Skip to content
REALNEWS HUB

Latest newsPage 54 of 60

Every story we publish, newest first.

World· Developing

Bangkok at breaking point as floods turn streets into stagnant lakes

With 40 dead and a disaster declared across all 50 city districts, experts warn extreme flooding will only worsen across south-east Asia Bangkok is used to absorbing the sudden afternoon downpours that inundate the city during the rainy season. Even streets in many central high-rise districts can briefly turn into rivers, with rats and cockroaches racing out of sewers and taking temporary refuge on trees and buildings as the subterranean world is flushed out. But every city has a breaking point, and this year rain fell so fast and so hard that whole neighbourhoods of the Thai capital have been transformed, not into rivers, but stagnant lakes. In parts of the city, roughly 300mm of rain – the equivalent of half a year of average rainfall in London – fell in about two days. Continue reading...

Politics· Verified

The shifting Senate map: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

Politics· Verified

Christa Pike left in ‘critical condition’ as Tennessee halts all executions | First Thing

Failed attempt to execute 50-year-old prompts review of state’s execution practices amid distressing witness accounts. Plus the California woman who is allergic to cold Good morning. Tennessee’s governor has suspended executions as Christa Pike’s lawyer says the state’s failed lethal injection execution attempt has left her in a critical condition. Bill Lee, the Republican state governor, has suspended all executions in the state until at least the end of the year and ordered an independent inquiry. Leading voices on the death penalty in the US have told the Guardian that the failed execution was such a violation of the constitutional prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” that all judicial killings should be halted nationwide. What have Pike’s lawyers said about her condition? Randy Spivey, one of her attorneys, said: “We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment, but we do know that she is alive right now and receiving life-saving medical care. She is in a critical condition.” What did witnesses say took place during the execution attempt? Catherine Sweeney, a reporter at the Nashville Public Radio WPLN, said: “They went through two rounds, and she was still breathing at the end. She was very ragged. She lifted her head up and was looking around. At one point, she said … there was a spot that was burning and hurting, and asked if that was normal. None of it was normal.” What was Pike convicted of? She was convicted of the brutal 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, alongside her then boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. Lee said he had not yet spoken to Slemmer’s family after the failed execution. Why has the DNC issued a lawsuit against the administration? The Trump administration broke the law when it pushed through a last-minute change to the form overseas citizens use to register and request absentee ballots, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) said in a lawsuit filed on Thursday. “Trump and Republicans are so desperate to hang on to power that they are trying to eliminate the way some American citizens abroad register to vote and request mail ballots,” said Ken Martin, the chair of the DNC. Which states are leading the resistance to the Trump EPA’s repeal of emissions rules? Twenty-one states, led by New York, are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s power plant rule. The New York attorney general, Letitia James, said the federal government was showing “callous disregard” for Americans’ health and the environment, and future generations would pay the price. Power plants that burn fossil fuels are a major source of planet-warming pollution. Continue reading...

Politics· Verified

Calls grow for US death penalty halt after ‘torturous’ botched execution of Christa Pike

Pike alive but in critical condition as experts call ordeal that unfolded in Tennessee Wednesday ‘unimaginably barbaric’ Top lawyers, doctors and members of the faith community are calling for a moratorium on the US death penalty after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute Christa Pike left the prisoner alive but in critical condition and receiving life-saving medical care. The recent spate of harrowingly botched executions across US death penalty states reached a new low late on Wednesday when Tennessee’s governor Bill Lee called off the procedure after Pike had been injected with two full syringes of pentobarbital. She is the only person to have survived being administered 5mg of the sedative – a massive dose that under normal circumstances is considered fatal. Continue reading...

World· Developing

Israel's Netanyahu says co-pilot tried to crash Tel Aviv-bound plane

PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, October 1: A FlyDubai flight was diverted to Saudi Arabia after the pilot was stabbed by his co-pilot in what the Israeli media are calling a terror attack. The co-pilot was detained by off-duty pilots on board and passengers before making a safe landing in Saudi Arabia. Also in the news, Cornell University's college campus culture is back under scrutiny after a shocking sexual assault claim. Plus, a man learns that Singapore does not take AI slop lightly.

World· Verified

400 French schools closed on Friday as protests escalate into ‘urban violence’ – Europe live

Dozens of schools have been damaged and nearly 3,000 teenagers have been detained since the start of the tensions Some 100 schools have been severely damaged during French high school protests that escalated this week into “urban violence,” with 40 headteachers injured, according to the latest figures from the French education ministry. The pupils’ grievances range from overloaded timetables and overcrowded classes to insufficient teachers and unbearable temperatures during heatwaves earlier this year. Riot police have been deployed to confront the increasingly violent protests. Continue reading...