Inquirer.com – Zurich DR

Blog

  • Glenside man charged with attempted murder for running over a 24-year-old he believed stole a bike, prosecutors say

    Glenside man charged with attempted murder for running over a 24-year-old he believed stole a bike, prosecutors say

    A Glenside man intentionally drove his Jeep into a cyclist, Montgomery County prosecutors said Monday, throwing the victim 90 feet and leaving him in critical condition with a serious head injury.

    Phillip Prince, 40, has been charged with attempted murder and related crimes in the crash, which took place Sunday evening on Meyer Avenue.

    It was not clear if Prince had hired an attorney.

    Investigators said Prince crashed into Colin Cassidy, 24, as Cassidy and a group of teens were riding bikes through Glenside. Multiple witnesses said Prince intentionally sped up “full throttle,” drove onto a sidewalk, and crashed into Cassidy just before 8:30 p.m., according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.

    Prince told one of those witnesses that he was chasing Cassidy because he believed Cassidy had stolen the BMX bike Cassidy was seen riding through Glenside, the affidavit said.

    One of the teens who was with Cassidy on Sunday told police Cassidy had been riding a scooter before briefly disappearing and returning with the bicycle, according to the affidavit.

    Not long after, Prince drove up to the group in a Jeep Cherokee, attempted to grab Cassidy, and began chasing them.

    After the crash, as Prince went over to the unresponsive Cassidy, the teen turned off the Jeep and took the keys out of the vehicle so Prince would not drive away, the affidavit said.

    Prince and teen got into a brief fight, during which Prince punched the teen in the mouth, police said.

    Prince was still at the scene when Abington Township police arrived and took him into custody.

    Cassidy was taken to Jefferson Abington Hospital, where he underwent surgery for severe head trauma. He remained there Monday in critical condition, according to investigators.

  • People killed in Bangkok music bar fire were found trapped in windowless bathrooms

    People killed in Bangkok music bar fire were found trapped in windowless bathrooms

    BANGKOK — Most of the people who were killed in a huge fire in a Bangkok music bar were found trapped in windowless bathrooms where they may have sought to escape the flames that claimed at least 27 lives, authorities said Monday as investigations began.

    The blaze at the Rong Beer Na Ladprao bar was the city’s deadliest in 17 years. It broke out late Sunday in a northern part of the Thai capital, and firefighters needed half an hour to bring it under control. The fire left 25 people hospitalized in critical condition, city officials said.

    Bangkok Gov. Chadchart Sittipunt said most of the deaths were caused by smoke inhalation.

    By daybreak Monday, the site had been cordoned off as dozens of forensic officers sought clues about what caused the fire. The bar’s street-facing windows were blown out, and debris littered the sidewalk, including charred television sets, speakers, and an electric guitar. Associated Press journalists looking through the shattered windows could see empty beer bottles still sitting atop burned tables.

    The bar, which in Thai calls itself a brewery or beer hall, claimed to accommodate as many as 600 customers. It was not clear how many were present Sunday night.

    According to Bangkok’s Erawan emergency services center, 73 people were hurt. The Bangkok city government said there were 28 dead, one more than Erawan’s tally.

    The dead were trapped in bathrooms

    National Police Chief Kittharath Punpetch said most of the dead were found trapped in windowless bathrooms near one of the rear exits, where they may have sought shelter from the flames.

    He said the exit was not used, and people may have been blocked from reaching it by a table set up in a hall to sell candy, or because it was too dark to find the way out.

    Access to another exit near the kitchen might also have been narrowed by shelving units and lockers, said Kittharath, who visited the scene Monday. There were signs that at least some of the exit doors might have been locked, he added.

    Investigators focused on the ceiling above a performance stage, where they found materials that may have been used as decorative elements, he said. Police will examine whether flammable materials were used in the interior and how electrical wiring was installed across the ceiling.

    Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters that a musician who was performing at the bar told him he saw smoke coming out of a circuit breaker near the stage before the power went out. Then an explosion was heard, and thick smoke quickly filled the place.

    Video posted on social media showed people fleeing as flames shot out of the single-story building and black smoke billowed into the sky.

    Buddhist monks pray for the dead

    Several Buddhist monks visited the site Monday to pray for the victims, while nurses handed out face masks to help protect people from lingering smoke and fumes from the building.

    A registration site was set up to gather information from relatives looking for loved ones.

    Singer Sukanya Wongwongwai said she was performing nearby when she heard about the fire and rushed to the scene because several of her band mates were performing at the bar. She said one of them died, three were hospitalized, and one had not been located. Her band later announced on Facebook that the missing member was also found hospitalized.

    “From what I heard from people who were inside when the fire started, everything went dark. The power was out, and there was smoke everywhere, so they couldn’t locate other people,” she said.

    In a statement posted on Facebook, the bar offered apologies and condolences and said it was cooperating with investigators. It said the bar’s owner suffered serious injuries and was in an intensive care unit.

    Mourning family members identify the dead

    Family members gathered at Bangkok’s Institute of Forensic Medicine to identify the dead.

    Keo Oudone Poungpany, 24, was at the institute to identify his younger brother’s body. Both of the brothers, migrant workers from neighboring Laos, were working as bar employees when the fire broke out.

    Poungpany said he was using a restroom outside the bar when the fire began.

    He described walking back toward the bar and encountering dozens of people running away from the flames and hearing loud noises.

    From the outside the bar, he began shouting for his brother. “The heat was unbearable, I couldn’t get back in,” he said.

    “For now, I want to bring my younger brother’s body back home,” Poungpany said. “I want to bring him home to my parents. My parents are waiting for their kids to come back together, but now one is gone.”

    In 2022, 14 people were killed by a fire at a music bar in the eastern part of the country. And more than a decade before that, 67 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a fire during a Jan. 1, 2009, New Year’s Eve celebration at the Santika nightclub in Thailand’s capital. That blaze was apparently sparked by an indoor fireworks display.

  • Bill Curry, who helped make South Street a destination with Copabanana and Cafe Nola, has died at 85

    Bill Curry, who helped make South Street a destination with Copabanana and Cafe Nola, has died at 85

    Bill Curry, 85, the former Inquirer columnist who traded his byline for a barstool and transformed a modest South Street tavern into the landmark Copabanana, died Wednesday, July 1, after a long illness.

    For generations of Philadelphians, Mr. Curry’s name was synonymous with the colorful restaurant and bar he opened in October 1978 at Fourth and South Streets. Mr. Curry expanded it into a collection of restaurants and nightlife ventures that helped define South Street’s modern identity, including Cafe Nola and Hurricane Alley. The original Copabanana closed last year.

    Copabanana owner Bill Curry (center) joins Police Commissioner John Timoney on Marty Moss-Coane’s WHYY radio show for a discussion of Mardi Gras in 2001.April Saul / Staff Photographer

    Drawing on his South Florida upbringing, Mr. Curry filled Copabanana with the sounds and aromas that became its trademark: an art deco setting of bartenders squeezing fresh limes for margaritas, burgers sizzling in the front window, and nachos and signature Spanish fries topped with jalapeños and onions crowding nearly every table. It was a time when South Street — a once-thriving commercial district that had languished for years under the threat of a never-built crosstown expressway — was still more counterculture enclave than tourist destination.

    But Mr. Curry’s influence on South Street extended well beyond a single restaurant. First as a journalist and later as an entrepreneur, he became one of the corridor’s most visible champions.

    South Street’s renaissance was still in its early stages when Mr. Curry arrived in Philadelphia in 1971 from the Miami Herald — initially as an art director on The Inquirer’s Sunday magazine and soon after as a nightlife writer. The corridor had become a magnet for artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and preservationists who were filling vacant storefronts with galleries, boutiques, restaurants, and bars. Few people did more to promote that hippie-into-punk transformation than Mr. Curry in his column, “On the Go.”

    One of Bill Curry’s 1973 “On the Go” nightlife columns from The Inquirer.Philadelphia Inquirer

    “I had fallen in love with the neighborhood and wanted to be a central part of its freewheeling, Bohemian culture,” he told an interviewer in 2015.

    “Bill had a quality of world-weary amusement about ‘it all’: politics, serious young journalists, himself, his column, his New Orleans mojo,” said former Inquirer columnist Clark DeLeon.

    In 1975, Mr. Curry opened a card shop and newsstand called Paper Moon at 329 South St., stocking it with out-of-town papers, international magazines, and specialty cigarettes. A year later, he backed a second location at 15th and Locust Streets called Le Corner Store.

    Mr. Curry’s newspaper career ended in September 1978 after he informed executive editor Gene Roberts that he planned to open Copabanana. Roberts concluded that Mr. Curry’s business interests amounted to a conflict of interest and took away the column. He offered Mr. Curry a non-writing role, but Mr. Curry said he chose to leave.

    Copabanana opened a month later. When asked whether he had restaurant experience, he told an interviewer: “No, but I had been to plenty — I got paid to drink. I was around town all the time telling folks what was good and what was bad. So I was ready to do it.”

    Copabanana — across from Jim’s Steaks and Lickety Split, and down the block from the Theatre of Living Arts — quickly became a destination. In 1981, Mr. Curry and business partner Judy DeVicaris opened the far more refined Cafe Nola a few doors away. With an adventurous, New Orleans-inspired menu and a lush decor, it enjoyed a 15-year run before closing in 1996.

    Mr. Curry also developed or helped operate Copa Too!, a Center City offshoot where Jose Pistola’s is now, as well as a still-operating Copabanana at 40th and Spruce Streets in University City.

    “He lived for the moment, all the time,” said his nephew David Christensen, who worked for his uncle for a spell. “On the culinary and restaurant side, he was always looking to expand, always wanting to do more. He stretched his assets to the limit, trying to bring in investors and make the next project happen. It was a wild ride.”

    Mr. Curry became as much a symbol of South Street as any of his restaurants. “He was the unofficial mayor of South Street,” said Brian Phillips, who in 2003 bought the University City Copabanana from Mr. Curry. “He tirelessly promoted the South Street way of life to make it ‘the hippest street in town.’”

    Julia Zagar, who with her artist husband, Isaiah, opened Eye’s Gallery on the next block in 1968, said Mr. Curry “embraced the South Street community with his intellect and tastes, books, magazines, and food. He understood the street life.”

    The original Copabanana occupied a shot-and-a-beer bar owned by a former longshoreman named Frank “Turk” Jaworski. Neighborhood lore said Turk’s once housed a Prohibition-era speakeasy reached through a concealed staircase hidden behind a phone booth — a story Mr. Curry happily embraced.

    Mr. Curry sold Paper Moon in 1983, and the shop closed two years later. In 2011, he revived the name for a new location nearby on Fourth Street.

    Asked after decades in business why Copabanana endured while so many restaurants came and went, Mr. Curry offered a simple explanation: “Consistency. You can go somewhere once and love it, but if you go back and it’s not good, you might never return. Good consistent food, and consistent drinks.”

    The restaurant struggled in its later years. In 2023, Copabanana sought bankruptcy protection as Mr. Curry battled a series of health problems. Later that year, Copabanana moved into Hurricane Alley’s former space two doors away. It closed in January 2025.

    The original South Street property, long on the market, is now under agreement of sale, said Billy Creagh, owner of National Realty Commercial, a brokerage.

    Mr. Curry’s life partner, Jim Bush, died several years ago. Besides his nephew, Mr. Curry is survived by a sister, Charlotte Christensen, and another nephew, Tom.

    A memorial service is being planned, Phillips said.

  • Ukraine and 9 other countries announce a coalition to protect Europe from ballistic missiles

    Ukraine and 9 other countries announce a coalition to protect Europe from ballistic missiles

    PARIS — Ukraine and nine other countries announced Monday they were forming a coalition to protect Europe from ballistic missiles, utilizing Kyiv’s experience in fighting Russia’s full-scale invasion for over four years.

    “Our goal is to build a shared ballistic missile defense capability for Europe,” the 10 nations said in a statement in Paris at talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

    He was asking two dozen leaders for help in developing measures against Russia’s missile attacks that have pummeled his country and made the rest of Europe wary of Moscow’s wider ambitions on the continent.

    Zelensky and the leaders of Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom said they recognized “the growing threat posed by ballistic missiles,” which are harder to stop than cruise missiles or drones.

    “We believe that protecting Europe requires a comprehensive solution, in the form of an integrated missile defense architecture, to deter and neutralize future missile threats,” the statement said. “We recognize Ukraine’s unique experience, gained through its defense against the war of aggression waged by Russia.”

    The statement gave no time frame for setting up the defense system and said the plan remained open to other countries.

    Putin shows no sign Russia is backing down

    Russian President Vladimir Putin was unyielding, vowing Monday emphatic retaliation to Kyiv’s recent long-range attacks on refineries, tankers, and terminals that have caused widespread fuel shortages.

    “Wherever they attempt to strike Russian territory, we will respond in kind, but our strikes will be several times more powerful,” Putin told a meeting with pro-Kremlin activists.

    European foreign ministers were meeting separately in Brussels where they discussed Ukraine’s needs and Russia’s threats to the continent.

    Zelensky is keen to accelerate efforts with European countries to develop its air defenses ahead of winter, when Russia usually intensifies its attacks to deny Ukrainians electricity, heat, and water.

    Ukrainian officials were in Paris to present a proposed Anti-Ballistic Program and meet with government leaders, national security advisers, and defense companies who might take part, Zelensky said.

    U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge last week to give Ukraine a license to produce Patriot air defense systems to counter the ballistic missiles could mark a major breakthrough for Kyiv. However, experts and Ukrainian officials warn that turning the idea into reality would probably take years. It was unclear how quickly a European system could be built.

    Ukraine wants to push Putin into negotiations

    Kyiv and its European backers want to press home Ukraine’s recent successes and compel Putin to negotiate an end to the fighting, although Moscow has shown no willingness to compromise despite peace efforts by the Trump administration.

    Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow will closely follow the Paris meeting but dismissed its aspirations.

    “This is a coalition of warmongers,” Peskov said. “They are driven by the profound delusion that it’s possible to inflict a strategic defeat on our country, so this is a coalition of the deluded, a coalition of those who incite the war.”

    Ukraine’s advances in drone technology have given it an edge recently, analysts and Western officials say. Its strikes on supply routes behind the front have robbed the Russian army of momentum and made its progress slow and costly, they say.

    Ukraine says it hit 105 Russian vessels in 8 days

    Ukrainian forces struck 105 Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov next to the Crimean Peninsula between July 6-13, said Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.

    The vessels included tankers, dry cargo ships, a ferry, and tugboats, Brovdi said on the Telegram messaging app.

    The campaign is part of a broader Ukrainian effort to isolate the Crimean Peninsula, which is enduring its worst fuel crisis since it was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, and disrupt Russian logistics. Crimea is a key rear base for Russian forces occupying parts of southern Ukraine.

    It was not possible to independently verify the claims, and Russian officials made no immediate comment.

    European leaders demonstrate their commitment to Kyiv

    The Paris meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, which brings together more than 30 countries and about 25 heads of state and government, appeared to be a demonstration of a long-term commitment to Ukraine and a warning to Russia, as Moscow tests Europe’s resilience.

    Zelenskyy’s trip to the French capital followed the death of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), one of Kyiv’s staunchest supporters in Washington. Lawmaker Oleksandr Merezhko called Graham “the closest link between Ukraine, our president, and Trump.”

    The trip also comes amid a major reshuffle of Zelensky’s government that saw Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko step down Sunday.

    French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said he would summon the Russian ambassador to France and impose sanctions against Russian hackers. He told BFMTV-RMC that the issue is about “a vast cyber campaign aimed at sabotage and espionage, carried out by Russia in about 10 European countries.”

    Ukraine’s neighbors have also felt the war’s impact.

    In the latest incident, a drone launched during Russian overnight attacks on Ukraine’s Odesa region crashed and exploded on Moldova’s territory, Moldova’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday. It said the incident was “serious and unacceptable.”

    Ukraine fires over 300 drones toward Moscow

    Ukraine has aimed at targets deep inside Russia with its domestically developed long-range drones and missiles.

    Russian air defenses downed 350 Ukrainian drones heading toward Moscow since late Sunday, including 50 near the capital, its Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

    Moscow regional Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said 81 Ukrainian drones were downed overnight, adding that three people were killed and three were injured by the attack in the Pionersky settlement in the western part of the Moscow region.

    The Ukrainian air force, meanwhile, said Russia launched 134 long-range strike drones and three guided aviation missiles at Ukraine.

    A strike on port infrastructure in Ukraine’s Odesa region set fire to a docked merchant vessel carrying fertilizer under the flag of Togo, killing five crew members and wounding 10, said regional military administration head Oleh Kiper.

    Russia says it thwarted a major Ukraine drone operation

    Russia’s Federal Security Service said it had thwarted a Ukrainian plan for a drone attack on the Ukrainka air base in the far eastern Amur region and the Shagol air base in the Chelyabinsk region in the southern Urals.

    Small drones were smuggled into Russia’s Bryansk region using air balloons and bigger transport drones, then taken by car near the air bases by Ukrainian agents, who were arrested, the security service said.

    A covert Ukrainian operation a year ago, dubbed Operation Spiderweb, destroyed or damaged nearly a third of Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet with drones carried secretly into Russia, according to Ukrainian officials.

  • U.K. police rearrest the suspect in Ann Widdecombe killing on terrorism suspicion

    U.K. police rearrest the suspect in Ann Widdecombe killing on terrorism suspicion

    LONDON — The killing of former British politician Ann Widdecombe is being investigated as a terrorist act, police said Monday.

    A 28-year-old man in custody on suspicion of murder was rearrested on suspicion of commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism, Counter Terrorism Policing South East said.

    Devon and Cornwall Police originally said the killing was not believed to be a terror-related crime and there was nothing to suggest it was politically motivated.

    “We now have new information and evidence that means Counter Terrorism Policing is now leading the investigation,” the head of National Counter Terrorism Policing, Laurence Taylor, said. “We are pursuing multiple lines of inquiry to establish the motivation for this attack.”

    Widdecombe, 78, a former member of Parliament, was found dead last week in her isolated rural home in a southwest England village. Police did not disclose a cause of death, saying only that she had sustained “serious injuries.”

    The death sent shock waves through British politics, where Widdecombe had been a prominent voice for decades, known for her robust personality and socially conservative views opposing abortion and the expansion of LGBTQ+ rights.

    The suspect, who has not been named because he hasn’t been charged, was arrested Saturday in South Yorkshire county in northern England, more than 200 miles from the village of Haytor on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, where Widdecombe was found dead Thursday.

    Police said they believe Widdecombe was attacked at around 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Concerns were raised for her after she failed to appear for a scheduled TV interview on Wednesday afternoon.

    Widdecombe was a lawmaker in the House of Commons from 1987 to 2010, serving in roles including prisons minister in Prime Minister John Major’s 1990s Conservative government.

    Widdecombe found fame after leaving Parliament as a contestant on the reality television shows Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Big Brother.

    She later joined the Brexit Party, briefly serving as a member of the European Parliament before Britain left the European Union in 2020. Most recently, she joined the anti-immigration Reform UK party, often appearing in the media as a spokesperson.

    Friends and colleagues contrasted her pugnacious political statements with her personal kindness and good humor.

  • More than 80,000 Pa. retired teachers, police officers, and firefighters will get a pension bump — some for the first time in decades

    More than 80,000 Pa. retired teachers, police officers, and firefighters will get a pension bump — some for the first time in decades

    HARRISBURG — For the first time in two decades, more money will soon be flowing into the pockets of Pennsylvania’s retired public school teachers, firefighters, police officers and other state employees.

    Negotiated as part of this year’s state budget, more than 80,000 retired public sector employees will receive monthly increases to their pension plans as part of a cost-of-living adjustment that advocates have sought for years.

    Passing a pension bump has long been an objective of state lawmakers in both parties. And after legislators and Gov. Josh Shapiro approved the spending plan on Sunday, both Democratic and Republican leaders claimed credit for the pension boost, saying it was a product of their advocacy during negotiations.

    Pa. lawmakers and Gov. Josh Shapiro have approved a $50.8 billion state budget, delaying action on key issues

    Public school teachers and other state employees who retired before July 2, 2001, will receive a tiered monthly payment based on their date of retirement. Similarly, police officers and firefighters who retired more than five years ago will receive additional monthly payments ranging from $50 to $300 dollars depending on how long they have been retired.

    In 2001, the state legislature passed Act 9, which gave a pension boost to public sector workers who retired after 2002, but it was not retroactive and does not increase with inflation.

    “Nobody gets into public education to become rich, they do it because they have a great love for the educating of our public school students,” said Aaron Chapin, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. “We know that when we get into education that we’re not going to retire very wealthy and be millionaires. We understand that. But we also need to make sure that these pensions are keeping up with the cost of living.”

    Retired teachers and other former public workers will begin seeing the cost-of-living increase to their pensions this month, while retired police officers and firefighters will see the bump starting next month.

    The state’s largest teachers union has advocated for the adjustment for many years. Those efforts included a union-coordinated campaign for teachers who retired before 2001 and did not receive a pension bump to share their stories with lawmakers, through meetings, letters, and media appearances.

    Chapin said the former teachers told their representatives “the stories of how challenging this has been for them and their colleagues, whether it was paying the mortgage or the rent, paying the electricity bills, maybe not taking medication that month.”

    At a news conference on Sunday evening before signing the $50.8 billion state budget, Shapiro called the pension increase “real money back in people’s pockets.”

    Democratic lawmakers in the state House, he said, “made crystal clear that they wanted to stand up and put more money back in the pockets of workers who had given our commonwealth so much.”

    Gov. Josh Shapiro, flanked by fellow state Democrats, signs the 2026-27 Pennsylvania state budget in Harrisburg on Sunday.Gillian McGoldrick / Staff

    “It’s definitely something our retirees have said to us for years,” said Kevin Ressler, the secretary of the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association. “When you think about what things cost just 10 years ago until now, everything has gone up.”

    State legislators last approved a cost-of-living adjustment for police and firefighters in 2002. Since then, inflation has resulted in a 86% price increase, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    State Sen. Frank Farry (R., Bucks), a volunteer fire chief in Lower Bucks County, said members of both parties felt that it was time to pass the pension increase.

    First responders “dedicated decades of work to the community, just like our educators who dedicated decades of work to helping our young people grow and learn,” he added.

    While municipalities pay a portion of the pensions for first responders and public school teachers, the state will pay for all costs associated with the pension increase, Farry said. The increase, estimated to cost around $168 million annually, will come from revenue generated from an existing tax on internet gaming, he said.

    The state’s Fraternal Order of Police said in a statement that while no adjustment “can fully repay the commitment these men and women made throughout their careers,” the increase “restores a measure of fairness by helping ensure their retirement benefits better reflect today’s economic realities.”

    State Sen. Katie Muth (D., Montgomery) said the pension increases are the “high point” of this year’s policy changes negotiated as part of the overall budget deal.

    “These are our oldest retirees, many of them living in poverty,” she said. “This is a good moment, but a late moment. This should have been done quite some time ago.”

    The average age of retirees eligible for the cost-of-living increase in the state’s main two pension funds is just over 81 and 84 years old, respectively.

    The new pension bump, meted out monthly, is not set to automatically increase next year. Lawmakers from both parties have pushed for pensions to increase annually, indexed to inflation.

    State Sen. Tracy Pennycuick (R., Montgomery) — who sponsored a bipartisan bill to provide the pension increase to first responders — said that she hopes Harrisburg can now work to pass legislation to provide a yearly cost-of-living adjustment.

    “This is sending a very powerful message to young professional firefighters and police officers that we will continue to take care of you with cost-of-living adjustments in retirement,” she added.

    Ethan Young is an intern with the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents’ Association.

  • EU rallies $1 billion in pledges for Gaza’s recovery

    EU rallies $1 billion in pledges for Gaza’s recovery

    BRUSSELS — The European Union has coordinated efforts to raise 900 million euros ($1 billion) in pledges of aid for Gaza’s rebuilding following two years of Israeli bombardment that left much of the Palestinian enclave in ruins, a senior EU official said Monday.

    How much of the money will be delivered, and when reconstruction of Gaza can begin, is unclear. The ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas militant group that took effect in October is effectively stalled.

    European Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Šuica announced the fund after a meeting in Brussels of the Palestine Donors Group, which includes EU and Middle East nations along with international organizations and financial institutions.

    “The ceasefire in Gaza remains fragile, and the situation on the ground for civilians is not getting better,” Šuica said. She said the money will move through “trusted partners” but didn’t give details.

    Few places in the Palestinian territory of over 2 million people have been left unscathed, and the United Nations, World Bank, and EU estimate that reconstruction will cost $70 billion.

    The U.N. has said Gaza has more than 60 million tons of rubble, enough to fill nearly 3,000 container ships. It will take over seven years to clear, with additional time for demining.

    The meeting also brought together Nickolay Mladenov, the head of the Board of Peace set up by U.S. President Donald Trump to lead Gaza’s reconstruction; Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner; Ali Shaath, the head of the new Palestinian committee meant to administer Gaza’s daily affairs but still unable to enter; and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa.

    Mladenov has made clear that the next steps in implementing the ceasefire are stalled over the difficult issue of disarming Hamas militants in Gaza.

    “We are investing not only in the Palestinian future but also in the regional stability, shared security, and just and lasting peace for everyone together,” Mustafa said, calling for “a resilient, sovereign, contiguous, and viable Palestinian state” — something Israel’s current government has opposed.

    The Palestinian Authority seeks a role in Gaza’s reconstruction, but the U.S. 20-point plan only makes a reference to the possibility of a future Palestinian state.

    Meanwhile, EU ministers discuss the West Bank

    Separately, top diplomats from the 27-nation EU debated how to respond to increased Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

    The bloc’s executive, the European Commission, has tabled options including cutting off trade with Israeli settlements in the territory.

    Nations like Ireland and Spain are calling for forceful action. The Czech Republic, Germany, and others alongside the commission are more cautious, seeking to apply incremental pressure. Some nations have signaled they would veto sanctions.

    Do sanctions “have a meaningful impact or not? What role could they play as a political message, and would this be escalatory in a wrong direction?” said Bulgarian Foreign Minister Velislava Petrova-Chamova.

    The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the European Council’s legal service had found that severing trade ties with Israeli settlements in the West Bank — not technically sanctions — would require a majority vote and not total unanimity from bloc members.

    Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel said a clear majority in the EU agrees on severing commercial ties with the settlements. He dismissed arguments that tough action would boost Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chances in an election in October: “I hope that now it’s time for decisions.”

  • Fire in Fontainebleau forest near Paris triggers evacuations; 10 still missing in Spanish wildfire

    Fire in Fontainebleau forest near Paris triggers evacuations; 10 still missing in Spanish wildfire

    FONTAINEBLEAU, France — A fire raging in the historic and much-visited Fontainebleau forest south of Paris on Monday prompted evacuations of some residential neighborhoods and disrupted train and highway traffic.

    It was among several wildfires in western Europe as the region bakes under its third red-alert heat wave this year.

    In Spain, 10 people were still unaccounted for Monday from a fire that ripped through a remote southern expatriate community last week, killing 13 people in one of the country’s deadliest blazes.

    The Fontainebleau forest fire is unusual for its proximity to the French capital — about 42 miles away. The region hosts the Fontainebleau Chateau favored by Napoleon and is popular with visitors from Paris and beyond.

    French President Emmanuel Macron said all necessary means were being deployed to fight the fire of ″exceptional scale.”

    Two water-dumping planes were deployed over the area along with hundreds of firefighters, regional fire service spokesperson Paul Laurain told public broadcaster France-Info.

    The head of the regional administration, Pierre Ory, told French media that an investigation is underway and that arson was being considered a possibility.

    A new fire has broken out in another section of the forest, Ory said. The initial fire is still not contained and was continuing to spread at a moderate rate.

    “Winds are turning, which is significantly complicating the work of the firefighters,” he said.

    Trains to and from the bustling Gare de Lyon train station were disrupted late Sunday but were returning to normal Monday morning. A section of the busy A6 highway leading southeast of Paris was shut down because of fire risk.

    Large fires in southern France have already scorched thousands of acres since last week, disrupting the Tour de France cycling race and stretching firefighting resources.

    France is experiencing the peak of its third heat wave of the summer, with temperatures surpassing 104 degrees Fahrenheit across western and central areas and around 98 F in Paris.

    Spain reeling from deadly wildfire

    A 93-year-old British national died Sunday in a hospital from injuries sustained in the Los Gallardos wildfire, elevating the death toll to 13.

    Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was expected to visit the site of the fire on Monday. Regional authorities said the blaze was contained Sunday after affecting some 27 square miles of forest and farmland — larger than the size of Manhattan.

    Spain is experiencing extreme heat, which combined with wind and little rainfall is creating the ideal conditions for small wildfires to grow unchecked.

    Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

    Homes evacuated in U.K. due to fires

    In the U.K., people were evacuated from several dozen rural homes in north Wales after a wildfire broke out across a mountainside on Sunday, British media reported.

    Wildfires also burned in several locations across England as another heat wave — the third this year — brought hot, sunny and dry conditions.

    The Met Office said record heat waves since May have led to 2026 becoming the first year to record temperatures of 95 F or higher on six separate days. That broke the previous record set in 1976 and 2020, when five days were recorded with such temperatures.

    Natural England’s fire severity index has put much of England at “very high” risk of wildfires, with some areas in southern England and the Midlands at “exceptional” risk.

  • Minnesota prosecutors obtain long withheld evidence in investigation into protest shooting deaths

    Minnesota prosecutors obtain long withheld evidence in investigation into protest shooting deaths

    Minnesota prosecutors announced Monday that they have obtained key evidence in their ongoing investigations into the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during pitched protests against a federal immigration enforcement crackdown in the state earlier this year.

    “Through the cooperation of our federal partners we have obtained the hard drives of previously withheld evidence in the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said. “We have also obtained some of the physical evidence that was previously withheld, including Renee Good’s car.”

    Statements, police body camera video, and other evidence had previously been withheld by federal officials in the killings.

    She said state and local investigators now also have in their possession Good’s damaged car.

    Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed in her car while leaving an anti-immigration enforcement protest in Minneapolis on Jan. 7 as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surged through the region.

    Her death and that of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse shot and killed by federal officers just weeks later during a Jan. 24 protest, sparked outrage across the country and calls to rein in immigration enforcement.

    “The wonderful thing now is we have all the evidence,” Moriarty said.

    Investigators are going through all the evidence, including hard drives with statements, hours of video recorded by body-worn cameras, and the car Good was driving, Moriarty said.

    “We need transparency. We need cooperation. Our community needs it,” she said. “Our democracy requires it.”

    At the end of June, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Moriarty asked a federal judge to push out the deadlines in their lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice because they said they were in the midst of recently reinitiated “ongoing discussions” with the FBI about information sharing.

    Those ongoing discussions with the FBI about information sharing are likely to affect Minnesota’s request for summary judgment in the case, Ellison and Moriarty wrote in their motion to the court.

    The attorneys representing the federal government signed onto the motion.

    Ellison said he remains “deeply troubled that the federal government spent more than half a year attempting to conceal this evidence from state investigators.”

    “It should never have taken this long for Minnesota law enforcement to gain access to the federal government’s evidence,” he said in a statement. “I hope that this is the beginning of a major course correction on the part of the federal government.”

    There have been at least eight deaths since the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign began last year, but nobody has been charged in connection with them.

    A Minneapolis resident, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, was also shot and injured in his home while ICE agents were in pursuit of another man.

    In May, Christian Castro, an ICE agent, was arrested and charged with assault as well as falsely reporting a crime in connection with that Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting.

    Prosecutors say Castro, 52, fired through a home’s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh.

    In April, Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr., another ICE agent, was charged with pointing his gun at a motorist and passenger on a Minneapolis highway.

    Prosecutors said at the time it was the first criminal case against a federal officer involved in the Minnesota immigration crackdown.

    On Monday, ICE was involved in a fatal shooting in Maine, according to state House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, a Democrat.

    Details of what transpired in Biddeford, a coastal city of about 23,000 people roughly 15 miles southwest of Portland, remained unclear.

    Last week, an ICE agent in Houston fatally shot a Mexican national who had lived in the U.S. for decades as the homebuilder drove his construction crew to a job site.

    The federal Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has acknowledged officers were looking for someone else when they attempted to stop Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s vehicle. The agency maintains Salgado Araujo rammed an ICE vehicle, prompting an officer to open fire in self-defense.

  • The landmark Jan. 6 criminal case against former Philly Proud Boys leader Zach Rehl was officially dismissed by a judge

    The landmark Jan. 6 criminal case against former Philly Proud Boys leader Zach Rehl was officially dismissed by a judge

    A federal judge has officially dismissed the seditious conspiracy case against former Philadelphia Proud Boys leader Zach Rehl, putting an end to a landmark prosecution that had at one point served as a leading example of the Justice Department’s effort to seek criminal consequences for people who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly wrote in a memorandum Friday night that he effectively had no other choice but to dismiss the case against Rehl and his three codefendants, Proud Boys Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Dominic Pezzola.

    An appeals court earlier this year had already granted a Justice Department request to vacate the men’s convictions because prosecutors said they no longer believed in them, Kelly said.

    And in 2025, President Donald Trump — the intended beneficiary of the Jan. 6 melee — also signed an executive order that prohibited prosecutors from continuing to pursue any cases against Jan. 6 defendants in court.

    Against that backdrop, Kelly wrote, he had “no grounds” to rule that the case against Rehl and his codefendants remain open, and he granted the government’s request to dismiss all charges.

    “President Trump’s views about the prosecution of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6 — whether those views are based on fact or fiction — are well known, as is his intention to extend clemency to them through the Executive Order,” Kelly wrote. “The Government’s request to dismiss this case is consistent with that general approach.”

    Rehl celebrated the ruling on social media, writing: “Finally, it’s ALL OVER! January 6th can now be a thing of the past for me!”

    Kelly’s ruling serves as the latest example of how Trump has consistently sought to rewrite the history of what occurred at the Capitol more than five years ago — and how he has attempted to use the levers of power since he returned to the White House last year to effectively undo any consequences for those who participated in it.

    Rehl, of Port Richmond, was one of the most prominent figures from the attack. A jury in 2023 concluded that he and his codefendants had spearheaded a plan to try to block Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election by riling up a mob that went on to violently storm the Capitol.

    The verdict served as one of the most significant examples of a sprawling Justice Department investigation. Prosecutors charged more than 1,500 people in connection with the attack, some of whom faced only misdemeanor trespassing offenses while others were accused of serious felonies, including assaulting police officers.

    Rehl, his codefendants, and several other leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were convicted of the rarely used sedition charge and cast as ringleaders. And when Rehl was sentenced to 15 years behind bars, prosecutors at the time said a lengthy sentence was warranted because he had “threatened the bedrock principles of our country.”

    But in the years after the attack, Trump consistently downplayed the gravity of what happened that day, and he said the Justice Department’s investigation into it was politically motivated and corrupt.

    Then, last year, just hours after he was sworn back into office to begin his second term, Trump issued blanket pardons to nearly everyone who was charged in connection with the riot. He also ordered the Justice Department to to drop and dismiss hundreds of other cases that were still pending.

    Rehl was one of the few defendants who received a commutation instead of a pardon, meaning his prison sentence was cut short but his conviction remained intact.

    But Kelly’s decision last week — made at the urging of Trump’s Justice Department — has now wiped out Rehl’s conviction as well, effectively clearing him of all criminal culpability from the episode.

    Kelly — who was appointed by Trump during his first term — did not shy away from describing Jan. 6 in stark terms, writing in his memorandum that it was “a perilous event,” and an “attack” on people, police officers, Congress, and the peaceful transfer of power.

    “Moving forward,” the judge wrote, “if this Nation’s experiment in self-government is to last another 250 years, the American people — no matter their partisan preferences — will have to act together to preserve, protect and defend that miracle through our constitutional framework.”