A SPANISH aid boat with 147 rescued migrants aboard is anchored near a tiny southern Italian island while Italy’s interior and defence ministers row over their fate.
The ship entered Italian territorial waters after a court overruled a ban by right-wing Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini.
He responded by issuing a fresh decree banning the ship from docking on the island of Lampedusa to disembark the passengers, rescued two weeks earlier, but defence minister Elisabetta Trenta has refused to countersign it – saying she is “listening to my conscience”.
Salvini says Italy has already taken hundreds of thousands of rescued migrants in recent years. He insists other European Union nations should accept the migrants, most of whom are fleeing poverty and are not eligible for refugee status.
MEANWHILE, a gunman is in custody after opening fire on police as they were serving a drug warrant in Philadelphia.
Six officers were injured in an hours-long stand-off with the gunman, which began almost immediately when they went to a home in a north Philadelphia neighbourhood.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said many of the officers “had to escape through windows and doors to get (away) from a barrage of bullets”.
The six officers who were struck by gunfire were treated in hospital and later released.
Two other officers were trapped inside the house for about five hours after the shooting broke out but were freed by a Swat team.
ELSEWHERE, the captain of a Russian passenger jet has been hailed as a hero for landing his plane in a field after it collided with a flock of birds seconds after take-off, causing both engines to malfunction.
The event drew comparisons to the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson” incident when a captain ditched his plane in New York’s Hudson River after a bird strike disabled his engines.
The Ural Airlines A321 carrying 226 passengers and a crew of seven hit the birds as it was taking off from Moscow’s Zhukovsky airport en route for Simferopol, in Crimea.
FINALLY, a powerful typhoon has lashed south-western Japan with heavy rain and strong wind, injuring at least 11 people and paralysing traffic during a Buddhist holiday week.
Typhoon Krosa landed near Kure in western Hiroshima on Thursday afternoon, travelling north and packing winds up to 89mph, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
Six people were injured overnight in Hiroshima and four other prefectures, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
More than 7000 people have moved to shelters in 21 prefectures in the western half of the Japanese archipelago.
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