Canadian boy dies of rabies after waking to find bat on his face

Eleven-year-old developed symptoms 19 days after encounter in Ontario in ‘exceedingly rare’ case

Doctors in Canada say a child who awoke to find a bat resting on his nose and mouth while visiting an Ontario cottage later died of rabies, in an “exceedingly rare case” that highlights the need for better public awareness.

In a report published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, infectious disease physicians confirmed that the 11-year-old boy died from rabies, a fatality they said probably could have been prevented with greater awareness of how the virus is transmitted.

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Canada to ​join Eurovision song contest from 2027

Country is first to join since Australia in 2015 as event director says it ‘continues to welcome the world’

Canada will ​join the Eurovision song contest in 2027, becoming the first new ⁠participant since Australia in 2015, organisers have announced.

Participation is not limited to countries in geographic Europe and instead is open to all members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which Canada joined last week. Australia is an associate member.

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Four people die in mass fan celebrations in Mexico City after World Cup victory

  • Three of the victims died from suffocation

  • More than a million people gathered in Mexico City

Four people died, three ⁠from suffocation, as thousands of fans crowded Mexico City streets during World Cup celebrations, the capital’s health secretariat ⁠said in the early ⁠hours ​of Wednesday.

The deaths occurred near the Angel of Independence landmark, where thousands of fans had gathered to ⁠celebrate Mexico’s 2-0 victory over Ecuador in the last 32.

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Wednesday briefing: After two powerful earthquakes, what is the reality on the ground in Venezuela?

In today’s newsletter: A country already in crisis since the removal of its leader earlier this year by the US, now has to find a way to rebuild with little state presence in evidence

The shaking seemed to come from nowhere. In a moment captured by fishers off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast, two earthquakes struck seconds apart. Plumes of dust appear where buildings once stood in the recording as the camera rises and falls with the swell. The men rapidly head for the shore in search of their families. “I’m shaking,” says the cameraman.

Since the quakes struck last Wednesday, the search for missing loved ones has not stopped for scores of Venezuelans. Officially, more than 1,700 people have died. But tens of thousands remain missing: desperate relatives are walking up and down streets lined by rubble and collapsed buildings with photos of those they cannot find, asking for help.

World news | A child has been rescued from the rubble in Venezuela, six days since the country was hit by devastating twin earthquakes.

UK politics | Andy Burnham will have to find an extra £4.7bn for defence in his first budget, after Keir Starmer announced a £298bn defence investment plan (Dip) without having fully identified how it will be funded.

US politics | The US supreme court has upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, affirming that nearly all people born on US soil are American citizens and rejecting a central pillar of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.

UK news | The European media group Axel Springer has completed its £575m takeover of the Telegraph, ending years of uncertainty over the future ownership of the 171-year-old titles.

US news | Nine matches in the World Cup group stage were played amid potentially dangerous heat and humidity, a Guardian analysis shows.

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Six feared dead after ‘bizarre’ sinking of charter boat off Canadian coast

The vessel, thought to have been carrying 10 people, did not issue a mayday call before sinking in the strait of Georgia

Search teams in Canada have launched a recovery effort for six people believed to have drowned in a “bizarre” sinking of a fishing charter off the coast of Vancouver.

Police and rescue crews praised a couple who were passing in their yacht for making a critical mayday call and saving stranded passengers by pulling them onboard their craft.

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Peru’s Keiko Fujimori wins presidential election, in latest victory for Latin American right

The 51-year-old daughter of late president Alberto Fujimori secured the top office after authorities spent weeks reviewing contested ballots

Peru’s conservative president-elect Keiko Fujimori has vowed to restore “order and hope” after defeating left-wing candidate Roberto Sanchez, in the latest victory for a resurgent Latin American right.

Fujimori won the 7 June presidential runoff by the slimmest of margins, outpolling Sanchez by fewer than 50,000 votes out of the more than 18 million ballots cast, the final results showed.

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Venezuelans newly deported from US missing after hotel collapse

More than 100 people removed on ICE flight were being held in hotel in La Guaira when earthquakes struck

More than 100 people just deported from the United States were being held in a hotel when earthquakes struck Venezuela, setting off a scramble to find survivors and bodies buried in the rubble, according to survivors.

A deportation flight from Miami arrived in Venezuela hours before Wednesday’s earthquakes. Onboard were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights. They were transported to a hotel in La Guaira.

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Venezuela earthquakes aftershock hits near capital city as man rescued from rubble after being trapped for 106 hours – as it happened

No damage reported in 4.6 magnitude aftershock; At least 1,450 people are known to have died in initial quakes but number is expected to rise

In an update to X, El Salvador’s president has said that after hours of intensive work rescuers have freed Aaron Levi Cantillo Vargas, 21, who was trapped under a building in Caraballeda, La Guaira, calling the operation “a miracle”.

“This rescue was made possible thanks to the coordinated effort of the rescue teams from Venezuela, Mexico, and El Salvador, who worked tirelessly to reach Aaron,” Nayib Bukele wrote in a social media post, adding that the 21-year-old is now receiving specialised medical attention.

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Weather tracker: North-west US hit by snow ahead of eastern heatwave

Western states experience unseasonally low temperatures but New York and Washington DC could reach 40C by end of week

Unseasonal snow has fallen in some parts of the US, while other parts of the country brace for a heatwave this week.

A strong cold front spread into the western US from the northern Pacific over the weekend, bringing an abrupt change in conditions to a region that had been experiencing high summer temperatures amid drought. Temperatures from the Canadian border to California have widely been 5-10C below the norm since Friday, and more than 10C below in some parts farther north. The pattern is expected to remain for much of the coming week.

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Venezuela earthquake: father and son found alive in rubble after four days as death toll nears 1,500

President says ‘we always hold onto hope’ as discovery of earthquake survivors spurs fresh search efforts despite dwindling chances of survival

A man and his teenage son were found alive under the rubble in Venezuela on Sunday, in a town about 40km north of the capital Caracas, AFP journalists reported, as the death toll from last week’s twin earthquakes passed 1,450.

The discovery of survivors in Caraballeda was made by French and American rescue teams nearly four days after back-to-back quakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck, completely destroying nearly 200 buildings in the area.

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Venezuelan earthquakes test Trump’s new western hemisphere policy after gutting of USAID

Marco Rubio is scrambling to provide effective disaster response to country whose president US deposed in January

This week’s dual earthquakes in Venezuela are a test for the new era of American power in the western hemisphere, as the Trump administration scrambles to provide an effective disaster response mission to a country that it now calls an ally in Latin America, after a US special forces raid in January deposed the country’s strongman leader, Nicolás Maduro.

The US is marshalling what secretary of state Marco Rubio called a “big, fast, effective” and “whole-of-government” response as the state department sent three specialised urban search and rescue teams and pledged a $150m assistance fund that one former disaster relief expert called the largest he had seen within 24 hours of an incident.

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Venezuela earthquakes: death toll rises again to more than 1,400

Search for survivors continues with nearly 70,000 people reported unaccounted for by their family members

The ⁠death toll ⁠in ⁠the twin ​earthquakes that struck ⁠Venezuela earlier ⁠this ​week ‌has ‌risen to ‌1,430, according to one of the country’s top politicians, Jorge Rodríguez.

Another 3,200 ​people were injured ⁠and 3,100 ​left homeless ​by the ​disaster, ​the National Assembly president added, speaking ​on ​state television.

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Carney announces contest to revamp uninhabitable Canadian PM residence

Various issues – including a rodent infestation and mould – have left the historic, sprawling Ottawa estate empty

10 Downing Street has two things: mice and a chief mouser. For more than a decade, an officially recognized feline has kept rodent infestation in the British prime minister’s residence to a minimum.

Over a similar period, the official residence of Canada’s prime minister has seen an unchecked explosion of rodents.

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‘Chock full of incredible animals’: marine expedition uncovers 31 new species in two weeks

Experts worked in ocean midwater off Brazil at near-record speeds thanks to cutting-edge tech

A marine biology expedition in international waters off the coast of Brazil has discovered 31 new species in just two weeks.

The researchers believe the speed at which the species were found and identified may be a record, in part because of the cutting-edge technology designed and built by the science and engineering team. For the first time on board a ship, the researchers were able to observe the living 3D cellular structure of microbial life thanks to a technological breakthrough nicknamed the Squid.

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Vehicle hits crowd in Cabo San Lucas after Mexico’s World Cup victory over Czechia

  • City hall confirms a car drove through crowd

  • ‘Several people injured’ following incident

A ⁠vehicle struck multiple people at a gathering ⁠in ⁠the popular ​tourist resort of Cabo San Lucas ⁠following Mexico’s victory in a World ⁠Cup match on Wednesday night, ​Los ‌Cabos’ city ‌hall said in ‌a statement.

“According to preliminary information, the vehicle was surrounded by a group of people and, ‌for reasons to be determined by the ​competent authority, drove through the crowd, injuring several people,” city ⁠hall added.

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Duck off: World Cup hero Merlín barred from Mexico game due to Fifa’s animal ban

  • World’s sixth-most famous duck falls short of dream

  • Two-year-old must watch Czechia game from distance

Merlín the duck’s bid to see his beloved Mexico live has hit a snag after he was barred from El Tri’s match with Czechia on Wednesday.

Merlín has become a folk hero in Mexico after becoming a symbol of El Tri’s World Cup campaign on home soil. His fans had launched a campaign for Merlín to attend Wednesday’s match alongside his human family. But his journey was cut short by Fifa regulations.

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Brazilian federal police arrest Spanish citizen at São Paulo airport for racism

Woman detained at airport after allegedly making racist remarks directed at workers unloading baggage, police say

Brazil’s federal police have detained a Spanish citizen in São Paulo’s international Guarulhos airport for racism, in the latest of a series of high-profile arrests of foreign tourists on similar grounds.

Brazil has some of the strictest anti-racism laws in Latin America. Insulting a person on the basis of race carries a penalty of imprisonment from two to five years and a fine.

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Colombia’s leftwing candidate concedes election to Trump-endorsed millionaire

Leftist Iván Cepeda conceded to far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella who won by razor-thin margin

The defeated leftwing candidate in Colombia’s presidential runoff has conceded to the far-right, Trump-admiring millionaire lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella.

Since Sunday night, the preliminary count had already pointed to a De la Espriella victory by a razor-thin margin of less than 1% of the vote.

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Canadian police warn of possible copycat attacks after deadly shootout in Montreal

Assailant behind shooting that left three people dead wrote ‘incel’-like manifesto that was posted by a far-right outlet

Police in Canada are warning of possible copycat attacks after three people died in a shootout in Montreal and the assailant’s lengthy manifesto, which called for “a new bloodletting”, was posted online by a far-right outlet.

The document contains many of the hallmark grievances of the “involuntary celibacy” – or “incel” – movement in addition racist and misogynistic conspiracy theories.

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Former Pinochet agents convicted over 1976 Washington DC carbomb murder

Attack targeted former Chile ambassador Orlando Letelier and his US colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt

Fifty years after Gen Augusto Pinochet’s secret police detonated a car bomb in the heart of Washington DC, killing Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean minister and ambassador to the US, and his American colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, a Santiago court has convicted three former agents of Moffitt’s murder.

Judge Paola Plaza, a special minister for human rights in Chile, sentenced Pedro Espinoza, José Zara, and Raúl Iturriaga to 15 years in prison for their roles in the killing of Moffitt, 25.

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