Europe

Deadly heat wave eases a bit in spots

Cooler temperatures Thursday brought relief from Europe’s blistering heat wave, but experts warned that weather blamed for deaths, drying rivers and scorching wildfires could last through September.

In Belgium, clouds and a light morning rain kept the mercury from rising to a record-breaking 104 degrees as had been forecast by Belgium’s Royal Meteorological Institute.

Winds shifted to the north over Britain, lowering temperatures that had been in the mid-90s to as low as 72 degrees.

Some towns in northeastern France have had no train service since Tuesday because of buckled rails, the national rail authority, SNCF, said.

JERUSALEM

Cuban Jews make first visit to Israel

Ten Cuban Jews found themselves standing in awe at Judaism’s holiest site on Thursday, after a year of tough negotiations to bring the first group of Cuban Jews to Israel since Fidel Castro came to power.

Israel and Cuba have had no diplomatic ties since the 1973 Mideast war.

Taking in the site where the biblical Jewish Temples stood, by coincidence on the day when Jews mourn their destruction, William Miller, 27, a Jewish community leader from Havana, said: “I feel like I am walking in the Bible. … You read about all these places and now we are here.”

The 10-day visit was organized by an Israeli government-backed program called “birthright.”

South Korea

At least two people die in passenger train wreck

A passenger train slammed into a freight train parked at a station in South Korea today, killing at least two people and injuring 84, police said.

TV footage showed passengers still trapped inside cars, damaged but not overturned.

“None of the injured are believed to be in critical condition,” said Hwang Hyon-young, a police official in Daegu, about 200 miles southeast of Seoul.

The national KBS TV showed orange-clad rescue workers trying to free a man squeezed between seats. Some injured passengers were seen lying on the ground near the wreckage.

The six-car passenger train struck the stationary freight train as it came into the station, said another Daegu police official who identified himself only as Lt. Kim.

Puerto Rico

Police halt performance of ‘Naked Boys Singing’

Puerto Rican police blocked crowds from seeing “Naked Boys Singing” after an appeals court ruling halted all performances of the musical until a hearing next week.

It was the second time in less than a week the show has been canceled.

“They argue it’s immoral that men are nude,” said Rosaura Lopez, one of dozens who were blocked from entering the Tapia Theater by a throng of police. “But no one says anything about women who are nude.”

Written by Robert Schrock and in its fifth year at Actors Playhouse in New York’s Greenwich Village, the Spanish version of the show features eight nude men singing and dancing to Spanish-Caribbean beats like salsa and plena.

Russia

Chechen rebels down Russian helicopter

Chechen rebels using a shoulder-fired missile shot down a Russian military helicopter Thursday in the mountains, killing three of the crew, the military said.

The attack in Chechnya was the latest demonstration of the separatists’ capacity to kill Russian forces despite being outnumbered and outgunned.

At least seven other Russian servicemen died in attacks in the past day, an official in the Moscow-backed Chechnya administration said.