Word briefs

USA The National Zoo in Washington says its adult female panda has had twins. The first cub was born Saturday at 5:35 p.m. and the zoo said on Twitter that a second was born at 10:07 p.m. The zoo has said both cubs appear healthy. If the cubs survive, they would be the 17-year-old panda’s third and fourth surviving offspring. Mei Xiang’s first cub, Tai Shan, was born in 2005 and returned to China in 2010. Her second cub, Bao Bao, turned 2-years-old yesterday and still lives at the zoo.

NEPAL has opened Mount Everest to climbers for the first time since an earthquake-triggered avalanche in April killed 19 mountaineers and ended the popular spring climbing season. Japanese climber Nobukazu Kuriki will be the first to attempt to scale the world’s highest peak since the quake. Nepal’s tourism minister, Kripasur Sherpa, gave Kuriki his climbing permit at a ceremony in Kathmandu yesterday.
Philippines Typhoon Goni blew out of the northern Philippines yesterday after leaving at least 15 people dead and several others missing, including a dozen miners whose work camps were buried by a huge mudslide in a mountain village, officials said.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES The United Arab Emirates said Sunday that its military freed a British hostage held by al-Qaida in Yemen who had been kidnapped 18 months ago while working as a petroleum engineer in the war-torn country. A statement carried by the UAE’s official WAM news agency said Douglas Robert Semple, 64, was freed during a military intelligence operation and taken to the Yemeni port city of Aden before being flown by UAE military aircraft to Abu Dhabi.

UK British police say the death toll from an airshow crash is “highly likely” to increase to 11 people after a fighter jet slammed into a busy main road. The Hawker Hunter single-seater fighter jet, which was participating in the Shoreham Airshow near Brighton in southern England, hit several vehicles on a nearby road as it crashed Saturday afternoon. Witnesses say the jet appeared to have plummeted when it failed to pull out of a loop maneuver. The initial death toll was seven.

ITALY’s coast guard says it coordinated the rescue of some 4,400 migrants in a single day, a record-setting number, as smugglers took advantage of ideal sea conditions off Libya to launch a fleet of overcrowded, unseaworthy boats. The coast guard yesterday said 22 rescue operations were carried out a day earlier for motorized rubber dinghies and fishing boats, all crammed with migrants desperate to reach Europe’s southern shores.