Colin_Bates has added a photo to the pool:
Exhausted firefighters wage ‘war of attrition’ against blaze that forced 200,000 people from their homes
By noon it is time for a break. The temperature is about 35C, the smell of ash, cinders and burnt wood hang acrid in the air. At tables laid out in the shrinking shade on the desiccated grass and sand outside the sports centre in Le Porge, 200 men and a handful of women have gathered. Firefighters, soldiers, police, gendarmes, officials, first aid teams, foresters and volunteers sit elbow to elbow, plates of sausages, steak and potatoes in front of them.
The village was evacuated just over 14 hours after the “megafire” – as it has become known in France – broke out 6km away last week. The blaze has consumed 42,000 hectares (104,000 acres) of mainly forestland west of Bordeaux. Though finally contained, there are outbreaks every day, pushing to the limit emergency services and the hundreds of amateurs who have come to their aid.
Continue reading...Greek police throw entire homicide division at trying to explain fate of 38-year-old Elisabeth-Jane Ross
Two worlds separated by sheets of corrugated iron: one, a tree-lined road, bordered by a park and the home of Greece’s oldest sports club; the other a wasteland of derelict buildings and graffiti-covered walls in what was once a car park.
It is here, on the wrong side of the divide, in Kypseli, a neighbourhood in central Athens, that the body of Elisabeth-Jane Ross was found, inside a suitcase last month.
Continue reading...Exclusive: As wildfires rage, Frank Elderson says more work needed to assess risk from collapse of ecosystem services
A senior policymaker at the European Central Bank has said the climate emergency and the breakdown of nature poses a dramatically growing risk to the global economy.
Frank Elderson, a member of the ECB’s executive board, said the eurozone lender of last resort was stepping up its monitoring of the financial risks linked to the destruction of “ecosystem services”, which are nature-related processes or assets that support human activity.
Continue reading...Two members given ‘stern warnings’ after concert and barred from returning, with band also excluded from performing in Singapore again, say authorities
British trip-hop band Massive Attack has been barred from performing in Singapore after an investigation found two members unfurled a Palestinian flag during a concert, police said.
Singapore, known for its tough laws on public speech and assembly, bans the open display of all foreign flags, national emblems or banners without a permit.
Continue reading...Accusations Indonesians were being excluded deepened a sense of frustration held by some residents on the island
When Annisa Rahmadani posted online about being rejected from a social running club in Bali, she expected a few sympathetic comments. Instead, her story went viral, prompted national politicians to weigh in, immigration authorities to intervene and ultimately, the club’s Dutch organisers barred from Indonesia.
“I had no idea it would get that big,” said the 34-year-old university lecturer from the Indonesian city of Bandung. “But it seems it was just the tip of the iceberg.”
Continue reading...
TRUE 2 DEATH has added a photo to the pool:
The Yamanote Line circles the heart of Tokyo, carrying millions of passengers every day. Yet hidden in Kita Ward is something few people realize still exists—Nakazato No. 2 Crossing, the line's only remaining level crossing. On a rainy night, it feels like a glimpse of an older Tokyo that somehow survived the city's relentless modernization.
Nakazato, Tokyo, Japan
July 2026
Esther Rice Battenfeld writes about life on a Great Lakes Frieghter, "Just because when you were born your grandfather wired home from the Soo what your name should be is no reason you have to dedicate your life to the Great Lakes! In a way I was dedicated to the Lakes. But it really wasn't going to be my fault if I were forced to run away from home to sail our Midwestern inland seas. The blame would fall on grandpa, who at ninetyeight drank his whiskey from a soup bowl and held title as the oldest retired master in the entire Great Lakes region from Sackett's Harbor, New York, to Duluth, Minnesota."
'In Grandpa's Wake – Fall 1953'
'In Grandpa's Wake – Fall 1953'
