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by Gianrigo Marletta MOBILE, United States (AFP) — Hurricane Sally downed trees, flooded streets and homes and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands as it pounded the US Gulf Coast states of Alabama and Florida on Wednesday with torrential rain. Sally made landfall overnight near Gulf Shores, Alabama, as a Category 2 hurricane and has since been downgraded to a tropical storm. But the slow-moving Sally was lingering over parts of southern Alabama and […]
by Jocelyne ZABLIT LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — California faces more devastation from wildfires that have ravaged the West Coast, authorities warned Wednesday, with strong winds and dry heat expected to whip up flames from dozens of blazes raging across the state. Governor Gavin Newsom said although firefighters had made progress in their battle to contain more than two dozen major wildfires, so-called Santa Ana winds could fuel the relentless blazes. “With wind events […]
by Gianrigo Marletta / with Tori Otten in Washington NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) — Hurricane Sally barrelled into the US Gulf Coast early Wednesday, with forecasts of drenching rains that could provoke “historic” and potentially deadly flash floods. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the Category 2 storm hit Gulf Shores, Alabama at about 4:45 am (0945 GMT), bringing maximum sustained winds of about 105 miles (165 kilometers) per hour. “Historic life-threatening flooding likely […]
by Gianrigo Marletta / with Tori Otten in Washington NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) — Hurricane Sally picked up strength as it edged towards the US Gulf Coast early Wednesday, with forecasts of drenching rains that could provoke “historic” and potentially deadly flash floods. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said coastal areas in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida were in the sights of the storm, that was packing maximum sustained winds of around 105 miles (165 […]
by Patrick GALEY PARIS, France (AFP) — Smoke from the fires devastating swathes of the US West Coast has reached as far as Europe, the European Union’s climate monitoring service said Wednesday in its assessment of the “unprecedented” blazes. Satellite data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) showed that the wildfires currently raging across California, Oregon and Washington State are “tens to hundreds of times more intense” than the recent average. Thanks to strong […]
ROME, Italy Explosions and a huge fire ripped through the port area of the Italian city of Ancona early Wednesday, destroying warehouses and lorries, but there were no casualties, firefighters said. The flames created vast mushroom clouds of smoke in the city on Italy’s Adriatic coast. The explosions sparked the fire shortly after midnight. The blaze was under control Wednesday morning after the intervention of 16 firefighting teams, the fire service said on Twitter. It […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — More French schools have closed after multiple students tested positive for Covid-19 while a further 2,100 individual classes have also been called off, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said Wednesday. Early last week, just 28 schools were closed shortly after the school year resumed but that number has climbed to 81 over the past week. “We have around 1,200 new Covid cases among students compared with last week,” Blanquer told LCI television. […]
by Hiroshi HIYAMA / Sara HUSSEIN TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Yoshihide Suga became Japan’s new prime minister on Wednesday, with the former chief cabinet secretary expected to stick closely to policies championed by Shinzo Abe during his record-breaking tenure. Suga, 71, won an easy victory in a parliamentary vote, where his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) holds a commanding majority. He bowed deeply as lawmakers applauded his win, but made no immediate comment. He is […]
by Jalees ANDRABI NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India’s total coronavirus cases passed five million on Wednesday, health ministry data showed, as the pandemic extends its grip on the vast country at an ever-faster rate. With its latest one million cases recorded in just 11 days, a world record, India now has 5.02 million infections. Only the United States has more, with 6.59 million. India has for some time been recording the world’s biggest daily […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — The world has lost nearly 100 million hectares of forests in two decades, marking a steady decline though at a slower pace than before, a UN agency reported Tuesday. The proportion of forest to total land area fell from 31.9 percent in 2000 to 31.2 percent in 2020, now some 4.1 billion hectares, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. It marks “a net loss of almost 100 million hectares of […]
LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — Disneyland, Universal Studios and other theme parks have called on California officials to set out the health criteria required for them to reopen, warning that tens of thousands of jobs are at stake. Six months after some 30 amusement parks closed “voluntarily in response to COVID,” the California Parks and Attractions Association said it had created robust measures to protect visitors and staff, but guidance from the state “has […]
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) — Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday asked the Senate for a referendum on whether to prosecute five of his predecessors over allegations including corruption. Lopez Obrador’s proposed “people’s consultation” targets Carlos Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderon and Enrique Pena Nieto, whose terms in power stretched from 1988 to 2018. He accused them of presiding over “excessive concentration of wealth, monumental losses to the treasury, privatization of […]
