1. Woman in S. Korea scandal probed

    Telling reporters on Monday that she “deserves death,” the woman at the center of a scandal roiling* South Korea met prosecutors examining whether she used her close ties to President Park Geun-hye to pull government strings from the shadows and amass* an illicit fortune.

    “Please, forgive me,” Choi Soon-sil, a cult* leader’s daughter with a decades-long connection to Park, said through tears inside the Seoul prosecutor’s building, according to Yonhap news agency. Using a common expression of deep repentance*, she added, “I committed a sin that deserves death.”

    2. FBI to examine Clinton emails

    U.S. Federal investigators have secured a warrant* to examine newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton’s private server, U.S. media reported on Sunday, as a prominent Democrat accused FBI Director James Comey of breaking the law by trying to influence the election.

    The warrant will allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to examine the emails to see if they are relevant to its probe of the private email server used for government work by Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, while she was the U.S. secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

    3. Italian quake devastates churches

    A strong earthquake that shook Italy on Sunday morning took a heavy toll on historic churches and other landmark buildings, some dating back to the Middle Ages.

    No deaths were reported, and only “tens” of injuries, but the physical damage was extensive.

    In Preci, the walls of a hillside cemetery* came crashing down on top of the Abbey of Saint Euticius, founded in the fifth century. The old town of Arquata del Tronto was virtually destroyed, along with its 13th-century church dedicated to Saint Francis.

    4. 8 prisoners escape from India jail

    Eight prisoners have escaped from a jail in the central Indian city of Bhopal after killing a guard and scaling* the wall using bed sheets.

    Police said the men, reportedly activists of an outlawed Islamist group, slit* the guard’s throat.

    The police have launched an operation to hunt down the fugitives. Last year two prisoners escaped from India’s maximum security Tihar jail in Delhi by digging a tunnel under a wall and scaling another. Senior police official Bhopal Rama Singh told the Press Trust of India agency that the eight men escaped from the main prison in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh state on Monday.

    5. Saudi-led raid kills 60 in Yemen

    Arab coalition warplanes bombed a security complex near the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, killing 60 people including inmates* of a prison on the site, a regional official, relatives and medical sources said on Monday.

    The prison in the city’s al-Zaydiyah district was holding 84 inmates when it was struck three times on late Saturday, Hashem al-Azizi, deputy governor of the Houthi rebel-controlled Hodeidah province of the same name, said. Local officials said the site lies within a security complex for the area guarded by Houthi militiamen* but that only prison security guards were present during the nighttime airstrike.

    6. Moldovans elect president for 1st time

    Moldovans began voting for a president on Sunday in an election that could move the former Soviet republic closer to Europe or push it back into Russia’s orbit*.

    It is the first time citizens have directly voted for their president in 20 years in an election where many are angry about high-level corruption.

    Polls opened on Sunday at 7 a.m. and closed at 9 p.m., with first results expected two hours later. The favorite is Igor Dodon, a pro-Moscow head of the Socialists’ Party.(SD-Agencies)