May 14, 2014

Astronauts return from ISS, White lion cubs abandoned, Mine disaster in Turkey, California fires | May 14

Astronauts return from ISS, White lion cubs abandoned, Mine disaster in Turkey, California fires and more in today’s daily brief.

: A balloon flies past Pope Francis during his general audience in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican. (Tiziana Fabi/Getty Images)

: A Buddhist devotee worships at Kelaniya temple in Colombo on Vesak Day. Vesak Day, which is celebrated on May 14 and 15 in Sri Lanka, commemorates the birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha. (Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

: Afghan youth play on swings on the outskirts of Mazar-i-sharif. Afghanistan remains at war, with civilians among the hardest hit, as the Taliban(Farshad Usyan/Getty Images)

: A woman walks through a display of portraits which were made as part of the Inside Out art project by French artist JR at Xintiandi area in downtown Shanghai. JR and his team set up a photo studio and printing equipment in a truck to capture portraits of locals and tourists, which are then displayed in public. The portraits will be pasted on walls in the Lakeside Road area in Xintiandi. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

: White lion cubs play with each other in their enclosure in Hangzhou zoo in Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang province. The three white lion cubs, born three weeks ago, were abandoned by their mother and are now relying on dog milk to survive, local media reported. (Getty Images)

: Australian actress Nicole Kidman attends a press conference for the film “Grace of Monaco” at the 67th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France. (Loic Venance/Getty Images)

: The Russian Soyuz TMA-011M space capsule lands about 150 km (90 miles) south-east of the Kazakh town of Dzhezkazgan, in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz space capsule landed safely in the Kazakh steppes after spending more than half a year aboard the orbiting International Space Station. (Dimitry Lovetsky/Getty Images)

: Russian, Japanese and NASA specialists help Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata shortly after the Russian Soyuz TMA-11M space capsule landed south-east of town Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. A Soyuz space capsule with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and U.S. astronaut Rick Mastracchio, returning from a five-month mission to the International Space Station, landed safely Wednesday on the steppes of Kazakhstan. (Dmitry Lovetsky/Reuters)

: A man talks on a phone as a wildfire is seen approaching the neighborhood in Carlsbad, California. (Mike Blake/Reuters)

: An injured miner is carried to an ambulance after being rescued from a coal mine he was trapped in, in Soma, a district in Turkey’s western province of Manisa early. The death toll from an explosion and fire in a Turkish coal mine rose above 200 on Wednesday as rescue workers continued retrieving the dead and injured more than 12 hours after the blast, the country’s energy minister said. Hundreds more were still believed to be trapped in the mine in Soma, around 120 km (75 miles) northeast of the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, and the death toll could rise further, Taner Yildiz told reporters at the scene. (Emre Tazegul/Reuters)

: A woman reacts as she searches for relatives while rescuers carry out dead miners after an explosion and fire in a coal mine in the western Turkish province of Manisa killed at least 201 people and hundreds remain trapped underground. (Bulent Kilic/Getty Images)

: A relative of a miner reacts as she waits in front of an hospital in Soma, a district in Turkey’s western province of Manisa. Rescuers pulled more dead and injured from a coal mine in western Turkey on Wednesday more than 19 hours after an explosion, bringing the death toll to above 200 in what could become the nation’s worst ever mining disaster. Hundreds more were still believed to be trapped in the mine in Soma, about 480 kilometres (298 miles) southwest of Istanbul. The explosion, which triggered a fire, occurred shortly after 3 pm (1200 GMT) on Tuesday. (Reuters)

: Proteters clash with Turkish police in Ankara during a demonstration gathering hundreds after more than 200 people were killed in an explosion at a mine. Police fired tear gas and water cannon when around 800 protesters shouting slogans against the government faced police intervention attempted to march from the Middle East Technical University to the energy ministry. (Adem Altan/Getty Images)

: Debris rises during what Syrian rebel fighters said was an operation in which they blew up a tunnel targeting the regime’s al-Sawadi checkpoint, in Idlib province. This checkpoint was considered one of the regime’s biggest and most important checkpoints, and was used to protect the east side of Wadi al-Deif military camp. (Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)

: Israeli border policemen stand near a bulldozer as it demolishes a temporary structure in the West Bank Jewish settler outpost of Maale Rehavam, near to Bethlehem. Some seven structures were razed on Wednesday by Israeli border police officers and no injuries or arrests were made during the incidences, a police spokesman said on Wednesday. The structures were demolished as part of Israel’s continuing effort to remove settlements built without government authorization. (Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)

: A Car-owner has parked his vehicle on ramps for protection in Sarajevo’s Western suburb of Doglodi, as the river Bosna has flooded the surrounding area after heavy rainfall. (Elvis Barukcic/Getty Images)

: Students jump as they pose for photographs at Gyeongbok Palace in central Seoul. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects the Korean People’s Army (KPA) Air and Anti-Air Force Unit 447, which has been honored with the title of O Jung Hup-led 7th Regiment. (Korean Central News Agency)

: A motorcycle set on fire by a mob burns during clashes between two communities on the outskirts of the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. Two people were killed when police opened fire to control mobs following communal clashes on Wednesday on the outskirts of the city, local media reported. (Reuters)

: An armed pro-Russian militant stands guard at a barricade outside the village of Shchastya near the eastern Ukrainian city of Lugansk. Ukraine launches Western-sponsored roundtable “national unity” talks on Wednesday but without pro-Moscow rebels who are waging an armed insurgency in the east that threatens to tear the country apart. (Dimitar Dilkoff/Getty Images)

: An Afghan laborer builds a traditional mud wall in Mazar-i-sharif. Afghanistan remains at war, with civilians among the hardest hit, as the Taliban wage an increasingly bloody insurgency against the government. (Farshad Usyan/Getty Images)