POLICE in Sri Lanka have arrested 40 suspects in the Easter Sunday bombings, including the driver of a van allegedly used by the attackers and the owner of a home where some of them lived.

The country’s president gave the military a wider berth to detain and arrest suspects yesterday under powers that had been used during the 26-year civil war but withdrawn after it ended 10 years ago.

Meanwhile, a police spokesman said the death toll from Sunday’s attacks had risen to 310.

Yesterday was declared a day of mourning by President Maithripala Sirisena.

Following reports from government officials that warnings had been received of an imminent attack weeks before Sunday’s incident, Daesh claimed responsibility for the bombings.

The extremist group made the claim on Tuesday via its Aamaq news agency, saying: “The perpetrators of the attack that targeted nationals of the countries of the coalitions and Christians in Sri Lanka before yesterday are fighters from the Islamic State.”

The group offered no evidence for the claim.

IN Saudi Arabia, 37 people have been executed for terrorism-related crimes, the country’s interior ministry has said.

The news was carried in statements across state-run media, including the Saudi news channel al-Ekhbariya, yesterday.

The statement said those executed hailed from various parts of Saudi Arabia and had adopted extremist ideologies and formed terrorist cells with the aim of spreading chaos and provoking sectarian strife.

The move followed Daesh’s claim that it was behind an attack on Sunday on a Saudi security building, in which all four gunmen were killed and three security officers were wounded.

A PROPOSAL that would effectively outlaw most abortions in Tennessee if the United States Supreme Court overturns the historic 1973 decision legalising the procedure has been passed by state politicians.

Now it needs to be approved by the state’s governor.

The so-called trigger ban in Tennessee, that would take effect if the court overturns Roe v. Wade, includes exceptions only for medical emergencies and not for rape or incest.

Doctors who violate the law would face a felony charge.

AND in Austria, the vice chancellor has said a member of his party will resign after penning a poem that compared migrants to rats.

Christian Schilcher, whose poem warned against mixing cultures, will leave the anti-migration Freedom Party and resign as deputy mayor of Braunau am In, the German border town and birthplace of Adolf Hitler.