Neonatal nurse in a British hospital found guilty of killing 7 babies

LONDON (AP) — A neonatal nurse in a British hospital was found guilty Friday of murdering seven babies and trying to kill six others during a yearlong campaign of deception that saw her prey on the vulnerabilities of sick newborns and their anxious parents. Following 22 days of deliberation, the jury at Manchester Crown Court convicted 33-year-old Lucy Letby of killing the babies, including two triplet boys, in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital in northwest England between June 2015 and June 2016. She will be sentenced on Monday. “Parents were exposed to her morbid curiosity and her fake compassion,” said senior prosecutor Pascale Jones. “Too many of them returned home to empty baby rooms. Many surviving children live with permanent consequences of her assaults upon their lives.”

Former leader charged with giving false evidence to a corruption inquiry

BERLIN (AP) — Austria’s former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has been charged with making false statements to a parliamentary inquiry into alleged corruption in his first government, which collapsed in a scandal in 2019, prosecutors said Friday. An indictment against Kurz, his former chief of staff, Bernhard Bonelli, and a third person was filed at the state court in Vienna, the prosecutors’ office that investigates corruption cases said in a statement. The court said Kurz will go on trial on Oct. 18. The charges result from an investigation that was launched in 2021, when Kurz was still chancellor.

90 migrants rescued from a stranded sailboat in Greece

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek authorities say 90 migrants have been rescued from a stranded sailboat near the Aegean Sea island of Amorgos, amid an increase in arrivals in recent weeks. The migrants, rescued late Thursday, were taken to the eastern island of Leros and detained for identification and processing after patrol boats and three civilian vessels were involved in the rescue, the coast guard said Friday. Greek officials have blamed the increase in arrivals largely on ongoing and expanding conflicts in Africa — adding pressure on the main smuggling routes to Europe — and also on a burgeoning black market industry in Turkey that produces low-quality inflatable boats.

Russia arrests the leader of a prominent election watchdog

MOSCOW (AP) — A Moscow judge has formally arrested and detained one of the leaders of a prominent independent election monitoring group on suspicion of being involved with an “undesirable” organization, his lawyer said Friday. The case against Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of Russia’s leading election watchdog Golos, is the latest in the monthslong crackdown on Kremlin critics and rights activists that the government ratcheted up after sending troops into Ukraine.