Police tell people to avoid Val-de-Grâce area after several buildings catch fire in fifth arrondissement
At least 37 people have been injured, four of whom are in a critical condition, after a gas explosion sparked a blaze in buildings in the Latin Quarter of Paris.
The blast happened in the fifth arrondissement at about 5pm on Wednesday and resulted in several buildings catching fire, local officials said.
Continue reading...Air national guard member, 21, enters pleas in Massachusetts federal court days after being indicted by grand jury
Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts air national guard member accused of leaking highly classified military documents on a social media platform, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to federal felony charges.
Teixeira, 21, entered the pleas during a hearing in Worcester’s federal court days after he was indicted by a grand jury on six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information. Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Continue reading...Invitation raises possibility Yasir al-Rumayyan could be questioned under oath about execution of Jamal Khashoggi
The powerful governor of Saudi Arabia’s state-backed investment fund has been invited to testify before a Senate committee in the wake of a proposed merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Tour and the PGA, raising the possibility the executive could be questioned under oath about issues ranging from the future of golf to the execution of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, was invited to testify on 11 July by the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, whose chairman, the Democratic senator Dick Blumenthal, is one of the toughest critics of Saudi Arabia on Capitol Hill.
This article was amended on 21 June 2023 to clarify that Yasir al-Rumayyan is the governor of Saudi Arabia’s state-backed investment fund, rather than the chairman.
Continue reading...Palestinians say man was killed and 10 were injured after settlers rampaged through West Bank town and army opened fire
A large group of Israeli settlers have attacked a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, setting fire to homes, cars and fields in a revenge rampage that left one Palestinian dead from gunfire and 10 others injured, according to Palestinian witnesses and officials.
Many of the hundreds of settlers who raided the town of Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah, on Wednesday were armed.
Continue reading...Sounds are ‘inconclusive’, says US Coast Guard captain, but focus of search relocated to that area
Search teams in the Atlantic trying to locate the missing Titan submersible said they were still hearing underwater “noises” on Wednesday, but added that the sounds were “inconclusive” and not confirmation the crew was still alive.
A US Coast Guard captain, Jamie Frederick, told a lunchtime briefing “several flights” of Canadian P3 aircraft had heard the noises, reported by several media outlets as “banging”, on Tuesday and Wednesday, and that the focus of the search was relocated to that area.
Continue reading...Armed people went into rival gang’s cell block, opened fire and doused survivors in flammable liquid, officer says after 46 killed
Gang members at a women’s prison in Honduras slaughtered 46 other female inmates by spraying them with gunfire, hacking them with machetes and then locking survivors in their cells before dousing them with flammable liquid, a senior police officer has said.
The carnage in Tuesday’s riot was the worst atrocity at a women’s prison in recent memory; the intensity of the fire left the walls of the cells blackened and beds reduced to twisted heaps of metal.
Continue reading...Hundreds of faint stripes, dots and wavy lines at Loire valley site were created more than 57,000 years ago, say scientists
Hundreds of faint stripes, dots and wavy lines that adorn a cave wall in central France are the oldest known engravings made by Neanderthals, according to scientists who analysed the ancient markings.
The patterns, called finger flutings, appear on sections of the longest and most even wall of the cave in La Roche-Cotard in the Loire valley, and were created more than 57,000 years ago, before modern humans arrived in the region, the researchers say.
Continue reading...Religious site contains burial mound serving as a solar calendar as well as remains of about 60 people
Dutch archaeologists have unearthed an approximately 4,000-year-old religious site – nicknamed the “Stonehenge of the Netherlands” – that includes a burial mound that served as a solar calendar.
The mound, which contained the remains of about 60 men, women and children, had several passages through which the sun shone directly on the longest and shortest days of the year.
Continue reading...Ukraine president says war is not a Hollywood movie, as Putin announces nuclear-capable ICBMs will soon enter service
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has conceded that Ukraine’s counteroffensive may be going “slower than desired” but has insisted that he will not needlessly risk soldiers’ lives to meet international expectations.
The comments from Ukraine’s president came as Vladimir Putin suggested that there appeared to have been a break in the intensity of Kyiv’s long-anticipated counteroffensive.
Continue reading...UK foreign secretary says Ukraine has ‘evolved quickly’, as Zelenskiy tells summit it can be engine of green growth
The UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has said all Nato allies are backing a plan to give Ukraine a fast track to Nato membership of the kind offered to Sweden and Finland earlier this year.
Speaking on the margins of the two-day Ukraine Recovery conference in London, Cleverly said the UK was “very, very supportive” of Ukraine being able to join Nato without the usual need for it to meet the conditions set out in a Nato membership action plan (Map).
Continue reading...The Biden administration will try to strengthen US-India ties while the Indian leader looks to shore up votes for next year’s election
The symbolism of the visit will be hard to avoid. As Narendra Modi arrives in Washington DC on Wednesday – the capital of a country he was once prohibited from visiting for almost 10 years – he will join the ranks of Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Volodymyr Zelenskiy as one of the few leaders to address a joint session of Congress more than once.
Statements from US officials ahead of the visit have been rapturous on the subject of US-India relations, praising the “significant defence partnership” and describing it as “a unique connection between the world’s oldest and largest democracies”. Before his departure from India, Modi said: “This special invitation is a reflection of the vigour and vitality of the partnership between our democracies.”
Continue reading...China scores better on food, health and housing, while crackdowns have worsened Hong Kong’s ratings
China has been ranked as the worst country in the world for safety from the state and the right to assembly, in a human rights report that tracks social, economic and political freedoms.
The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), a New Zealand-based project, has been monitoring various countries’ human rights performance since 2017.
Continue reading...Anger over handling of scandal threatens opposition party’s presidential election chances
Parents of toddlers in Taiwan have accused teachers at a preschool of drugging their children, in a scandal that threatens to dent the opposition party’s chances at the upcoming presidential election.
Teachers at Baoren kindergarten, a private preschool in New Taipei City, have been accused of sedating children with addictive cough syrups. Police launched an investigation this month after parents raised concerns about children showing unusual symptoms such as mood swings and cramps. Eight pupils reportedly tested positive for trace amounts of the psychoactive drugs phenobarbital and benzodiazepines.
Continue reading...Judges to decide whether to impose eight-year ban on Brazil’s former president, after attack on electoral system
The political future of one of the big names of the global populist right is on the line this week as Brazilian judges prepare to decide whether Jair Bolsonaro should be banned from running for office.
Members of Brazil’s superior electoral court will gather on Thursday to consider the first of 16 cases being brought against the far-right former president, who failed to win a second term after losing last October’s election to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Continue reading...The more adventurous of the world’s wealthiest take trips to the edge of space and Antarctica in their stride
The disappearance of the submersible en route to the wreck of the Titanic has highlighted the businesses that offer extreme expeditions – and their clienteles.
Among the five people on the missing Titan submersible are two billionaires – Hamish Harding, a 58-year-old businessman who made his fortune selling private jets and holds three Guinness world records for previous extremetrips, and the British-based Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, who is onboard with his 19-year-old son Suleman.
Continue reading...White House says US president is thinking of crew on missing vessel and their families as desperate search continues
No 10 has said the UK Foreign Office is in contact with the family of Hamish Harding, as the rescue operation for the tourist submersible off the coast of Canada continues.
The UK prime minister’s official spokesman said: “The FCDO are in contact with Hamish Harding’s family and the local authorities.
Continue reading...Decision comes after a government report found the hunt does not comply with Iceland’s Animal Welfare Act
Iceland’s government has said it is suspending this year’s whale hunt until the end of August due to animal welfare concerns, a move that is likely to bring the controversial practice to an end.
Animal rights groups and environmentalists hailed the decision, with the Humane Society International calling it “a major milestone in compassionate whale conservation”.
Continue reading...Largest amount of money Kyiv previously worked with was $6bn a year in 2014, Mustafa Nayyem says
Ukraine will struggle to absorb the expected billions of western private and public sector aid for its recovery not due to corruption, but a simple lack of capacity to process and invest such huge sums, a senior Ukraine official has said on the eve of the UK-sponsored Ukraine recovery conference in London.
“It is about the capacity to work with this amount of money,” said Mustafa Nayyem, the head of the Ukraine State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development.
Continue reading...Some women were burned to death in uprising blamed on crackdown on illicit activities inside of the country’s prisons
At least 41 women have been killed – some of them burned to death – after an outbreak of violence between gangs at a prison in Honduras.
Authorities found dozens of bodies after the violence on Tuesday at the prison in Tamara, about 30 miles (50km) north-west of the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, said Yuri Mora, spokesperson for the national police investigation agency.
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More Republicans are condemning Hunter Biden’s plea deal.
New York representative Elise Stefanik released a statement on the plea deal, calling out “a two-tiered system of justice” that purportedly benefited Biden.
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