A PAIR of astronauts carried out a rare spacewalk yesterday in hurried efforts to patch a dangerous ammonia leak at the International Space Station.

THE former partner of alleged US rapist and kidnapper Ariel Castro repeatedly went to the authorities to accuse him of abusing her, according to police reports, but the complaints never triggered more investigations.

TWO car bombs exploded in a Turkish town near the border with Syria yesterday, killing an estimated 43 people and wounding about 140 others.

A TEENAGER pulled alive from the rubble of an eight-storey clothing factory 17 days after it collapsed, was recovering in hospital yesterday.

PAKISTANIS thronged to the polls yesterday, despite a backdrop of violence, in a historic vote which pitted a former cricket star against a veteran prime minister and an unpopular incumbent.

SCOTTISH historian Niall Ferguson has issued a “deep and unreserved” apology after telling delegates at a business conference in the US that John Maynard Keynes’s economic philosophy was flawed because he was gay, childless and did not care about future generations.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai says the director of the CIA has assured him that regular funding his government receives from the agency will not be cut off.

A FUNERAL home director is trying to find a cemetery that would bury the body of a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.

HARPER Lee, who wrote To Kill A Mockingbird, has launched a legal action to get back the copyright to the classic novel.

AN ISRAELI airstrike against Syria was targeting a shipment of advanced missiles believed to be bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, ­Israeli officials have confirmed.

A Mississippi martial arts instructor was arrested yesterday after his home and a former business were searched as part of an investigation into ricin-laced letters sent to president Barack Obama and two other public officials.

SYRIAN rebels attacked a sprawling military air base in the country’s north-west yesterday, while opposition forces assaulted army checkpoints and positions in the south, activists said.

ICELANDERS voted yesterday in a parliamentary election that could return to power the centre-right parties that led the country into economic collapse five years ago.

A RUSTED 5ft long piece of landing gear believed to be from one of the hijacked planes destroyed in the 11 September 2001 attacks has been discovered near the World Trade Centre wedged between a luxury apartment building and a mosque site that once prompted virulent debate about Islam and free speech.

NORTH Korea announced yesterday that an American detained for nearly six months is being tried in the supreme court on charges of plotting to overthrow the government, a crime that could result in the death penalty if he is convicted.

THE Boston police were ­euphoric. Their tweet echoed the city’s elation that a threat which had menaced the population since Monday’s marathon bombings had been lifted.

AFTER being cooped up in their homes for more than 12 hours the population of Boston let out a heartfelt sigh of relief on Friday night when it was confirmed that the suspect in the marathon bombings had been captured.

ON THE same day, almost at the hour, that Margaret Thatcher died the Eurosceptic baton was picked up by another European leader.

THE health statistics in this battered land, which is still scarred from a decade of civil war, are so alarming that for a decade, donors have opened their wallets to help improve some of the world’s worst rates of maternal and infant mortality.

THE bodies of 14 people have been recovered from the remnants of a tiny Texas farm town that was rocked by an ­explosion at a fertiliser plant, authorities said yesterday.