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In the news today: The search in Texas continues for more than 160 people believed to be missing after the Fourth of July flood; the U.S. Supreme Court clears the way for President Donald Trump's plans to downsize the federal government; and intelligence officials warn that a Russian sabotage campaign is escalating. Also, the director of 'Lord of the Rings' hopes to bring back a 12-foot tall extinct New Zealand bird. |
Vehicles are stacked on top of each other on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Ingram, Texas, Tuesday, after the Fourth of July flood. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
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Searchers in helicopters and on horseback scour Texas flood debris for the missing |
As the search in Texas continued Wednesday for more than 160 people believed to be missing days after a destructive wall of water killed over 100 people, the full extent of the catastrophe had yet to be revealed as officials warned that unaccounted victims could still be found amid the massive piles of debris that stretch for miles. Read more. |
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- Crews in airboats, helicopters and on horseback along with hundreds of volunteers are part of one of the largest search operations in Texas history. The flash flood is the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since Colorado's Big Thompson Canyon flood on July 31, 1976, killed 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections.
Just two days before the flooding, Texas inspectors had signed off on Camp Mystic's emergency planning. But five years of inspection reports released to The Associated Press don't provide any details about how the camp would instruct campers about evacuating and specific duties each staff member and counselor would be assigned.
- Questions mounted about what, if any, actions local officials took to warn campers and residents who were in the scenic area long known to locals as "flash flood alley."
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Supreme Court clears the way for Trump's plans to downsize the federal workforce
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Donald Trump's plans to downsize the federal workforce despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs. Read more. |
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The justices overrode lower court orders that temporarily froze the cuts, which have been led by the Department of Government Efficiency.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenting vote, accusing her colleagues of a "demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President's legally dubious actions in an emergency posture," and warning of enormous real-world consequences.
- Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programs or have been placed on leave. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took a deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go.
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European intelligence officials warn that a Russian sabotage campaign is escalating
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European intelligence officials say they're worried the risk of serious injury or even death is rising in a campaign of sabotage blamed on Russia as untrained saboteurs set fires, plant explosives, or build bombs. The Associated Press' tracking shows 12 incidents of arson or serious sabotage last year. Read more. |
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Most of the saboteurs accused of working on behalf of Russia are foreign, including Ukrainians. They include young people with no criminal records who are frequently hired for a few thousand dollars, the intelligence officials said. A senior official said Russia has been forced to rely increasingly on such amateurs since hundreds of Moscow's spies were expelled from Western countries following an operation to poison former Russian intelligence officer Sergey Skripal in the U.K. in 2018.
On Tuesday, a British court found three men guilty of arson in a plot that prosecutors said was masterminded by Russia's intelligence services. A fire was set at a warehouse storing goods destined for Ukraine. The Kremlin did not reply to a request for comment on the British case.
- Documents shared during the warehouse trial offered a rare glimpse into how young men are recruited. Among those were transcripts of messages between a man prosecutors said was a Russian intelligence operative and his recruit, Earl, who was active on Telegram channels associated with the Wagner group. The recruiter told Earl, 21, that he was "wise and clever despite being young," and suggested he watch the television show "The Americans" — about Soviet KGB intelligence officers undercover in the U.S. Earl and another man eventually recruited others who went to the warehouse the night of the fire.
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Peter Jackson, left, and Colossal CEO Ben Lamm hold up moa bones from Jackson's collection in Wellington, New Zealand, in 2024. (Courtesy of Colossal Biosciences via AP)
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