SEOUL (AFP) – A pilot in a firefighting helicopter crashed and died while battling a mountain blaze in the South Korean city of Daegu yesterday, according to media reports.
The incident comes after the country experienced its worst wildfires on record last month, which killed 30 people and burned more than 48,000 hectares of forest, according to government data.
The helicopter, carrying only the pilot, “crashed while on a mission to extinguish a wildfire” yesterday, Yonhap news agency reported.
Daegu Fire Department could not be reached for comment.
The incident marks the second death of a helicopter pilot mobilised for a firefighting mission in the past month.
Yesterday’s wildfire – separate from the blazes in March – has been extinguished, Yonhap reported.
The wildfires last month were fuelled by strong winds and ultra-dry conditions, with the area experiencing below-average rainfall for months, following South Korea’s hottest year on record in 2024.
The blaze also destroyed several historic sites, including the Gounsa temple complex in Uiseong, which is believed to have been originally built in the 7th Century.
Officers check the scene of a helicopter crash in Daegu, South Korea. PHOTO: AP
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Violent storms battering the central-eastern United States (US) have killed at least 16 people, officials said, with the National Weather Service warning of “severe” flash flooding in the coming days.
A line of fierce storms stretching from Arkansas to Ohio has damaged buildings, flooded roadways and produced dozens of tornadoes in recent days.
Tennessee was hardest hit by extreme weather, with state authorities saying that 10 people had died across the western part of the state.
Two people were killed due to floods in Kentucky, according to state Governor Andy Beshear, including a child who was “swept away by floodwaters.”
Photos shared on social and local media showed widespread damage from the storm across several states, with homes torn apart, toppled trees, downed power lines and overturned cars.
“Severe, widespread flash flooding is expected” in parts of the central-eastern region, the National Weather Service (NWS) said on Saturday, warning that “lives and property are in great danger.”
Two storm-related deaths were recorded in Missouri and one in Indiana, according to local media reports and authorities.
A five-year-old was found dead in a home in Little Rock, Arkansas “in connection to the ongoing severe weather,” the state’s emergency management agency said in a statement.
“Flooding has reached record levels in many communities,” Kentucky’s Governor Beshear wrote on social media, urging residents in the state to “avoid travel, and never drive through water.”
More than 100,000 customers were without power in Arkansas and Tennessee as of yesterday, according to tracking website PowerOutage.us.
The NWS said that moderate to severe tornadoes could form in parts of the Tennessee Valley and Lower Mississippi Valley, along with “severe thunderstorms.”
Scientists said global warming is disrupting climate patterns and the water cycle, making extreme weather more frequent and ferocious. Last year set a record for high temperatures in the US, with the country also pummelled by a barrage of tornadoes and destructive hurricanes.
Debris from a building destroyed by a tornado in Louisville, Kentucky. PHOTO: AFP
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The artist who painted US President Donald Trump in what he criticised as a “purposefully distorted” portrait has said his remarks have harmed her business.
Colorado removed the official portrait of Trump from display in the state’s capitol building last month after the president complained that it was deliberately unflattering.
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol… along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on March 24.
“The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst,” Trump said.
The 78-year-old Republican called for the oil painting to be taken down, and said the artist, Sarah Boardman, “must have lost her talent as she got older.”
The Democrat-controlled Colorado legislature said the same day as Trump’s complaint that the painting would be removed from the gallery in the capitol’s rotunda – where it had been hung since 2019 – and placed in storage.
Boardman has responded to Trump’s critique in a statement on her website, saying she completed the work “accurately, without ‘purposeful distortion,’ political bias, or any attempt to caricature the subject, actual or implied.”
“President Trump is entitled to comment freely, as we all are, but the additional allegations that I ‘purposefully distorted’ the portrait, and that I ‘must have lost my talent as I got older’ are now directly and negatively impacting my business of over 41 years,” the British-born artist said.
Boardman added in the undated statement that for the six years that the portrait of Trump hung in the Colorado capitol, she “received overwhelmingly positive reviews” on the commissioned work.
However, since Trump’s comments “that has changed for the worst,” she said.
In addition to Trump and former president Barack Obama, Boardman was also commissioned to paint a portrait of ex-president George W Bush.
A tourist looks at the empty space where a portrait of US President Donald Trump once hung in the Presidential Portrait Gallery at the Colorado Capitol in Denver. PHOTO: AFP
SAN DIEGO (AP) – Two United States (US) border inspectors in Southern California have been charged with taking thousands of dollars in bribes to allow people to enter the country through the nation’s busiest port of entry without showing documents, prosecutors said.
US Customs and Border Protection officers Farlis Almonte and Ricardo Rodriguez were assigned to immigration inspection booths at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. They were charged after investigators found phone evidence showing they had exchanged messages with human traffickers in Mexico and discovered unexplained cash deposits into their bank accounts, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday.
Surveillance video showed at least one instance in which a vehicle with a driver and a passenger stopped at a checkpoint but only the driver was documented as having entered the country, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said the officers waved dozens of vehicles carrying people without documents. They said both men were paid thousands for each vehicle they waved through.
It wasn’t immediately known if Almonte has an attorney who can speak on his behalf. The National Border Patrol Council, the union representing Border Patrol officers, didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment.
Rodriguez’s attorney Michael Hawkins, said the case was still in the “infant stages” and that Rodriguez has the presumption of innocence.
“We look forward to working through the current situation,” Hawkins said in an email in which he described Rodriguez as hardworking and loyal.
The investigation on Almonte and Rodriguez started after three migrant smugglers who were arrested last year told federal investigators they had been working with US border inspectors, federal prosecutors said.
While Almonte was in custody, investigators allegedly seized nearly USD70,000 in cash they believe his romantic partner was trying to move to Tijuana. Prosecutors wrote in a court filing that Almonte is potentially facing additional charges for money laundering and obstruction of justice, The San Diego Union Tribune reported.
“Any Customs and Border Protection agent who aids or turns a blind eye to smugglers bringing undocumented immigrants into the US is betraying their oath and endangering our national security,” Acting US Attorney Andrew Haden told the newspaper in a statement.
There have been five US Customs and Border Protection officers assigned to the San Diego area to face similar corruption charges in the last two years.
Last year, former US border inspector Leonard Darnell George was sentenced to 23 years in prison for taking bribes to allow people and drug-laden vehicles to enter the country through the San Ysidro border crossing.
Two other former border officers at the Otay Mesa and Tecate ports of entry were charged last year with similar charges. They are expected to go on trial this summer.
Vehicles wait in line to cross the border into the United States at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. PHOTO: AP
LONDON (AP) – Firefighters in Northern Ireland were mopping up after a significant fire swept through forest land in the southeastern corner of the province overnight as concerns grow about unseasonably warm, dry weather across the United Kingdom (UK).
The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service declared a major incident at 11.53pm on Saturday and more than 100 firefighters and 14 pieces of equipment were deployed in a rural area outside the community of Hilltown. The blaze was under control by the early hours of yesterday.
The fire is believed to have been deliberately started, the fire service said. Authorities in Northern Ireland on March 28 decried a recent spate of deliberately set wildfires across the region.
“People lighting these fires may be putting their own and others’ lives at risk including the fire service personnel and other emergency services tasked to deal with them,” Minister for the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Andrew Muir said in a statement.
Firefighters across the UK are on alert due to the increased risk of fires following a spate of warm spring weather. Police in Scotland advised people to avoid the Loch Down area of East Ayrshire because of a wildfire burning in the southwestern part of Scotland.
A number of fires were also burning on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, southwestern England.
Devon and Cornwall police advised travelers to avoid the area as they have closed a number of roads in the Bolventor area to assist firefighters.
File photo shows firefighters tackle the blaze on Slieve Donard Mountain. PHOTO: AFP
LONDON (AP) – Britain’s ruling Labour Party has suspended one of its lawmakers after he was arrested in connection with an investigation into allegations of rape and child sex offenses.
Labour suspended Dan Norris, 65, who was elected to Parliament during last year’s general election.
The action means Norris, who represents North East Somerset and Hanham, will no longer be part of the Labour caucus, though he remains a member of the House of Commons.
Norris is also the mayor of the West of England, a regional authority that controls issues such as planning and transportation in an area that includes Bristol, Bath and the surrounding countryside.
He was elected to the post in 2017 but is due to step down after local elections in May.
“Dan Norris MP was immediately suspended by the Labour Party upon being informed of his arrest,” the party said in a statement released on Saturday.
“We cannot comment further while the police investigation is ongoing.”
Avon and Somerset Police said that a man in his 60s was arrested on Friday and released on conditional bail.
Police in England don’t normally identify criminal suspects by name until they have been formally charged.
“In December 2024, we received a referral from another police force relating to alleged non-recent child sex offenses having been committed against a girl,” the force said.
“Most of the offenses are alleged to have occurred in the 2000s but we’re also investigating an alleged offense of rape from the 2020s.”
Norris, whose arrest was first reported by the Sun on Sunday and the Mail on Sunday, previously served in Parliament from 1997 to 2010.
He was an assistant whip under Prime Minister Tony Blair and a junior minister under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
BARCELONA (AP) – Tens of thousands of Spaniards marched in protests held across the European country in anger over high housing costs with no relief in sight.
Government authorities said that 15,000 marched in Madrid, while organisers said 10 times that many took to the streets of the capital on Saturday.
In Barcelona, the city hall said 12,000 people took part in the protest, while organisers claimed over 100,000 did.
The massive demonstration of social angst that is a major concern for Spain’s left-wing government and town halls was organised by housing activists and backed by Spain’s main labour unions.
The housing crisis has hit particularly hard in Spain, where there is a strong tradition of home ownership and scant public housing for rent. Rents have been driven up by increased demand. Buying a home has become unaffordable for many, with market pressures and speculation driving up prices, especially in big cities and coastal areas.
A generation of young people say they have to stay with their parents or spend big just to share an apartment, with little chance of saving enough to one day purchase a home. High housing costs mean even those with traditionally well-paying jobs are struggling to make ends meet.
Demonstrators protesting against high housing costs in Madrid. PHOTO: AP
Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez said on X that “I share the demand of the numerous people who have marched today: that homes are for living in and not for speculating.”
The average rent in Spain has almost doubled in the last 10 years. The price per square meter rose from EUR7.2 in 2014 to EUR13 last year, according to real estate website Idealista. The increase is bigger in Madrid and Barcelona.
Incomes have failed to keep up despite Spain’s recent economic boom, especially for younger people in a country with chronically high unemployment.
Spain does not have the public housing that other European nations have invested in to cushion struggling renters from a market that is pricing them out.
Spain is near the bottom end of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries with public housing for rent making up under two per cent of all available housing. The OECD average is seven per cent. In France it is 14 per cent, Britain 16 per cent and the Netherlands 34 per cent. Angry renters point to instances of international hedge funds buying up properties, often with the aim of renting them to foreign tourists.
The question has become so politically charged that Barcelona’s city government pledged last year to phase out all its 10,000 permits for short-term rentals, many of them advertised on platforms like Airbnb, by 2028.
Marchers in Madrid chanted “Get Airbnb out of our neighbourhoods” and held up signs against short-term rentals. In Barcelona, someone carried a sign reading “I am not leaving, vampire,” apparently in a message to would-be real estate speculator seeking to drive him out of his home.
The central government’s biggest initiative for curbing the cost of housing is a rent cap mechanism it has offered to regional authorities, based on a price index established by the Housing Ministry. The government says the measure has slightly reduced rents in Barcelona, one of the few areas it has been applied. But government measures have not proven enough to stop protests over the past two years. Experts say the situation likely won’t improve anytime soon.
“This is not the first, nor will it be the last, (housing protest) given the severity of the housing crisis,” professor with the Esade business school and head of its Dignified Housing Observatory Ignasi Marti said in an email.
“We saw this with the financial crisis (of 2008-2012) when (a protest movement) lasted until there was a certain economic recovery and a reduction in the social tension,” Marti added.
PARIS (AFP) – France’s far right planned to rally supporters after their figurehead Marine Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement and banned from public office, a move likely to exclude her from the 2027 presidential election.
The bombshell judgement stunned France’s political establishment, with even some of her fiercest opponents saying the far-right leader should be allowed to stand in the 2027 vote. She has lodged an appeal.
“People of France, let us mobilise to defend freedom, save democracy and support Marine!” Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party said on X ahead of the protest in Paris.
Polls indicate Le Pen, 56, would easily top the first round of the two-round presidential vote if she ran – the latest survey by pollster Elabe for broadcaster BFMTV showed her with up to 36 per cent of the vote.
She describes herself as the “favourite” to succeed President Emmanuel Macron.
Le Pen was found guilty of embezzlement and given a partly suspended jail term and an immediate ban on holding public office.
Her supporters branded the ruling politically motivated, but Macron insisted the French judiciary is “independent”.
United States President Donald Trump called the sentence a “witch hunt” by “European leftists using lawfare to silence free speech, and censor their political opponent”.
Prime Minister Francois Bayrou rejected that remark as “interference” in French affairs, in a newspaper interview. He added that it was “neither healthy nor desirable” to stage a demonstration against the court ruling, insisting French institutions allowed for “the separation of powers and the defence of justice”.
Le Pen’s conviction set France’s political scene alight, with some leftwing forces planning to stage a counter-rally
Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old head of the National Rally, said the ruling would only boost support for the party.
A gathering in support of President of Rassemblement National parliamentary group Marine Le Pen in south-western France. PHOTO: AFP
BARCELONA (AFP) – Spanish police said they had busted a gang smuggling cocaine through the eastern port of Valencia and seized 1,000 kilogrammes of the drug.
Spain is one of the main entry points for cocaine into Europe from Latin America.
An operation led by the European Union’s law enforcement agency Europol led to the arrests of 20 people, half of whom were remanded in custody, a police statement said.
The majority of the arrests were in Spain. Two were held in Belgium and one in France, the statement added.Some of those arrested were linked “to a faction of the Hells Angels gang in Belgium” and were primarily involved “in controlling and recovering drug shipments”, the statement said.
The gang allegedly smuggled cocaine hidden in containers arriving at Valencia port. They accessed drugs using so-called ‘spidermen’ who climbed stacks of containers and recovered the cocaine using bolt cutters or radial arm saws.
BEIRUT (AFP) – Senior Lebanese officials said talks with visiting United States (US) deputy special envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus were positive, focusing on south Lebanon amid a fragile truce between Israel and Hezbollah.
President Joseph Aoun and Ortagus discussed “south Lebanon, the work of the international monitoring committee and the Israeli withdrawal” from Lebanese territory, a statement from the presidency said, characterising the talks as constructive.
The US chairs a committee, which also includes France, that is tasked with overseeing the ceasefire that ended more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s office, in a statement, also said the discussions with the envoy were “positive”.
Ortagus’ second visit to Lebanon comes as Israel continues to carry out strikes in Lebanon despite a November 27 ceasefire with Hezbollah, and as its troops remain in several points in the country’s south.
Under the truce, Hezbollah was to redeploy its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometres from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel was due to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon by February 18 after missing a January deadline, but it has kept troops in five places it deems “strategic”.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam meets with United States deputy special envoy for Middle East peace Morgan Ortagus at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon. PHOTO: AP
Lebanon’s army has been deploying in areas the Israeli military has withdrawn from.
Ortagus and Salam discussed the Lebanese army’s work in implementing United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and formed the basis of the November truce, his office said.
The resolution said Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon, and called for the disarmament of all non-state armed groups.
Salam’s office said the talks also addressed the Syrian-Lebanese border, where deadly clashes erupted last month, emphasising the importance of preventing “any tensions or chaos, and all forms of smuggling”, according to the premier’s office.
Hezbollah has long exerted influence over large parts of the Lebanese-Syrian border, and Israel has repeatedly struck the area.
The Lebanese and Syrian defence ministers last month signed an agreement addressing security and military issues along the border, which has no official demarcation.
Aoun and Ortagus also discussed economic reforms and “combatting corruption”, his office said, a day after Lebanon’s new central bank governor Karim Souaid took office.
Souaid has pledged to advance key reforms demanded by international creditors to unlock bailout funds amid a years-long economic crisis.
Salam and Ortagus discussed “the need to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund”, his office said.
Ortagus also met with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a key Hezbollah ally, discussing “Israeli violations and attacks on Lebanon” as well as economic and administrative reforms, his office said in a statement.
She also met with army chief Rodolphe Haykal.
On her first visit in February, Ortagus sparked anger among Hezbollah supporters by saying the group had been “defeated by Israel” and declaring “the end of Hezbollah’s reign of terror”.
