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BBC News with David Harper.
The U.S. has been carrying out a sixth consecutive night of strikes on Iranian targets, while Iran has been responding with attacks on U.S. interests in the region. Iranian state media say there were explosions in Bushehr, where the country's only nuclear plant is based. They're also reporting that three people were killed in attacks on bridges in a town near the Strait of Hormuz. Kuwait's military says its air defenses have been deployed in the face of Iranian missile and drone attacks. The White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, blamed Iran for the resumption of hostilities. "The reason for the recent strikes over the course of the last several days is because Iran violated the memorandum of understanding that we struck with them. Specifically in the memorandum of understanding that they signed, they were not to fire on commercial vessels moving through the Strait of Hormuz. And unfortunately, they have made the tragic decision for them to do that." More than 850 wildfires are burning across Canada. Officials say the vast majority are out of control. Most of them are raging in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario, which has requested federal assistance to evacuate people from its remote northern communities. Thick plumes of smoke are causing haze and harming air quality not only in Toronto, but in U.S. cities like New York, where the Manhattan skyline is obscured. In Chicago, the beaches have been closed. Matt Neer is a Toronto resident. "I think we've actually just seen it really increase overnight. Like, you can't see any of the city anymore. You can almost taste the smoke today. I think yesterday it was much milder. So we're definitely seeing it get worse. I do hope that it passes, though, quickly." Astronomers have detected an atmosphere around a rocky, Earth-like planet outside our solar system that could have liquid water on its surface and therefore could possibly support life. Patty McGuire reports. The researchers at Harvard University say the exoplanet - that's a planet that orbits a star outside our solar system - is the best place so far discovered to look for alien life. 49 light-years away, LHS 1140b firstly falls within its dim star's habitable or Goldilocks zone as our Earth does in relation to the sun. Then, a new technique has observed traces of helium, indicating it has an atmosphere. Having an atmosphere suggests a more stable climate which would regulate temperature and potentially trap liquid water, which in turn could viably support life. The United States has designated two more Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. The State Department said the Juárez Cartel and the Los Viagras group had committed numerous attacks against Americans, the Mexican security forces and civilians. The designation means they are denied access to the U.S. financial system and American citizens are prohibited from engaging in transactions with them. Six other Mexican criminal organizations were also prescribed by the State Department last year. World News from the BBC. The man who operates Donald Trump's teleprompter is being investigated for allegedly using inside information to place bets on the content of the president's speeches. Gabriel Perez, who has worked at the White House since 2016, is reported to have made more than $100,000 betting on the words and phrases Mr. Trump would use during major public addresses, including the State of the Union speech. A group denouncing political repression under the former Senegalese President Macky Sall has criticized his planned return to the country for a meeting with his successor, Bassirou Diomaye Faye. Mr. Sall, who currently lives in self-imposed exile in Morocco, has been nominated as a candidate for the U.N. secretary-general's post. His nomination was put forward by Burundi, but President Faye has not said whether Senegal supports it. A study of a minimally invasive treatment for prostate cancer has found it as effective as surgery or radiotherapy, but with far fewer side effects. Focal therapy uses heat or cold to destroy cancer cells. Researchers from Imperial College London followed the outcomes for nearly 3,500 male patients who had their prostate cancer treated with such therapy. Professor Hashim Ahmed explains the focal treatment's benefits. "Traditional surgery and radiotherapy, because they treat the entire prostate, can damage other tissues and that leads to urine leakage and loss of sexual function. With this treatment, because we're targeting just the area of cancer within the prostate, the collateral tissue damage is much less and therefore the side effects are much less compared to those traditional options like surgery and radiotherapy." Australia has expressed bitter disappointment that the authorities in Laos are not pursuing stronger charges in relation to the deaths of two Australian tourists in a mass methanol poisoning incident in 2024. It's understood the accused could face charges that carry maximum penalties of up to a year in jail and a fine of $1,600. BBC News. |