Author: Darren Smith

As fires sweep across Spain and France, questions are circulating online about what causes them — and why rain-making technology isn’t used to extinguish them. Here’s what the science actually says. Europe is in the grip of one of its worst wildfire emergencies in years. More than 267,000 people have been forced from their homes by wildfires raging in France and Spain, with CNN reporting the displacement figure has since passed 300,000 after new evacuation orders were issued. Spain has declared a national emergency after a massive wildfire west of Madrid — described by regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso as…

Abdul Ballout, the 21-year-old German-Lebanese suspect accused of driving a van into crowds at Berlin’s Pride celebrations, has been shot and killed by police during an operation at a garden complex, as the city’s Interior Minister confirmed the number of injured had risen to 29. The suspect behind Saturday’s attack on Berlin’s Pride parade has been shot and killed by police, German media reported on Sunday. Abdul Ballout, 21, is accused of ramming a van into crowds gathered for the city’s Christopher Street Day celebrations, killing one person and injuring 29 others. Police had launched a large-scale manhunt for the…

Hertfordshire Constabulary has been told to reopen its investigation into claims of homophobic bias following the death of Scott Gough, after the police watchdog found the force made “several errors” and failed to properly examine whether his sexuality influenced key decisions in the case. Police have been ordered to reexamine allegations of homophobia after the Independent Office for Police Conduct found Hertfordshire Constabulary made “several errors” in its handling of the death of Scott Gough, a man allegedly targeted through the dating app Grindr. Mr Gough was found dead at his home in Chandler’s Cross, Hertfordshire, two years ago by…

Daniel Dunbar, a 30-year-old Royal Bank of Canada employee from Kent, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after a Lisbon court found he murdered 19-year-old Daniel Galhanas by stabbing him in the neck with a broken bottle, rejecting his claim of self-defence. A British banking executive has been jailed in Portugal for murdering a local teenager with a broken bottle during a night out in Lisbon. Daniel Dunbar, 30, of Sidcup, Kent, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after a court found he thrust a jagged bottle into the neck of 19-year-old Daniel Galhanas in the city’s…

Both terminals at Gatwick Airport were left without running water after low pressure from a nearby treatment works disrupted toilets, cafés and drinking fountains, forcing staff to hand out bottled water while flights continued unaffected. Both terminals at Gatwick Airport suffered a severe water outage, leaving toilets unable to flush and hand-washing facilities out of action, as staff handed out bottled water to passengers. The disruption was caused by low water pressure from SES Water’s Bough Beech Water Treatment Works, which supplies parts of Surrey, West Sussex, Kent and south London. Despite the scale of the outage, flights at the…

Longyearbyen, a remote Arctic settlement in Norway’s Svalbard islands, has built its reputation as one of the world’s loneliest towns around a set of highly unusual rules, from a longstanding restriction on new burials to a ban on keeping cats. Perched at the top of the world, the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen could easily be mistaken for the loneliest place on Earth. Situated at a latitude of 78 degrees on the Svalbard islands, it holds the distinction of being the world’s northernmost permanently inhabited settlement, sitting just over 1,000km from the North Pole. With polar bears and reindeer roaming freely…

New DWP figures show benefit fraudsters are costing British taxpayers £4.3 million a week by falsely claiming to live in the UK while actually residing overseas, with £226 million lost to abroad-based fraud in the year to March. Benefit fraudsters are costing taxpayers £4.3 million a week by continuing to claim fully funded British benefits while living abroad, according to new analysis. Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that £226 million was lost to fraud involving claimants living overseas in the year to March, with many falsely maintaining they still reside in Britain while in fact enjoying…

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies are appealing for the public’s help in locating nine-year-old twins Solomon and Marozhina Sukonick, who authorities say were abducted by their father, David Sukonick, near Lancaster on Thursday evening. Authorities in Los Angeles have launched an urgent search for nine-year-old twins they say were abducted by their father. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said siblings Solomon and Marozhina Sukonick have been missing since the evening of July 23, when their father, 71-year-old David Sukonick, took them from near the 1000 block of West Avenue J-8 in Lancaster, roughly 70 miles north of Los Angeles,…

A major manhunt is under way in Berlin after a vehicle was driven into crowds at the city’s Pride celebrations, leaving one person dead and 17 injured, with police identifying the fugitive suspect as 21-year-old Abdul B. and warning he may be armed and dangerous. A major police operation is under way in Berlin after a vehicle was driven into a crowd near the city’s Pride celebrations, leaving one person dead and at least 17 others injured. The nearby Pride parade was cancelled hours after it had begun. German police and prosecutors have since issued a public wanted notice identifying…

A vehicle drove into crowds gathered in Berlin’s Tiergarten park during the city’s Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations on Saturday evening, killing one person and injuring several others, as police launched a manhunt for the driver, who reportedly fled on foot. A driver has ploughed into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride celebrations, leaving one person dead and several others injured, Berlin police have confirmed. According to Bild, the incident took place in Tiergarten Park, close to the Brandenburg Gate, shortly before 10pm local time on Saturday, after hundreds of thousands of people had taken part in the day’s Christopher Street…