WASHINGTON, July 9 – The White House rejected criticism that the Trump administration’s recent staffing cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) contributed to the deadly floods in Texas, calling it “a depraved lie.”
“This was an act of God. It is not the administration’s fault that the flood hit when it did,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday, noting that the NWS “did its job” by sending “early and consistent warnings.”
“Unfortunately, in the wake of this once-in-a-generation natural disaster, we have seen many falsehoods pushed by Democrats such as Senator Chuck Schumer and some members of the media,” Leavitt said. “Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning.”
Schumer, the Senate Democratic Leader, on Monday called for an investigation into whether “staffing shortages at key local NWS stations contributed to the catastrophic loss of life and property during the deadly flooding.”
Over 500 workers were reportedly cut by the Trump administration or left on their own, leaving NWS short-staffed. According to its website, six of 27 positions are listed as vacant at the NWS office for Austin/San Antonio, which covers the region that includes hard-hit Kerr County, including a key manager responsible for issuing warnings and coordinating with local emergency management officials.
Officials said at least 110 people have died in the flash flooding, with over 170 still missing.
In this image taken from video, a house carried away by flash flooding is seen behind a house in Ruidoso, N.M., Tuesday, July 8, 2025. AP
SANTA FE, N.M. – At least three people were missing in a mountain village in southern New Mexico that is a popular summer retreat after monsoon rains triggered flash flooding Tuesday that was so intense an entire house was swept downstream.
Emergency crews carried out at least 85 swift water rescues in the Ruidoso area, including of people who were trapped in their homes and cars, said Danielle Silva of the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
No deaths were immediately reported, but Silva said the extent of the destruction wouldn’t be known until the water recedes.
“We knew that we were going to have floods … and this one hit us harder than what we were expecting,” Ruidoso Mayor Lynn D. Crawford said during a radio address Tuesday night.
Crawford said that some people were taken to the hospital, although the exact number was not immediately clear. He encouraged residents to call an emergency line if their loved ones or neighbors were missing.
The floods came just days after after flash floods in Texas killed over 100 people and left more than 160 people missing.
In New Mexico, officials urged residents to seek higher ground Tuesday afternoon as the waters of the Rio Ruidoso rose nearly 19 feet (2.7 meters) in a matter of minutes amid heavy rainfall. The National Weather Service issued flood warnings in the area, which was stripped of vegetation by recent wildfires.
A weather service flood gauge and companion video camera showed churning waters of the Rio Ruidoso surge over the river’s banks into surrounding forest. Streets and bridges were closed in response.
Kaitlyn Carpenter, an artist in Ruidoso, was riding her motorcycle through town Tuesday afternoon when the storm started to pick up, and she sought shelter at the riverside Downshift Brewing Company with about 50 other people. She started to film debris rushing down the Rio Ruidoso when she spotted a house float by with a familiar turquoise door. It belonged to the family of one of her best friends.
Her friend’s family was not in the house and is safe, she said.
“I’ve been in that house and have memories in that house, so seeing it come down the river was just pretty heartbreaking,” Carpenter said. “I just couldn’t believe it.”
There were also reports of dead horses near the town’s horse racing track, the mayor said.
Two National Guard rescue teams and several local teams already were in the area when the flooding began, Silva said, and more Guard teams were expected.
The area has been especially vulnerable to flooding since the summer of 2024, when the South Fork and Salt fires raced across tinder-dry forest and destroyed an estimated 1,400 homes and structures. Residents were forced to flee a wall of flames, only to grapple with intense flooding later that summer.
“We know that the water levels seemed to be higher than they were last summer,” Silva said. “It is a significant amount of water flowing throughout, some of it in new areas that didn’t flood last year.”
Matt DeMaria, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque, said storms formed in the early afternoon over terrain that was scorched last year by wildfire. The burn scar was unable to absorb a lot of the rain, as water quickly ran downhill into the river.
Preliminary measurements show the Rio Ruidoso crested at more than 20 feet (6 meters) — a record high if confirmed — and was receding Tuesday evening.
Three shelters opened in the Ruidoso area for people who could not return home.
The sight brought back painful memories for Carpenter, whose art studio was swept away during a flood last year. Outside, the air smelled of gasoline, and loud crashes could be heard as the river knocked down trees in its path.
“It’s pretty terrifying,” she said.
Cory State, who works at the Downshift Brewing Company, welcomed in dozens of residents as the river surged and hail pelted the windows. The house floating by was “just one of the many devastating things about today,” he said.
HUNT, Texas – More than 160 people are still believed to be missing in Texas days after flash floods killed over 100 people during the July Fourth weekend, the state’s governor said Tuesday.
The huge jump in the number unaccounted for — roughly three times higher than previously said — came after authorities set up a hotline for families to call.
Those reported missing are in Kerr County, where most of the victims have been recovered so far, Gov. Greg Abbott said. Many were likely visiting or staying in the state’s Hill Country during the holiday but did not register at a camp or hotel, he said during a news conference.
The county’s lowlands along the Guadalupe River are filled with youth camps and campgrounds, including Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died. Officials said Tuesday that five campers and one counselor have still not been found.
Search-and-rescue teams are using heavy equipment to untangle and peel away layers of trees, unearth large rocks in riverbanks and move massive piles of debris that stretch for miles in the search for the missing people. Crews in airboats, helicopters and on horseback along with hundreds of volunteers are part of one of the largest search operations in Texas history.
The flash flood is the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon flood on July 31, 1976, killed 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections. That flood surged through a narrow canyon packed with people on a holiday weekend, Colorado’s centennial celebration.
Public officials in charge of locating the victims are facing intensifying questions about who was in charge of monitoring the weather and warning that floodwaters were barreling toward camps and homes.
The Republican governor, who took a helicopter tour of the disaster zone, dismissed a question about who was to blame for the deaths, saying, “That’s the word choice of losers.”
July 9 – A Ukrainian drone attack on a beach in the Russian city of Kursk killed three people, including a Russian serviceman engaged in rescue operations, and injured seven, acting regional Governor Alexander Khinshtein said early on Wednesday.
Khinshtein, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the attack had been carried out deliberately in an area frequented by families in the region that borders Ukraine.
Five of the seven injured, including a 5-year-old child, were in a serious condition in hospital.
He said one of the dead was a member of Russia’s National Guard who had been trying to evacuate people from the scene.
“He had arrived at the beach with his comrades after people began reporting about the drone attack,” Khinshtein said. “The senior sergeant had begun to evacuate people when a second explosion occurred. Unfortunately, he did not survive.”
Reuters could not independently verify the account and there was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials.
Khinshtein also said a Ukrainian drone had attacked a hospital in the town of Rylsk, closer to the Ukrainian border than the city of Kursk, injuring two people, blowing out windows and setting a roof ablaze.
Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of targeting civilians in the course of the war, now well into its fourth year, something that both sides deny.
Ukrainian forces staged a large incursion into the Kursk region nearly a year ago. The Kremlin has said all Kyiv’s forces have since been ejected from the region, but Ukrainian officials say their troops are still carrying out operations there.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health confirmed Tuesday evening that six people were martyred and over a dozen others wounded in a series of Israeli airstrikes and drone attacks across southern and northern Lebanon.
According to the ministry’s statement, one person was martyred in an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle in the southern town of Babliyeh, located in the Saida district. Local sources had earlier reported that an Israeli drone had struck a civilian car in the area.
Meanwhile, three individuals were martyred and 13 others wounded in a separate Israeli drone attack that targeted a vehicle in the town of al-Ayrouniyeh, near Tripoli in northern Lebanon. The strike marks a significant geographic expansion of Israeli aggression, moving beyond its usual targets in the south.
Additionally, two more people were martyred in Israeli air raids on Monday that struck the southern towns of Deir Kifa and Beit Lif.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and bureau at the military compound in the Kirya in Tel Aviv have been evacuated and will remain unusable for approximately four months due to extensive renovation work, according to a report by Walla!, citing sources close to the prime minister.
The entire building that houses Netanyahu’s Kirya office has been cleared of personnel as part of the refurbishment process. Officials familiar with the matter confirmed that the prime minister’s working space will not be operational during the upcoming months as structural and infrastructure upgrades are carried out.
The so-called renovations come after the latest Iranian strikes on the area hosting military headquarters during the last Israeli-US 12-day war against Iran.
The offices in question are located in a building over 60 years old, formerly known as “Building 22” and now called Beit Shimon Peres, or Shimon Peres’ House. The structure has historical significance, having served as the headquarters for the Israeli occupation forces’ general staff as well as the offices of the security minister and the military chief of staff during the early decades of the Israeli occupation.
Since the senior security ministry offices moved to the modern Matkal Tower two decades ago, the building has primarily served the prime minister and the Security Ministry’s Directorate of Production and Procurement.
Search teams continue searching for flood victims near Camp Mystic, in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas, U.S., July 7, 2025. REUTERS
July 8 – The death toll in Kerr County crept up to 87 on Tuesday as search and rescue teams recovered three more bodies in the flood-ravaged hills of central Texas, according to officials in the county worst hit by the disaster.
Rescue teams from federal agencies, neighboring states and Mexico have joined local efforts to search for survivors, which have been hindered by thunderstorms and downpours. As they work through lists of people reported missing, the teams have not found a living survivor in Kerr County since Friday.
The floods have killed at least 109 people including dozens of children.
“The work is extremely treacherous, time-consuming,” Lieutenant Colonel Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens said at the press conference. “It’s dirty work. The water is still there.”
Torrential rains before dawn on Friday deluged the Guadalupe River, which burst its banks and killed dozens of people, leaving behind mangled piles of debris, trees and cars. Local and federal emergency officials have faced days of angry questions about whether they could have warned people in flood-prone Texas Hill Country sooner.
At least 56 adults and 30 children have been killed in Kerr County, Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a press conference in Kerrville, the county seat, with more than two dozen victims yet to be identified. Authorities have not determined if the 87th victim was an adult or child.
Some of the flood victims were sleeping at Camp Mystic, a riverside Christian girls’ summer camp near the town of Hunt; five children and one camp counsellor were still unaccounted for on Tuesday.
The sheriff rebuffed several questions about the county’s emergency management operations and preparedness, and declined to say who in the county was ultimately in charge of monitoring weather alerts and issuing a flood warning or evacuation order.
He said his office first started getting 911 emergency calls between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Friday, several hours after the local National Weather Service station issued a flash-flood alert. “We’re in the process of trying to put (together) a timeline,” Leitha said.
The floods killed at least another 22 people outside Kerr County, according to local sheriffs’ and media reports, with seven dead in Travis County, seven dead in Kendall County, five dead in Burnett County, two in Williamson County and one in Tom Green County.
A drone view shows an impacted residential site, following an early morning missile attack from Iran on Israel, in Be’er Sheva, Israel June 24, 2025. REUTERS
TEL AVIV, July 8 – An Israeli military official said on Tuesday that Iranian air strikes last month had hit some Israeli military sites, the first such apparent public acknowledgement that such locations had been struck.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with military briefing rules, said that “very few” sites had been hit and that they remained functional.
The official declined to provide further details, including identifying which military locations were affected or how severe the damage was to military infrastructure.
Iran carried out waves of air strikes against Israel last month after Israel launched a surprise attack on June 13, targeting Iranian nuclear facilities and missile arsenal.
The Iranian strikes frequently targeted densely populated cities Tel Aviv and Haifa, and the country’s south around Beersheba, where there are a number of military facilities.
Several residential buildings were hit in the attacks, although the Israeli military says that most incoming missiles and drones launched by Iran were intercepted during the 12-day war.
Two people were killed and three others were injured on Tuesday after an Israeli drone targeted a vehicle in the town of al-Ayrouniyah, located in Zgharta, North Lebanon, according to a statement from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Israeli drones continued to fly intensively over the Tripoli region and the site of the strike following the attack.
In a statement, the Israeli military claimed responsibility for the strike, alleging it had targeted “a central figure in the Hamas organization” operating in the Tripoli area. The claim has not been independently verified.
ISTANBUL – Spain’s National Court on Tuesday launched a criminal investigation into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, and several senior military officials over their alleged involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly Israel’s attack last month on a humanitarian aid ship.
The probe focuses on the June 1 raid on the Madleen, a ship en route to Gaza, Spanish MEP Jaume Asens said on X.
The vessel, which was carrying 12 international activists and humanitarian aid, was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters. Among those detained were Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and French-Palestinian human rights advocate Rima Hassan.
The case was filed under the principle of universal jurisdiction by Spanish citizen Sergio Toribio and the Committee for Solidarity with the Arab Cause.
It alleges that Israeli forces used drones, tear gas, and carried out the illegal detention of civilians in what it describes as part of a broader pattern of violations tied to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
The court ruling requests cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and frames the assault in the context of the genocide in Gaza.
It marks the first time Spain has opened a formal investigation into Israeli leadership over the war in Gaza.
“This is a major step in the fight against impunity. When states fail to fulfill their obligations, it is up to civil society to activate justice as an ethical, legal, and political tool against horror,” Asens said.
If upheld, the investigation could restrict Netanyahu’s and other Israeli officials’ ability to travel to Europe without risking arrest warrants linked to the case.
The Israeli government has not yet issued an official response to the development.
