World briefs

PHILIPPINES and the U.S. are verifying if Chinese coast guard ships left a disputed shoal after President Rodrigo Duterte reached out to Beijing, allowing Filipino fishermen back to the rich fishing area that China seized in 2012 as tensions spiked in the South China Sea.

SOUTH KOREA Thousands took to the streets Seoul on Saturday calling for increasingly unpopular President Park Geun-hye to step down over allegations that she let an old friend, the daughter of a religious cult leader, interfere in important state affairs. More on p13
Yemen Dozens of prisoners and security personnel were feared dead after Saudi-led airstrikes on Saturday battered two prisons inside a security headquarters in a western port city, security and medical officials said. The airstrikes bombed the al-Zaydiya security headquarters in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida. The building contained two prisons, and many prisoners along with security forces were killed in the strikes, the officials said.

US Engine pieces from an American Airlines plane that caught fire Friday on a runway at Chicago’s O’Hare airport were found thousands of feet away, a federal investigator said. Lorenda Ward, a National Transportation Safety Board senior investigator, confirmed Saturday that the fire was caused by engine failure. What caused the engine to fail has not yet been determined

TURKEY expanded its sweeping post-coup crackdown over the weekend, issuing two new governmental decrees that dismissed more than 10,000 civil servants and shutting down 15 mostly pro-Kurdish media outlets. The decrees were passed Saturday, also instituting changes in due process and university administration.

MOROCCANS are planning protests after a fisherman was crushed to death in a garbage truck — an incident some are comparing to the death of a Tunisian vendor in 2010 that sparked the Arab Spring uprisings.