NEW DELHI, July 7 – Five persons of a family were burnt alive in a village in India’s eastern state of Bihar on Monday over the doubt that the deceased were involved in witchcraft, or black magic, said the local police.
The incident was reported from Bihar’s Purnea district.
The local police recovered the dead bodies and detained at least three persons allegedly involved in the killings. It was believed that most residents of the village were involved, either directly or indirectly, in the gory crime which sent shock waves across the state.
Crime scene evidence markers line a street in Philadelphia after an overnight shooting, early Monday, July 7, 2025. AP
PHILADELPHIA – Three people were killed and 10 others injured in a shooting early Monday in a South Philadelphia neighborhood, authorities said.
The three people who died were adults, and two of the wounded were juveniles, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel told reporters. The shooting happened shortly before 1 a.m. along a residential street in Grays Ferry, he said.
“We have numerous rounds that were shot on the block,” Bethel said.
Police said one person with a weapon was taken into custody.
Bethel said police had already responded to the same block late Saturday into early Sunday and some arrests were made.
It wasn’t immediately known what prompted the shooting.
“This is coward, want-to-be-thugs stuff,” Bethel said.
The shooting happened after other shootings in the city and elsewhere around the U.S. over the Fourth of July weekend. Those included at least eight people struck by gunfire near a South Philadelphia nightclub.
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire that erupted in a telecommunications building in the Ramses district of downtown Cairo, Egypt July 7, 2025. REUTERS
CAIRO, July 7 – At least 22 people were injured after a fire broke out on Monday in a key telecoms data centre in Cairo, the spokesperson of Egypt’s health ministry told Reuters, as disruptions of communications across the capital were recorded.
A state TV reporter said it had been contained.
People were unable to make phone calls, and a major internet disruption was registered after the fire erupted in the building in central Cairo, with internet monitoring group Netblocks saying network data showed national connectivity at 62% of ordinary levels.
The health ministry also posted alternative numbers for ambulance services across different governorates in case people were unable to reach its main hotline.
Besides phone calls, some digital banking services were also impacted including credit cards, ATM machines and online transactions, a bank source and residents said. Banks had already been closed for the day.
The injuries were mostly because of smoke inhalation, health ministry spokesperson Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said.
“A fire broke out this evening in one of the equipment rooms at the Ramses switchboard of the Telecom Egypt company, which led to a temporary disruption of telecommunications services,” the National Telecom Regulatory Authority said in a statement.
It said services would be restored over the next few hours, after power to the whole building was cut off as a safety measure.
A plume of smoke could be seen above the Ramses district.
The state news agency MENA said the fire had been prevented from spreading to the entire building and neighbouring rooftops.
An initial examination indicated that the fire was likely to have been caused by an electrical short circuit, MENA cited a security source as saying.
KERRVILLE, Texas – Crews trudged through debris and waded into swollen riverbanks Monday in the search for victims of catastrophic flooding over the July Fourth weekend that has killed nearly 90 people in Texas, including more than two dozen campers and counselors from an all-girls Christian camp.
With additional rain on the way, the risk of more flooding was still high in saturated parts of central Texas. Authorities said the death toll was sure to rise as crews looked for the many people who were still missing.
Operators of Camp Mystic, a century-old summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, said Monday that they lost 27 campers and counselors, confirming their worst fears after a wall of water slammed into cabins built along the edge of the Guadalupe River.
“We have been in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls,” the camp said in a statement.
Authorities said Monday that 10 girls and a counselor from the camp remain missing.
In the Hill Country area, home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 75 people, including 27 children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said.
Twelve other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials.
The floods, among the nation’s worst in decades, swept away people sleeping in tents, cabins and homes along the river Friday in the middle of the night.
Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday that 41 people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.
Food distributed to Palestinians struggling with hunger in Gaza
BRUSSELS – The European Commission on Monday said it has no evidence that Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid in Gaza, and described the humanitarian situation in the enclave as “catastrophic.”
Speaking at the midday briefing, Commission spokesperson Eva Hrncirova responded to a question regarding allegations that the Palestinian group is diverting aid intended for civilians.”We don’t have any reports of Hamas stealing the aid,” she said, stressing the EU’s commitment to independent and neutral humanitarian principles.
“Obviously, we don’t hide that the situation in Gaza is catastrophic and very, very complex,” Hrncirova added. “Nevertheless, we have a system that is in place. We have an infrastructure how to deliver aid in Gaza, and this is a system that should immediately be used to help people in Gaza who are starving.”
Hrncirova underlined that the EU continues to rely on established international humanitarian organizations to deliver aid. “We do not cooperate with Global Humanitarian Foundation because we think that humanitarian aid can never be privatized, politicized, or to become a tool of a conflict,” she added.
The Commission continues to call on Israeli authorities to grant access to its aid partners in Gaza.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a highly controversial Israel-backed US mechanism operating in the Gaza Strip since May 27, where hundreds of aid-seeking Palestinians have been killed at or near its aid-distribution sites by the Israeli army in two months, according to UN officials.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and over 170 NGOs, including Oxfam, Amnesty International, and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), signed a joint statement that calls for an end to “the deadly Israeli distribution scheme, including the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” and a return to UN-led coordination mechanisms.
Israel has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. The relentless bombardment has destroyed the enclave and created famine-like conditions.
ISTANBUL – Iran still possesses sufficient military capability to strike Israel daily for two years, an adviser to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Monday.
“Our armed forces are at the height of their readiness,” Major General Ebrahim Jabbari told the semi-official Mehr news agency.
“Currently, the warehouses, underground missile bases, and facilities we have are so enormous that we have yet to demonstrate the majority of our defense capabilities and effective missiles,” he said.
“In case of a war with Israel and the US, our facilities will not run out even if we launch missiles at them every day for two years.”
Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the top military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made similar statements on Monday.
“The Zionists know that some of our forces, such as the Navy and the Quds Force, have not yet entered into battle, and even the army has not entered yet,” Safavi was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.
“So far, we have produced several thousand missiles and drones, and their place is secure,” he added.
A conflict between Israel and Iran erupted on June 13, when Israel launched airstrikes on Iranian military, nuclear, and civilian sites, killing at least 935 people. The Iranian Health Ministry said 5,332 people were injured.
Tehran launched retaliatory missile and drone strikes, killing at least 29 people and wounding more than 3,400, according to figures released by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The conflict ended with a US-sponsored ceasefire that took effect on June 24.
MOSCOW, July 7 – Russian air defense downed 402 Ukrainian drones and seven guided aerial bombs over the past day, the Russian Defense Ministry said Monday.
The ministry said that 91 drones were destroyed overnight, with most of them in the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk and eight over the Moscow region.
Russia and Ukraine have intensified drone attacks recently. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Russia launched 101 drones overnight, adding that about 1,270 drones and 39 missiles were registered over the past week.
ABUJA, July 7 – At least 21 people died and three others were injured on Sunday after a truck and a bus collided head-on and went up in flames in Nigeria’s northern state of Kano.
The accident, which occurred along the Zaria-Kano highway in the Kasuwar Dogo area, was caused by the bus driver’s route violation, said Muhammed Bature, sector commander of Kano State Federal Road Safety Corps.
The crash triggered a fire that engulfed both vehicles, Bature said, noting that the injured were taken to a government hospital.
Deadly road accidents are frequently reported in Nigeria, often caused by overloading, bad road conditions and reckless driving.
CHENGDU, July 7 – Three people have died, and two others are missing following a mountain landslide on July 5 in Ya’an City, southwest China’s Sichuan Province, local authorities said on Monday.
The collapse took place at around 1:25 p.m. on a national highway in Chengxiang Town. Multiple vehicles were buried under the debris.
Local authorities promptly established an emergency response command center to coordinate rescue and relief operations.
As of 2:00 p.m. Monday, three vehicles and five people had been retrieved from the rubble and slurry. Two of the people escaped with minor injuries while three were pronounced dead at the scene despite the best efforts of the emergency team. Two people remain unaccounted for.
A woman and young girl displaced from Boko Haram attacks push a cart in Dikwa, Borno province, north east Nigeria, Tuesday, April 29, 2025. AP Photo/File
ABUJA, Nigeria – Islamic extremists killed nine people and injured four in Borno state in northeastern Nigeria, authorities said Sunday.
The attack was carried out by Boko Haram militants on the Malam Fatori community, Babagana Zulum, the state governor, said. He did not say when the attack happened.
The community, very close to the border of Chad, is about 270 kilometers (167 miles) from Maiduguri, Borno’s capital city.
The governor, represented by Sugun Mai Mele, the commissioner for local governments, visited the community and warned residents against collaborating with Boko Haram militants.
“Anyone found collaborating with the insurgents to bring harm or attack to the people of Malam Fatori will be cursed,” he said, adding that there are measures being put in place to fortify the town against future attacks.
A resurgence of Boko Haram attacks has been shaking Nigeria’s northeast in recent months, as Islamic extremists have repeatedly overrun military outposts, mined roads with bombs and raided civilian communities, raising fears of a possible return to peak Boko Haram-era insecurity despite the military’s claims of successes.
Last month, a suicide bomber suspected to be female killed at least 10 people and injured several others in an explosion in a restaurant in the Konduga area of Borno, as the state struggles to curb attacks by the extremists.
Boko Haram, Nigeria’s homegrown jihadis, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law. The conflict also has spilled into Nigeria’s northern neighbors.
Some 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million displaced in Nigeria’s northeastern region, according to the U.N.
Apart from the insurgency in the northeast, Africa’s most populous country is also facing serious security challenges in the north-central and northwest regions, where hundreds have been killed and injured in recent months.
