Hundreds of firefighters battle blazes as strong winds drive fires towards Bordeaux and smoke prompts health warnings in Madrid
Unrestrained wildfires in Spain and France have forced more than 250,000 people to flee, authorities from both countries have said, as they struggle to contain the blazes.
About 70,000 people were evacuated from central Spain, while 197,000 people fled in France, including tens of thousands from the wine region city of Bordeaux.
Continue reading...Firefighters responded to an emergency call and found the bodies, six of which were those of children
A devastating tragedy has unfolded in Michigan after emergency crews responding to a house fire found eight members of the same family, including six children, dead. At least some of the dead inside the home had gunshot wounds.
Deputies with the Ottawa county sheriff’s office and firefighters from the Grand Haven fire department were dispatched at about 11.40am local time on Friday to a residence on Riverside Trail in Grand Haven Township.
Continue reading...Nathan Matthews, 43, died a month after deadly burnover enveloped his fire crew near the Colorado-Utah border
A fourth firefighter has died from burns after he and several colleagues were overcome by a fast-moving wildfire near the Colorado-Utah border last month, officials said on Saturday.
Nathan Matthews, 43, died on Friday, the US interior department said in a release. He was from Lincoln, Nebraska.
Continue reading...Frank Yiannas, formerly of the FDA, calls for an independent review of federal response to illness causing explosive diarrhea
Donald Trump’s former top food safety official has accused the administration of a near “catastrophic” mismanagement of the cyclospora outbreak that has sickened thousands of people in the US.
There should be an independent review of the federal government’s response to the rash of illnesses caused by the spread of a parasite found on raw produce, according to Frank Yiannas, who was deputy commissioner for food policy at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) across the presidencies of both Trump and Joe Biden from 2018 to 2023.
Continue reading...Dharmendra Pradhan steps down after demonstrations over exam leak scandal, prompting celebrations among thousands of protesters
India’s education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, has resigned after a week of mass demonstrations, handing a major victory to a new youth movement that has posed an unprecedented challenge to Narendra Modi’s government.
In a statement on Saturday afternoon, Pradhan said he had submitted his letter of resignation to the prime minister after student pressure.
Continue reading...Koller, who co-founded the celebrated band in 1986, had been battling cancer of the esophagus
Lou Koller, the singer and co-founder of New York hardcore band Sick of It All, has died after a battle with cancer, his bandmates announced. Koller was 59.
In a social media post on the band’s Instagram page, a statement paid tribute to Koller and his work and said: “The level of loss that we feel at this time is overwhelming.”
Continue reading...Bollywood stars accused of ‘cowardice’ as hundreds of thousands of young Indians take to the streets to challenge government
Bollywood stars and other Indian celebrities have faced fierce criticism for staying silent in the face of some of the biggest protests India has seen in years.
Hundreds of thousands of young Indians took to the streets this week as part of a new youth movement that calls itself the Cockroach Janata party (CJP), demanding accountability over exam paper leaks in an unprecedented challenge to prime minister Narendra Modi’s government. Many vented their anger against what they saw as “cowardice” from India’s biggest celebrities.
Continue reading...Jewellery made from BC Iran worn at Odyssey photocall throws spotlight on the trade of rare archeological finds
The Odyssey has stormed cinemas, but while its take on the Homeric epic has created ripples among western classicists, it is an actor’s earrings that have made waves further afield.
Zendaya, who portrays the goddess Athena in the movie, provoked outrage when she appeared at a London photocall wearing earrings that were allegedly made from Iranian artefacts dating back to the 1st millennium BC.
Continue reading...Comment follows news Axel Rudakubana was transferred from prison to psychiatric hospital
The lawyer for the families of Axel Rudakubana’s victims has said the Southport killer is “trying to retraumatise the families from his cell” after it emerged he had been transferred from prison to a psychiatric hospital.
Rudakubana, now 19, was given a life sentence for the murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and the attempted murder of eight other children and two adults.
Continue reading...Eighteen months after her daughter’s death in Texas, Jane Coates hopes new PM can persuade US authorities to reopen case
Lucy Harrison felt that 2024 was her best year yet. The 23-year-old had graduated from university with first class honours, landed her dream job and bought her first house with her boyfriend. She was a “big girl adult” now, Lucy would say. She shed tears of joy seeing her idol, Taylor Swift, at Wembley on the Eras tour that summer. Life could hardly get any better. “All the hard work, all the tears, everything was coming to fruition,” said her mother, Jane Coates, from Warrington in north-west England.
That Christmas, Lucy and her boyfriend, Sam Littler, flew to Texas to spend time with her father, Kris Harrison, who had left the family home when she was two. The pair had a complex relationship – Harrison was a recovering alcoholic – and Littler, 24, did not want them to go. But Lucy enjoyed seeing her two younger half-sisters at their home in Prosper, an affluent suburb 30 miles north of Dallas.
Continue reading...Major incident declared over blaze that has intensified amid strengthening winds
A major incident has been declared over a wildfire that has been raging in the Cairngorms national park for more than a week, police have said, with a whole village having been evacuated.
Officers from Police Scotland said there had been a significant change in weather conditions, with strengthening winds making a fire that has been burning out of control for 11 days yet more difficult to contain.
Continue reading...Officials not satisfied Therese Abdallah is a ‘genuine visitor’ and believe she would not leave after visit to son in London
A Palestinian Jerusalemite who lives in London has been left devastated after a planned trip by his parents had to be cancelled when the Home Office ruled his mother was not a “genuine visitor” but granted his father a visa.
Karim Abdallah, who has lived in the UK since 2019, was looking forward to hosting his parents, Therese Abdallah, 69, a retired English teacher, and his father, Ghassan Abdallah, a psychologist, for a few weeks.
Continue reading...‘I can’t tolerate this life,’ said the 24-year-old in his last voice message to his relatives. Attacked by the military, a rebel army and criminal gangs, Siraz Ullah risked all for a better future
The fear was audible as he spoke, recording a message to his family, asking for their prayers. After pressing send, 24-year-old Siraz Ullah boarded a boat he hoped could deliver him from the violence and persecution surrounding him at home in Myanmar.
Instead, Siraz is among 500 Rohingya refugees who have vanished at sea after setting sail for Malaysia in late June.
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