Author: Injusticeto Team

Emails and videos of burned buildings in Los Angeles next to those left standing have been flying back and forth among architects, builders and fire safety specialists around the world.For many homeowners, like Enrique Balcazar, the sometimes scattershot nature of the carnage can seem like random chance. Balcazar, a real estate agent, posted video that showed little more than chimneys remaining of most homes on his block after fire leapt through his Altadena neighborhood. Balcazar stood on his neighbor’s destroyed classic Mustang to douse his smoldering roof, but his home was otherwise fine.“It’s an older house and it still has…

NEW DELHI (AP) — A fire tore through at least 18 temporary tents at a massive Hindu festival thronged by millions of people in India’s northern Prayagraj city, officials said Sunday. There were no injuries. The blaze was caused by the explosion of a gas cylinder and was contained by firefighters, police said. Images from the sprawling tent city at the confluence of the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers showed smoke billowing out as dozens of firefighters doused the blaze. The Maha Kumbh festival, held every 12 years, started last Monday. Indian authorities say it’s the world’s largest religious gathering.…

This story was originally published by Vox and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Kids lose so much when a disaster strikes. Too many have lost family members to the wildfires that have raged across Los Angeles in recent days. They’ve lost homes. They’ve lost the sense of security and predictability that so many kids depend on. And, to add insult to injury, many of them have lost their schools. At least nine schools in the Los Angeles area have been destroyed or severely damaged by the fires. Video posted by the principal of Odyssey Charter School’s south campus in Altadena shows flames still smoldering in…

The death toll from attacks by a rebel group in Colombia’s Catatumbo region has risen to 60, the country’s human rights office has said.Rival factions have been vying for control of the cocaine trade in the region – which sits near the border with Venezuela – for years. The Ombudsman’s Office said the latest violence involved the National Liberation Army (ELN) – the largest armed group still active in Colombia – and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), which signed a peace treaty with the state in 2016.The attacks broke an uneasy truce between the guerrilla groups, which had…

MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of Russians celebrating the Orthodox Christian feast day of Epiphany, where worshippers bathe in the icy waters of frozen lakes and rivers, have been forced to cancel their traditional ceremonies amid unusually warm winter temperatures.Across Russia, the devout and the daring celebrate Epiphany on Jan. 19 by immersing themselves in frigid water through holes cut through the ice of lakes and rivers, imitating the baptism of Jesus Christ in the River Jordan.Many extol the practice as strengthening both the soul and the body, although rescue workers are on hand in case anyone succumbs to the heart-racing…

Fifa’s handing of the 2034 Men’s World Cup to Saudi Arabia, by breaking its own rules and without conducting proper human rights due diligence, highlights why the UK needs to act fast and take a firm stance against “sportswashing” before it’s too late.A piece of legislation currently making its way through parliament in the UK – the Football Governance Bill, at the committee stage in the House of Lords – should explicitly rule out individuals and entities implicated in grave human rights abuses from securing stakes in football clubs in England and Wales. The new Human Rights Watch report about…

Trinidad and Tobago has declared a state of emergency as gang violence in the Caribbean nation continues to escalate.President Christine Carla Kangaloo issued the declaration on the advice of Prime Minister Keith Rowley, who had been under growing pressure to take action over worsening crime figures.The twin-island republic has one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a record murder tally of more than 620 this year so far in a population of 1.5 million people.Organised crime is responsible for the majority of the murders, many of them linked to the international drug trade.According to…

BUCKHOLTS, Texas (AP) — On rural Texas farmland, beneath hundreds of rows of solar panels, a troop of stocky sheep rummage through pasture, casually bumping into one another as they remain committed to a single task: chewing grass.The booming solar industry has found an unlikely mascot in sheep as large-scale solar farms crop up across the U.S. and in the plain fields of Texas. In Milam County, outside Austin, SB Energy operates the fifth-largest solar project in the country, capable of generating 900 megawatts of power across 4,000 acres (1,618 hectares). How do they manage all that grass? With the…

Getty ImagesRescued miners have been taken for medical checksIt will be a “mammoth task” to identify the bodies brought up from a disused mineshaft in South Africa this week, a police spokesperson says.Seventy-eight corpses, along with more than 240 illegal miners, have been hoisted to the surface since Monday as part of a rescue operation, Brig Athlenda Mathe told journalists close to the top of the mineshaft in Stilfontein.They had been underground since at least November.That was when the authorities stepped up efforts to bring an end to illicit mining activities by surrounding the entrance to the shaft and refusing…

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Firefighters from the Navajo Nation worked tirelessly through a haze of dust to cut away dirt from a narrow road at the side of a mountain struck by a landslide in Southern California, coughing and sneezing amid the backbreaking work. Anthony Platero, a member of the Navajo Scouts firefighter crew, wipes dust from his eyes as he clears debris from a landslide across a road on a hillside at the Eaton Fire, Friday, Jan. 17, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher) Anthony Platero, a member of the Navajo Scouts firefighter crew, wipes dust from his…