Nation/world briefs

Bangladesh

Gas leak likely ignited blast that killed 16

An explosion Friday night at a mosque near Bangladesh's capital, believed to have been caused by a gas leak, killed at least 16 worshipers and left 21 with burns so severe that the death toll could rise further, according to a police officer and a doctor. Gas from an underground pipeline may have leaked into the Baitus Salat Jame mosque in Narayanganj, just outside Dhaka. The mosque had been experiencing power outages, and as the electricity surged back on, sparks from air-conditioning units may have ignited fumes.

Vatican

Pope plans first trip since lockdown

Pope Francis is preparing to visit Assisi next month, on his first trip outside Rome since Italy was put in a strict coronavirus lockdown in early March. On Oct. 3, the day before the Feast of St. Francis, the pope will travel to the small central Italy town to sign a new encyclical, the Vatican announced Saturday. Francis is to celebrate mass at the tomb of St. ­Francis of Assisi.

Britain

Police arrested more than 70 environmental activists who blockaded two British printing plants, disrupting the distribution of several national newspapers on Saturday. The group Extinction Rebellion said it targeted printworks at Broxbourne, north of London, and Knowsley, in northwest England, which are owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Dozens of protesters locked themselves to trucks and bamboo scaffolding to block the road outside the plants. The facilities print Murdoch-owned papers the Sun and the Times, as well as the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Financial Times. The group said it was disrupting the newspapers "to expose the corporations' "consistent manipulation of the truth to suit their own personal and political agendas."

Washington, D.C.

Trump says no to anti-racism training

President Donald Trump has directed the Office of Management and Budget to crack down on federal agencies' anti-racism training sessions, calling them "divisive, anti-American propaganda." OMB Director Russell Vought, in a letter Friday to executive branch agencies, directed them to identify spending related to any training on "critical race theory," "white privilege" or any other material that teaches or suggests that the United States or any race or ethnicity is "inherently racist or evil." The memo comes as the nation has faced a reckoning this summer over racial injustice in policing and elsewhere. Trump has spent much of the summer defending the display of the Confederate battle flag and monuments of Civil War rebels as protesters seek their removal, in what he has called a "culture war" ahead of the Nov. 3 election.