Charlize Zmuda, a 17-year-old girl who was swimming off Woorim Beach, a beach on Bribie Island, was bitten by a shark around 4:45 p.m. AEST (0645 UTC) on February 3. Despite attempts at rescuing her, she succumbed to her injuries at 5:00 p.m. AEST (0700 UTC) according to police.
In the evening of January 31, a small air ambulance crashed into a residential and commercial area in a densely populated neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, killing everyone on board. The plane took off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport, rapidly lost altitude, and crashed into buildings below.
On January 30, Swedish police reported that a man was shot in his apartment in Södertälje, Stockholm, Sweden, overnight and transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Authorities later identified the victim as 38-year-old Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, who had been living in Sweden.
On February 1, the Addu City Council opened Hankede Bridge in the Maldives to the public at midnight. The bridge was opened amid delays after construction was finished.
On January 29, a mid-air collision occurred near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, involving American Airlines Flight 5342, a Bombardier CRJ700 operated by PSA for American Airlines, and a United States Army Black Hawk helicopter. Both the passenger plane and the helicopter crashed into the Potomac River, located just outside the U.S. capital, Washington D.C. Officials said there were no survivors.
Multiple earthquakes over the Easter weekend around El Hierro Island, one of the Canary Islands, have raised some parts of the island by as much as 11 centimetres (4.3 inches). This includes a 4.9 magnitude earthquake Sunday, following 129 quakes below 1.3 magnitude through Saturday.
250 protesters gathered today at the Faslane Naval base in Scotland to call for the UK's Trident nuclear weapons programme to be scrapped. A number of protestors chained themselves to the gates of the base and were cut free by Police Scotland officers. Around 47 people were arrested including the Green PartyEdinburgh councillor Chas Booth.
France's upper house voted yesterday to approve a bill to allow same-sex marriage to be legal following protests for and against the bill. The bill also makes it legal for gay couples to adopt children, and is scheduled to return to the lower house next Wednesday.
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