In the World
CANADA
Plane skids in short of runway; 25 hospitalized
An Air Canada plane made a hard landing short of the runway at the Halifax airport during a snowstorm, crashing into a bank of antennas and shearing off its main landing gear, nose cone, and an engine as it skidded on its belly, officials said.
The airline said Sunday that 25 people were taken to hospitals for observation and treatment of minor injuries. It said all but one were released later in the day.
The airline said Flight AC624, an Airbus 320 that left Toronto late Saturday, had 133 passengers and five crew members. Air Canada said the aircraft landed in stormy conditions at 12:43 a.m. Sunday.
"They touched down 1,100 feet short of the runway so I'd say they're pretty lucky," Mike Cunningham, a regional manager for Canada's Transport Safety Board, told a news conference.
Cunningham said there was significant damage to the plane and could not rule out weather as a factor. He also said he believes a power line was severed, which led to a loss of power at the airport. - AP
SYRIA
Video shows beheadings
A new video released Sunday by the Islamic State group shows its fighters cutting off the heads of eight men said to be Shiite Muslims. The video posted on social media said the men were in the Syrian province of Hama. The video could not be immediately independently verified, but it corresponded to other AP reporting. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said the video was authentic. In the video, the men, in orange uniforms, their hands tied behind their backs, are led forward in a field by teenage boys. They are then handed over to IS fighters. A boy hands out knives to the fighters, who behead the eight. - AP
UKRAINE
Frontline fatalities ease
Ukraine's military recorded no major attacks by pro-Russian insurgents Sunday and a bombing in the port city of Odessa caused no fatalities, though frontline troops didn't escape without injuries. Two government soldiers were wounded in 24 hours, with "armed provocations" witnessed right across the eastern regions affected by the conflict, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's military, said during his daily briefing in Kiev. Most tension remained in Shyrokyne near Donetsk airport, he said. - Bloomberg