A fast-growing wildfire spread from the Sierra foothills toward the center of Reno early Sunday, forcing nearly 14,000 homes to be evacuated. The “GO NOW” zone reached the edge of the University of Nevada campus as the Hawk Fire grew to more than 10,500 acres. As of Sunday morning, it was 0% contained. Smoke rises…
The wildfires burning across Europe this summer have exposed a potentially deadly threat lurking beneath the blackened landscape: rusty bombs and mines from World War I and II that threaten crews responding to the flames. Some of the weapons have exploded in the intense heat. Blasts have been reported in France, Belgium, Germany and the…
Washington — While President Trump fights in court over his remaking of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts and construction of the White House ballroom, plans for the two Washington institutions are moving ahead. Now, the latest court filings in those cases are providing a window into the scope of work…
Alpine, Texas — Months after Congress approved billions for infrastructure across one of the least-trafficked stretches of the southern border, bulldozers arrived at Big Bend National Park, West Texas’s wild crown jewel. What followed was an unlikely revolt against President Trump’s decade-old promise to build a wall. Cattle ranchers, environmentalists, sheriffs, Republican senators and country singers…
The bodies of two Belgian climbers who disappeared in the Swiss Alps 34 years ago have been found, freed from the melting Trift Glacier, police said Wednesday. On July 26, a hiker reported finding two bodies on the glacier in southern Switzerland, near the Italian border, the regional police in Wallis canton said in a…
A Russian tanker carrying millions of gallons of oil has run aground off the coast of Oman — and now risks breaking apart, potentially causing an environmental disaster on the scale of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. The Caroline Bezengi, which has been linked to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet to move sanctioned oil around the…
Rescuers in Colombia were making last-ditch efforts to locate earthquake survivors early Thursday as the critical 72-hour window for rescue operations neared its end. The magnitude 7.4 quake, the strongest to hit Colombia this century, has killed 265 people, injured almost 3,500 and left almost 500 missing, according to Colombia’s new president Abelardo de la…
Sixty cats and kittens have now been rescued from an abandoned sailboat that was found anchored off a beach in Washington state, police said. The 40-foot boat, initially spotted earlier this month in waters near Tacoma’s Owen Beach, remains the focal point of an active criminal investigation as well as an ongoing search for additional…
Tons of aid from regional partners began to roll into Colombia on Wednesday, as the search for survivors in the rubble of a powerful earthquake grew more desperate after the temblor razed buildings, buckled roads and crushed cars. The devastation has tested Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, and his government as it scrambles to respond to the disaster…
Crews rescued 172 people and recovered the body of a passenger from a ferry that caught fire in rough seas Wednesday near the Indonesian tourist island of Bali, authorities said. The fire started at about 4:15 a.m. while the Putri Yasmin ferry was en route from Padang Bai port in Bali to Lembar port on…
