BEIJING

Passenger jet breaks up near runway, killing 43

A Chinese passenger jet broke apart as it approached a fog-shrouded runway in the country’s northeast and burst into flames as it hit the ground Tuesday, killing 43 people and injuring 53 others, state media said.

The Henan Airlines plane with 91 passengers and five crew crashed near the Lindu airport on the outskirts of Yichun, a city of about 1 million people in Heilongjiang province, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Xinhua quoted Hua Jingwei, an Yichun publicity official, as saying that some passengers were thrown from the cabin before the broken plane hit the ground.

The Brazilian-made Embraer E-190 jet had taken off from Heilongjiang’s capital of Harbin shortly before 9 p.m. and crashed a little more than an hour later, Xinhua said.g through the wreckage of the jet.

BEIRUT

Shiite-Sunni street battles leave 3 dead, others injured

Lebanese Shiite and Sunni groups fought street battles using machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades for more than four hours Tuesday, killing three people and wounding several others just blocks from a busy downtown packed with summer tourists.

The dead included a Hezbollah official and his aide, security officials said.

Lebanese soldiers cordoned off the area during the worst of the fighting, but the crackle of sniper fire and blasts from rocket-propelled grenades were audible for hours.

Gunmen stood peering down alleyways while families ran for cover during lulls in the fighting.

It was the worst clash in Beirut since May 2008, when Hezbollah gunmen swept through Sunni neighborhoods after the pro-Western government tried to dismantle the group’s telecommunications network.

BERLIN

Man takes bullet to his head, notices only five years later

Police say a man living in Germany was shot in the back of the head, but that it took him five years to realize it. Police said Tuesday that the 35-year-old man was hit by a .22-caliber bullet in the western town of Herne as he was out in the street drunk on New Year’s Eve five years ago.

They say the man recalled receiving a blow to the head, but he told them he didn’t seek medical assistance at the time.

The bullet did not penetrate the skull, and police say the Polish man ent to see a doctor only recently when he felt a lump on the back of his head. An X-ray showed an object under his skin, and doctors operated and found the projectile.

Police say it may have been a stray bullet fired by a reveler in celebration.