Picasso masterpiece sells for US$69m

The Picasso masterpiece depicting Marie-Therese Walter, Picasso’s muse. The 22-inch-high (55.9-centimeter-high) artwork has sold for almost £50 million (US$68.6 million) — making it the most expensive painting ever auctioned in the United Kingdom. “Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée,” from 1937, had never been offered publicly.SD-Agencies

4 killed in Poland apartment building collapse

An apartment building collapsed on Sunday in Poland’s western city of Poznan, killing four people and injuring 24 others, officials said as firefighters and rescuers with dogs combed the rubble in search of more victims.

The building contained 18 apartments and housed 40 residents, according to firefighters’ spokesman Slawomir Brandt, who gave the death toll.

Polish TV channel TVP INFO showed part of a four-story building in a heap and rescuers checking the debris.

PNG earthquake leaves 67 dead

At least 67 people were killed by an earthquake that devastated* Papua New Guinea’s remote highlands last week, the Red Cross said on Monday, with thousands more homeless and without food and clean water.

The recovery effort has been slow as aid workers grapple* with blocked roads and power outages to reach cut-off villages after the 7.5-magnitude quake struck on February 26 in the Pacific nation’s mountainous interior.

Terrified locals in the Southern Highlands, Western, Enga and Hela provinces have also been hit by strong aftershocks.

Far-right, populist surge in Italy vote

Italians registered their dismay with the European political establishment on Sunday, handing a majority of votes in a national election to hard-right and populist forces that ran a campaign fueled by anti-immigrant anger.

The election, the first in five years, was widely seen as a bellwether* of the strength of populists on the continent and how far they might advance into the mainstream.

US Northeast faces

flooding

More than 1.5 million customers remained without power throughout the eastern United States on Sunay, and communities on the New England coast faced more flooding two days after a powerful storm snapped trees, downed wires and killed at least nine people.

The governors of both Massachusetts and New York declared a state of emergency on Saturday afternoon, following similar announcements by the governors of Virginia and Maryland on Friday.

May tells UK it must face ‘hard facts’ about Brexit

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May told the British people on Friday that they have to face “hard facts” about Brexit, warning that the United Kingdom will have less access to European Union markets once it leaves the bloc.

But May also said a mutually* beneficial future relationship is possible, and she urged EU leaders to work with her to deliver a “bold and comprehensive economic partnership.”(SD-Agencies)