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Fire in a storage room in northeastern Spain kills five children

MADRID (AP) — A fire broke out in a top-floor storage room at an apartment building in northeastern Spain, killing five children who were trapped inside and injuring five other people elsewhere in the building, officials said Tuesday.

The fire started around 9 p.m. Monday in Manlleu, a town of about 21,000 people in the Catalonia region north of Barcelona. The victims who died were identified as minors who ranged in age from 14 to 17 and who did not live in the building, Catalan police said.

Police were investigating the cause of the fire and the reason why the children were not able to escape the room. Police declined to say whether they were considering the case a possible homicide.

Four of the injured people were released from hospitals and the other injured person didn’t require hospitalization, emergency services said.

Catalonia’s regional leader, Salvador Illa, expressed his condolences to relatives of the victims on X, saying he was “deeply saddened by the death of five people.”

Beijing bans 4 New Zealand lawmakers from entering China because they visited Taiwan

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Beijing banned four New Zealand lawmakers from traveling to China for a year and demanded they apologize because they visited Taiwan on a parliamentary trip, according to a message from the Chinese embassy conveyed via parliamentary officials and shown to The Associated Press on Thursday. China has hit lawmakers from other countries with sanctions related to contact with Taiwan before, but it's the first time for New Zealand parliamentarians, the government in Wellington said. Beijing has been increasing pressure in recent years on the democratically governed island that it claims as its own territory. Two lawmakers reached by the AP on Thursday rejected the demand for an apology, while the other two could not be immediately reached. New Zealand's government said it would express concern about the travel bans to Beijing. The elected officials visited Taipei in May, as New Zealand parliamentarians have done “for decades,” a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.
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