AM briefing: 'Pokemon Go-playing driver kills woman'

A man plays Pokemon Go at a popular PokeStop in Hanoi, Vietnam. Photo / AP

1 Game linked to fatal accident
A female pedestrian has been killed and another badly injured in a car accident in western Japan, involving a man playing the popular Pokemon Go game while driving, authorities say. It was the first fatal accident in Japan linked to the augmented-reality mobile game since its release in the country a month ago, Japanese police said. The 39-year-old farmer was arrested after his vehicle hit the two women on a road in the city of Tokushima on Shikoku Island, Kyodo News agency reported. The National Police Agency reported that 79 bicycle and car accidents related to playing the game have occurred in Japan since late July.

2 Wreck of aircraft carrier
An underwater expedition along the California coast has revealed for the first time a sunken World War II-era aircraft carrier once used in atomic tests in the Pacific.
The expedition led by famed oceanographer Robert Ballard captured the wreckage of the USS Independence, located a kilometre under the sea in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. Scientists aboard the ocean research ship Nautilus lowered two unmanned submersibles to the ocean floor to find a Hellcat fighter plane, anti-aircraft guns, hatches and the ship's name on the hull.

3 Limbs cut for payout
The BBC reports that a Vietnamese woman has admitted to paying for her foot and part of her arm to be cut off to claim an insurance payout. The 30-year-old woman, "Ly Thi N", in May pretended she had been hit by a train, the People's Police Newspaper of Vietnam reports. The BBC says she has now admitted to having paid a friend US$2200 to sever her limbs. The aim was to claim more than US$150,000 from her insurance company, The BBC said. The official police newspaper showed the woman three months later, with her wounds healed. Police have dropped the criminal investigation.

4 Mounties allow hijab
Canada's national police force is allowing its women officers to wear the hijab.
The Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police recently approved the change in policy, allowing Muslim women to wear the garment, a veil that covers the head and chest, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale's spokesman said today.
Scott Bardsley said it is intended to better reflect the diversity of Canada and to encourage more Muslim women to consider a career with the force.

5 Gate to the ice age

Field manager Delissa Minnick descending into Natural Trap Cave in northern Wyoming. Photo / AP

Palaeontologists digging at the bottom of a strange cave in northern Wyoming say they have uncovered a trove of animal bones from the last ice age this northern summer and have enough funding to head back at the same underground site next year to continue their search. Scientists digging in July and led by Des Moines University anatomy professor Julie Meachen excavated wolf, bison, lion, cheetah and wolverine bones from Natural Trap Cave. The only way into or out of Natural Trap Cave on the arid western slope of the Bighorn Mountains is a 4.5m-wide hole in the ground. The hole is right at the top of a bell-shaped cavern. The palaeontologists and their research assistants have to rappel down into the cave and bring lighting equipment to illuminate it. They use buckets hooked to ropes to lift specimens out.

- agencies