders working for peace in St. Peter’s Basilica.”
Another image posted by the Ukrainian delegation from inside St Peter’s showed the two men standing alongside UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, whose hand is on Zelensky’s shoulder.
The implication was that the two European leaders – who have regularly acted as intermediaries for Trump and Zelensky – had helped to bring the two together against the sombre backdrop of the funeral.
After the meeting, Trump and Zelensky walked down the steps of the basilica, where Zelensky’s arrival was met with applause from the crowds, and took their seats in the front row.
During the service, the pair sat a short distance from each other, with Macron and other heads of state in between.
In his homily, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re spoke of Pope Francis’s incessant calls for peace. “‘Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times,” said the cardinal.
Ukrainian officials had talked of a possible second meeting, but Trump’s motorcade drove away from St Peter’s immediately afterwards and his plane left Rome a short time later.
Zelensky, however, later met Macron in the garden of Villa Bonaparte, home to the French embassy to the Holy See.
He also met Sir Keir at Villa Wolkonsky, the British ambassador’s residence, as well as holding separate talks with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Macron said ending the war in Ukraine was an objective that “we share in common with President Trump” in a post on X, adding that Ukraine was ready for “an unconditional ceasefire”.
A Downing Street spokesperson said Starmer and Zelensky discussed the positive progress that had been made recently to “secure a just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” adding that the pair had agreed to “maintain momentum” and “speak again at the earliest opportunity”.
During February’s heated White House exchange, Trump accused the Ukraininan president of gambling with World War Three by not going along with ceasefire plans led by Washington.
Kyiv has been on the receiving end of growing pressure from Trump to accept territorial concessions as part of an agreement with Moscow to end the war.
These concessions would reportedly include giving up large portions of land, including the Crimean peninsula which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the idea in the past. He suggested to the BBC on Friday that “a full and unconditional ceasefire opens up the possibility to discuss everything”.
[BBC]
Six police officers have been killed in Thailand after their plane crashed into the sea during a test flight for parachute training, police have said.
The small plane was seen crashing into the water at around 08:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Friday in the Cha-am district, a coastal resort area some 130km (80 miles) southwest of Bangkok.
Royal Thai Police said in a statement on Facebook that five of the officers died at the scene, with a sixth later dying in hospital.
Authorities are examining the aircraft’s black box data recorder to determine the cause of the crash.
(BBC)
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