Overnight news recap: Asteroid blaze, conflicts, and protests

It happened while you were sleeping. Here’s what global agencies reported overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.

• According to NASA, a yard-wide asteroid burned up on Wednesday in Earth’s atmosphere over the Philippines, near the island of Luzon. The asteroid caused no damage, but its incineration in the atmosphere was spectacular. Social media recordings show a sudden burst of fire. The European Space Agency noted that this is only the ninth time in human history that an asteroid on a collision course with Earth has been observed. CNN reports that asteroids of this size hit Earth on average every two weeks but are rarely noticeable.

• Five Palestinians were killed, and one was seriously injured on the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a result of an Israeli attack - reported the Palestinian Red Crescent on Thursday. The attack occurred in the town of Tubas in the northern part of the West Bank. “Five Palestinian young men were killed, and two others were injured, one of them seriously, in an airstrike carried out by an Israeli occupation drone on a vehicle in the city of Tubas,” the Red Crescent said. Meanwhile, the Israeli army stated on Telegram that it carried out “three precise strikes aimed at terrorists posing a threat” to soldiers.

• Over 30 people were injured in clashes with police during another protest by retirees and left-wing organizations in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. Demonstrators set a waste container on fire, and the police used tear gas. Among the injured are eight media workers and nine police officers; two people were detained. Retirees and left-wing groups are protesting against President Javier Milei's veto of a bill increasing pension indexation. The bill smoothly passed through both houses of Congress, but the president argues there is no money for the raises.

• The Federal Court of the Southern District of New York accused employees of the television network Russia Today, the Kremlin's media arm, of transferring multi-million funds to an American media “Company 1”. This was intended to influence the upcoming elections in the U.S. Sanctions were imposed on several individuals associated with the Russian media.

• "Students across the country are learning how to duck and cover instead of how to read and write. We cannot continue to accept this as normal," - said US President Joe Biden on Wednesday, commenting on the massacre at a high school in Georgia. Vice President Kamala Harris called for an end to the "epidemic" of shootings. Biden urged Republicans in Congress, who have previously opposed further restrictions on firearm access, to cooperate with Democrats on "common-sense" regulations.

• Chaos reigns in the terminal of Helsinki-Vantaa airport during peak hours. On Wednesday evening, passing through the security checkpoint took two hours or more. Almost every other passenger carries a larger amount of liquid or a container with a substance treated as a liquid, such as sunscreen or hair gel.