• Police in Kenya said they have arrested the main suspect after nine dismembered bodies of women were found in a quarry in the capital, Nairobi.
• Collins Jumaisi Khalusha confessed to killing 42 women, including his wife, since 2022, according to the head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
• Police said the bodies were discovered after relatives of one of the missing women claimed to have had a dream in which she directed them to search the quarry.

Police in Kenya said Monday they have arrested the main suspect after nine dismembered bodies of women were found in a quarry in the capital, Nairobi.

The head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Mohamed Amin, said Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, had confessed to killing 42 women, including his wife, since 2022. They gave no evidence to support his claim of killing 42.

He was expected to be arraigned in court Tuesday.

KENYAN PRESIDENT DISMISSES CABINET MINISTERS AFTER WEEKS OF PROTESTS

Police said several smartphones and identity cards were found in his house a short walk from the quarry.

Police said the bodies were discovered after relatives of one missing woman claimed to have had a dream in which she directed them to search the quarry. The relatives asked a local diver to help, and he discovered the bodies wrapped in sacks.

Acting police inspector general Douglas Kanja said officers in a nearby police station had been transferred to make way for investigations. Locals had accused police of negligence due to the proximity of the quarry and the unresolved missing persons cases filed there.

A statement signed by human rights groups over the weekend urged Kenya’s security agencies to “to expedite investigations into all reports of enforced disappearances.” There were initial concerns that the bodies could be linked to abductions and arrests of young people during recent anti-government protests.

The US had announced a humanitarian truce between Kinshasa and the M23 rebel group on July 5.

Two children and two teenagers have been killed in a bombardment in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), local sources have told AFP news agency.

The United States announced a humanitarian truce on July 5 between Kinshasa and the M23 rebel group operating in eastern DRC. It was supposed to last until July 19, but fighting erupted on Friday.

A spokesman for one of the armed groups backing the DRC forces said the fighting occurred 70km (43 miles) northwest of the North Kivu provincial capital, Goma.

By Monday, the fighting had reached the town of Bweremana, around 15km (9.3 miles) west of Goma, where the deadly bombardment struck.

The dead included two children from the same family, according to Innocent Mwitehofu Mumbara, a local civil society leader. The four victims were aged two, three, 16 and 18, Mumbara added.

A mother and her four-year-old child were among the wounded, said Bweremana Police Commissioner Paulin Ilunga, claiming that the shell had “come from the hills where the M23 is”.

Confirming the deaths of four people in the attack, a hospital source told AFP that five more had been admitted with serious injuries.

The DRC has been facing political instability and armed violence since 1996, with an estimated six million people killed since the conflict began.

Since the end of 2021, the M23, supported by units of the Rwandan army, had seized vast swathes of territory in North Kivu, going so far as to almost completely encircle Goma.

According to a Human Rights Watch report, M23 allegedly executed scores of villagers and militia members between November 2022 and April 2023, burying them in mass graves in the village of Kishishe, North Kivu.

The report says that M23 has committed unlawful killings, rape, and other war crimes since late 2022, exacerbating the dire humanitarian crisis in the country. A total 171 civilians were executed in the last 10 days of November alone, according to the UN Human Rights Office.

At the end of June, the M23 and the Rwandan army seized several towns in Lubero territory, in the north of North Kivu, following the collapse of the Congolese army and its auxiliary militias.

Nearly 50 soldiers were sentenced to death in the following days for “fleeing the enemy”.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists have confirmed a cave on the moon, not far from where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed 55 years ago, and suspect there are hundreds more that could house future astronauts.

An Italian-led team reported Monday that there’s evidence for a sizable cave accessible from the deepest known pit on the moon. It’s located at the Sea of Tranquility, just 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Apollo 11’s landing site.

The pit, like the more than 200 others discovered up there, was created by the collapse of a lava tube.

Researchers analyzed radar measurements by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and compared the results with lava tubes on Earth. Their findings appeared in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The radar data reveals only the initial part of the underground cavity, according to the scientists. They estimate it’s at least 130 feet (40 meters) wide and tens of yards (meters) long, probably more.

“Lunar caves have remained a mystery for over 50 years. So it was exciting to be able to finally prove the existence” of one, Leonardo Carrer and Lorenzo Bruzzone of the University of Trento, wrote in an email.

Most of the pits seem to be located in the moon’s ancient lava plains, according to the scientists. There also could be some at the moon’s south pole, the planned location of NASA’s astronaut landings later this decade. Permanently shadowed craters there are believed to hold frozen water that could provide drinking water and rocket fuel.

During NASA’s Apollo program, 12 astronauts landed on the moon, beginning with Armstrong and Aldrin on July 20, 1969.

The findings suggest there could be hundreds of pits on the moon and thousands of lava tubes. Such places could serve as a natural shelter for astronauts, protecting them from cosmic rays and solar radiation as well as from micrometeorite strikes. Building habitats from scratch would be more time-consuming and challenging, even when factoring in the potential need of reinforcing the cave walls to prevent a collapse, the team said.

Rocks and other material inside these caves — unaltered by the harsh surface conditions over the eons — also can help scientists better understand how the moon evolved, especially involving its volcanic activity

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.