The death toll in a Miami building collapse rose to four on Friday morning a day and 159 were unaccounted for after a 12-storey condominium slumped into rubble on the south Florida Atlantic coast.
Related: ‘There’s just too much at risk’: Arizona closes parks to prevent extreme wildfires
Continue reading...Building is architect’s tribute to Arles’ most famous residents: the Romans and Vincent Van Gogh
Rising from the skyline of Arles, the tower appears like a futuristic structure from a Marvel movie with nearly 11,000 stainless steel panels gleaming in the Provençal sun.
Here, at what was once the centre of the Roman empire in France, this twisting structure is the 92-year-old architect Frank Gehry’s tribute to Arles’ most famous residents: the Romans and the artist Vincent Van Gogh.
Continue reading...Kamala Harris faces the most politically challenging moment of her vice-presidency on Friday when she visits Texas as part of her role leading the Biden administration’s response to recent increases in families and unaccompanied children migrating across the US-Mexico border.
While in El Paso, Texas, she will tour a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processing center near the international bridge that connects the western city with its twin city, Juárez, across the Rio Grande in Mexico.
Continue reading...Hypogeum of 2,000-year-old monument – its ‘backstage’ – restored with walkways for visitors
For the first time, visitors to the Colosseum in Rome can fully explore the underground tunnels and chambers where gladiators and wild animals once prepared for battle.
Spread across 15,000 square metres, the hypogeum of the 2,000-year-old monument is open to the public following the completion of a restoration project funded by the Italian fashion house Tod’s.
Continue reading...Regional government welcomes green list status but calls for Spain to set ‘strict and safe’ entry rules
Authorities in the Balearic Islands – the only Spanish region to be added to the UK’s green list for quarantine-free travel – are calling on the central government to tighten controls for holidaymakers arriving from the UK.
Last month Spain began allowing in British travellers without the need to provide a negative Covid test. The move, aimed at wooing back some of the more than 18 million British tourists who visited in the years prior to the pandemic, contrasts with the growing push for tighter restrictions on UK tourists in the EU in light of the rapid spread of the Delta variant.
Continue reading...Increase is probably due to highly contagious Delta variant, says pandemic response chief
Israel has decided to reimpose the mandatory wearing of masks in enclosed public spaces owing to a rise in Covid-19 cases just 10 days after the measure was lifted – a blow for a country that has prided itself on one of the world’s most successful vaccine rollouts.
The head of Israel’s pandemic response taskforce, Nachman Ash, told public radio on Friday that mask mandates in most indoor situations would be reinstated, after the country recorded four successive days of more than 100 new cases, with 227 cases on Thursday.
Continue reading...Bloc to explore sanctions instead, as gathering also holds ‘emotional’ debate over Hungary’s LGBT laws
A Franco-German plan to restart talks with Vladimir Putin has been rejected at a fractious EU summit that resulted in a decision to explore economic sanctions against Russia instead.
The two-day gathering in Brussels also included an “emotional” debate over LGBT rights in Hungary, as EU leaders confronted Viktor Orbán over a law that will ban gay people from being shown in educational and entertainment content for minors.
Continue reading...A water quality crisis has been hiding in the ritzy Hamptons, but the pandemic pushed it over the edge. Will clean-up efforts be too little too late?
Growing up in Southampton, Bryan McGowin spent his summers swimming in a beautiful local pond. Now in his 40s, McGowin won’t let his kids into the water.
“If you drink that now, you will get sick,” said McGowin. Across the New York coastal community better known as the Hamptons, residents face perilously declining water quality, which has shut down recreation in many freshwater ponds.
Continue reading...Dozens still unaccounted for after part of a beachfront condominium block collapses in Surfside
Continue reading...A rare tornado has hit the south-east of the Czech Republic, razing houses and causing dozens of injuries. Winds hitting 267-322km/h were reported in the towns surrounding Hodonín. Villages were also hit by large hailstones, while the tornado caused widespread power outages
Continue reading...Tighter restrictions in 12 mostly rural areas come as health service struggles to cope with third wave of infections
Zimbabwe’s government has designated 11 rural areas across three provinces Covid-19 hotspots this week after a sharp rise in cases. The measures come as the country battles to contain a third wave of coronavirus.
Mashonaland West, Masvingo and Bulawayo provinces have been put into strict localised lockdowns to contain the spread of the virus. The government had already declared hotspots in three other regions, the first in May and two others in early June.
Continue reading...Moscow has been hit by a heatwave this week, with temperatures reaching a 120-year record high due to the effects of the climate emergency, Russia’s weather service has said
Continue reading...Artists from traditional communities and new wave performers to come together online for the country’s first drag conference
Two years ago, in early June 2019, a young man stepped on stage at a small cafe in the south Indian city of Hyderabad to sing Lady Gaga’s hit song Born This Way. He had chosen that song for the line “don’t be a drag, just be a queen” because this would be his first public performance as a drag artist. He had expected no more than a handful of people to turn up for this show with two other drag artists, but as the evening progressed, the cafe filled with more than 500 people. In a conservative city like Hyderabad, that was a huge surprise.
It has been a long journey for Patruni Chidananda Sastry, who began to learn classical Indian dance at the age of five. Now 29 and working as a business analyst, he performs Tranimal – a postmodern drag concept born in Los Angeles in the mid-2000s – and more conventional drag using the avatar of SAS (Suffocated Art Specimen – how he describes himself). On 25 June he is organising the first drag conference in India, as part of Dragvanti , his online initiative to bring together drag artists from across the country.
Continue reading...Military victories combined with new alliances and shifts in strategy reinforce militants’ position across much of continent
Islamic State’s affiliates in Africa are set for major expansion after a series of significant victories, new alliances and shifts in strategy reinforced their position across much of the continent.
Following recent gains in Nigeria, the Sahel, in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Isis propaganda published by the group’s leadership in its heartland in the Middle East is increasingly stressing sub-Saharan Africa as a new front which may compensate the group for significant setbacks elsewhere.
Continue reading...As many as 751 unmarked graves, some of which are believed to be of First Nation children, were discovered in Canada’s Saskatchewan province just weeks after a similar discovery in British Columbia, prompting a fresh reckoning over the country’s colonial past.
The graves were found on the site of the Roman Catholic Marieval Indian residential school, and Chief Cadmus Delorme of the Cowessess First Nation has asked for an apology from the pope and the church.
From the 19th century, more than 150,000 First Nations children were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a programme to assimilate them into Canadian society, many were beaten and verbally abused, and thousands died from disease, neglect and suicide.
Continue reading...• Operation expected to include up to 50,000 people
• Interpreters and families fear reprisals from Taliban
The United States is planning to evacuate a group of vulnerable Afghan interpreters before the US military completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan so they can wrap up their visa applications from safety, according to officials.
The evacuation of the at-risk Afghans will include their family members for a total of as many as 50,000 people, a senior Republican lawmaker told Reuters.
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Mexico’s health ministry on Thursday reported 5,340 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the country and 221 more fatalities, Reuters reports.
It brings the total figures to 2,493,087 infections and 232,068 deaths.
Italy reported 28 coronavirus-related deaths on Thursday compared to 30 the day before, Reuters reports.
The health ministry said the daily tally of new infections fell to 927 from 951 on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Remains with combination of Neanderthal and early human features date back 100,000 years
Fossilised bones recovered from an ancient sinkhole in Israel may belong to a previously unknown group of extinct humans that lived in the Levant more than 100,000 years ago.
Researchers unearthed the bones alongside stone tools and the remains of horses, fallow deer and wild ox during excavations at the Nesher Ramla prehistoric site near the city of Ramla in central Israel.
Continue reading...A First Nation in Canada’s Saskatchewan province is treating a now-defunct residential school as a “crime scene” following the discovery of 751 unmarked graves just weeks after a similar discovery in British Columbia prompted a fresh reckoning over the country’s colonial past.
Chief Cadmus Delorme of the Cowessess First Nation said that the graves were found on the site of the Marieval Indian residential school, also known as Grayson, after a search with ground-penetrating radar was launched on 2 June.
Continue reading...Third wave could be Africa’s worst yet, official says, with health systems in some parts close to overwhelmed
The World Health Organization has made a new appeal for vaccines for Africa, saying a “fast-surging” third wave of Covid-19 is outpacing efforts to protect populations, “leaving more and more dangerously exposed”.
“The third wave is picking up speed, spreading faster, hitting harder. This is incredibly worrying. With rapidly rising case numbers and increasing reports of serious illness, the latest surge threatens to be Africa’s worst yet,” Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa, said on Thursday.
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