Rescue

US among nations sending help to search for survivors on country’s north coast where dozen of buildings flattenedVenezuela earthquake – latest updatesRescue teams are racing to Venezuela’s shattered northern coast after a sucker punch of almost simultaneous earthquakes reduced dozens of buildings to rubble, with thousands feared to have been killed.The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the Department of Defense would help search and rescue teams deploy to the affected region after Venezuela’s main gateway, the Simón Bolívar international airport, was badly damaged by 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes, less than 40 seconds apart, late on Wednesday afternoon. Continue reading...

Latin American and European counties also among those offering solidarity and help for country already facing a humanitarian crisisVenezuela earthquake – latest updatesCountries around the world, including Iran, the US and Cuba, have committed to help with rescue efforts in Venezuela after deadly twin earthquakes hit the country.On the evening of 24 June, Venezuela was rocked by two back-to-back earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale that killed at least 164 people, injured close to 1,000 more, and caused significant damage to the capital Caracas, as well as areas across the north of the country. Continue reading...

Husband arrested after Sylvie Yasmina, 54, and five children found at home in north-western provincePakistan police say they have rescued a French woman and her five children after she told authorities she had been held captive by her husband for more than a decade and subjected to years of domestic abuse in the country’s north-west.The woman, identified as 54-year-old Sylvie Yasmina, was rescued earlier this week from a mud-brick home in Bara, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, the district police chief, Waqar Ahmad, said. Continue reading...

If TG Jones’s aggressive restructuring is voted through, the charity Help for Heroes and other creditors will be out of pocketSmall suppliers including the charity Help for Heroes are to lose at least half the money owed to them by the former WH Smith high street chain if a planned restructure is voted through this week.The books to paperclips retailer, which has 450 stores, was bought by the private equity firm Modella Capital last year and rebranded TG Jones. It has said it is likely that it will have to call in administrators if creditors, including shop landlords, do not approve an amended restructuring plan, seen by the Guardian, designed to cut costs in a vote on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Unidentified man fell into vault toilet at Camp Edison while trying to retrieve sunglasses he dropped, officials sayAn unhappy camper spent about 15 minutes submerged in sewage in the putrid tank of a California campground’s vault toilet after falling in trying to retrieve sunglasses he dropped, according to officials.The latest entry into the annals of bizarre US campground mishaps took place on Saturday at Shaver Lake’s Camp Edison, about 50 miles north-east of downtown Fresno. A spokesperson for the Fresno county sheriff’s office said specialist rescue crews from Cal Fire were required to extricate the unidentified man from the confined tank beneath the waterless, non-flushing toilet. Continue reading...

Archie Law, 15, sailed his own boat to save men in distress, beating lifeboat service to the sceneA 15-year-old boy rescued two men who had fallen from an inflatable toy boat off the Isle of Skye by sailing his own boat to save them – beating the lifeboat service to the scene.The teenager, Archie Law, beat a volunteer crew of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) to the rescue on Saturday evening, after the UK coastguard received reports of “two males in difficulty in the water” off Broadford Bay around 9pm. Continue reading...

• NASA is launching a daring rescue mission to capture and boost the Swift observatory, a space telescope that is currently falling toward Earth. • The mission involves a specialized vehicle designed to intercept the telescope and push it back into a stable orbit to prevent its atmospheric reentry. • This effort is critical to extending the operational life of the observatory, which provides essential data on gamma-ray bursts and other high-energy cosmic events.

Major operation launched after spate of pet thefts in Ho Chi Minh City, according to local mediaPolice in Vietnam have rescued more than 400 cats in a major bust of a cat meat crime ring in Ho Chi Minh City, according to animal welfare groups and local media reports.More than 40 cats were reunited with their owners after the multiday operation last week, but several dozen of those rescued have died due to the harsh conditions that they were found in, the groups said. Continue reading...

Ridglan Farms facility in Wisconsin was at the center of protests against the practice of using animals for research A beagle breeding and research facility in Wisconsin that has been the focus of animal rights protests is shutting down, and a rescue group in Florida is taking in the remaining dogs.“Not one dog will remain,” Lauree Simmons, founder of Big Dog Ranch Rescue in Florida, said in a press conference announcing the news on Monday. “No more breeding, no more testing, no more anything.” Continue reading...

Environment secretary reportedly raised concerns that customers would face ‘undue burden’ from £10bn planThames Water should be nationalised, says BurnhamBusiness live – latest updatesThe UK environment secretary has reportedly objected to a £10bn rescue proposal for Thames Water because it would place an “undue burden” on consumers, pushing the troubled utilities firm closer towards public ownership.Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, wrote to Ofwat, the regulator, on Monday to raise concerns about the plan for the UK’s biggest water company, according to the Times, as she is worried that customers will lose out. Continue reading...

Two friends found Kathryn Woessner, 68, in wooded area almost entirely submerged in mud puddleA woman has been rescued from a mud pit in Minnesota after becoming trapped for several days.On 6 June, two friends, Adam Sandbeck and Mike Gravalin, were riding their all-terrain vehicles through a wooded area near Backus and Hackensack in northern Minnesota when they discovered Kathryn Woessner, 68, almost entirely submerged in a mud puddle. Continue reading...

Charlie Verco managed to grab hold of the woman and bring her back to shore after the Sydney shark attack on Saturday Elite paddleboarder Charlie Verco has only seen one shark bigger than the one he saw on Saturday at Sydney’s Coogee beach.The North Bondi athlete was training for the world championships in Hawaii in July on Saturday morning when he heard a swimmer shouting “shark”. Continue reading...

• Children’s Tumor Foundation (CTF) CEO Annette Bakker reports that over 5,000 potential treatments for rare diseases are currently shelved by pharmaceutical companies. • The organization is working to rescue these dormant drug candidates to provide options for patients with rare conditions who lack viable therapies. • This initiative addresses a critical gap in drug development where promising compounds are abandoned due to market size or corporate priorities.

About 48 people rescued alive after vessel reportedly left Libya carrying about 60 passengersItalian rescuers have recovered 10 bodies after a migrant boat capsized in waters off Malta, a coastguard statement said on Sunday.The vessel, which had departed from Libya carrying about 60 people, overturned about 45 nautical miles east-south-east of Malta, the Italian coastguard said. Continue reading...

Marine Rescue NSW volunteer coaxes distressed dog on to jetski after it paddled to Snapper Island in Batemans BayFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastOn Monday, radio operators in Batemans Bay along the New South Wales south coast got a call they hadn’t had before: a dog had been swept off the rocks and was in the ocean in distress.Rod Ingamells, the unit commander of the local Marine Rescue NSW team, was one of the first to hop in a rescue vessel. But by the time his team reached the area, the dog had swum nearly 800 metres across the bay to nearby Snapper Island. Continue reading...

Fans estimated at hundreds of thousands fill north London streets to celebrate women’s and men’s teams’ triumphsAbout 75 people had to be rescued from height and 16 people were arrested during Arsenal’s victory bus parade on Sunday, emergency services said.What were estimated as hundreds of thousands of fans lined the streets around the Emirates stadium in north London to celebrate the Gunners winning the men’s Premier League for the first time since 2004 and the women’s team lifting the first ever Fifa Women’s Champions Cup. Continue reading...

Four were part of seven-person group that had traveled to US to ascend North America’s tallest mountainThree people have died after falling while climbing Alaska’s Mount McKinley, according to officials. A fourth climber has been rescued.The four were part of a seven-person group that had traveled to the United States to ascend Mount McKinley, also known as Denali, North America’s tallest mountain, according to information released by the Latvian Mountaineering Association. Continue reading...

Two still missing as divers make their way deeper into cave through muddy water and sharp rocks to find themFour more miners who were trapped in a flooded cave in Laos for 10 days have been freed by divers, but two people are still missing as rescuers continue to crawl through narrow, deluged tunnels and sharp rocks to find them.The first of the party of seven men was rescued on Friday in a perilous rescue mission which has required teams to drain water from the cave and navigate collapse hazards. Continue reading...

Man is ‘safe and sound’ after perilous operation, leaving four inside a small chamber and two still to be locatedThe first of seven men who have been trapped in a flooded cave in Laos for more than a week has been brought to safety by divers, in a perilous rescue mission that has required teams to crawl through narrow, deluged tunnels, navigating sharp rocks and collapse hazards.Four men remain inside a chamber about 300 metres (980ft) from the cave entrance, where they were found crouched and huddled together on a rocky ledge by rescuers on Wednesday. Two men are yet to be located. Continue reading...

Group was unharmed after dangling for almost four hours on ride that malfunctioned at Pleasure Pier in GalvestonEight students were rescued unharmed after dangling for hours at the top of a rollercoaster ride that became stuck in Texas.Pictures and news footage of the incident showed a rollercoaster car stalled at the peak of a huge almost vertical drop on the Iron Shark rollercoaster overlooking the Gulf of Mexico at the Pleasure Pier in Galveston. Continue reading...

Josh Richards joins international mission to extract five found alive and search for missing twoGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAn Australian cave diver is part of an international team that has been flown into Laos from around the world to rescue seven people stuck in a remote, flooded cave.The group entered the cave in Xaysomboun province, central Laos, to hunt wildlife and search for gold more than a week ago, but heavy rain blocked the cave entrance. Five of them were found alive this week, but two remain unaccounted for – and the rescuers, some of whom were involved in the rescue of a young Thai football team in 2018, still need to extract the survivors from the inundated passageways. Continue reading...

Four people taken to hospital but mayor said search continues for other survivors or fatalitiesSign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email Nearly 100 firefighters battled a large fire that erupted on Thursday at an apartment complex in Dallas, where debris from one collapsed building lay heaped on the ground while flames and black smoke billowed into the sky.News video showed dozens of firefighters at the scene. Some had hoses trained on piles of smoking debris while others lifted and moved lumber and other burned wreckage as if searching for people underneath. Two firefighters with hoses towered above the blaze on long ladders, while another sprayed water from the window of an upper floor of a neighboring building. Continue reading...

Video shows officers and firefighters surrounding a white car partially submerged in fast-moving waterAuthorities in Texas rescued an infant on Saturday after a vehicle became trapped in floodwaters in Beeville, south of San Antonio.Video released on Sunday by the Beeville police department showed officers and firefighters surrounding a white car that was partially submerged in fast-moving water. As one first responder approached the car, a distressed man in the vehicle asked: “Can you get my kid?” Continue reading...

Seven have been stuck in flooded cave in central Laos for five days after heavy rain caused landslidesDivers who helped in the dramatic rescue of a young Thai football team in 2018 have joined efforts to free seven people who have been trapped for five days inside a remote, flooded cave in central Laos.The group entered the cave in Xaysomboun province on Wednesday to hunt for wildlife and search for gold, reports suggest. Heavy rain led to landslides, which blocked the cave entrance. Continue reading...

Director of Armageddon and Transformers to team up with Universal Pictures for drama based on recent eventsMichael Bay is set to direct a military drama based on the recent rescue of two US crew members who crashed in Iran.According to Deadline, the director of action films such as Armageddon and Transformers will work with Universal Pictures to bring the story to the screen. In April, two soldiers were rescued after their fighter jet was downed, something Donald Trump called “one of most daring search-and-rescue operations in US history”. Continue reading...

Tom Phillips on life in the country four months after the US abduction of the former president Nicolás Maduro“The last time I flew out of Venezuela was right at the start of August 2024, just after the disputed presidential election,” the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, tells Annie Kelly.“It was a moment of real turmoil. There was a huge wave of repression that was unfolding as Nicolás Maduro tried to silence any kind of dissent to his bogus claim to have won that election. Thousands were thrown in prison, many were going underground, and journalists were racing to get out of the country.” Continue reading...

Exclusive: Potential investors fear Andy Burnham could push to bring utility companies into public ownershipA rescue deal for Thames Water is under threat because of a potential change in prime minister, government insiders have said.Ministers are negotiating a takeover deal for the stricken water company with a consortium of creditors led by American investment firm Elliott Management. Continue reading...

Humpback stranded on sandbank was unlikely to survive, experts had said, recommending it be left to die in peaceGerman authorities have defended their decision to allow a risky rescue attempt of a stranded whale to go ahead, despite experts warning it was “inadvisable” because the animal was hurt and unlikely to survive.The saga of the whale, known as Timmy, had gripped Germany since the beached humpback was spotted stranded on Timmendorfer beach, a sandbank in shallow waters near the coast, nearly two months ago. Continue reading...