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Firefighters watch as flames and smoke move through a valley in the Forest Ranch area of Butte County as the Park Fire continues to burn near Chico, California. Photo: AFP / Josh Edelson A California firefighter has been arrested and accused of setting five blazes in the state's wine country, even as his fellow firefighters battle flames that have consumed almost a million acres and forced thousands of evacuations in the state this year. Robert Matthew Hernandez, a 38-year-old fire apparatus engineer of Healdsburg, California, was arrested on suspicion of arson. He was accused of setting five fires between 15 August and 14 September while off-duty, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said in a news release. "I am appalled to learn one of our employees...

By Michel Rose and Mathieu Rosemain, Reuters Prime Minister of France Michel Barnier. Photo: AFP / Hans Lucas / Amaury Cornu Lawmaker Antoine Armand named finance minister Jean-Noel Barrot promoted to foreign minister Hard-right Bruno Retailleau becomes interior minister France unveiled a new government that aims to strike a fine balance between right-wingers and centrists, as Prime Minister Michel Barnier hopes to break political deadlock following snap elections that delivered a hung parliament. After 2 1/2 months of political uncertainty since centrist President Emmanuel Macron's surprise decision to call early elections, Barnier has put together a cabinet he hopes will find cross-party support in the fragmented parliament. With few political heavyweights, his team includes ...

Indonesia's new president Prabowo Subianto will be sworn in on 20 October. Photo: AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana It is a relief New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens was freed before Indonesia's new president took power, West Papua Action Aotearoa spokesperson Catherine Delahunty says. Indonesia's new president Prabowo Subianto will be sworn in on 20 October. Mehrtens was released after 19 months in captivity in West Papua, Indonesia, on Saturday. The armed faction of the West Papua National Liberation Army kidnapped Merhtens in February 2023 after he landed a small commercial plane in a remote, mountainous area. New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens following his release at a press conference in Timika. Photo: HANDOUT Delahunty, a former Green MP, said previous negotiations had stumbled and i...

Rescuers sift through the rubble at the scene of an Israeli strike that targeted Beirut's southern suburbs. Photo: AFP Hezbollah says 16 members killed, including two senior leaders Israel says group's military chain severely damaged Strike escalates long-running Israel-Hezbollah conflict Rescue workers in Beirut searched for people still missing in rubble after an Israeli airstrike targeting Hezbollah commanders killed at least 37 people in a suburb of the Lebanese capital, according to authorities. Hezbollah, a powerful Iran-backed group, said that 16 members including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another commander, Ahmed Wahbi, were among those killed in the deadliest strike in nearly a year of conflict with Israel. Israel's army said it hit an underground gathering of Aqil an...

By Esther Linder, ABC Photo: AFP PHOTO / Israel Defense Forces (IDF) As Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave a televised address in Beirut on Thursday, a booming sound like thunder cracked several times through the Lebanese capital. Nasrallah was speaking to condemn Israel for allegedly carrying out remotely detonated device attacks on Hezbollah's members, killing 37 and injuring thousands including civilians. But the noise heard by Beirut residents wasn't thunder, and it has become terrifyingly familiar - a sonic boom caused by Israeli warplanes. What is a sonic boom? A sonic boom occurs when an aircraft travels equal to or faster than the speed of sound (approximately 343 metres per second, or 1 kilometre in 2.91 seconds). It sounds like a huge crash of thunder or a cannon going...

Photo: AFP A man shattered a sculpture by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei during the opening of his exhibition at Palazzo Fava in the Italian city of Bologna, a spokesperson for the show said. Footage from CCTV cameras - posted on Ai Weiwei's Instagram account - showed a man vigorously pushing the sculpture over, breaking it and then holding a piece of it over his head. The sculpture targeted was the artist's large blue and white 'Porcelain Cube', the spokesperson said. The exhibit's curator, Arturo Galansino, said the perpetrator was well-known in the art world. "Unfortunately, I know the author of this inconsiderate gesture from a series of disturbing and damaging episodes over the years involving various exhibitions and institutions in Florence," said Galansino. The police in Bo...

By Dave Graham, Reuters Stephen Fry Photo: AFP British actor Stephen Fry has praised Austria for welcoming him as a citizen and giving him the right to vote in the country's upcoming election following a change in the law that sought to address Austria's crimes under Nazism. In 2019, the Austrian Parliament passed a bill making descendants of Austrians who fled Nazi rule eligible for citizenship, a step which Fry told newspaper Der Standard was a "noble gesture" in an interview published on Saturday. Fry, one of Britain's best-known actors and TV broadcasters, said this month in a video on social media that he had obtained citizenship because he had grandparents from Austria and that his great-grandparents had died in the Holocaust. After thanking Austria for changing the law and urg...

US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Photo: Brendan SMIALOWSKI and Patrick T. Fallon / AFP US Vice President Kamala Harris has accepted an invitation from CNN to participate in another debate against Donald Trump on 23 October, and urges her Republican rival to face her less than two weeks ahead of the 5 November presidential election, the Democratic candidate's campaign said on Saturday. "Vice President Harris is ready for another opportunity to share a stage with Donald Trump, and she has accepted CNN's invitation to a debate on 23 October. Donald Trump should have no problem agreeing to this debate," Jen O'Malley Dillon, the chair of the Harris campaign, said in a statement. Asked about Harris' acceptance of ...