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Fast-spreading wildfires have forced the evacuation of part of the Grand Canyon, with the US National Park Service ordering visitors and residents away from its northern rim. “Due to the advancing Dragon Bravo Fire within Grand Canyon National Park, all North Rim residents are now in ‘GO’ status and should evacuate the North Rim immediately,” the National Park Service said in an X post on Friday afternoon. The Dragon Bravo Fire, which was sparked by lightning and has been burning since July 4, was 150 acres (61 hectares) in size Friday evening and zero percent contained, a US government incident report said.Park Service staff had already cleared the North Rim, which is less popular with tourists than the South Rim, of some 500 visitors late Thursday.Day-use access to the area was also closed due to a larger blaze called the White Sage Fire, which was burning outside the Grand Canyon National Park.However, it was approaching Jacob Lake, Arizona, a small settlement known as the gateway to the North Rim.About 10,973 acres (4,441 hectares) have been scorched by the White Sage Fire which is zero-percent contained, according to authorities, who released images of large columns of smoke rising above the scrubby desert.Jon Paxton, press officer for the Coconino County sheriff’s office, told AFP that a hotel and some businesses had been emptied.”Most of the folks we evacuated were campers,” he said. “This area is high desert and mostly open forest for camping.”- Started by lightning -The White Sage Fire was also started by lightning, during a thunderstorm on July 9.”Crews encountered very extreme fire behavior due to the dry conditions (and) gusty and erratic winds inhibiting the ability for fire fighters to safely engage the fire,” the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said.One of the greatest wonders of the natural world, the Grand Canyon is the result of the Colorado River eating away at layers of red sandstone and other rock for millions of years, leaving a gash up to 18 miles (30 km) wide and more than a mile (1.6 km) deep.Park Service advised against any hiking into the canyon, due to extreme heat and wildfire smoke. A 67-year-old man died on Tuesday while attempting to reach the river in hot conditions.Last year almost five million people visited the world-famous site.Another popular site, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado, was also closed Friday because of a wildfire.

The United States announced its first sanctions on Friday against Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel for his role “in the Cuban regime’s brutality toward the Cuban people.”It is the latest in a series of measures by US President Donald Trump’s administration to increase pressure on the Cuban government.The United States was restricting visas for the Cuban president and other high-ranking government officials, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an X post on the fourth anniversary of historic anti-government protests in Cuba.Demonstrations rocked the island in July 2021 as thousands took to the streets to protest shortages of basic goods and worsening economic conditions.Hundreds were arrested, one person died and dozens were injured in the lagest protests since Fidel Castro’s 1959 communist revolution.The State Department said it was sanctioning “key regime leaders… for their involvement in gross violations of human rights.”Officials sanctioned included Defense Minister Alvaro Lopez Miera and Interior Minister Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas.The United States was also taking steps to sanction Cuban judicial and prison officials linked to the “unjust detention and torture of July 2021 protestors.” “While the Cuban people suffer shortages of food, water, medicine, and electricity, the regime lavishes money on its insiders,” Rubio said.Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez slammed the measures on X, saying the United States cannot “bend the will of its people or its leaders.”In May, the Cuban foreign ministry summoned the US envoy to Havana to protest his “interference” in the country’s internal affairs.The United States has a six-decade-old trade blockade in place against Cuba.- Political prisoners -Rubio took to X to accuse Cuba of torturing dissident leader Jose Daniel Ferrer and demand “proof of life.””The United States demands immediate proof of life and the release of all political prisoners,” Rubio said.According to the United States, 700 people are still imprisoned for taking part in the July 2021 protests. Human rights organizations put the number at between 360 and 420. Some of the convicted protesters have been released in recent months after serving their sentences.Others, including Ferrer — leader of the dissident group Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) — were released as part of a Vatican-mediated agreement in January after former US president Joe Biden removed the island from the blacklist of countries sponsoring terrorism.But at the end of April, Ferrer’s parole was revoked, prompting criticism from Washington, which has put Cuba back on the blacklist after Trump returned to power.The State Department also added the “Torre K,” a 42-story hotel in Havana, to its restricted list of entities off-limits to Americans, “to prevent US dollars from funding the Cuban regime’s repression.”The establishment, recently inaugurated in a central area of the Cuban capital, sparked criticism of the government’s huge investment in new hotels at a time when tourism is declining.

Boeing has reached a settlement with a man whose family died in a 737 MAX crash in 2019, a law firm told AFP on Friday, meaning the US aviation giant will avoid a federal trial slated for Monday. Paul Njoroge, who lost his wife and three children in the Ethiopian Airlines disaster in which 157 people died, was to seek damages from Boeing in a case in Chicago.”The case has settled for a confidential amount,” said a spokesperson for Clifford Law, the firm representing Njoroge, whose mother-in-law also died in the crash. “The aviation team at Clifford Law Offices has been working round-the-clock in preparation for trial, but the mediator was able to help the parties come to an agreement on behalf of Paul Njoroge,” added Robert Clifford, a senior partner at Clifford, in a statement.Until now, Boeing has succeeded in avoiding civil trials connected to the 737 MAX crashes of 2018 and 2019, reaching a series of settlements, sometimes only hours before trials were set to begin.The crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 on March 10, 2019 took place six minutes after departing Addis Ababa for Nairobi.Njoroge lost his wife Carolyne, who was 33, his mother-in-law Ann Karanja, and the couple’s three children: six-year-old Ryan; Kelli, who was four; and nine-month-old Rubi.Njoroge told a congressional panel in July 2019 he was haunted by ideas of the final moments of the flight, how his children “must have clung to their mother, crying, seeing the fright in her eyes.””It is difficult for me to think of anything else but the horror they must have felt,” he said. “I cannot get it out of my mind.”The trial set for Monday was expected to last five to seven days.Between April 2019 and March 2021, family members of 155 Boeing victims joined litigation charging the aviation giant with wrongful death and negligence.Boeing has accepted responsibility for the Ethiopian Airlines crash, blaming the design of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), a flight handling system that malfunctioned.That system was also implicated in the Lion Air crash in 2018, when the 737 MAX 8 fell into the sea after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 189 people on board. The Lion Air crash also spawned dozens of lawsuits in the United States. But as of July 2025, only one case remained open.Boeing has said it has reached out-of-court agreements with more than 90 percent of civil complainants in the MAX cases.The company also has a settlement pending that would resolve a long-running Department of Justice criminal probe connected to the MAX crashes.Some MAX families are contesting the Department of Justice’s accord with Boeing, arguing that the company should face federal prosecution. US District Judge Reed O’Connor, in Texas, has yet to make a final decision on the proposed accord.

Pope Leo XIV’s childhood home has been sold to the village where he grew up, which intends to make it a historical site, local media reported Friday.The modest brick home in the Chicago suburb of Dolton, population 21,000, was sold by its current owner for $375,000, WGN television said.It said the owner had bought the house for $66,000 last year — prior to Pope Leo’s election as the first American pontiff — and done extensive renovations.The Dolton village board of trustees voted earlier this month to purchase the three-bedroom house and turn it into an attraction open to the public.According to WBEZ Chicago radio, the parents of Pope Leo — born Robert Prevost — bought the house in 1949 and sold it in 1996.

Ecuador’s most notorious drug lord has agreed to be extradited to the United States to face cocaine and weapons smuggling charges, a court in Quito said Friday.Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito,” was captured in June after escaping from a maximum security prison last year in a jailbreak that sparked a severe wave of gang violence.Macias, head of the “Los Choneros” gang, is wanted in the United States on charges of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms-related crimes, including weapons smuggling.The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of Ecuadoran law enforcement early last year after escaping from prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. He had been serving a 34-year sentence since 2011 for involvement in organized crime, drug trafficking and murder. President Daniel Noboa’s government at the time released “wanted” posters and offered $1 million for information leading to Macias’s recapture. In a country plagued by drug-related crime, Los Choneros members responded with violence — using car bombs, holding prison guards hostage and storming a television station during a live broadcast.After months of pursuit, Macias was recaptured last month in a massive military and police operation in which no shots were fired. He was found hiding in a bunker concealed under floor tiles in a luxury home in the fishing port of Manta, and Noboa declared he would be extradited “the sooner the better.””We will gladly send him and let him answer to the North American law,” Noboa told CNN at the time.- Fighting cocks and mariachi bands -Macias, dressed in an orange prison uniform, took part in a court hearing Friday by video link from a high-security prison in Guayaquil.In response to a judge’s question, he replied, “Yes, I accept (extradition).”Given his consent, the court said in a statement “the pertinent procedure for the transfer process” will now follow, with Noboa having to sign the official handover papers.This would make Macias the first Ecuadoran extradited by his country since the measure was written into law last year after a referendum in which Noboa sought the approval of measures to boost his war on criminal gangs.Ecuador, once a peaceful haven between the world’s two top cocaine exporters Colombia and Peru, has seen violence erupt in recent years as enemy gangs with ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels vie for control.Gang wars have largely played out inside the country’s prisons, where Macias wielded immense control. He was the unofficial boss of his Guayaquil prison, where authorities found images glorifying the gangster, weapons and US dollars.Videos of parties he held in the prison showed the use of fireworks and a mariachi band. In one clip, he appeared waving, laughing and petting a fighting rooster. Macias earned his law degree behind bars.By the time he escaped, he was considered a suspect in the assassination of presidential candidate and anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio in 2023.Soon after Macias’s prison break, Noboa declared Ecuador to be in a state of “internal armed conflict” and ordered the military and tanks into the streets to “neutralize” the gangs.Los Choneros has ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Colombia’s Gulf Clan — the world’s largest cocaine exporter — and Balkan mafias, according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory. More than 70 percent of all cocaine produced in the world now passes through Ecuador’s ports, according to government data.In 2024, the country seized a record 294 tons of drugs, mainly cocaine.

Superman is often called upon to save the world from evildoers, but in his latest big-screen incarnation, he’s also being asked to swoop in and save a franchise.James Gunn’s “Superman,” which opened in theaters worldwide this week, is a reboot aimed at relaunching the so-called DC Universe of comic book-based superhero movies, which also features Wonder Woman and Batman.The celluloid efforts of Warner Bros. and DC Studios have been widely eclipsed by Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe — the world of Iron Man, Thor, Black Panther and the Fantastic Four, who are getting their own reboot later this month. “Warner Bros. has invested a lot of energy and money in trying to refocus and renew DC Studios, and this is going to be the big release from that,” analyst David A. Gross from Franchise Entertainment Research told AFP.The heavy task falls on the shoulders of Gunn, the writer-director who won praise from fans of the genre with Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy. The movie’s rollout has already encountered several headwinds, including a right-wing backlash to Gunn’s comments on Superman’s role as an immigrant, and skepticism from fans of the previous Superman films helmed by director Zack Snyder.Gunn has shrugged off the high stakes surrounding the movie’s box office success.”Is there something riding on it? Yeah, but it’s not as big as people make it out to be,” he told GQ Magazine. “They hear these numbers that the movie’s only going to be successful if it makes $700 million or something and it’s just complete and utter nonsense.”The hype around the movie is real — the White House even superimposed President Donald Trump onto one of the movie’s official posters with the caption “THE SYMBOL OF HOPE. TRUTH. JUSTICE. THE AMERICAN WAY. SUPERMAN TRUMP.”- ‘A diminished genre’ -Warner Bros. hopes the DC Universe can catch up with Marvel which — after years of huge successes with the “Avengers” movies — has seen more muted box office returns with the recent “Thunderbolts” and “Captain America: Brave New World.”Gross explained that superhero films hit a peak right before the Covid-19 pandemic, with box office earnings and audience enthusiasm waning ever since that time.”It’s really a diminished genre,” Gross said.However, the analyst said early buzz for “Superman” was “really good.” The film stars up-and-comer David Corenswet as the new Superman/Clark Kent, with “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” star Rachel Brosnahan playing love interest Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as arch-villain Lex Luthor.The story follows the Man of Steel coming to terms with his alien identity as he finds his place in the human world.The supporting cast boasts a selection of other DC Comics characters, from the peacekeeping Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) — who is scheduled to reprise the role in upcoming TV series “Lanterns” — to the mace-wielding Hawkgirl. Gross noted that July “is the top moviegoing month of the year,” leading tracking estimates to forecast a total of more than $100 million for the film’s opening weekend in North America.- ‘The story of America’ -DC Studios however must shake off a reputation for producing mediocre films that did not score well with audiences.The last round of “DC Extended Universe” films included the well-liked “Wonder Woman” (2017) starring Gal Gadot — but also box office flops like “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” (2023) and the under-performing “Aquaman” sequel with Jason Momoa.”The success was mixed, and they were spending a lot of money on some of the new spinoff characters who were not working particularly well,” Gross said, pointing at 2021’s “The Suicide Squad” — directed by Gunn — as an example.The last films featuring Superman, starring Henry Cavill and directed by Snyder, were relatively successful for Warner Bros. until “Justice League” — DC’s effort at recreating the “Avengers” vibe — which lost millions of dollars.Fans of Snyder have stirred up negative buzz for the new “Superman” movie, voicing hope online that the reboot fails out of a sense of loyalty to the previous films.The backlash was further widened after right-wing pundits groaned about Superman’s specific characterization as an immigrant, lamenting the superhero had become “woke.”Gunn addressed the criticism, telling The Times newspaper that “Superman is the story of America,” with the character reflecting those who “came from other places and populated the country.””I’m telling a story about a guy who is uniquely good, and that feels needed now,” he added.Ultimately, time will soon tell if Corenswet’s chiseled looks and Gunn’s directorial vision will be the superpowers that DC Studios need — or prove to be its Kryptonite.

Try as it might to appease President Donald Trump, Canada remains a prized target in his trade wars and subject to the whiplash of his changes of heart.The giant North American neighbors are rushing to conclude a new trade accord by July 21 but the process is proving painful for Canada.Overnight Thursday, Trump threatened to slap a 35 percent tariff on imports from Canada starting August 1. But products complying with an existing accord, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), are expected to remain exempt, a Trump administration official and a source in Canada told AFP.”An agreement is of course possible but that shows how difficult it is for the Canadian government to negotiate with the US president,” said Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, referring to Trump’s sudden announcement. -Six months of ups and downs-Canada has been a key trading partner and ally of the United States for decades. But along with Mexico, it now wears a bull’s eye for Trump in his second stint in the White House as he tries to reorder the global system of largely free trade by slapping tariffs on friends and foes alike to address what he calls unfair trading practices.Trump has also spoken frequently of his idea of absorbing Canada to make it the 51st US state, a concept most Canadians find repugnant.Canada was rocked by Trump’s first attacks after he took power in January. And bad blood between him and then-prime minister Justin Trudeau seemed to pour gas on the fire.Some degree of hope emerged when Mark Carney was elected in late April to replace Trudeau, pledging to stand up to Trump and defend Canada, its jobs and its borders.Since then, Carney and Trump have held two more or less cordial meetings — at the Oval Office in May and at a Group of Seven summit in western Canada last month.Many people thought a new era was opening, and Carney won praise for his diplomatic and negotiating skills.During the second of those meetings, the two sides agreed to sign a new trade agreement by July 21.But in late June Trump angrily called off the trade talks, citing a new Canadian tax on US Big Tech companies.Canada scrapped the tax two days later so the trade talks could resume. Now they have been rocked again by Trump’s new threat of 35 percent tariffs on Canadian goods.-Stay calm- Canada has taken to not reacting to everything Trump says. After Trump’s latest outburst, Carney simply said, “the Canadian government has steadfastly defended our workers and businesses.”But among Canadian people, Trump’s threat-rich negotiating style elicits contrasting reactions, said Beland. “There are people who want a firmer response while others want to keep negotiating,” he said.Since the beginning of this tug of war, Canada has responded to US action by imposing levies of its own on certain American products.Philippe Bourbeau, a professor at HEC Montreal, a business school, said people have to realize Trump has an underlying strategy.”You can criticize the aggressiveness of the announcements and the fact that it is done out in the open, but it is a negotiating tactic,” said Bourbeau, adding that the relationship between the two countries is asymmetrical.”It is illusory to think this is a negotiation between parties of the same size. Canada will surely have to give up more to reach an agreement,” he said.Before Trump came to power, three quarters of Canada’s exports went to the United States. This was down to 68 percent in May, one of the lowest such shares ever recorded, as shipments to other countries hit record levels.”We are Donald Trump’s scapegoats,” said Genevieve Tellier, a professor of political science at the University of Ottawa. “He sees us as vulnerable, so he increases the pressure. He is surely telling himself that it is with us that he will score the big win he wants on tariffs,” Tellier said.

More than 1,300 State Department employees were fired Friday in a downsizing ordered by President Donald Trump and touted as cutting bloated government — but which critics predict will hamstring US influence around the world.Diplomats and other staff clapped out departing colleagues in emotional scenes at the Washington headquarters of the department, which runs US foreign policy and the global network of embassies.Some were crying as they walked out with boxes of belongings.A State Department official said 1,107 members of the civil service and 246 Foreign Service diplomatic employees were terminated.The layoffs at the department came three days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to begin carrying out its plan to gut entire government departments.The conservative-dominated top court lifted a temporary block imposed by a lower court on Trump’s plans to lay off potentially tens of thousands of employees.The 79-year-old Republican says he wants to dismantle what he calls the “deep state.” Since taking office in January, he has worked quickly to install fierce personal loyalists and to fire swaths of veteran government workers.His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, says the foreign policy department is too cumbersome and requires thinning out of some 15 percent.The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) — the union representing State Department employees — condemned the “catastrophic blow to our national interests.””At a moment of great global instability — with war raging in Ukraine, conflict between Israel and Iran, and authoritarian regimes testing the boundaries of international order — the United States has chosen to gut its frontline diplomatic workforce,” AFSA said in a statement.”We oppose this decision in the strongest terms.”The State Department employed over 80,000 people worldwide last year, according to a fact sheet, with around 17,700 in domestic roles. The US Agency for International Development, long the primary vehicle to provide US humanitarian assistance around the world, has already been mostly dismantled.According to The Washington Post, State Department employees were informed of their firings by email.Foreign Service officers will lose their jobs 120 days after receiving the notice and will be immediately placed on administrative leave, while civil service employees will be separated after 60 days, the newspaper said.Ned Price, who served as State Department spokesman under Democratic former president Joe Biden, condemned what he called haphazard firings.”For all the talk about ‘merit-based,’ they’re firing officers based on where they happen to be assigned on this arbitrary day,” Price said on X. “It’s the laziest, most inefficient, and most damaging way to lean the workforce.”Former ambassador Barbara Leaf, Biden’s top Middle East diplomat, said the move “will have terrible consequences for our ability to protect American citizens abroad, pursue and defend the national interest and our national security.””This is not a re-org. This is a purge,” Leaf said in a post on LinkedIn.

Ecuador’s most notorious drug lord has agreed to be extradited to the United States to face cocaine and weapons smuggling charges, a court in Quito said Friday.Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito,” was captured in June after escaping from a maximum security prison last year in a jailbreak that sparked a severe wave of gang violence.Macias, head of the “Los Choneros” gang, is wanted in the United States on charges of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms-related crimes, including weapons smuggling.The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of Ecuadoran law enforcement early last year after escaping from prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. President Daniel Noboa’s government at the time released “wanted” posters and offered $1 million for information leading to Macias’s capture. In a country plagued by drug-related crime, Los Choneros members responded with violence — using car bombs, holding prison guards hostage and taking over a television station during a live broadcast.After months of pursuit, Fito was recaptured last month in a massive military and police operation in which no shots were fired. He was found hiding in a bunker concealed under floor tiles in a luxury home in the fishing port of Manta.Fito, dressed in an orange prison uniform, took part in a court hearing Friday by video from a prison in Guayaquil.In response to a judge’s question, he replied, “Yes, I accept (extradition).”Given his consent, the court said in a statement “the pertinent procedure for the transfer process” will now follow, with Noboa having to sign the official handover papers.This would make Macias the first Ecuadoran extradited by his country since the measure was written into law last year after a referendum in which Noboa sought the approval of measures to boost his war on criminal gangs.

Fast-spreading wildfires have forced the evacuation of part of the Grand Canyon, with the US National Park Service saying at least 500 people had been guided out of the danger zone.The canyon’s North Rim, which is less popular with tourists than the South Rim, was cleared of all visitors due to a blaze called the White Sage Fire.”Last night, Grand Canyon staff safely evacuated approximately 500 guests,” the Park Service said in an update Friday.”All visitors have left the area, and park employees and residents remain sheltering in place. Day use access to the North Rim is closed until further notice.”Jon Paxton, press officer for the Coconino County sheriff’s office, told AFP that a hotel and some businesses had all been emptied.”Most of the folks we evacuated were campers,” he said. “This area is high desert and mostly open forest for camping.”The fire is burning outside the Grand Canyon National Park but approaching Jacob Lake, Arizona, a small settlement known as the gateway to the North Rim.About 8,700 acres (3,500 hectares) have been scorched and the blaze is zero-percent contained, according to authorities, who released images of large columns of smoke rising above the scrubby desert.- Started by lightning -The fire was started by lightning during a thunderstorm on Wednesday.”Crews encountered very extreme fire behavior due to the dry conditions (and) gusty and erratic winds inhibiting the ability for fire fighters to safely engage the fire,” the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said.One of the greatest wonders of the natural world, the Grand Canyon is the result of the Colorado River eating away at layers of red sandstone and other rock for millions of years, leaving a gash up to 18 miles (30 km) wide and more than a mile (1.6 km) deep.The Park Service advised against any hiking into the canyon, due to extreme heat and wildfire smoke. A 67-year-old man died on Tuesday while attempting to reach the river in hot conditions.Last year almost five million people visited the world-famous site.Another popular site, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado, was also closed Friday because of a wildfire.