Arrival of endangered cats, including rare white cub, revitalises team straining under fuel and medicine shortages
For the Cuban zookeeper Ángel Cordero, the sight of four Bengal tiger cubs playing in a cage at the Cuban national zoo is a small miracle on an island stifled by shortages of fuel, medicine and days-long power outages.
The birth of these endangered big cats – including an exceedingly rare white tiger – has revitalised a team of zoo workers, he said.
Continue reading...Interim president says unrest will not break out despite anger at official response to the 24 June disaster
Venezuela’s interim president has defended her country’s emergency response to the twin earthquakes that have killed more than 3,000 people, vowing the country would not descend into social unrest.
Many Venezuelans have expressed anger at what they see as the US-backed government’s inadequate response to the 24 June disaster before international teams arrived.
Continue reading...‘Haiti is a failed state’, says Carlos Giménez, congressman and Miami Cuban exile, after controversial court ruling
Carlos Giménez, a Republican congressman from Florida, broke with the Trump administration on Sunday, calling on the White House to reconsider its push to eliminate temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian migrants.
Returning some 350,000 Haitians to their chaotic, dangerous homeland following the US supreme court’s ruling that the Trump administration can cut off temporary legal protections, would be a grave error, Giménez said.
Continue reading...Port expansion and protections for whales part of BC and Alberta plan to expand country’s presence overseas
The governments of Canada and the province of Alberta will move forward on a major new oil pipeline after the pair announced a plan to ease concerns of British Columbia and First Nations on the Pacific coast.
Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, shuttled between British Columbia and Alberta on Thursday to announce more than C$150bn in new investments in both provinces, part of a broader project of reducing trade with the United States and expanding his country’s presence in overseas markets.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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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