Category: Europe

A lightning strike sparked a fire at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science Laboratory last month, destroying decades of research and tens of millions of dollars in equipment, university officials said.
The fire, which spread rapidly across the building’s wooden roof, has forced more than 150 researchers, staff members and students to relocate their programs and seek temporary laboratory spaces to continue their work, FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported.
The recovery effort faces significant challenges due to the methods used to extinguish the fire. Firefighters used salt water to battle the flames, which ruined nearly all the advanced equipment inside the facility, including specialized sonar data vehicles used for ocean mapping.
Although some staff managed to rescue their data, many face the loss of irreplaceable specimens.
Steven Murawski, a professor at the college, told FOX 13 Tampa Bay that he salvaged most of his personal research, which is now being kept in cold stor..

Several groups have sued President Donald Trump’s administration over its plans to install a sculpture garden in a Washington, D.C., national park.
The complaint, filed Monday by the National Parks Conservation Association and other groups, centers on the National Garden of American Heroes. The sculpture garden is expected to feature 250 life-sized statues of famous Americans, including former presidents, sports stars and renowned inventors.
The Trump administration plans to install the statues near the National Mall in West Potomac Park, which is home to several Washington landmarks, including the Jefferson Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial. But the new lawsuit alleges the plan is “unlawful,” and asks a judge to block construction until the agencies “comply with their legal obligations.”
“Congress has made clear that the National Mall is a ‘substantially completed work of civic art’—not a personal sandbox for each President to renovate however he likes. To that end, Congr..

Boxer Floyd Mayweather faces two felony charges in Las Vegas over allegations that he wrote a bad check to purchase a watch from a luxury resale store.
Mayweather was scheduled for an initial appearance Monday in Las Vegas Justice Court. He was not physically present for the hearing, but an attorney represented him on his behalf, according to the Clark County District Attorney's office. His case is scheduled for a hearing in September.
Mayweather, 49, was charged in April with theft as well as drawing and passing a check without sufficient funds with the intent to defraud, according to court records.
Prosecutors in Clark County allege that in December 2024, Mayweather wrote a $200,000 check through Wells Fargo Bank to Las Vegas designer resale store Gold and Beyond, despite having insufficient funds in his account, according to the criminal complaint.
Mayweather's attorney and representatives did not immediately return requests for comment.
The felony charges come as Maywe..

President Donald Trump’s support among rural Americans has plunged since he took office, a new poll has found, a stark change within a demographic that once strongly supported the Republican.
Trump’s approval rating among these voters stood at 50 percent in early June, down from 60 percent in February of last year, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll with a three percent margin of error.
A nearly equal share of rural Americans, 48 percent, said they disapprove of the president, while 31 percent of rural respondents said they approve of Trump’s handling of the economy and cost of living issues.
“We’re ​in bigger water fights with AI, we’re all paying more for groceries and we’re all paying more for gas,” Brian Rauch, 42, of rural Stevensville, Montana, told Reuters. “My day to day ⁠is negatively impacted and I haven’t seen these other benefits.”
Trump is estimated to have won rural voters by about 40 points in 2024, but a variety of administration moves have complicated rural life sinc..

Vice President JD Vance has finally come clean on his controversial “childless cat ladies” comment — as he prepares for a potential White House run in 2028.
In his new memoir, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, Vance admits that the insult he lobbed on Tucker Carlson's since-canceled Fox News show was an “error,” NBC News reported Monday.
“One of the dumbest things I ever said came when I argued that ‘childless cat ladies’ across the Democrat Party were running our country into the ground,” Vance writes in the book, due out Tuesday. “It was a boneheaded comment, intentionally (and successfully) provocative rather than illuminating.”
Vance was riding high on the success of his bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy and running to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate when he made the rude remark in 2021.
Vance disparaged Democrats as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country..

Trump Announces Peace Deal And Immediate Opening Of Strait Of HormuzDonald Trump has said the peace deal with Iran is now “complete” as he announced the immediate opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
The US president wrote on Truth Social: “The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade.”
He added: “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”
The US and Iran will hold an official signing ceremony on Friday in Switzerland, Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said on social media early on Monday.
The agreement was struck despite an Israeli strike on Lebanon on Sunday that drew criticism from both Iran and Trump.
Earlier today, the chief foreign correspondent for Fox News claimed the US told him he lashed out at the Israeli prime minister over the strikes on Beirut.
H..

White House offers first look inside UFC Freedom 250 octagonGuests have started arriving for President Donald Trump’s UFC event at the White House, but a pair of unexpected environmental threats are looming.
Sunday’s event, which falls on Trump’s 80th birthday, could be disrupted by severe thunderstorms and swarms of insects. The region could be hit with hail, wind gusts up to 70 mph and frequent lightning until 11 p.m. local time, according to the National Weather Service.
In response to reports of poor weather, the White House Rapid Response team declared the celebrations would continue “rain or shine.”
More than 4,000 people will gather in a massive arena on the White House’s South Lawn to watch the event. Another 120,000 spectators are expected to attend a watch party at the Ellipse, a 52-acre park just south of the White House.
All 14 fighters successfully made weight Saturday during ceremonial weigh-ins at the Ellipse. Following their official morning weigh-ins, the athletes ..

Trump says peace deal ‘scheduled to get signed tomorrow’ and Hormuz to ‘open to all’Donald Trump has said the peace deal with Iran is scheduled “to be signed tomorrow” in a post online, claiming the Strait of Hormuz will then be “OPEN TO ALL”.
He added that the administration’s “relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had”.
The US president ended his post on a sinister note as he warned there is the “ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again” if process does not work “smoothly”.
Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Saturday that the US and Iran ⁠have ​agreed to a ⁠framework for a ⁠peace deal ​that would ⁠end ‌the months-long conflict in the Middle ‌East, with a ‌final text of the ⁠deal reached.
It had been reported that Trump is scrambling to secure a peace deal with Iran before the G7 summit with world leaders on Monday.
Iran has said a peace deal has never been closer, yet several contradictory statements h..

The death of a Haitian asylum seeker whose body was found days after she was released from ICE custody has been ruled a homicide.
Maintenance works found Daphy Michel, 31, lying on the ground in a bus shelter, alone and unresponsive, on the morning of March 2, three days after she was released from an ICE office in Pittsburgh.
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office found that she died of hypothermia and it ruled the manner a homicide, “indicating the death was caused by the actions of another individual.”
An attorney representing her family said he expects her relatives to sue Immigration and Customs Enforcement in connection with her death.
Michel was a native of Haiti who was seeking asylum in the U.S. after arriving at the southern border in 2022, said Joseph Patrick Murphy, her family's attorney. She was granted humanitarian parole based on urgent humanitarian need, but she did not live to see a hearing scheduled for two weeks after she died, he said.
The medical ..

A young woman in Texas who doctors said had a two percent chance to survive at birth was killed in a car crash on the way to her new summer job.
Makynna Tumlinson, 18, died in a car crash on Highway 11 while she was on her way to start a summer job on June 3.
Stephanie Tumlinson, her mother, told KXII that she and her daughter spoke just before she left for the day. Her father, Tommy, then drove to the scene after seeing her location was near the crash site.
“From that point on, we were just panicking, you know, hoping that they got something wrong, you know?” the mother said, who received the tragic news after the father’s journey.
When she was born, Tumlinson was given a two percent chance of survival. Doctors predicted she would be stillborn, but “she beat those odds,” her mother said.
Makynna Tumlinson, 18, from Tom Bean, Texas, died in a car crash on June 3 while she was driving to her new summer job (Stephanie Tumlinson)Texas Department of Public Safety officials said Tumlinson..