Author: damazah@gmail.com

“This fire, and what we’re expecting to come, makes no sense unless you connect the dots through a changing climate,” said Bob Freitag, who recently served as director of the Institute of Hazards Mitigation Research and Planning at the University of Washington. “The science is known, and this is not something that is a one-off.”According to Paul Pastelok, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, a lack of snowfall across the region helped set the stage for these fires. Normally, snowpack builds up during the winter and melts gradually through the rest of the year, providing a steady source of moisture. This…

Shortly after 10.30pm on Monday 8 June, as a summer twilight lingered over Belfast, a horrific scene unfolded on Kinnaird Avenue: a man straddled and repeatedly stabbed a figure lying on the ground in a bloody assault that ended only after onlookers intervened.Others captured the drama on cameraphones and uploaded the footage to social media. Once seen, the grainy images were hard to forget, and by dawn on Tuesday 9 June they were ricocheting around X, WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram and other platforms.Many commentators highlighted one aspect: the assailant was black, the victim white.Police had a suspect in custody – he…

It has taken almost two years to plan, including building a special temperature-controlled crate for him, and co-ordinating complex paperwork across two countries.Rhossi normally lives in the sea, but has to travel out of the water – first by helicopter from Anglesey to London, then by cargo flight to Houston, Texas, USA.It means the journey needs to be completed as quickly as possible, and staff have to be constantly on hand to make sure he does not dry out or dehydrate.Davidson said: “We have to make sure that the shell is really well lubricated, so we spread Vaseline all over…

Algeria came from behind to beat Ivory Coast 2-1 in Casablanca on Saturday and reach for the first time the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) semi-finals and the World Cup. Ines Konan put the Ivorians ahead on 29 minutes, but they were reduced to 10 players before half-time in the quarter-final when teenager N’Sira Ouedraogo was sent off. Algeria struck twice within six minutes just before and after the hour mark through substitute Ines Khiri and Amira Braham to turn the match in favour of the north Africans. Between the Algerian goals, Ivory Coast squandered a chance to regain…

Kicking off their global tour in the South Korean city of Incheon, the five members of K-pop boy band Cortis saunter onto stage in casual, streetwear-inspired outfits, exuding an effortlessly cool vibe.”Put your phone down,” one of the members bellows. Piercing screams erupt. A sea of illuminated screens flickers back.”I told you, put your phone down,” he repeats, louder this time.Some fans do just that, but the packed stadium vibrates harder with cheers as thousands of phones stay in the air.It’s hard to say how serious this theatrical command is.”Put your phone down” is also the name of Cortis’s ongoing…

In 2016 I was an Australian student on exchange in Dublin, plotting to fall in love at Trinity College before Normal People made it cool. My housemates had swiped on Jack’s Tinder profile on my behalf, and we met in October for the first time under the Spire on O’Connell Street.Jack couldn’t quite believe I had actually shown up; I was just glad he wasn’t the other lad standing there with the Peaky Blinders haircut and matching tracksuit. We went to a bookshop cafe, where Jack spilled his tea due to nerves and I waxed lyrical about the importance of…

Iran has issued tough new demands for reopening the strait of Hormuz, while the United Arab Emirates said one of its ships was targeted by an Iranian missile, as a deal to open the strategic waterway remained out of reach on Saturday.Iran’s politburo-like body known as the supreme national security council said the strait of Hormuz will not open until the United States “corrects its behaviour”, with its state broadcaster publishing a statement from the council’s secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who is also a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC.The US must never threaten Iran again, the statement…

As August begins, Canada’s wildfire crisis has shifted increasingly westward, where spreading flames have triggered evacuations and a provincial state of emergency in British Columbia weeks after smoke from Ontario fires choked cities to the south.An explosive wildfire forced the evacuation of roughly 20,000 people from several Okanagan Lake communities on Saturday. The Bald Range fire was discovered around 5:30 p.m. Pacific time on Friday, about 10 miles northwest of Summerland, burning just 20 acres. Four hours later it had erupted to nearly 12,400 acres, said Erick Thompson, spokesman for the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen emergency operations. The fire is…

Bennett Oghifo  Carloha Nigeria, the authorized distributor of Chery vehicles in Nigeria, has celebrated another landmark achievement by Chery Automobile as the global automotive brand continues its remarkable ascent on the world stage. Following Chery’s historic achievement of surpassing 20 million cumulative global vehicle sales, the company has now reached another significant milestone by entering the Top 10 Global Automakers by Sales for the first time. According to Chery Automobile Executive Vice President, Li Xueyong, Chery now ranks ninth globally with a 4.1% market share, tying with Ford, while becoming one of the three Chinese automakers to feature in the…

The first images of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage impact on the moon’s surface have emerged.The Korea Aerospace Research Institute shared the first photographs captured by its lunar orbiter. South Korea is one of the few nations that currently has satellites traveling around the moon at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the surface. The Danuri orbiter flew over the region shortly after the impact.KARI explained on its X account that it photographed the collision site both before and after the event. The images show signs of a recent impact, which astronomers projected would likely create a…