Author: admin

The Coastal fire in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, has grown to 199 acres since it began on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the largest wildfire in the US has burned around 170 homes in New Mexico, and continues to threaten communities and businesses.

Fire season is off to an early start, partly due to a decades-long drought.

The Coastal fire is not contained, officials said in an update on Thursday, although the winds that have fuelled the blaze are forecast to die down later.

Around 900 homes were still under mandatory evacuation order in the hills around the city of Laguna Beach by Thursday morning.

“We will repopulate when it is safe to do so,” Orange County Sheriff’s Department Captain Virgil Asuncion said in a morning news conference.

More than 500 firefighters have been deployed to fight the blaze. A spokesman said one firefighter was injured and has been taken to hospital.

Aircrafts were seen dumping fire retardant around the neighbourhoods of Laguna Niguel and Coronado Pointe, where the multi-million dollar mansions had burned overnight.

Officials say that hot embers travelling ahead of the main fire are what set many of the homes ablaze. Some homes not touched by embers were spared.

Local man Phil Charlton told the Orange County Register newspaper that he understands the danger of fires while living in “the best place in the world”.

“You see a fire like this and it goes through the brown brush and green brush,” he said, adding: “People who live in brown canyons can’t complain about fire.”

Tim Wheaton told Reuters the evacuation orders created traffic congestion in the hilly region. He described seeing “people crying and hugging one another and cars full of, I assume, their most precious items from their homes”.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Southern California Edison, the utility company that provides electricity to much of southern California, said that there was “circuit activity occurring close in time to the reported time of the fire”.

Utility companies in California are required by law to disclose if their equipment could have been involved in wildfires.

Several previous wildfires, including the largest in the state’s history, have been traced back to California’s Pacific Gas and Electric, which paid a multi-billion dollar settlement in 2019.

Across the western US and Canada, firefighters are gearing up for a particularly fierce wildfire season. Experts say a lack of winter moisture, combined with warmer temperatures, is causing vegetation to dry out earlier each spring, making it more susceptible to fire.

The US Forest Service says that the concept of a “fire season” is now antiquated, since climate change has led to the possibility of wildfires being sparked throughout the entire “fire year”.

“Fires in the winter months are becoming part of the norm,” the agency said in a report last summer.

The New Mexico blaze, dubbed the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire, has already burned over 250,000 acres.

And in central Colorado, mandatory evacuation orders were issued for residents of Colorado Springs amid reports that grass fires had hit a local trailer park community.

Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.

The world has already warmed by about 1.2C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

More than a dozen warnings were issued on Friday, telling residents in several regions to prepare their homes and evacuate if needed.

One person died in flooding in the state’s north earlier this week.

The storm system has now moved south towards Queensland’s heavily populated southeast, which includes Brisbane.

In February, Queensland was devastated by floods that killed 13 people and inundated more than 20,000 homes. Another nine people were killed in floods in neighbouring New South Wales.

Major flooding was forecast for several rivers on Friday. Residents in Gympie, north of the state capital, were warned to expect flooding for the second time in recent months.

In the February disaster, 800 homes and businesses in the town were affected when the river peaked at 23m.

Mayor Glen Hartwig said they were anxious to see how high the local Mary River would rise this time. If it reaches a peak of 15m, businesses – but not homes – will be affected.

“At 16m, it’s snorkels or nothing,” he told the ABC.

Floods also inundated some towns on Friday in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane, and cut off a major highway.

About 300 homes in the region were expected to be affected, after 68 were inundated in February.

“It is soul destroying – it’s absolutely crushing,” Lockyer Valley Mayor Tanya Milligan told the ABC.

A warning siren sounded in the town of Grantham on Friday, with residents in low-lying areas urged to move to higher ground.

In 2011, the town was devastated by a major flooding event that killed 12 people and was likened to an “inland tsunami”.

The Bureau of Meteorology has warned further heavy rainfall on Friday could also lead to life-threatening flash floods and potential landslides. The system will begin easing over the weekend.

Australians will vote in a federal election on 21 May in which climate change is a key issue.

In recent years the country has suffered severe drought, historic bushfires and mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef.

Six people died after suffering a fever with one testing positive for Omicron, state media reported on Friday.

It said 187,000 people with a fever were being “isolated and treated”.

While experts believe the virus has been present in the country for some time, the authorities only announced the first cases on Thursday.

They said there had been an outbreak of the Omicron variant in the capital, Pyongyang, and announced lockdown measures. They did not give precise case numbers.

But in an update on Friday, the official KCNA news agency reported that the outbreak extended beyond the capital. “A fever whose cause couldn’t be identified spread explosively nationwide from late April,” it said.

Around 350,000 people had shown signs of that fever, it added, without specifying how many had tested positive for Covid.

Analysts suggest the latest figures from state media, including the acknowledgement that the unspecified fever had spread nationwide, may indicate the country is experiencing an outbreak unlike any it has seen so far.

Its population of 25 million is vulnerable due to the lack of a vaccination programme and poor healthcare, experts say.

North Korea rejected offers from the international community to supply millions of AstraZeneca and Chinese-made jabs last year. Instead, it claimed it had controlled Covid by sealing its borders early in January 2020.

The country shares land borders with South Korea and China, which have both battled outbreaks. China is now struggling to contain an Omicron wave with lockdowns in its biggest cities.

On Friday, KCNA reported that the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had visited a healthcare centre and “learned about the nationwide spread of Covid-19”.

It described the situation as an “immediate public health crisis”.

These numbers give us the first indication that the virus has spread rapidly around the country, far beyond the capital Pyongyang.

This puts the entire population of 25 million at risk. No-one is vaccinated, many are malnourished, and the health care system is poor.

But the virus itself may not present the biggest danger. The lockdown could have devastating consequences for people.

Food and medicine are already in short supply, thanks to efforts by authorities to keep the virus out – they’ve sealed the country’s borders for more than two years, cutting off virtually all trade.

We don’t know yet how aggressive these lockdowns will be, and whether people will be confined to their homes.

Kim Jong-un wants some work to continue. But it is very possible that the markets, where many earn a living, will be closed. It will also be more difficult for people to move around the country. This in turn will make it even harder for them to get hold of the food and supplies they need to survive.

By publishing these figures today, some say North Korea is showing it might finally be willing to accept outside help.

At a meeting outlining new Covid rules on Thursday, Mr Kim was seen wearing a face mask on television for what was believed to be the first time.

He ordered “maximum emergency” virus controls, which appeared to include orders for local lockdowns and gathering restrictions in workplaces.

There are fears a major outbreak could make it even more difficult for essential supplies to enter the country, worsening food shortages and a faltering economy.

South Korea has said it offered humanitarian aid after Thursday’s announcement, but Pyongyang is yet to respond.

Despite North Korea’s earlier claims that it had “shining success” in keeping out Covid, there have been signs throughout the pandemic of its possible presence in the country, including unconfirmed reports of cases and workers wearing hazmat suits.

Kwasi Kwarteng said there might be a “small effect” on bills under a new model to fund nuclear projects.

But he said in the long-term, nuclear would provide cheaper power and energy security.

He said financial help had been offered to reduce bills in the short-term.

Mr Kwarteng said “nothing should be taken off the table” to ease pressures on the cost of living, including a windfall tax on the excess profits of oil and gas companies.

The BBC spoke to Mr Kwarteng as he visited north Wales on Thursday, where the government has pledged to build a new nuclear power station at Wylfa on Anglesey.

A previous plan for a new nuclear power station at Wylfa collapsed in 2020, but last month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he wanted to revive the idea “as fast as possible”.

Investing in nuclear power is one of the key focuses of the government’s energy strategy, released in April.

The government plans to reduce the UK’s reliance on oil and gas by investing in alternative sources of energy, including nuclear, wind and hydrogen power.

The strategy contains an ambition to deliver up to eight new nuclear reactors before 2030, including two at Sizewell in Suffolk.

The government wants nuclear to supply 24 gigawatts (GW) of electricity by 2050 – about 25% of the UK’s predicted energy demand.

Mr Kwarteng said he thought investing in nuclear was “part of the solution” to the UK’s energy needs.

He said “nuclear is back on the table” because it provides more decarbonised power and a sustainable energy source.

But building new nuclear power plants can be vastly more expensive than renewables and can take decades to build.

A new law means new nuclear reactors can be funded by adding a small levy to people’s bills during their construction.

The government says this will lead to savings for consumers in the long run, as developers can have more money upfront, and are less likely to take out loans.

But critics argue this shifts the risk of building new nuclear reactors onto the consumer, without knowing how long projects will take or how much they will cost.

When asked whether putting bills up in the short-term was worth the political gamble, Mr Kwarteng said: “Absolutely. People here really want to see new investment, jobs, opportunity for their kids and their community.”

The government’s own public attitudes research shows while 86% of people support renewable energy, public support is lower for nuclear energy (37%).

Nuclear plants are extremely expensive to build, although the overall cost is comparable to other forms of power.

Hinkley C – the newest of the UK’s planned nuclear power stations – is expected to cost £22-26bn.

When asked if he thought the public supported investment in nuclear, the business secretary suggested “nuclear’s more popular now than it’s been for a while”.

He said there were two reasons why we want to see more nuclear – “security of supply here in the UK” and “what experts call firm power”.

“What that means is, if you look at renewables the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow,” he said. “The great thing about nuclear power is that it’s continuous power.”

In a community like Wylfa, he said, “there’s actually broad public support”.

“Now the nuclear power won’t be everywhere in the UK, it will only be on sites where there is a history, a tradition.”

The government’s plan for a new nuclear power station at Wylfa has split opinion among local people.

Jo Fosbrook, a local holiday business owner, said she reluctantly accepted that investing in nuclear power was necessary.

“You can’t say, ‘that I don’t want nuclear power’, because what else are you going to have?” she said. “What are you going to say to everybody, have a candle on in the eve instead?”

But Emlyn Richards, a retired Methodist minister, was less keen on the idea, expressing a preference for renewable sources of energy.

“Anglesey is noted for its wind,” he said. “Why don’t they harness that and turn it to power”.

He said Wylfa was the “most beautiful spot on the island”. “I don’t want them to spoil that beauty for the generation that’s coming after us,” he added.

As part of its plan, the government opened a £120m fund designed to stimulate the development of nuclear technologies on Friday.

As well as large, traditional nuclear reactors, the government is also supporting the development of small nuclear reactors (SMRs), which are smaller and can be assembled in factories – making for a simpler construction project.

Tom Samson, CEO of Rolls Royce SMR, who wants to build some in the UK, told the BBC they hoped to finance their SMRs through a combination of private financing and government support.

Mr Samson said: “Generating electricity from nuclear is a much better way to keep consumers’ costs as low as possible.”

He added the government’s model of funding nuclear projects, which can add levies to people’s bills while they are in construction, would reduce the costs of delivering nuclear projects.

“We have to finance the build and we have to find ways to finance that build most economically,” he said.

It is understood the PM wants to see civil service staffing levels drop to 2016 levels.

Government sources suggested the plan is about cutting people not needed and it could save £3.6bn a year.

A civil service union warned an “ill thought-out” plan could affect services.

Jacob Rees Mogg – the minister in charge of efficiency – told the BBC that they were trying to get back to 2016 levels of staffing before Brexit and the pandemic.

Mr Johnson told the Daily Mail: “We have got to cut the cost of government to reduce the cost of living.”

At an away day in Stoke-on-Trent on Thursday, the prime minister gave ministers a month to produce plans to drastically shrink the civil service, as the government comes under increasing pressure over the rising cost of living.

There were 384,000 civil servants employed in 2016 – the lowest number since World War Two – but as the UK prepared to leave the EU numbers steadily rose until they reached 475,000 at the end of last year.

While large-scale job cuts are likely to take time, a government source said “instant savings” could be achieved by imposing a recruitment freeze in Whitehall and abolishing any vacancies which had not been signed off by a minister.

Examples include the passport office and 70 staff said to be still working on climate change conference COP26.

A source said the cuts were “not ideological” but about “good housekeeping”.

The prime minister suggested to the Daily Mail that the savings could be used for tax cuts, saying: “Every pound the government pre-empts from the taxpayer is money they can spend on their own priorities, on their own lives.”

But civil service union the FDA said the expansion of Whitehall since 2016 had been necessary to tackle “two unprecedented events”, Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic.

FDA general secretary Dave Penman said the government could decide to cut the civil service back to 2016 levels, but he said it would also have to choose “what the reduced civil service will no longer have the capacity to do” which may affect services such as passports, border control or health.

“Without an accompanying strategy, these cuts appear more like a continuation of the government’s civil service culture wars – or even worse, ill-thought out, rushed job slashes that won’t lead to a more cost-effective government,” he said.

Major job reductions through natural wastage – waiting for people to resign or retire rather than enforcing redundancies – would take many years, Mr Penman warned.

Labour accused the government of “pointless rhetoric and lack of action” instead of implementing an emergency budget to offer more support to people struggling with bills.

A government spokesperson said that the prime minister and ministers were “clear that the civil service does an outstanding job delivering for the public and driving progress on the government’s priorities”.

But they added when people are facing rising costs, they “rightly expect their government to lead by example and run as efficiently as possible”.