Health minister makes announcement following revelations that a man who killed his children legally changed his name
Canada’s westernmost province has says it will stop people who committed serious crimes from changing their names, following revelations that a child-killer tried to keep his new identity secret.
British Columbia’s health minister said on Monday his government would introduce legislation to amend the province’s name act.
Continue reading...Out-of-control Parker Lake fire, which has already forced thousands to evacuate, bears down on Fort Nelson
Officials in western Canada were bracing for “volatile wildfire activity” on Monday as an out-of-control blaze, which has already forced the evacuation of thousands, threatened to destroy a northern British Columbia town.
The province’s wildfire service said the blaze was burning just 2km (1.2 miles) north-west of Fort Nelson, which has already seen about 3,500 people evacuated from there after an order to leave was issued on Friday.
Continue reading...Strong solar flares produce breathtaking displays across Europe and the US, with southern lights illuminating skies in New Zealand
Night skies were lit up around the world by a spectacular display of the northern lights on Friday, with sightings seen widely across Europe, the US and even New Zealand (as the southern lights). The lights occur when charged particles emitted from the sun reach the Earth’s atmosphere and collide with gases around the magnetic poles triggering breathtaking night-time auroras.
In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a “severe” G4 geomagnetic storm event, but by Friday evening it announced conditions had reached “extreme” G5 levels, the highest level on the space weather scale, for the first time since October 2003.
Continue reading...Dina Boluarte, caught up in ‘Rolexgate scandal’, denies accepting watches in exchange for favours amid police raids on key allies
Police in Peru have detained the brother and the lawyer of the country’s embattled president, Dina Boluarte, as part of a widening corruption inquiry, weeks after a similar raid on the Peruvian leader’s home.
Boluarte’s brother Nicanor and her lawyer Mateo Castañeda were placed under preliminary detention on Friday, accused of influence trafficking and belonging to a criminal organisation. Six other people were also detained.
Continue reading...The president is under pressure from Republicans and progressives as humanitarian crisis builds and immigration remains a key voter issue
The Biden administration has said its proposed changes to asylum standards, unveiled on Thursday, that would fast-track some deportation will enhance security and speed up a backlog of cases amid record numbers of arrivals at the US-Mexico border.
The changes will also, by Biden’s own admission, be limited in scope and only affect a “small” number of people who have been convicted of serious crimes or may pose a national security risk.
Continue reading...Animal dubbed ‘Caramelo’ was trapped for days, balancing on two strips of slippery asbestos after flooding hit the Porto Alegre area
Emergency workers have rescued a horse that had been trapped for days on a rooftop after severe floods in southern Brazil, as the death toll from the disaster rose to 107 people.
The animal, dubbed Caramelo on social media, had been balancing on two narrow strips of slippery asbestos in Canoas, a city in the Porto Alegre metropolitan area that is one of the hardest-hit areas in the state, much of which has been isolated by floodwaters.
Continue reading...Court says irregularities in Colombian singer’s 2018 tax return did not indicate intent to defraud
A Spanish court has shelved an investigation into an alleged tax fraud by the Colombian pop star Shakira, putting an end to her legal woes in the country where she once lived.
Prosecutors had opened the case in July, alleging she had used a network of companies, some in tax havens, to cheat the tax office out of €6.6m (£5.7m) in 2018.
Continue reading...Incident comes the day after a shooting outside the rapper’s home in which a security guard was seriously injured
A man has been arrested after trying to gain access to Drake’s Toronto mansion, the day after a security guard at the property was seriously injured in a shooting.
“Officers were called after a person attempted to gain access to the property,” Toronto police said in a statement. “The person was apprehended under the Mental Health Act, and they were taken to receive medical attention.”
Continue reading...Critics said proposal to build canal linking Atlantic and Pacific would endanger environment and rural communities
Nearly a decade after it broke ground on a controversial plan to build a canal linking the Atlantic and the Pacific, Nicaragua has canceled a concession granted to a Chinese businessman to complete the project which critics said would endanger the environment and displace rural communities.
Despite a symbolic “ground-breaking” in 2014, no work was done on the canal that was to link Nicaragua’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts. At one point, crews broke ground on access roads near the canal but digging the waterway never started.
Continue reading...Panel heard from expert witnesses how Russia had ‘means, motive and opportunity’ for covert targeting of intelligence officers
Russia has “targeted and neutralized” dozens of US intelligence agents in recent years in a covert worldwide operation using sonic weapons, a House committee heard on Wednesday as it looked into the mystery phenomenon known as Havana syndrome.
The panel heard from expert witnesses that Russia had “the motive, the means and the opportunity” to enact the attacks on US diplomats and other government employees at embassies and other government outposts that left many with debilitating or career-ending brain injuries and hearing loss.
Continue reading...Supporters of rightwing ex-president Jair Bolsonaro among 1.6m people at show despite conservative criticism of ‘satanist’ singer
For conservative supporters of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, Madonna’s recent mega show in Rio had seemed the perfect opportunity to score points against what they see as the ungodly and morally degenerate left.
After the Queen of Pop threw the biggest concert of her 40-year career on Copacabana beach on Saturday, one far-right congressman called the singer a “satanist”. Another reprehended the “immoral acts” that had unfolded on stage during the sexually charged event and called Madonna’s performance “an affront to Brazilian laws”.
Continue reading...Climate chaos is threatening food production, trade and lives, says World Meteorological Organization
Hunger and disease are rising in Latin America after a year of record heat, floods and drought, a report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has shown.
The continent, which is trapped between the freakishly hot Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, probably suffered tens of thousands of climate-related deaths in 2023, at least $21bn (£17bn) of economic damage and “the greatest calorific loss” of any region, the study found.
Continue reading...Devastating floods in Rio Grande do Sul state have about left 90 dead with survivors seeking food and shelter
Heavy rains that began last week have caused rivers to flood, inundating whole towns and destroying roads and bridges across the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.
The local civil defence agency said the death toll had risen to 90, while 131 people were unaccounted for with 155,000 homeless. A state of emergency has been declared in 397 of Rio Grande do Sul’s 497 towns and cities as rescue efforts continue.
The Taquari River in Rio Grande do Sul. Photographs: Maxar Technologies/AFP/Getty Images
Continue reading...Scientists reclassify Humboldt glacier, also known as La Corona, after it melted faster than expected
Venezuela has lost its last remaining glacier after it shrunk so much that scientists reclassified it as an ice field.
It is thought Venezuela is the first country to have lost all its glaciers in modern times.
Continue reading...At least 361 injured and 131 missing in southern part of country from what governor called his state’s ‘biggest climate catastrophe’
The death toll from what authorities call the worst climate disaster ever to strike southern Brazil has risen to 90, after ferocious rain flooded huge stretches of Rio Grande do Sul state, displacing more than 155,000 people and forcing the closure of the main airport in the country’s fifth biggest city.
Photographs of the Porto Alegre airport, one of Brazil’s busiest, showed its main terminal had been completely inundated and a cargo plane parked in an expanse of water next to a pair of semi-submerged boarding stairs.
Continue reading...Guard was shot inside Drake’s home and had serious but non-life-threatening injuries, while the assailant fled in a vehicle
A security guard at the mansion of Canadian hip-hop artist Drake has been “seriously injured” in a shooting outside the musician’s Toronto home.
The victim, an adult male, was rushed to a Toronto hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries following the shooting early on Tuesday morning.
Continue reading...Collection of more than 1,000 fossils including rare dinosaurs given to National Museum in Rio six years after devastating blaze
Nearly six years after it was engulfed by a devastating fire that inflicted incalculable damage on Brazil’s cultural heritage, the country’s national museum has received an important donation of more than a thousand fossils as part of a campaign to help rebuild the collection lost to the flames.
The fire, caused by an electrical short-circuit on the night of 2 September 2018, consumed the former imperial palace which housed the 200-year-old museum in a park just north of Rio de Janeiro’s city centre and destroyed about 85% of its archive of 20m artefacts.
Continue reading...Jeremy Skibicki, charged with four counts of first-degree murder, is believed to have left bodies of at least two victims in a landfill
An accused serial killer in Canada, who police believed disposed of his victims by dumping some of them in landfills, has admitted to killing four Indigenous women, with his lawyers arguing a mental disorder meant he was not criminally responsible for the crimes.
Jeremy Skibicki is charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Rebecca Contois, Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and an unidentified woman, who was named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (Buffalo Woman) by Indigenous leaders. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and had been due to stand trial this week.
Continue reading...Mulino, who won 34.3% of vote, pledges to welcome business and investment without forgetting ‘those who are hungry’
José Raúl Mulino, a former security minister, has emerged from a chaotic campaign to become Panama’s next president — and will now have to address a cocktail of social discontent with just a fraction of the seats in parliament.
Amid record turnout, Mulino won 34.3% of the vote, followed by the lawyer Ricardo Lombana on 24.8% and former president Martín Torrijos on 16%.
Continue reading...This part of South America is no stranger to major rainfall, but last week’s storms were particularly devastating
Torrential rainstorms in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul have caused the worst flooding the country has seen in 80 years, many deaths and the displacement of thousands of families. Central parts of the state were hit the hardest after the storms began last Monday, with unofficial weather stations in the area recording 50-100cm (20-40in) of rain over the past week.
Widespread floods and landslides have caused major damage to homes and infrastructure, most alarmingly triggering the partial collapse of a small hydroelectric dam on Thursday, which sent a 2-metre-high wave through the surrounding area. At least 57 deaths have been reported and 24,000 people have been displaced, alongside an estimated 500,000 being without power and clean water.
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