RIYADMEDIA

London — Police in Iceland called off a search Monday for two tourists initially believed missing after the collapse of an ice cave that killed one person and seriously injured another, saying they now believe no one is missing.

Icelandic authorities said they called off the search after examining the tour operator’s records and determining that only 23 people were on the trip, not 25 as was first believed.

One person died and one person was seriously injured Sunday when the cave collapsed shortly before 3 p.m. local time. Both victims are American citizens, police said.

“A moment ago, the police field manager located at the scene announced that all the ice that was thought to have fallen on the people had been moved,‘’ police said. “It has come to light that no one (was) hidden under the ice.’’

Rescuers had worked by hand to cut through the remnants of the collapsed ice cave as they searched for those they had believed to be missing.

The search, which was suspended overnight when conditions made it too dangerous, had resumed at about 7 a.m., Icelandic broadcaster RUV reported. Video showed rescuers working inside two large craters surrounded by the sand-blackened ice of the Breidamerkurjokull glacier.

But by the end of the day, they were satisfied that a mistake had been made in record keeping and that no one else was missing.

Police said there had been “misleading information” about the number of people on the trip. Based on what initially was available, it was deemed necessary to continue the search until rescuers could be assured no one was under the ice, police said.
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Geneva — Switzerland hosted United Nations Security Council members at a meeting in Geneva on Monday to recommit to international humanitarian law, describing an “alarming” global context characterized by over 120 armed conflicts, with Russia the only member absent.

Switzerland, which is one of the 15 members, organized the informal meeting to commemorate the Geneva Conventions, signed 75 years ago after World War II in the Swiss city to limit the barbarity of war.  

“I call for us to raise respect of the Geneva Conventions to the level of a top political priority,” Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis told the meeting attended by envoys from a range of countries, including 14 of the 15 U.N. Security Council members.

Asked about Russia’s absence, he said that all members were invited to think about international humanitarian law collectively but said attendance was not compulsory.

A Russian envoy in New York described the meeting as a “waste of time.”

“We believe that the Security Council should be focusing on more important matters than traveling around Europe,” said Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative in New York Dmitry Polyanski in a message sent by the diplomatic mission in Geneva.

Russia is a ‘P5’ member which holds a permanent seat within the broader Security Council alongside the United States, France, Britain and China.  

At the same meeting the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross Mirjana Spoljaric described the Geneva Conventions as “under strain,” referring to the Gaza conflict as well as Ukraine. Russia launched more than 100 missiles and around 100 attack drones at Ukraine on Monday, killing at least five people and striking energy facilities.
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The rapid rise in disposable electronic cigarette, or vape, usage is creating a tidal wave of pollution, and it’s raising serious environmental concerns. Aron Ranen reports from New York City about one woman who is trying to make a difference.
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A memorial run has been held in Simi Valley, California to honor 13 U.S. service members killed three years ago during a suicide bombing as U.S. troops were withdrawing from Afghanistan. VOA’s Genia Dulot attended this year’s run and spoke to two Gold Star families as well as the event organizer, whose son survived the attack at the Kabul airport.
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THIAROYE-SUR-MER, Senegal — Salamba Ndiaye was 22 when she first tried to get to Spain, dreaming of a career as a real estate agent. Without her parents’ knowledge, she made it onto a small fishing boat known as a pirogue, but the Senegalese police intercepted the vessel before it could leave.—

A year later Ndiaye tried again, successfully making it off the coast but this time a violent storm forced the boat to stop in Morocco, where Ndiaye and the other passengers were sent back to Senegal.

Despite her two failed attempts, the 28-year-old is determined to try again. “Right now, if they told me there was a boat going to Spain, I would leave this interview and get on it,” she said.

Ndiaye is one of thousands of young Senegalese who try to leave the West African country each year to head to Spain, fleeing poverty and the lack of job opportunities. Most head to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa, which is used as a stepping stone to continental Europe.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 22,300 people have landed on the Canary Islands, 126% more than the same period last year, according to statistics released by Spain’s Interior Ministry.

While most migrants leaving Senegal are young men, aid workers in the Canary Islands say they are increasingly seeing young women like Ndiaye risk their lives as well.

Earlier this year, the EU signed a 210 million euro deal with Mauritania to stop smugglers from launching boats for Spain. But the deal has had little effect on migrant arrivals for now.

The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will visit Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia this week to tackle irregular migration. The West African nations are the main launching pads for migrants traveling by boat.

The Atlantic route from West Africa to the Canary Islands is one of the deadliest in the world. While there is no accurate death toll because of the lack of information on departures from West Africa, the Spanish migrant rights group Walking Borders estimates the victims are in the thousands this year alone.

Migrant boats that get lost or run into problems often vanish in the Atlantic, with some drifting across the ocean for months until they are found in the Caribbean and Latin America carrying only human remains.

But the danger of the route is not a deterrent for those like Ndiaye, who are desperate to make a better living for themselves and their families in Europe. “Barsa wala Barsakh,” or “Barcelona or die” in Wolof, one of Senegal’s national languages, is a common motto of those who brave the deadly route.

“Even if we stay here, we are in danger,” said Cheikh Gueye, 46, a fisherman from Thiaroye-sur-Mer, the same village on the outskirts of Senegal’s capital that Ndiaye is from.

“If you are sick and you can’t pay for treatment, aren’t you in danger? So, we take our chances, either we get there, or we don’t,” he added.

Gueye also attempted to reach Europe though the Atlantic route but only made it to Morocco following bad weather, and was sent back to Senegal.

Like many inhabitants of Thiaroye-sur-Mer, he used to make a decent living as a fisherman before fish stocks started to deplete a decade ago due to overfishing.

“These big boats have changed things, before even kids could catch some fish here with a net,” Gueye said, pointing at the shallow water.

“Now we have to go more than 50 kilometers out before we find fish and even then we don’t find enough, just a little,” he adds.

Gueye and Ndiaye blame the fishing agreements between Senegal and the European Union and China, which allow foreign industrial trawlers to fish in Senegalese waters. The agreements impose limits on what they can haul in, but monitoring what the large boats from Europe, China and Russia harvest has proven difficult.

Ahead of the Spanish prime minister’s visit to Senegal on Wednesday, Ndiaye’s mother, Fatou Niang, 67, says the Senegalese and Spanish governments should focus on giving young people in the West African country job opportunities to deter them from migrating.

“These kids don’t know anything but the sea, and now the sea has nothing. If you do something for the youth, they won’t leave,” Niang says.

“But if not, well, we can’t make them stay. There’s no work here,” she said.
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — One person was killed and three were injured by a landslide that prompted a mandatory evacuation in the Alaska city of Ketchikan, authorities said.

Three people were transported to Ketchikan Medical Center following the landslide, which struck around 4 p.m. Sunday and damaged homes and infrastructure, the Ketchikan Gateway Borough and City of Ketchikan said in a joint statement Sunday.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy declared an emergency for Ketchikan, while Borough Mayor Rodney Dial and city Mayor Dave Kiffer issued a separate emergency declaration.

“Friends, is with a heavy heart we relay that a landslide in the city has taken a life, caused several injuries, damaged homes and impacted our community,” Dial said in the statement.

Kiffer said the loss of life was “heartbreaking, and my heart goes out to those who lost their homes.”

“In my 65 years in Ketchikan, I have never seen a slide of this magnitude. With the slides we have seen across the region, there is clearly a region-wide issue that we need to try to understand with the support of our State geologist,” Kiffer said.

Two of the victims were admitted to the hospital and one was treated and released. All other individuals have been accounted for, the statement said.

Multiple homes were impacted by the landslide and a mandatory evacuation was ordered for residents of Third Avenue and nearby streets, while a shelter was set up at Ketchikan High School, the borough and city said.

A potential secondary landslide area was identified to the south of the original slide location and crews were standing by, the statement said.
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Beijing — China on Sunday expressed its opposition to the latest U.S. sanctions on Chinese companies over their alleged ties to Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying it will adopt necessary measures to safeguard the rights and interests of the country’s businesses.

The U.S. announced Friday sweeping sanctions on hundreds of firms in Russia and across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, accusing them of providing products and services that enable Russia’s war effort and aiding its ability to evade sanctions. The U.S. Department of State said it was concerned by “the magnitude of dual-use goods exports” from China to Russia.

The Ministry of Commerce in China in its statement firmly opposed the U.S. putting multiple Chinese companies on its export control list. The move bars such companies from trading with U.S. firms without gaining a nearly unobtainable special license.

The ministry said the U.S. action was “typical unilateral sanctions,” saying they would disrupt global trade orders and rules, as well as affect the stability of the global industrial and supply chains.

“China urges the U.S. to immediately stop its wrong practices and will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interest of Chinese companies,” it said.

The U.S. action is the latest in a series of thousands of U.S. sanctions that have been imposed on Russian firms and their suppliers in other nations since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The effectiveness of the sanctions has been questioned, especially as Russia has continued to support its economy by selling oil and gas on international markets.

According to the U.S. State Department, some China-based companies supplied machine tools and components to Russia companies.

China has tried to position itself as neutral in the Ukraine conflict, but it shares with Russia high animosity toward the West.

After Western countries imposed heavy sanctions on Russian oil in response to Russia sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, China strongly stepped up its purchase of Russian oil, increasing its influence in Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin also underlined the importance of China by meeting in Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping soon after being inaugurated for a fifth term in the Kremlin.
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New York — The rally in U.S. stocks faces an important test […]  with earnings from chipmaking giant Nvidia NVDA.O, whose blistering run has powered markets throughout 2024.  

The S&P 500 .SPX has pared a sharp drop it suffered after U.S. economic worries contributed to a sell-off at the beginning of the month and again stands near a fresh all-time high.  

Nvidia, whose chips are widely seen as the gold standard in artificial intelligence, has been at the forefront of that rally, jumping by more than 30% since its recent lows. The stock is up some 150% year-to-date, accounting for around a quarter of the S&P 500’s 17% year-to-date gain.  

The company’s Aug. 28 earnings report, coupled with guidance on whether it expects corporate investments in AI to continue, could be a key inflection point for market sentiment heading into what is historically a volatile time of the year. The S&P 500 has fallen in September by an average of 0.78% since World War Two, the worst performance of any month, according to CFRA data.  

“Nvidia is the zeitgeist stock today,” said Mike Smith, a portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments, which holds the company’s shares in its portfolios. “You can think of their earnings four times a year as the Super Bowl.”  

Some investors are getting ready for fireworks. Traders are pricing in a swing of around 10.3% in Nvidia’s shares the day after the company reports earnings, according to data from options analytic firm ORATS. That’s larger than the expected move ahead of any Nvidia report over the last three years and well above the stock’s average post-earnings move of 8.1% over that same period, ORATS data showed.   

The results come at the end of an earnings season during which investors have taken a less forgiving view of big tech companies whose earnings failed to justify rich valuations or prodigious spending on AI. Examples include Microsoft MSFT.O, Tesla TSLA.O and Alphabet GOOGL.O, whose shares are all down since their July reports.  

Nvidia’s valuations have also climbed, as the stock soared about 750% since the start of 2023, making it the world’s third-most valuable company as of Thursday, while also drawing comparisons to the dotcom bubble of more than two decades ago. The company’s shares trade at about 37 times forward 12-month earnings estimates, compared with a 20-year average of 29 times, according to LSEG Datastream.  

Market sentiment could depend as much on Nvidia’s guidance as its results. Evidence that it sees robust demand will be a bullish sign that companies are continuing to invest rather than pull back in anticipation of an economic slowdown, said Matt Stucky, chief portfolio manager, equities, at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management.  

Nvidia’s “connection to the largest companies in the U.S. stock market makes this a must-watch event,” he said. “The biggest piece that investors want to know is whether there is sustainability and what demand will look like in ’25 and ’26,” he said.  

The trajectory of monetary policy and the U.S. economy also looms large for investors. In a Friday morning speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell offered an explicit endorsement of interest rate cuts, saying further cooling in the job market would be unwelcome.  

Investors will be watching U.S. labor market data on Sept. 6 for evidence of whether last month’s unexpected downshift in employment carried over to August. Signs that employment is continuing to weaken could bring back the recession fears that rocked markets earlier this month.  

A tight presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, and Republican former President Donald Trump may also whip up market uncertainty in the weeks ahead.  

The August surge in stocks may make it difficult for markets to make much more headway in the near term even if Nvidia’s earnings impress Wall Street, said John Belton, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, which holds shares of the chipmaker.  

The S&P 500 trades at 21 times expected earnings, far above its long-term average of 15.7.  

“The stock market as a whole is still trading at stretched valuations so the bar remains high,” Belton said. 
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Kyiv — Five people died in Ukrainian shelling in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, officials said Sunday, while Russian forces struck a hotel in eastern Ukraine, leaving one journalist missing and two others injured.

Twelve other people were wounded in the Russian village of Rakitone, 38 kilometers (23 miles) from the Ukrainian border, including a 16-year-old girl reported to be in critical condition, said regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. Another man also died in a separate drone attack on the border village of Solovevka, he wrote later on social media.

Russian forces struck a hotel overnight in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk in the country’s eastern Donetsk region, injuring two people and leaving one trapped under the rubble, regional Gov. Vadym Filashkin said. They were reported to be journalists from Ukraine, the U.S. and the U.K.

Reuters news agency said Sunday that its journalist covering the war in Ukraine was missing and two other team members were hospitalized after Hotel Sapphire, where a six-person crew was staying, was hit “by an apparent missile strike” Saturday. “One of our colleagues is unaccounted for, while another two have been taken to hospital for treatment,” the agency said.

The rest of the team has been accounted for, the news agency said.

Local officials said that the hotel had been struck with an Iskander Russian ballistic missile, leaving the reporters with blast injuries, concussions, and cuts on the body.

Associated Press reporters at the scene described the former hotel as “rubble,” with excavators still being used to clear debris hours after the attack.

In addition to the hotel, a nearby multistory building was also destroyed, Filashkin said, and rescuers were busy clearing the debris at the site.

Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region also came under Russian fire, resulting in multiple civilian injuries, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

In Kharkiv’s Chuhuiv region, five people were injured, including a 4-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl, after two houses were struck by Russian fire. In Kharkiv city, eight people were wounded when a two-story house was set on fire by a Russian attack.

In Balakliia, a Russian strike destroyed six houses and damaged others. A 55-year-old man was injured. In the Kupiansk area, a house was set on fire by a Russian attack, wounding four women.
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HONOLULU — Hurricane Hone passed just south of Hawaii early Sunday, dumping enough rain for the National Weather Service to call off its red flag warnings that strong winds could cause wildfires on the drier sides of islands in the archipelago.

Hone had top winds of 80 mph (130 kph), according to a 2 a.m. advisory from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu, and was moving west near the southernmost point of the Big Island, close enough to sweep the coast with tropical storm force winds and to drop up to a foot (30 centimeters) or more of rain on the windward and southeast-facing slopes of the Big Island, with locally higher amounts possible. 

Hurricane Gilma, meanwhile, increased to a Category 4 hurricane Saturday night, but it was still about 1,480 miles (2,380 kilometers) east of Hilo and forecast to weaken into a depression before it reaches Hawaii.

“Hone’s main threats to the state continue to be the potential for heavy rainfall leading to flooding, damaging winds and large surf along east-facing shores,” the weather service advised early Sunday. 

Some Big Island beach parks were closed due to dangerously high surf and officials were preparing to open shelters if needed, Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth said.

Hone, whose name is Hawaiian for “sweet and soft,” poked at memories still fresh of last year’s deadly blazes on Maui, which were fueled by hurricane-force winds. Red flag alerts are issued when warm temperatures, very low humidity and stronger winds combine to raise fire dangers. Most of the archipelago is already abnormally dry or in drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“They gotta take this thing serious,” said Calvin Endo, a Waianae Coast neighborhood board member who lives in Makaha, a leeward Oahu neighborhood prone to wildfires.

The Aug. 8, 2023, blaze that torched the historic town of Lahaina was the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, with 102 dead. Dry, overgrown grasses and drought helped spread the fire.

For years, Endo has worried about dry brush on private property behind his home. He’s taken matters into his own hands by clearing the brush himself, but he’s concerned about nearby homes abutting overgrown vegetation.

“All you need is fire and wind and we’ll have another Lahaina,” Endo said Saturday. “I notice the wind started to kick up already.”

The cause of the Lahaina blaze is still under investigation, but it’s possible it was ignited by bare electrical wire and leaning power poles toppled by the strong winds. The state’s two power companies, Hawaiian Electric and the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, were prepared to shut off power if necessary to reduce the chance that live, damaged power lines could start fires, but they later said the safety measures would not be necessary as Hone blew past the islands. 

Roth said a small blaze that started Friday night in Waikoloa, on the dry side of the Big Island, was brought under control without injuries or damage.
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates — U.S. rapper Macklemore has announced he is cancelling an upcoming show in Dubai over the UAE’s involvement in the conflict in Sudan, charges the Gulf state has denied.

The rapper best known for hits like 2012’s “Thrift Shop” made the announcement in a post on social media on Saturday.

“I have decided to cancel my upcoming show in Dubai this October,” he said.

“Over the last several months I’ve had a number of people reach out to me, sharing resources and asking me to cancel the show in solidarity with the people of Sudan,” he said.

“Until the UAE stops arming and funding the RSF I will not perform there,” Macklemore added, referring to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that have been battling the Sundanese army.

War has raged since April 2023 between the Sudanese army, under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, which is commanded by Burhan’s former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

For months, the army has accused the UAE of supporting the RSF.

In June, Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations Al-Harith Idriss al-Harith Mohamed called Abu Dhabi’s financial and military support for the RSF the “main reason behind this protracted war.”

The UAE has denied allegations of RSF support as “disinformation,” saying that it’s efforts are focused exclusively towards de-escalation and alleviating Sudan’s humanitarian suffering.

Macklemore has released socially aware music in the past, supporting LGBTQ+ rights while also criticizing ills including poverty and consumerism.

In his latest track released in May, Macklemore voices support for Palestinians and also praises students across the United States protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza.

The song, “Hind’s Hall,” is named after a building at Columbia University that students recently occupied and renamed after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza. 
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KYIV — Russia launched several missiles and drones overnight targeting northern and eastern Ukraine, injuring at least 29 people, Ukrainian military and local authorities said on Sunday.

The attack targeted Ukraine’s frontline regions of Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Donetsk, Ukraine’s air force said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia has been pummeling Ukrainian border regions with strikes, and Kyiv said its surprise incursion earlier this month into Russia’s Kursk region aimed to hinder Moscow’s ability to stage such attacks.

“Most of the missiles did not reach their targets,” the air force said, adding that Russia launched an Iskander-M ballistic missile, an Iskander-K cruise missile and six guided air missiles. It did not specify how many missiles were destroyed.

A missile attack on the northern region of Sumy killed one person, injuring at least 16 more, including three children, local authorities said on Telegram.

Oleh Sinehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region in the east, posted on Telegram that at least 13 people were injured in the Russian attacks, including a 4-year-old child.

Ihor Terekhov, mayor of Kharkiv city, said a gas pipeline was damaged in the city and at least two houses were destroyed and 10 damaged.

The air force said Russia launched nine attack drones, with Ukraine’s air defense systems destroying eight of them over the Ukraine’s Mykolaiv region.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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FRANKFURT, Germany — The suspect in custody for a stabbing rampage in the western German city of Solingen that killed three people and injured eight is a 26-year-old Syrian man, authorities said early Sunday.

The suspect turned himself in and admitted to the crime, Duesseldorf police and prosecutors said in a joint statement.

“The involvement of this person is currently under intensive investigation,” they said.

The attack, for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility, occurred Friday evening in the Fronhof, a market square where live bands were playing at a festival to celebrate Solingen’s 650-year history. Mourners have made a makeshift memorial near the scene.

The arrest of the suspect threatens to stoke fears ahead of three state elections next month in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, which the anti-immigrant far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has a chance of winning.

The suspect came from a home for refugees in Solingen that was searched on Saturday, said North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister, Herbert Reul.

Der Spiegel, citing unidentified security sources, reported that the man moved to Germany late in 2022 and sought asylum, and that his clothes had been smeared with blood.

The police declined to comment on the Spiegel report.

Meanwhile, German federal prosecutors have taken over the case and are investigating whether the suspect was a member of Islamic State, a spokesperson for the prosecutors said.

The group described the man who carried out the attack as a “soldier of the Islamic State” in a statement on its Telegram account on Saturday: “He carried out the attack in revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere.”

It did not immediately provide any evidence for its assertion, and it was not clear how close any relationship between the attacker and Islamic State was.

Hendrik Wuest, premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, on Saturday described the attack as an act of terror.

Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has counted around a dozen Islamist-motivated attacks since 2000.

One of the biggest was in 2016, when a Tunisian drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 and injuring dozens.

“The risk of jihadist-motivated acts of violence remains high. The Federal Republic of Germany remains a direct target of terrorist organizations,” the BKA said in the report earlier this year.
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madrid — Sunflower oil has dethroned olive oil as king of the kitchen in Spain, the world´s largest olive oil producer, as rising prices force consumers to switch to cheaper options. 

Spaniards bought 107 million liters (28.3 million gallons) of all types of olive oil in the first half of 2024 compared with 179 million liters of sunflower oil, according to Spain’s biggest olive oil bottling association, Anierac.  

Until this year, olive oil has been the most popular cooking oil in Spanish households, accounting for 62% of sales by volume in 2023 while sunflower oil represented almost 34%, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. 

“It is clear that olive oil consumption is falling in Spain,” said Primitivo Fernandez, spokesman for Anierac. “There are households that used to buy only olive oil and for the first time are now buying sunflower oil and olive oil,” he said. 

Olive oil sales by volume fell 18% from the first half of 2023, Anierac said. Sunflower oil sales increased by 25% in volume last year, according to official data. 

A bottle of sunflower oil cost an average of 1.86 euros ($2.07) a liter last year, while pricier olive oil types cost upwards of 6 euros a liter, 50% more than in 2022, official data showed. 

Weather’s effects

Spain usually supplies around 40% of the world’s olive oil, but heat waves in the spring and a prolonged drought reduced olive harvests over the past two years, doubling olive oil prices to record levels. 

That has pushed the staple of the Mediterranean diet beyond the reach of poor households in Spain, which are switching to cheaper sunflower oil, according to a Ministry of Agriculture report on food consumption trends in 2023. 

At the end of last year, olive oil was mainly consumed in middle-class and upper-middle-class households, the report said. 

One-liter bottles of extra-virgin olive oil were selling for as much as 14.5 euros ($15.77) in some supermarkets last year, putting them in the category of products retailers fit with security tags. 

In June, the Spanish government cut the value added tax on olive oil to make it more affordable even as prices have eased a little this year. 

Spain’s largest supermarket chain, Mercadona, has cut the price of olive oil by 25% this year and this week was offering 1 liter bottles below 7 euros to try to woo back customers, a company source said.
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burke, vermont — Two bouts of flooding from storms in July has hampered businesses and destinations in an economically depressed section of northern Vermont, with some still closed as they continue to repair damage and others urging visitors, who were deterred by the weather, to make the trip. 

Kingdom Trails, a popular destination for mountain bikers, draws tens of thousands of visitors a year. But the storms that hit the region on July 10 and July 30 washed away some roads and bridges, damaged homes and trails, and discouraged visitors at the height of the season. 

Businesses and destinations are picking up the pieces, with some still closed in nearby Lyndonville, while others want to get the word out that they are very much open. 

“I can’t stress enough that we are open and our community is welcoming people,” said Abby Long, executive director of Kingdom Trails. “We’re encouraging folks to not only come visit Kingdom Trails and have an awesome time but sign up to volunteer mucking and gutting houses for the morning and then relax on the trails in the afternoon.” 

The storms caused $300,000 in damages to the trails — and that doesn’t account for the loss of membership revenue, she said. The trails were closed for about a day and a half as crews worked furiously to get them back open. The cost of repairs comes on top of the $150,000 in damages suffered in last summer’s flooding. 

“That is not sustainable,” Long said. 

So far, 341 businesses in Vermont have reported flood damage to the state this year, according to Economic Development Commissioner Joan Goldstein. Last summer, about 1,100 businesses were affected, she said. 

In Lyndonville, a popular diner that had been in business since 1978 will not be reopening after getting damaged in the July 10 storms. The owner of the Miss Lyndonville Diner is having repairs done and plans to sell the restaurant. She told the Caledonian Record that the flooding convinced her it was time to retire. 

Leaving ski industry

The nearby Village Sport Shop, which also has been in business for nearly 50 years, has decided to close its flooded Lyndonville shop and exit the ski industry, according to a social media post by the business. 

“With the multiple flooding events we have endured and the evolution we have needed to take as a business, we have come to the decision it is time to turn our focus towards the summer side of the business and relieve ourselves from the flood risks the lowest lying real estate on the strip endures,” the post said. The business has a trailside bicycle shop in East Burke. 

A bagel shop and a Walgreens drugstore were still temporarily closed as they recover from the flood damage. 

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden approved a major disaster declaration making federal funding available to help individuals and communities recover from the July 9-10 flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl. Governor Phil Scott has requested a separate disaster declaration for the July 30 storms and flooding. 

In May, Vermont became the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by extreme weather fanned by climate change. But officials have acknowledged that collecting any money will depend on litigation against a much-better-resourced oil industry. 

In Burke, a town of about 1,650 that is home to the Burke Mountain ski area, Kingdom Trails is a huge economic driver, said Town Administrator Jim Sullivan. 

“It’s traumatic, it’s unbelievable the extent that it ripples out,” he said. “If Kingdom Trails can’t open, people cancel their reservations at the Airbnbs and at the inns. We have restaurants that are counting on all of those people coming here. And it’s just a chain event that eventually dwindles where you have these absolutely beautiful days and you just don’t have the people here that we normally would have if we didn’t have this devastation.” 

‘Screeching halt’

The East Burke Market was having a really good summer but when the trails closed down, business “came to a bit of a screeching halt,” said co-owner Burton Hinton. 

Each of the storms caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in road and property damage, Sullivan said. The town lost a bridge in the July 10 flooding and the whole mountain road in the storm weeks later, he said. 

“We’re still waiting for some direction from the federal government. In the meantime, everybody has really come together and done a great job of helping each other. True community,” he said. 

About 60 student-athletes who race in cross-country mountain biking with the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Cycling League, and 40 coaches, were in Burke to train at Kingdom Trails when the latest flooding hit on July 30. 

The group had to pivot to ride on gravel for a few days but then some trails reopened quickly, said Michael Morrell, with the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, who was with them. 

“The trail system up here and the trail crew are just so efficient, and the trails, many of the trails, they drain very well,” he said on August 1. 

Still, he said he felt terrible for those reliant on getting tourists to visit the local trails. 

“I feel so bad that their roads are closed,” Morrell said. ” … We’re just glad that we can help support them in any way we can.”
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MEXICO CITY — The European Union’s top diplomat on Saturday said that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has still “not provided the necessary public evidence” to prove he was the winner of July’s elections, days after the country’s Supreme Court backed the government’s disputed claims of victory.

The bloc joined a slate of other Latin American countries and the United States in rejecting the Venezuelan high court’s certification. Authorities repeated calls for Maduro to release the election’s official tally sheets, considered the one verifiable vote count in Venezuela as they are almost impossible to replicate.

“Only complete and independently verifiable results will be accepted and recognized,” Josep Borrell, the high representative of the EU, said in a statement.

Borrell’s comments came as the leaders of Brazil and Colombia also demanded the release of the tallies, saying on Saturday the “credibility of the electoral process can only be restored through the transparent publication of disaggregated and verifiable data.”

The joint statement from Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Colombian President Gustavo Petro didn’t go as far as to reject the court certification. Many had been waiting to see how the two leftist leaders would respond to the court because both are close allies of Maduro and have been working to facilitate talks with both sides.

Maduro claims that he won the presidential vote, but so far has refused to release the tallies. Meanwhile, the main opposition coalition has accused Maduro of trying to steal the vote.

Opposition volunteers managed to collect copies of voting tallies from 80% of the 30,000 polling booths nationwide that show former opposition candidate Edmundo González won by a more than 2-to-1 margin. The Supreme Court and other government entities alleged those tallies were forged.

The Venezuelan government rejected Borrell’s statements, calling them “interventionist.” Its Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that the “continued disrespect” to Venezuela’s sovereignty by the EU could “considerably affect diplomatic, political and economic relations.”

Lula and Petro said they “take note” of the court’s ruling, but added they are still awaiting release of the tallies.

The Brazilian and Colombian leaders also called on actors in Venezuela to “avoid resorting to acts of violence and repression” as security forces arrested more than 2,000 people and cracked down on demonstrations that erupted spontaneously throughout the country protesting the results. But the two leaders didn’t directly accuse the Maduro government of carrying out the violence.

The arrests have again spread fear in a country that has seen other government crackdowns during previous times of political turmoil.

At the same time, key opposition figure Maria Corina Machado has since gone into hiding and the government said Friday it will order González to provide sworn testimony in an ongoing investigation, claiming he was part of an effort to spread panic by contesting the results of the election.

Both Lula and Petro have previously been criticized for what some say have been lenient policies toward Maduro’s government, but their tone has grown more stern in recent months, especially in the wake of the election fallout.

Their two countries are neighbors to Venezuela and their governments were to witness agreements struck between Maduro and the opposition that aimed to chart the path to free and fair elections, which the opposition and other observers accused Maduro of violating. The two leaders reiterated their willingness to facilitate dialogue between the government and the opposition.

“The political normalization of Venezuela requires the recognition that there is no lasting alternative to peaceful dialogue and democratic coexistence,” the statement read. 
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paris — Pavel Durov, billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at the Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday evening, TF1 TV and BFM TV said, citing unnamed sources. 

Telegram, particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union, is ranked as one of the major social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and WeChat. It aims to hit 1 billion users in the next year.  

Based in Dubai, Telegram was founded by Russian-born Durov. He left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he sold. 

Durov was traveling aboard his private jet, TF1 said on its website, adding he had been targeted by an arrest warrant in France as part of a preliminary police investigation. 

TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram, and that police considered that this situation allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app. 

Telegram did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The French Interior Ministry and police had no comment. 

App becomes popular during wartime

After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has become the main source of unfiltered — and sometimes graphic and misleading — content from both sides about the war and the politics surrounding the conflict. 

The app has become preferred means of communications for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his officials. The Kremlin and the Russian government also use it to disseminate their news. It has also become one of the few places where Russians can access news about the war.

TF1 said Durov had been traveling from Azerbaijan and was arrested at around 18:00 GMT.  

Durov, whose fortune was estimated by Forbes at $15.5 billion, said some governments had sought to pressure him but the app, which has now 900 million active users, should remain a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics.” 

The Russia Embassy in France told the Russian state TASS news agency that it was not contacted by Durov’s team after the reports of the arrest, but it was taking “immediate” steps to clarify the situation.  

Bloggers encourage protesting French embassies

Russia’s representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, and several other Russian politicians were quick to accuse France of acting as a dictatorship. 

“Some naive persons still don’t understand that if they play [a] more or less visible role in [the] international information space it is not safe for them to visit countries which move towards much more totalitarian societies,” Ulyanov wrote on X, formerly Twitter. 

Several Russian bloggers called for protests at French embassies throughout the world at noon Sunday. 
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NICE, France — French police apprehended and detained the suspect behind the arson attack on a synagogue in a southwestern Mediterranean town that injured a police officer, the country’s acting interior minister said early Sunday.

Two cars parked at the Beth Yaacov synagogue complex in the seaside resort town of La Grande Motte near Montpellier were set ablaze just after 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) Saturday, the National Antiterrorism Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement Saturday.

“The alleged perpetrator of the arson attack on the synagogue has been arrested,” Gerald Darmanin, the acting interior minister, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. He visited the site Saturday afternoon along with acting Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and met with local officials and the synagogue staff.

Darmanin also hailed the “professional conduct” of police forces and its elite intervention unit “despite the gunfire” during the operation. He did not provide further information.

Firefighters discovered additional fires at two entrances to the synagogue. A police officer who walked up to the site was injured after a propane gas tank in one of the vehicles exploded, the prosecutor’s statement said.

Five people, including the rabbi, who were present in the synagogue complex at the time of the attack were unharmed, it added.

Prosecutors were investigating the attack as an attempted assassination linked to a terrorist group and destruction of property with dangerous means, and a crime planned by a terrorist group with an intent to cause harm, the statement said.

After the attack Saturday, Darmanin ordered police reinforcements to protect Jewish places of worship following what was “clearly a criminal act.”

“I want to assure our Jewish fellow citizens of my full support and say that at the request of President Emmanuel Macron all means are being mobilized to find the perpetrator,” Darmanin posted on X. He ordered more police officers deployed at Jewish places of worship around the country following a surge of antisemitism since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October.

La Grande Motte Mayor Stéphan Rossignol said that investigators were reviewing the city’s surveillance videos and said that a lone suspect was spotted at the site of the attack.

“The individual in question did not manage to get inside the synagogue, even though that was clearly his objective.” Rossignol said in an interview with broadcaster France Info.

Prosecutors said a male suspect spotted in surveillance videos fleeing the site was carrying a Palestinian flag and a weapon. They spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with regulations amid an ongoing investigation.

President Emmanuel Macron said the synagogue attack was a “terrorist act” and assured that “everything is being done to find (the) perpetrator.”

“The fight against antisemitism is a constant battle,” Macron said on X.

Attal, the acting prime minister, said the synagogue was targeted in the “antisemitic attack,” a “shocking and appalling” act of violence.

“Once again, French Jews have been targeted and attacked because of their beliefs,” Attal said after meetings in La Grand Motte. “We are outraged and repulsed.”

At least 200 police officers and other security personnel were deployed to apprehend the perpetrator, Attal added.

The assailant who hit the synagogue on the Shabbat morning was “very determined” to cause damage and casualties, Attal said and added that preliminary evidence collected by investigators shows that “we have narrowly avoided a tragedy.” 
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