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More than 40 people have died in wildfires that have engulfed swaths of land in nine Mediterranean countries, destroying homes, livelihoods and forests. Thousands of firefighters worked to contain the blazes as searing temperatures scorched parts of Greece, Italy, Spain, Gran Canaria, Portugal, Turkey, Croatia and France, as well as Algeria and Tunisia. Authorities ordered the fresh evacuations of several communities in central Greece on Wednesday as they battled new fronts in the fires that have been spreading for 10 days. High winds hampered firefighting efforts, and combined with the heatwave, they created a “perfect storm” that allowed flames to spread. Sixty-one wildfires erupted across Greece in just 24 hours, the fire brigade said, with the worst outbreaks near the central town of Velestino, where officials ordered precautionary evacuations. Follow our live coverage of the wildfires and heatwave here But as Athens recorded 40C and northern Turkey 43C, there were hopes the mercury may now have peaked. The entire island of Rhodes, where more than 20,000 holidaymakers and locals were forced to flee at the weekend, was put into a state of emergency. At least seven people have been killed in Italy, which suffered extreme heat in the south and violent storms in the north, and in Algeria, 34 people including 10 soldiers have been killed by flames or smoke in recent days. Those fires also spread to forests in Tunisia, where some cities recorded 49C this week. On the island of Sicily, two elderly people were found dead in a home consumed by flames near Palermo airport, which had been closed temporarily because of encroaching flames, according to news reports. Another woman died after fires prevented an ambulance from reaching her home. Homes and hotels were also evacuated in the Italian regions of Sicily, Sardinia and Calabria. It comes after two Greek pilots were killed in a crash during a low-altitude water drop on Tuesday. The wildfires have released record greenhouse gas emissions this month, the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams) said. The megaton of carbon was nearly double the previous record, set in 2007. Fire crews have been battling more than 500 fires for almost two weeks. Several people have been arrested or fined for accidentally starting fires, but scientists and EU officials say the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires is down to the climate crisis. Without human-induced climate change, wildfires would have been extremely rare, according to World Weather Attribution, a global team of scientists. On Rhodes, a nature reserve was damaged, and fires also burned in Vati and Gennadi. “The fires have started again,” a fire official told The Independent. “A little wind and the fire returns … that’s the problem.” Dozens of firefighters were trying to tame a firefront in the south. Greece’s civil protection agency extended its state of emergency to the whole of Rhodes for six months “to deal with emergencies and manage the consequences of catastrophic forestry fire”, minister Vasilis Papageorgiou said. In the sleepy town of Malonas, volunteers ventured out again to try to keep the fires at bay – having fought back the flames as they approached the night before. “We have no energy, we have no power – not enough to stop this ... We are waiting for the wind to calm down to try again tonight to finish the job, but it is very difficult because after 10 days everyone is very tired,” said a volunteer named Panos. However, a “level 5” alert on Crete on Tuesday was dropped to level 4 on Wednesday, and one fire official said the wildfires that had raged across Greece for more than a week abated on Wednesday. The Greek government tried to contain damage to the reputation of its tourism industry. Tourism minister Olga Kefalogianni stressed that wildfires had affected only a small part of the island. A fire brigade spokesperson, Ioannis Artopoios, said tackling the fires was a significant financial burden for Greece, with firefighting on Rhodes alone costing about €7.5m (£6.4m) so far. In Italy, the government was meeting to declare a state of emergency in regions worst hit and introduce a furlough scheme for workers most exposed to the heatwave. The country’s firefighters said they had battled nearly 1,400 fires between Sunday and Tuesday, including 650 in Sicily and 390 in Calabria, where a bedridden 98-year-old man was killed as flames consumed his home. Planes were also trying to douse the flames on the hills around Palermo on Wednesday. In Croatia, water-dropping planes and more than 100 firefighters held back a blaze before it reached houses in the walled town of Dubrovnik. In Portugal, more than 500 firefighters tackled a blaze near Lisbon. Around 90 people were forced to leave their homes, along with 800 animals taken from farms under threat. Read More Where are the wildfires? The nine affected countries mapped Greece wildfires: What is the Fire Weather Index and which areas could face wildfires in the future?

EBay Inc. dropped after projecting earnings in the current quarter that narrowly missed analysts’ estimates, suggesting the e-commerce

Mitch McConnell appeared briefly unable to continue speaking and was escorted away from a Senate Republican press conference on Wednesday, before returning moments later. The scene occurred as Republicans held their last weekly press briefing before the August recess, and discussed remaining business including the chamber’s effort to pass a defense spending bill before the holiday begins. Mr McConnell was seen freezing at the podium for several seconds before a number of senators including Joni Ernst of Iowa approached him and encouraged him to step away. He did so, only to come back a few minutes later, and refused to elaborate on what had just occurred. “Can you address what happened here at the start of the press conference? Was it related to your injury from earlier this year when you suffered a concussion?” asked CNN’s Manu Raju. “I’m fine,” responded the senator. “You’re fine? You’re fully able to do your job?” Raju asked in response, to which the minority leader replied: “Yeah.” The Independent has reached out to Mr McConnell’s office for further information about the episode. The 81-year-old McConnell returned to the Senate in March after suffering a fall that caused a concussion. He also continues to walk with a limp, a residual issue caused by his battle with polio at a young age. Mr McConnell’s freezing at the press conference is likely to be looked at with scrutiny given the renewed interest in the issues presented by the increasingly advanced ages of many of the members of the upper chamber of Congress. Sen Dianne Feinstein of California, in particular, has been the subject of intense criticism on the manner as many have argued that the senator, who often appears confused in interactions with reporters and staff, is no longer up to serving. Read More Who is Jack Smith? The ex-war crimes prosecutor who is coming for Trump Billionaire Leon Black accused of raping autistic teenager at Epstein townhouse Who is running for president in 2024? All of the candidates

The New York Mets have not discussed any potential Justin Verlander trades with the All-Star pitcher.The New York Mets are six games below .500 and 17.5 games out of first place in the highly competitive NL East. With dreams of a postseason berth all but vanquished, it's time for Billy Eppl...

The president of the Missouri school board that voted to revoke its anti-racism resolution now says the resolution could be kept, but revised. The Francis Howell School Board in 2020 adopted a resolution against racism at the height of the national reckoning that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Control of the board flipped over the past two years, with conservatives winning elections, and it voted 5-2 last week to let the resolution expire. But in a Facebook post Tuesday, board President Adam Bertrand said that although support for the 2020 resolution as written is unlikely, “there may be support of a rewrite or modification.” Bertrand said member Mark Ponder will seek input from other board members and the community, “to move towards a draft that he feels the majority of the current board feels the community could support.” Messages left Wednesday with Bertrand and Ponder were not immediately returned. Zebrina Looney, president of the St. Charles County NAACP, said she is hopeful that the resolution can be maintained and hopes that her organization can be involved in any revisions. “I think having all voices involved, including voices of people of color, would be beneficial,” Looney said. School board elections have become intense political battlegrounds in recent years, with political action groups successfully electing conservative candidates who promise to restrict how race and sexuality can be taught, remove books that some conservatives find offensive, and stop transgender-inclusive sports teams. The Francis Howell district is among Missouri’s largest, with 17,000 students in a mostly white suburban area of St. Louis. Several dozen people opposed to rescinding the resolution turned out for the school board meeting last Thursday, and the vote drew strong condemnation from the NAACP other civil rights groups. The 2020 resolution “pledges to our learning community that we will speak firmly against any racism, discrimination, and senseless violence against people regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or ability." The board's vice president, Randy Cook, led the effort to remove the resolution, telling The Associated Press that the board “doesn’t need to be in the business of dividing the community.” Cook is among five board members who have been elected since April 2022 with the backing of the conservative political action committee Francis Howell Families. In 2021, the PAC described the anti-racism resolution as “woke activism” and drafted an alternative resolution to oppose “all acts of racial discrimination, including the act of promoting tenets of the racially-divisive Critical Race Theory, labels of white privilege, enforced equity of outcomes, identity politics, intersectionalism, and Marxism.” Cook said last week that he had no plans to push for a new resolution with that wording, or any other wording. In an email Wednesday, he said school boards are tasked with addressing the needs of their districts, “not to spend time writing and debating resolutions about all of the problems in the world today.” Racial issues remain especially sensitive in the St. Louis region, nine years after a police officer in the suburb Ferguson fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown during a street confrontation. Officer Darren Wilson was not charged and the shooting led to months of often violent protests, becoming a catalyst for the national Black Lives Matter movement. ___ Find more AP coverage of race and ethnicity issues: https://apnews.com/race-and-ethnicity Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide African leaders condemn coup attempt against Niger’s president after his home is surrounded Whistleblower tells Congress the US is concealing 'multi-decade' program that captures UFOs Movie Review: Baby’s first horror? Disney’s ‘Haunted Mansion’ conjures up a story about grief

Environmental groups warn the fire could harm an area of the North Sea that is a World Heritage site.

THG Plc, the online health, beauty and wellness retailer, has agreed to buy UK business newspaper City AM.

Pentagon whistleblowers shared explosive claims of alien technology defying laws of physics and pushback from military leadership against those reporting such sightings. The House Oversight Committee held a hearing titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency” on Wednesday. Three witnesses took part in the hearing – David Grusch, a former intelligence official and whistleblower who said last month that the US has “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles, David Fravor, an ex-Navy commander who reported spotting seeing an object flying across the sky during a 2004 training mission, and Ryan Graves, a retired Navy pilot who appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes in 2021 saying that he had spotted unidentified aerial phenomena off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”. Mr Grousch claimed that individuals have been injured while working on reverse engineering UFOs, but he said he couldn’t get into specifics of how that happened, adding that that “non-human biologics” were found along with recovered crafts. Mr Graves said that he estimates that 95 per cent of UFO sightings by pilots go unreported, citing fear of repercussions. Read More Republican lawmaker claims US is ‘hiding evidence’ of UFOs which ‘defy physics as we know it’ Why a Harvard professor thinks he may have found fragments of an alien spacecraft An Area 51 blogger was raided at gunpoint by federal agents. He says the US Government is trying to silence him Congressman asks UFO whistleblower if anyone has been ‘murdered’ to maintain alleged coverup Whistleblower tells Congress the US is concealing 'multi-decade' program that captures UFOs

Federal prosecutors and attorneys for President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, are at loggerheads and appear to have scrapped a deal for the lawyer and lobbyist turned artist to plead guilty to tax misdemeanour charges and enter into a diversion programme on a gun-related charge after the judge overseeing a plea hearing questioned whether the deal would preclude the government from pursuing other charges against him. US District Judge Maryellen Noreika ordered Mr Biden’s lawyers and prosecutors to confer further after Mr Biden said he would not accept the agreement if it did not provide that the government could not charge him for any crimes currently known to prosecutors if he successfully completes the terms of the deal. Prosecutors had agreed to ask Judge Noreika to impose a term of probation on Mr Biden for not having paid taxes on time in 2017 and 2018. Mr Biden was also expected to enter into a diversion deal under which he’d plead guilty to charges that he’d lied on a gun background check form when he said he wasn’t a user of drugs when he bought a pistol during that same time period, but would withdraw the plea after completing the terms of the diversion agreement, which often requires community service and continued sobriety verified by drug tests. During the court hearing, he told Judge Noreika that he’d been sober since 2019 but had been in and out of drug treatment for roughly two decades. The sticking point in the proceedings appeared when the judge asked prosecutors and defence counsel whether they understood the hearing to conclude any criminal proceedings against Mr Biden, and when prosecutors said that was not their understanding, she ordered prosecutors and defence counsel for the president’s son to confer on whether they still have an agreement. More follows... Read More Is Donald Trump going to prison? Trump begs Congress to help with legal troubles as possible Jan 6 charges loom – live Congressman asks UFO whistleblower if anyone has been ‘murdered’ to maintain coverup

Vladimir Putin’s troops are being pushed back by Kyiv’s forces in eastern and southern Ukraine, where 1,700 drones will be sent to the frontline to help their counteroffensive “All of [the drones] are now going to the front to protect the lives of our soldiers, to make our artillery even more accurate, to destroy the enemy,” Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister, said. The deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, reported advances towards the southern occupied cities of Melitopol and Berdyansk which is on the Sea of Azov. She said Kyiv’s troops were also successfully attacking in the east on the flanks of occupied Bakhmut – a city that has gained symbolic importance to both Kyiv and Moscow after months of bloody clashes. While “successes” in the southeast, she added, include an area near the village of Staromayorske which is located by a cluster of hamlets recaptured by Ukraine in the Donetsk region this summer. “Battles continue near Staromayorske, our defenders have successes, they were gaining a foothold on the reached frontiers,” Ms Maliar added. Read More Putin ‘looked paralyzed and unable to act’ as Wagner coup unfolded African leaders arrive in Russia for summit with Putin, as Kremlin seeks allies in Ukraine war China and Russia to join North Korea’s Korean War celebrations in a first after pandemic ‘Our own front line’: Ukrainian surgeons see wave of wounded soldiers since counteroffensive began

Greek authorities are evacuating part of the central city of Lamia as high winds and heat increased the

European stocks dropped, snapping their longest winning streak since January, as earnings season rolled on and investors looked