Inquirer.com – Zurich DR

Category: News

  • Trump says he is nominating former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer as ICE director

    NEW YORK — President Donald Trump on Saturday said he is nominating Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper, as the next director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    Trump said on his Truth Social platform that his new pick for the immigration enforcement agency is a former U.S. Marine and a “PATRIOT with real operational experience.” He called Schroyer a ”proven leader with DECADES of experience locking up the worst of the worst.”

    Schroyer hails from the same home state as the new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former congressman. Earlier this month, Mullin brought Schroyer onstage at a National Sheriffs’ Association event, calling him a “good friend of mine” and noting DHS had recently hired him.

    On Saturday, Mullin quickly praised Schroyer in a statement highlighting the former trooper’s 29-year career and his work with federal and state partners on a U.S. immigration enforcement program.

    “President Trump made a great pick, and I’m confident Lance’s strong leadership and firsthand experience will empower the men and women of ICE to deport criminal illegal aliens, secure the homeland, and protect the American people,” Mullin said.

    If confirmed, Schroyer will lead ICE at a time when the public mood has soured on Trump’s immigration crackdown, which sent surges of federal immigration officers into American cities to round up immigrants. Those raids sent tensions soaring and prompted clashes between protesters and law enforcement, leading to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.

    Trump returned to the White House on a promise of mass deportations, and ICE has been a central executor of that vision. The agency is undergoing massive growth from a one-time injection of $75 billion last year, which has allowed for the hiring of 12,000 officers and increased detention capacity.

    Mullin, who started in his role in March, has promised to keep his department out of the headlines and has indicated a softer tone on immigration, although he is expected to align with the president’s priorities on mass deportations.

    Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former senior ICE official, said prior confirmed ICE directors have often been attorneys, though some state and local law enforcement officials have also been nominated. She said Schroyer’s background in Oklahoma suggests Mullin likely had influence over the pick.

    “I think probably given the attention on ICE, he wants to feel like he has somebody he can trust in there,” she said in an interview.

    John Torres, another senior ICE official, said Schroyer faces an uphill climb toward Senate confirmation but his experience being at the state and local level instead of the federal level might help.

    “He won’t have any of that baggage, where they’re going to turn around and say, oh, well, he worked for this administration or that,” Torres said.

    Schroyer’s nomination comes after former ICE director Todd Lyons resigned at the end of May. David Venturella, a former executive at a private prison operator, has been serving as the acting head of the agency. Venturella is expected to stay on as the acting director until Schroyer is Senate confirmed, according to a DHS official speaking on condition of anonymity.

    ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama administration, a result of polarizing politics around the agency and immigration policy.

  • NASA races to save Swift telescope from falling back to Earth with daring rescue mission

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA is racing to save an aging telescope from falling back to Earth with a daring rescue mission.

    The $30 million salvage operation gets underway as soon as this week with the planned launch of a robotic lifesaver.

    NASA hired startup Katalyst Space Technologies to boost the Swift Observatory to a higher orbit where it can continue hunting for some of the universe’s biggest explosions. A three-armed spacecraft built by Katalyst will chase after Swift once it takes off from an atoll in the Pacific’s Marshall Islands aboard an airplane-launched Pegasus rocket. Liftoff could occur as early as Tuesday.

    Scanning the cosmos since its launch in 2004, Swift has been sinking faster and faster because of recent intense solar activity. It needs to get to a higher, more stable orbit as soon as possible to survive.

    NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope — also at risk — could be next.

    Like Swift, Hubble is losing altitude as the sun erupts with one flare after another. Katalyst Space CEO Ghonhee Lee said his company’s next-generation robot, still in development, could save the day for the much bigger Hubble in a couple years.

    Only China has attempted a mission like the upcoming one, successfully boosting a satellite into a higher graveyard orbit four years ago.

    “This is the first American space robot to go up and do anything like this,” Lee told the Associated Press. “NASA has all these big senior observatories … all of them can benefit from a service like this. So what we’re proving with this mission is this is a new play in the playbook that’s available.”

    It will take Katalyst’s autonomous spacecraft, named Link, about a month to rendezvous with Swift and catch it, and another couple of months to raise its orbit from the current 224 miles to the desired 373 miles.

    The 1.6-ton gamma ray observatory must be above 185 miles for the rescue to work. It’s expected to reach that point of no return in October, according to the latest estimates.

    Roughly the size of a small kitchen refrigerator with a 40-foot solar wingspan, Link sports three arms with a reach of just over 3 feet. Each arm has two fingerlike pinching grippers that resemble the hands of a Lego mini figure.

    If all goes well, Swift could be back in business by September, according to Lee.

    Worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Swift was never designed to be repaired, let alone retrieved by hands — human or otherwise. That’s what makes this so challenging, according to company officials, who stress there is no guarantee it will work.

    NASA signed a contract with Katalyst last September with only two requests: It has to be a rush job, but please don’t make things worse. Nine months later, the company is ready to rumble.

    “I have to be honest. No one thought it was going to be possible. No one thought we would get as far as we’ve already gotten today,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA’s astrophysics director.

    NASA has bought a little more time for Swift, turning off all scientific instruments to slow its descent. Observations ceased in February.

    NASA’s science mission chief Nicky Fox said it’s worth the effort.

    “If we let Swift reenter, we would lose that telescope. We would lose a lot of capability,” she said. “We don’t currently have the budget to build another one to replace that.”

    While not everything can be saved in space, Swift is special, said Domagal-Goldman.

    True to its name, Swift is designed to pivot quickly to capture late-breaking astronomical events such as gamma ray bursts and exploding stars. With more discoveries expected by the Webb Space Telescope and soon-to-launch Roman Space Telescope, Swift, if saved, would be busier than ever as “NASA’s first responder.”

    Katalyst sees Swift as the jumping-off point for a new repair business in space. The company’s next-generation robotic rescuer, scheduled to fly next year, will tackle satellites as high as 22,300 miles up. Lee envisions hundreds of robots in orbit one day, not only fixing and hoisting satellites but also refueling them and building solar farms, data centers, and other platforms.

    Hubble, which is 36 years old and received repeat servicing by spacewalking astronauts during the shuttle era, could follow in 2028 with a life-extending Katalyst boost.

    “It’s a national treasure,” Fox said. “People love Hubble.”

  • No, Pope Leo XIV wasn’t at a ’70s Villanova University fraternity party in this viral photo

    No, Pope Leo XIV wasn’t at a ’70s Villanova University fraternity party in this viral photo

    Did Pope Leo XIV actually go to a Villanova University fraternity party?

    That’s what one user on X purported when he posted an aged photo of the leader of the Catholic Church standing with a group of young men — one wearing a Villanova T-shirt and holding a small dog — in front of a brick bungalow. “The future Pope Leo XIV at a Villanova frat party in 1976,” the caption read.

    The tweet had 1.4 million views and more than 15,000 likes as of Sunday.

    But internet sleuths were suspicious:

    “Not one of them is holding even a beer. That’s one tame frat party,” one of nearly 150 comments read.

    “Doesn’t this look more like a step ranch in/near Chicago than anything on the Main Line?” another user smartly deduced.

    The photo was actually taken at a fellow Wildcat’s house on the South Side of Chicago, where the pontiff is from, according to a classmate who has a copy. The classmate, who declined to be named for privacy reasons, assured The Inquirer it was not a frat party and dated the photo to the mid-’70s.

    Pope Leo graduated from Villanova in 1977. He’s the first U.S.-born pope, which presumably could also mean he’s the first to brush up against Greek life, but Villanova does not have fraternity and sorority housing. The Holy See, the Vatican’s governing body, did not immediately respond to an email seeking more information about the photo.

    Inside Villanova in the 1970s, when the future Pope Leo XIV arrived on campus

    Still, people were intrigued by the idea of the Pope at a party:

    “It’s important to me that the pope has been to a frat party even if it was a daytime frat party of eight,” one user wrote.

    Another said, “Learning your frat bro is now the pope. That’s like something from the epilogue of Animal House.”

    Pope Leo XIV had a message for Villanova’s Class of 2026

  • Venezuela government accused of politicizing earthquake relief

    The Venezuelan opposition party led by exiled former legislator and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado mobilized volunteers throughout the nation last week to collect donations for homeless earthquake survivors, but it encountered an unexpected obstacle: the National Police.

    On Thursday, Heidy Loicett, a leader of the opposition party, Vente, stood under a blue tarp on a sidewalk in Portuguesa, a state some 275 miles from the disaster zone, as people came by with a variety of items such as diapers, bottled water, and used clothing. The police came by, too, she said.

    Several Venezuelan National Police officers and officials from the federal Civil Protection agency tried to shut down the charity drive, she explained in a telephone interview after the encounter, adding that she was told that all donations had to be channeled through the federal government.

    “They said we couldn’t have a donation center, that the only authorized donation drop-off center was Civil Protection and the government,” Loicett said. “That was political persecution.”

    The clash over who gets to take credit for the humanitarian relief effort for the earthquake-shattered nation highlights a much larger, high-stakes battle for political survival in a fractured Venezuela.

    Last week Venezuela suffered two devastating earthquakes that killed more than 1,400 people, just six months after the U.S. military raided the country and seized the country’s former leader, Nicolás Maduro. Critics say they fear that Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, will politicize the tragedy, using the disaster response to establish her legitimacy at a critical inflection point.

    Rodríguez’s government, which did not respond to requests for comment, has said the authorities are trying to impose order and keep areas and roads hit by the earthquakes clear so relief convoys and emergency responders can do their work unimpeded.

    It is also a general rule of politics that opposition figures are quick to highlight any failures of the governing party.

    Rodríguez had been vice president before the United States captured Maduro and said it was going to run the country, elevating her to the top job. Her tenure depends on the Trump administration’s approval, and her management of this crisis is also a key moment for President Donald Trump.

    White House officials have said the alliance with Rodríguez was meant to stabilize Venezuela and help revive its battered economy. The disaster is likely to put that relationship to a severe test.

    Experts say that tightening control over aid and stifling the opposition’s grassroots relief efforts is a page out of a decades-old authoritarian playbook. Rodríguez, they say, is gambling that international crisis management can mask the state’s internal decay and secure her hold on power.

    That strategy was on full display in a widely circulated video in which a police officer appears to tell volunteers where the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the ruling government party, had authorized donation drop-offs. Donation centers set up by the opposition in other cities were told that they could not display signs reading “Donation Center,” because those words could be used only by the government’s authorized drop-off sites, political activists said.

    “They told us we could not use the words ‘donation center,’ like if they had trademarked those words,” said María Oropeza, a Vente party official. “It is inevitable that they will try to use this tragedy at their favor to stay in power.”

    Party officials said police backed off after crowds started gathering and taking videos. The volunteers took down the offending signs, and the drive continued.

    Volunteers from the opposition planned to try to make deliveries to the earthquake zone over the weekend, but the authorities announced that civilians without authorization would be prohibited from entering La Guaira, the hardest-hit coastal area.

    Government officials said the rush of volunteers in the disaster zone was blocking traffic, which was critical for the movement of heavy machinery.

    “Those who do not have rescue or security duties in La Guaira state should please refrain from traveling there, as you are obstructing the movement of personnel needed for our military, police, Civil Protection, firefighters, and rescue workers to reach the disaster zone,” Rodríguez said. “These are critical hours.”

    She called for unity in the time of crisis, and has welcomed a number of international search and rescue delegations, including from the right-wing governments of El Salvador and Argentina.

    Rodríguez’s decision to accept help from political adversaries underscored a delicate balance of projecting an image of effective disaster management while scoring political points before potential elections, said Pablo Quintero, a political consultant, who said he works mostly with the opposition in Venezuela.

    “In the face of catastrophes, governments act based on political interests,” he said. “In this case, the Chavista government is acting to gain greater prominence, to demonstrate its management capacity to the international community, and in some way to send a message to the population that they have managed to unify the country.”

    But Machado is acting in her own interests too, he said.

    “María Corina Machado has a political agenda,” he said. “And the objective reality is that her media operatives are running a campaign to demonstrate the government’s incompetence.”

    Machado was said to be trying to go back to Venezuela, which frustrated some U.S. officials, who considered a return in the wake of an emergency to be a “political stunt,” the New York Times reported Saturday.

    A spokesperson for Machado said she was not available for comment.

    Rodríguez, as Maduro’s vice president in charge of the economy, was part of a repressive government that stole a presidential election in 2024.

    After the U.S. raid in January that removed Maduro but allowed Rodríguez to stay on as interim leader, the Trump administration said Venezuela would eventually move toward elections and a restoration of democracy. The disaster engulfing Venezuela could delay such a transition, experts said.

    “It’s hard to imagine that Delcy won’t use the earthquakes to delay discussions of a democratic transition; some of that is certainly legitimate in the face of such an overwhelming humanitarian emergency,” said Cynthia Arnson, an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

    But it may not work out as she hopes, Arnson said.

    “The political effects of natural disasters are often severe,” she said. “Weeks or a few short months after the immediate emergency, the quakes are likely to magnify the incapacity of the government to meet basic needs, let alone undertake any kind of reconstruction.”

    Widespread corruption of international aid sent after a 1972 earthquake in Nicaragua was among the events that led to the unraveling of a dictatorship led by Anastasio Somoza Debayle. An earthquake in Mexico City in 1985 helped lead to the end of one-party rule there more than a decade later.

    Benigno Alarcón, the former director of the Center of Government and Political Studies at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, said there was “no doubt” that Rodríguez would try to capitalize on the catastrophe — and she would not be the first.

    He said many Venezuelans still recall the 1999 mudslides that occurred in the quake zone — including La Guaira — when the ruling party’s former leader, Hugo Chávez, refused to accept humanitarian assistance from the U.S. military.

    “Remember that these are not new people in power,” he said. “These people in the government have been in government for a long time.”

    Rodríguez and Machado would hardly be the first to politicize natural disaster recovery, said Brian Naranjo, a former top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela. He cited the words of the liberator, Simon Bolivar, amid the political machinations following a catastrophic earthquake in 1812 in Venezuela.

    “If nature opposes us,” Bolívar said, “we shall fight nature and make it obey.”

  • With time running out, Trump digs in on changing midterm election rules

    With time running out, Trump digs in on changing midterm election rules

    President Donald Trump’s efforts to alter how elections are run faced an avalanche of setbacks last week, as Republican senators rebuffed him and court after court hindered his administration’s plans to, as one judge put it, undercut “the sacred right to vote.”

    The pushback has infuriated the president, who has ramped up his threats and demands as he openly grows increasingly worried about the investigations and impeachment that could come if Democrats win control of Congress.

    But with the general elections just four months away, Trump is racing the clock as states make final preparations for early voting.

    The urgent push to change election rules by several arms of the federal government has created a volatile sea of shifting and contested election policies, many of which are before the courts. The climate of uncertainty is creating headaches for election officials and risks confusing voters, reanimating conspiracy theories about rigged elections, and spurring postelection disputes.

    “The administration is doing as much as possible to inject chaos into the election cycle,” said Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, a voting rights organization that has sued the administration over election policies. “A top priority for this administration is to try to interfere in this election.”

    Trump has issued executive orders on voting rules and cheered on Justice Department investigations of past elections. He’s pressed Republicans in Congress to require Americans to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote. He’s called for sharply curbing mail voting and urged ending the use of voting machines.

    He has been hampered not only by judges and reluctant GOP senators, but also a portion of the Constitution that gives states — not the federal government — primary authority over elections.

    “We can never let elections get rigged again,” Trump told supporters Tuesday during a stop in Macungie, Pa.

    Courts are ruling against Trump

    Courts dealt Trump five adverse rulings last week, the first coming on Monday when a judge barred using a federal immigration database to determine voter eligibility. U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan determined the use of the Department of Homeland Security database violates federal privacy laws and was responsible for revoking the voter registrations of some citizens who were wrongly listed as noncitizens.

    “The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” she wrote. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

    James Percival, the general counsel at DHS, expressed frustration with the ruling. “It’s amazing how hard the Left will fight to stop us from solving problems they insist do not exist,” he wrote on social media, responding to critics who emphasize the dearth of evidence of noncitizens voting in large numbers.

    Trump ordered the creation of the database last year in an executive order that also sought to require voters to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote. The provision on voter registration has been blocked by other judges, including one who issued a decision on Wednesday.

    Frustrated by the rulings, Trump has spent months demanding that the Senate pass a law requiring Americans to submit documents proving their citizenship to register to vote and show identification to cast a ballot. The measure remains stalled because GOP senators have declined to lift long-standing filibuster rules that would allow them to pass it with a simple majority.

    Trump on Wednesday put new pressure on the Senate by canceling the signing of a bipartisan housing bill until it acts on the election legislation. Hours later, he urged Senate Republicans to pass the voting measure in a closed-door meeting.

    “President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered noncitizen voters,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said.

    DHS last week sought to prod states to go along with Trump’s plans by threatening to withhold federal funding from states if they don’t perform citizen checks on voters and agree to phase out some types of electronic voting systems.

    Checking citizenship records, frequently updating voter rolls, and tightening ballot deadlines would “enhance public trust in outcomes,” said Jason Snead, executive director of the conservative Honest Elections Project.

    Trump is trying to achieve those goals with powers he doesn’t have, said Dax Goldstein, senior counsel at the nonprofit States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan group that assists state election officials.

    “It is all part of this overall effort to take power away from the states that they have constitutionally and aggrandize it to the administration so that the president can interfere in the way that elections are run,” Goldstein said.

    Elections under a microscope

    Amid the efforts to alter voting procedures, federal prosecutors have been investigating elections, often with Trump urging them along.

    Trump last week said he recently asked a federal prosecutor to “take a look” at California’s primary for governor, calling into question the state’s slow method of counting ballots. Separately, the FBI has seized 2020 ballots in Georgia, obtained images of 2020 ballots in Arizona, and questioned current and former election officials in Wisconsin about the 2020 election. The Justice Department has unsuccessfully sought 2024 ballots in Michigan, and the FBI recently raided the offices of a progressive group in Ohio that focuses on voter registration.

    Trump has argued repeatedly and falsely that the 2020 election was stolen from him, despite ample evidence that Joe Biden won fairly.

    Rattled by the investigations and worried the administration could interfere with voting, Senate Democrats said they would send election observers to the polls this fall. “We’re not waiting for the chaos to arrive,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.). “We’re preparing now.”

    In March, Trump tried another tack by issuing an executive order that seeks to limit who can receive mail ballots. Postmaster General David Steiner told senators last week that proposed rules prompted by the order would bar mail ballots from being sent in states that don’t turn over voter information.

    But a judge put a stop to Trump’s plans on Thursday, saying the administration doesn’t have authority to impose such sweeping changes. The White House said it will appeal, and election officials said if the measure goes into effect it could impede voting, particularly in states such as Colorado that conduct almost all voting by mail.

    “Now is not the time for an experiment with people’s fundamental right to vote,” said Amanda Gonzalez (D), the county clerk in Colorado’s Jefferson County and a candidate for secretary of state.

    Time running out to adopt changes

    Election officials have little time to adjust to any new voting policies because they must start sending mail ballots for the general election to military and overseas voters by mid-September. Significant changes to rules would require them to retrain workers, buy supplies, redesign ballot envelopes, and modify their voting procedures.

    “Trump is sowing seeds of confusion into our election system,” said Rebekah Caruthers, chief executive of the Fair Elections Center, a nonprofit group focused on voting rights. “It’s confusing to young people, especially college students, who oftentimes are voting for the very first time.”

    The fight over how elections are run is particularly acute in the swing state of North Carolina, where Republicans last year took over elections boards after GOP lawmakers put a Republican official in charge of making appointments. Republicans on county election boards have sought to eliminate early voting sites or move them to more conservative areas. The GOP-controlled state elections board will have the final say on determining the location of many early voting sites.

    Supreme Court may shorten mail deadlines

    Other attempts to change the mechanics of elections have failed. The Justice Department has sued 30 states to get copies of their voter rolls but has lost each of the nine cases and one appeal that have been ruled on.

    Trump’s allies are hoping to secure a victory before the Supreme Court soon in a case that could tighten deadlines for mail ballots. Republicans want to make sure mail ballots are counted only if they are in the hands of election officials by Election Day.

    Fourteen states and D.C. allow mail ballots to be counted if they arrive after Election Day as long as they’re postmarked on time, and another 16 states allow late returns for military and overseas voters. New deadlines would prompt states to engage in costly campaigns to alert millions of voters that they’ll need to return their ballots sooner — especially amid concerns about mail delays.

    Other cases are just getting started. The Republican National Committee this month sued Nebraska and Colorado officials to prevent some citizens living out of the country — including adult children of citizens who have never lived in the U.S. — from casting ballots.

    Many Democrats see the attempts to make last-minute changes to election laws as voter suppression.

    “Less access has always been something historically that has endangered more people than helped anyone,” visual artist Nadya Yaksich, 30, said after voting in the Democratic primary at a high school in Wheaton, Md., last week.

    But book cataloger Carola Lewis, 62, said after voting in the Republican primary at the same school that she would have more confidence in election results if all voters were required to show IDs and prove that they are citizens.

    “As a citizen, I abide by the law, I pay my taxes, I do what I’m supposed to do, I go out and vote,” Lewis said. “And then to not be 100% confident that it’s only Americans that are voting is actually terrifying to me.”

  • 3 firefighters killed, 2 injured while tackling wildfires on the Colorado-Utah border

    BEAVER, Utah — Three firefighters were killed and two sustained burn injuries when they were overcome by flames from fast-moving wildfires in hot, windy conditions near the Colorado-Utah border.

    The firefighters deployed emergency shelters during the burnover incident on Saturday in Mesa County, Colo., the U.S. Interior Department said.

    They worked for the U.S. Wildland Fire Service and U.S. Forest Service and were part of an interagency response to the Knowles and Gore fires, which merged with other fires to form the Snyder Fire. So far, about 44 square miles have burned.

    Temperatures in Grand Junction hit a high of 93 degrees Fahrenheit, with winds gusting to 44 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

    The U.S. Wildland Fire Service, created earlier this year to streamline firefighting and fire reduction across public lands, said in a statement that it “stands united” with the Forest Service in grief and “in our unwavering support for the loved ones left behind.”

    “Their bravery, dedication, and sacrifice will never be forgotten,” the statement said.

    The names of the firefighters who perished were being withheld pending notifications to their loved ones, the Interior Department said.

    The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office was asking people to evacuate the potential path of the fire and to turn on irrigation water to saturate the land. The federal Bureau of Land Management closed public access to lands it manages nearby.

    “Firefighter and public safety are the highest priority,” the agency said in a statement. “The temporary closing of the lands is to reduce exposure to hazardous situations due to the rapid rates of spread and fire behavior that the fire has exhibited. The public is to remain clear of these closed lands.”

    Hot, dry, and windy conditions

    Wildfire activity has intensified across the western United States, as consecutive days of hot, dry, and windy weather have fueled flames in Utah, Arizona, and elsewhere as new fires popped up across the region.

    The largest blaze, the Cottonwood Fire, was burning in rugged terrain in southwest Utah. It ballooned Saturday to more than 144 square miles after marching through canyons and mountainsides, destroying part of a ski resort and other summer cabins along the way.

    Authorities in Beaver County began working with fire teams on Saturday to assess the extent of the damage, but no estimates were immediately available. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox in a post on social media called it bleak, but he thanked crews for what he called “several miraculous stops and saves.”

    The cliffs and steep slopes have made the job even harder, said Alyssa Mason, a spokesperson assigned to the fire.

    “It’s hard to get dozers and other heavy equipment into that. It’s hard to get engines into that,” she said. “It doesn’t make it impossible to firefight, but it does just kind of slow things down.”

    Hundreds of firefighters have been arriving in the arid state to battle new starts as well as those that have been growing because of what forecasters called critical fire weather — dangerously low humidity levels, warm temperatures, and gusty winds.

    The danger is even higher this year because of Utah’s record-low snowpack and its warmest winter on record. Much of the West is grappling with similar conditions, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

    Nationally, nearly 3 million acres have burned since the start of the year. That is more than the 10-year average.

    Emergencies declared in Utah and Colorado

    The conditions in Utah were critical enough for Cox to declare an emergency earlier this week and clear the way for the state to ban fireworks ahead of the July Fourth holiday. The order comes as Utah is experiencing one of the most severe wildfire seasons in recent history, fueled by historic drought conditions.

    State officials said that over the past week, Utah has seen an increase in wildfire starts, with each fire showing unprecedented behavior. These starts have stretched the state’s wildland firefighting capabilities, State Forester Jamie Barnes said.

    Colorado Gov. Jared Polis also declared an emergency on Saturday, and authorized the use of the National Guard to tackle the fires.

    Forecasters with the National Weather Service over recent days have been issuing red flag warnings for a wide swath of the West, from California to Arizona and New Mexico.

    South of Grand Canyon National Park, authorities said the flames of a new wildfire were moving away from Grand Canyon Village and the nearby community of Tusayan on Saturday. But about 50 miles away, another fire prompted Coconino County officials to issue evacuation orders for those near Kendrick Mountain.

    Parts of northern Arizona were without power Saturday as the utility serving the area initiated a safety shut-off in hopes of lessening the wildfire risk.

    Power shutoffs have become more common in the West as wildfire risk has expanded. It is usually a last resort after utility forecasters weigh factors like sustained wind and gust speeds, available fuels, and topography.

    With extreme fire conditions persisting in Utah, Rocky Mountain Power also shut off power lines serving Beaver County and other areas.

  • France records around 1,000 additional deaths as extreme heat breaks European records

    BERLIN — France saw around 1,000 additional deaths last week at the height of its record-smashing heat wave, the country’s public health agency said Sunday, as the head of the World Health Organization warned that Europe is now the fastest-warming continent and needs to do more to protect its citizens.

    Temperature records were toppled in several countries on the weekend, wildfires were sparked in Germany, and Berlin police used water cannons to cool down the crowds.

    Meanwhile, the heat wave slowly moved toward eastern parts of the continent.

    Germany marked a new record for the third day in a row with 107 degrees Fahrenheit in Neißemünde, near the border with Poland, which baked under its new all-time high of 104.9 F. The Czech Republic also experienced its hottest day ever with 106.4 F.

    A new study from the World Weather Attribution, a Europe-based collaboration of scientists, reported Friday that the record-breaking heat and humidity in Europe this past week would not have been possible without climate change.

    The rapid study found that the heat would have been virtually impossible just five decades ago, and is 200 times more likely today than it would have been 20 years ago.

    France records surge in deaths during heat wave

    France reported a surge in deaths last week, including a sharp increase at private homes, especially in the Paris region, the national public health agency said Sunday.

    There were more than 1,200 deaths on Wednesday, when France was sweltering under its hottest temperatures, increasing to more than 1,400 deaths on each of the two following days, Public Health France said. In April and May, before the heat wave, France’s rate of deaths was about 900 to 1,000 per day.

    The agency concluded that France experienced a total of at least 1,000 additional deaths during those three days alone, an estimate it cautioned is likely to increase as more data is collected, including for deaths at home.

    The increase was sharpest in areas under red warnings of extreme heat, it said. Those warnings blanketed about three-quarters of the country at the peak of the heat wave. The agency said that 85% of the deaths involved people aged 65 and above.

    Europe is fastest-warming continent, WHO warns

    “Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at twice the global average,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday on X. “Right now 150 million people are living under extreme heat, hundreds have died, schools are shut, grids are buckling.”

    Driven by climate change and global warming, the “once-in-a-generation” heat wave is now occurring nearly every year, Tedros said, adding that more than 1,300 excess deaths have been recorded since June 21 linked to high temperatures in Europe.

    “Heat stress is often called the ‘silent killer’ — and European homes, workplaces, and schools were not built for these temperatures,” Tedros warned as he called on European countries to implement action plans. He said they should focus on preparedness, prevention, and stronger health system responses.

    Lightning strikes Swedish theme park

    In Sweden, several people were injured when they were hit by lightning at an amusement park, the country’s TT news agency reported.

    Three adults were taken to the hospital, among them a woman with serious injuries, after the lightning struck the Tosselilla Sommarland park in Tomelilla in the south of the country.

    Across Europe, the extreme heat has been followed by severe thunderstorms.

    Denmark, which marked new temperature records on Saturday, recorded 1,156 lighting strikes by Sunday morning, according to public broadcaster DR.

    Wildfires burn forests contaminated with WWII ammunition

    In Gohrischheide, in eastern Germany, a fire broke out in a large forest that’s still contaminated with ammunition from World War II, which made the firefighters’ efforts even more complicated.

    Similarly, a major firefighting operation was underway in southwest Germany near the village of Traisen, where the heat sparked a forest fire in an area that also contained unexploded ordnance. Firefighters had to be temporarily stop after explosions took place and an ordnance disposal unit was brought in to continuously assess the situation, German news agency dpa reported. Some 650 people in Traisen had to leave their homes Sunday afternoon because the fire continued to spread.

    The big cities’ fire departments were busy sending out ambulances to people suffering from heat-related illnesses. In Berlin, an additional 500 ambulance dispatches were reported on Saturday, most of them heat-related.

    Berlin police use water cannons to cool down locals. tourists

    The German capital’s police found a way to help suffering Berliners and tourists alike. They put up two huge water cannons — usually used to disperse unruly protesters — in front of the city’s iconic Brandenburg Gate and sprayed the cool water across the cheering crowd.

    The heat also continued to damage the country’s infrastructure, with the concrete surface on countless highways breaking up, and a weekend warning by national rail operator Deutsche Bahn to avoid all unnecessary train travel.

    More than 600 passengers had to be evacuated from an overheated train in Brandenburg after a tree fell onto an overhead power line during a storm on Saturday evening. The train, which was on its way from Hamburg to Prague, lost power. The air conditioners stopped working and the doors were locked until emergency responders forced them open. Two people were hospitalized with heat-related problems, dpa reported.

    In the eastern city of Leipzig, no trams will be running until early Monday morning due to heat damage to tracks and switches. The Leipzig Public Transportation Authority said that the high temperatures had caused the joint sealant for asphalt and concrete in switches and tracks to run and clump together in many places throughout the city’s network.

  • Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following U.S. strikes and threatens to halt talks

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran again launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to new U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” in negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks.

    Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without Iran’s direct oversight sparked the days of crossfire and have imperiled the talks for a lasting ceasefire. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday it would expand a route near Oman for inbound and outbound traffic, setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran.

    The global community has long considered the strait an international passageway, despite its location in Iran and Oman’s territorial waters. In recent days, Iran has twice attacked vessels going through a route on the Omani side in an evacuation effort backed by a United Nations agency.

    Iran insists that it alone must govern the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated the claim on Sunday.

    “Any attempt to establish new or separate arrangements from those currently being carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran will only lead to further complications, delay the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and increase the level of tension,” Araghchi said.

    The United States and Iran have been debating the terms of an interim deal, including shipping arrangements on the strait, the removal of a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and sanctions on Iran, and the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Under the memorandum of understanding signed this month, they have 60 days to iron out details.

    The interim deal is meant to end fighting on all fronts before certain key issues can be discussed. Continued fighting in Lebanon, where an Israeli soldier was killed by Hezbollah fire early Sunday, also threatens the agreement.

    Strikes target Gulf states hosting U.S. military

    Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed responsibility for the attacks in Bahrain and Kuwait.

    Kuwait’s military said air defenses intercepted Iranian drones and missiles just after the U.S. strikes in Iran. Kuwait, which hosts a major U.S. military base, said it intercepted two ballistic missiles. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

    Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said the Iranian strikes damaged a residential building near the international airport but no one was killed. The ministry released photos of an eight-story building, its top floor destroyed and windows blown out.

    Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, whose base came under repeated attack during the war. The damaged building was not near the fleet’s headquarters.

    Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry denounced what it called “a dangerous escalation that reveals that what Tehran is doing is not a passing act, nor an isolated incident, but rather a deliberate approach and a systematic pattern of repeated aggression.”

    Trump accuses Iran of violating ceasefire with ship attack

    The U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities, and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea Saturday. The Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key mediator between Iran and the U.S.

    President Donald Trump on social media accused Iran of violating the ceasefire and warned of a point where the U.S. may no longer be reasonable “and will be forced to militarily complete the job.”

    “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” Trump wrote.

    The exchanges of fire began when an Iranian drone struck a merchant vessel off Oman on Thursday and the U.S. military retaliated with strikes.

    Ship traffic on the strait had increased over the past 72 hours, off both Iran and Oman, the multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Sunday, adding that “U.S.-assisted commercial transits continued uninterrupted despite the elevated threat environment.”

    It said 89 such transits had been made, still below the historical average of 138 vessels a day.

    Iran calls for new “conflict control unit” in Lebanon

    Last week, Israel and the Lebanese government signed a framework agreement to end the latest fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, which began two days after the Iran war began when Hezbollah fired at Israel. Israel responded with an invasion that has occupied large swaths of southern Lebanon, and it has said it will not withdraw until Hezbollah is disarmed.

    But last week’s deal did not include Iran or Hezbollah, which has criticized the deal and rejected calls to disarm.

    On Sunday, Araghchi again said the U.S. must force Israel to halt attacks and withdraw. Israel occupies around 231 square miles in southern Lebanon, which it says it needs as a security buffer.

    But sporadic clashes have continued, and Hezbollah’s leader said Saturday that the group would continue fighting until Israel withdraws from Lebanon.

    Key Iranian negotiator and parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Sunday that a new “conflict control unit” formed among Iran, the United States, and Lebanon should meet as soon as possible, Iran’s state broadcaster reported.

    The frequency of Israeli strikes in Lebanon has decreased significantly since the Iran-U. S. deal was signed, but two separate strikes hit southern Lebanon on Sunday morning — one in Taybeh town and the other in the Nabatiyeh area, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. There was no immediate word on casualties.

    Overnight, Hezbollah militants killed an Israeli soldier in Deir Siryan village in southern Lebanon, according to Israel’s military. Hezbollah did not comment.

    “We are prepared to rapidly resume offensive operations in both Lebanon and Iran if required,” said Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir.

  • A federal judge tossed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking Pennsylvania voters’ private information

    A federal judge tossed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking Pennsylvania voters’ private information

    A federal judge on Saturday dismissed a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit seeking to obtain Pennsylvania’s entire, unredacted, voter-registration database.

    President Donald Trump administration’s doesn’t have the legal authority to demand the “highly sensitive” information, wrote Cathy Bissoon, Pittsburgh’s federal court chief judge. And while the Justice Department couldn’t articulate the “basis and purpose” for its request, Bissoon said, the administration has been “say[ing] the quiet parts out loud.”

    “Public statements from government officials reveal its intentions: to create a nationwide voter-database, for potential weaponization in future elections; as a ‘fishing expedition,’ hoped to advance unsubstantiated claims of non-citizen voting; and as a tool for immigration enforcement,” the Barack Obama-appointed judge wrote.

    The Justice Department sued more than half of the states in the union for their voter-related records. Bissoon’s ruling marks the Trump administration’s 10th defeat in a district court, which the judge notes with a positive spin.

    “The administration’s demands have yielded one unexpected benefit, namely, bipartisan agreement,” Bissoon said. “Five of the district judges are Trump appointees.”

    The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    “No matter what the Trump Administration tries next, we’re going to stand up to protect Pennsylvanians’ right to privacy — and our fundamental right to vote,“ Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a post on X.

    The Trump administration sued in September after Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt refused to turn over all voter-registration data — which includes sensitive information such as Social Security numbers — from the November 2022 election through the 2024 presidential election.

    Schmidt, who previously served as the lone Republican on Philadelphia’s election board, responded to DOJ’s August request by offering to share the redacted public voter file. There is no precedent to justify turning over the unredacted information, Schmidt argued, and releasing the sensitive files would violate state law.

    “This request, and reported efforts to collect broad data on millions of Americans, represent a concerning attempt to expand the federal government’s role in our country’s electoral process,” Schmidt said in his response to the DOJ.

    The federal government sued Schmidt, invoking federal voter election law and “ironically,” according to Bissoon, the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

    “Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure — states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court,” then-Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the suit.

    The Trump administration’s push to obtain the unredacted voter rolls has alarmed multiple civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the League of Women Voters.

    Far from boosting the public’s confidence in election integrity, the request seems like an attempt to undermine it, Lauren Cristella, the president of the Committee of Seventy, a Philly-based civic engagement group, previously told the Inquirer.

    “They are insinuating that there’s something wrong,” Cristella said. “Even though there is no credible evidence.”

    Others raised privacy concerns over sharing sensitive information of millions of voters nationwide.

    The Trump administration’s argument hasn’t found much traction in federal courts throughout the country so far. Bissoon joins district judges in Arizona, California, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island, Oregon, and Wisconsin in dismissing the lawsuits, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a legal nonprofit affiliated with New York University.

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit last week rejected the Justice Department’s appeal to obtain Michigan’s voter rolls, the first federal appeals panel to do so.

    A lawsuit to obtain New Jersey’s unredacted voter rolls is ongoing.

    Bissoon opened her opinion by saying limiting the federal government’s power has been among the “bedrock principles of conservative political ideology” and quoting former President Ronald Reagan’s commitment to states’ rights.

    “That was then,” the judge said, “this is now.”

  • See what $405,000 can buy you in the Fairmount, Drexel Hill, and Camden County housing markets | The Price Point

    See what $405,000 can buy you in the Fairmount, Drexel Hill, and Camden County housing markets | The Price Point

    The Price Point compares homes listed for similar sale prices across the region to help readers set expectations about house hunting.

    According to recent Zillow data, homes with “character” — visual distinction and a sense of history — are all the rage.

    As the birthplace of the nation, the Philadelphia region has its fair share of drool-worthy older homes of all shapes, sizes, and price tags.

    In May, the median sale price for homes in the Philadelphia metropolitan area was $405,000.

    So, here are three pre-World War II homes in the Philadelphia region that about $405,000 can buy — all with ample “character.”

    A Fairmount condo with a private patio

    This second-floor condo boasts a desirable location, according to its listing agent, Jeniffer Benner with Home Sweet Home PHL.

    It’s situated on a tree-lined street in the heart of the Art Museum neighborhood, with easy walkability to Center City, the Schuylkill River Trail, and Roberto Clemente Park just a block away.

    Benner said a main draw is the property’s private rear patio, which is “tough to find in condo spaces.”

    Built in 1920 with a major remodel in 2014, the home’s living room boasts modern features and touches of the past with its traditional red brick exterior. It has nine-foot ceilings, custom shutters, hardwood floors, recessed lighting, and crown molding. The built-in entertainment center has been a favorite of prospective buyers.

    “A lot of people think that’s a really nice feature, rather than having a blank box like some of the newer construction condos,” Benner said. “They like that character.”

    There are two bedrooms and two bathrooms, with the primary suite including two closets, one a walk-in.

    Benner said the condo fee is minimal — $223 per month — because it only covers exterior maintenance and insurance for the townhouse’s three units. Compared to city condo fees that can reach upward of $1,000 a month, the cost is “very affordable.”

    The property was listed for sale in March for $420,000. The listing price has since come down to $410,000.

    A Tudor-style home in Drexel Hill

    This Tudor-style home in Drexel Hill has an old-fashioned feel, as most of the neighborhood’s homes were built between 1925 and 1934, said listing agent Jason Cox with Long & Foster Real Estate.

    “This is a throwback, and that’s one of the reasons people love it,” said Cox.

    Two columns frame the property’s double-entry doors, which Cox said is an imprint of historical Drexel Hill homes. The kitchen’s mullioned glass-front cabinets and the bathroom’s checkered-tile accents further the home’s traditional aesthetic.

    The front yard is shaded by a willow tree, and the backyard is spacious enough for a garden, play set, pool, or all of the above.

    The three-story home has one full bathroom and five bedrooms — rare for its listing price. There are three larger bedrooms on the second floor, in addition to a smaller room that could double as an office, and a finished attic with skylights on the third floor.

    The living room has a traditional brick fireplace, and the dining room features access to a deck that is a prime location for outdoor grilling. Recently repainted and carpeted, the home is move-in ready.

    Cox, who lives a block away from the property, “can’t say enough about the neighborhood.” Ideal for families, the home is walking distance from the local elementary and middle schools, and is a five-minute drive from Upper Darby High School. In the neighborhood, some families have stayed for two or three generations.

    The property was listed for sale in May for $400,000.

    A complete renovation in Magnolia, Camden County

    Sitting on more than a half-acre, this home’s standout feature is its expansive backyard. About three years ago, the homeowners installed a patio and a gazebo with a mounted TV, transforming the empty space.

    “It makes the outside feel like the inside, and it can be screened in,” said listing agent Aaron Wallace with KW Main Street. “It’s the best thing about this property.”

    The four-bedroom, two-bath property was built in 1911 but underwent a major renovation in 2020. The contractor did everything “soup to nuts,” Wallace said, including the roof, windows, both bathrooms, and kitchen. “They left no stone unturned with this renovation.”

    The bright and airy ground floor includes the mudroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, and full bathroom. Going up a level, there are three bedrooms and the second full bathroom. On the third floor, there’s a generously-sized carpeted room that can be utilized as a bedroom, office, or an alternative living space.

    Another highlight is the living room’s fireplace, which is framed by a wooden chevron accent wall and serves as a focal point in the house.

    Magnolia’s pre-K-8 school is within walking distance from the home, and there is a baseball field behind the house that hosts local games. Wallace said the homeowners enjoy watching games from their gazebo.

    “It has a great small-town feel, and the big city is not too far away,” said Wallace.

    The property was listed for sale in June for $400,000.