Homes evacuated in Emilia-Romagna region as pounding rain ‘well beyond the worst forecasts’ sweeps in
Homes are being evacuated in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna as Storm Boris, which has killed at least 24 people in central and eastern Europe since last week, swept into the country, causing severe flooding and landslides.
Pounding rain hit Emilia-Romagna late on Wednesday afternoon and the situation rapidly worsened as night fell.
Continue reading...Police allege the criminal gang, dubbed The Commission, controlled the price of cocaine in Sydney by manipulating supply
A drugs gang dubbed “The Commission” linked to the distribution of more than $1.8bn worth of cocaine across Sydney in four months has been “uprooted” by police.
The New South Wales police operation began in July, when a 21-year-old man from Guildford in the city’s west was charged with with two counts of supplying a prohibited drug in a large commercial quantity.
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Continue reading...Second judge refuses bail to music mogul, 54, citing possibility that he could tamper with witnesses
Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs will have to await trial on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges in a Brooklyn jail instead of his luxurious Miami Beach mansion after a second judge refused to grant a $50m bail package offered by his lawyers.
On Wednesday, US district judge Andrew L Carter Jr denied Combs’s request to be released to home detention with GPS monitoring, pointing to the possibility that Combs may tamper with witnesses.
Continue reading...Investigators working to identify body located in vicinity of I-75 exit where suspect Joseph Couch opened fire
Authorities have found a body near the rural south-eastern Kentucky site where on Saturday a gunman opened fire on an interstate highway, hitting a dozen vehicles and wounding five people, police said Wednesday.
Investigators were working to identify the body, said Scottie Pennington, state police master trooper, in a social media post. It was located in the vicinity of the Interstate 75 exit where the 7 September shooting occurred near London, a city of about 8,000 people roughly 75 miles (120km) south of Lexington.
Continue reading...Republican John Kennedy of Louisiana accuses thinktank director of supporting Hamas in heated hate crime hearing
A congressional hearing on hate crimes drew charges of the bigotry it was meant to address after a Republican senator told the female Muslim head of a thinktank to “hide your head in a bag” and accused her of supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.
John Kennedy, the GOP senator for Louisiana, drew condemnation from Democrats as well as Muslim, Jewish and civil liberties groups for the remark, aimed at Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, at a hearing staged by the Senate judiciary committee.
Continue reading...Met Office says ‘gentle decline’ in temperature expected, ushering in more typical autumn weather
The UK is enjoying “summer’s last hurrah” before heavy rainfall is expected to drench the country over the weekend, the Met Office has said.
On Wednesday, temperatures hit 25.5C in Inverness, which is 14C above average for this time of year, according to the forecaster. Warm and bright conditions are expected to continue into Thursday after a cloudy morning – with highs of 26C in London, the weather service added.
Continue reading...Social media platform routes internet traffic outside of Brazil using a communications network update
Social media platform Twitter/X became accessible to many users in Brazil on Wednesday as an update to its communications network circumvented a block order by the country’s supreme court.
The X update used cloud services offered by third parties, allowing some Brazilian users to take a route outside of the country to reach X, even without a virtual private network, according to Abrint, the Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers.
Continue reading...New allegations against disgraced film mogul, currently jailed in New York, not related to his overturned conviction
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
Continue reading...Edmundo González says he signed election letter under duress as condition for allowing him to flee to Spain
Venezuela’s opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, has said he was coerced into signing a letter recognizing Nicolás Maduro as the winner of the country’s disputed election as a condition for letting him flee to Spain.
The revelation of the letter is the latest strain to the country’s political crisis, which was exacerbated by the disputed election results and González’s recent departure for exile in Spain.
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