South Korean authorities charged the chief of police of Seoul, South Korea’s capital, with negligence over the 2022 Halloween crowd crush

During Halloween festivities on October 29, 2022, 100,000+ people congregated in central Seoul, overcrowding the city’s tight alleyways

That led to a deadly crowd crush that killed 159 people

The police chief is the highest-ranking official to be charged over the crowd crush so far

A Texas man pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping and admitted to sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl who was rescued after writing a handwritten note reading, “Help Me!”

The man kidnapped the girl in San Antonio and drove her to Long Beach, California, sexually assaulting her multiple times along the way

She was rescued by police after a Good Samaritan saw her holding up a handwritten note to a car window reading, “Help Me!”

The Texas man faces a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life in prison when sentenced

NASA re-established contact with a remote-controlled helicopter on Mars days after communications with it cut out

The helicopter, called Ingenuity, was designed to test whether controlled, powered flight is possible on Mars

On Thursday, during its 72nd flight, NASA lost contact with Ingenuity, leading to fears that NASA would no longer be able to control the craft

On Saturday, though, NASA announced it had successfully restored contact with the craft

Between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in a city in Sudan’s West Darfur region last year, a UN report claimed

Since last April, rival factions of Sudan’s military have waged a civil war, which the UN estimates has killed ~12,000 people and caused hundreds of thousands to flee the country

Last year, reports emerged that one of the military factions involved in the civil war was massacring civilians in Darfur, a Sudanese region where a genocide last occurred in 2003

Per a UN report, in one Darfurian city, militants massacred up to 15,000 people. If true, that would greatly revise the UN’s casualty estimate from the conflict

The report claimed that massacre “may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”

Japan’s space agency successfully landed a spacecraft on the Moon, becoming only the fifth country to have successfully done so

Japan joins Russia (then the Soviet Union), China, India, and the US as the only countries to have ever done so, although the US last accomplished that feat in 1972

Japan’s spacecraft, “SLIM,” landed “softly” – meaning slowly and in control – but its solar panels were damaged during the landing, impairing its ability to generate power

Nonetheless, the head of Japan’s space agency called the landing “a greater step forward”

The San Francisco 49ers will face the Detroit Lions in next week’s NFC Championship game

The Lions have only been to one NFC Championship game before (1991/92 season), a league-low. Meanwhile, the 49ers have been to a record 19 of them

In the AFC, the Baltimore Ravens will face the Kansas City Chiefs, which has now appeared in the past six AFC Championships

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