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‘Heat storm’ stretches into southern Europe, health alerts issued

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Italy issued hot weather red alerts for 16 cities on Sunday, with meteorologists warning that temperatures will hit record highs across southern Europe in the coming days.

Spain, Italy and Greece have been experiencing scorching temperatures for several days already, damaging agriculture and leaving tourists scurrying for shade, Reuters reported.

But a new anticyclone dubbed Charon, who in Greek mythology was the ferryman of the dead, pushed into the region from north Africa on Sunday and could lift temperatures above 45 Celsius in parts of Italy early this week.

"We need to prepare for a severe heat storm that, day after day, will blanket the whole country," Italian weather news service Meteo.it warned on Sunday.

"In some places ancient heat records will be broken."

Greece closed the ancient Acropolis during the hottest part of the day on Friday to protect tourists.

Italy's Health Minister Orazio Schillaci said people needed to take care when visiting Rome's famous ruins.

"Going to the Colosseum when it is 43C is not advisable, especially for an elderly person," he told Il Messaggero newspaper on Sunday, saying people should stay indoors between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Besides the Italian capital, health alerts were in place from the central city of Florence to Palermo in Sicily and Bari in the southeast of the peninsula, while the temperatures also started to build further north.

"This is not normal. I don't remember such intense heat, especially at this time of year," said Federico Bratti, sunbathing at Lake Garda.

In Spain, forecasters warned of the risk of forest fires and said that it would not be easy to sleep during the night, with temperatures unlikely to fall below 25C across the country.

The heatwave will intensify from Monday, with temperatures reaching 44C in the Guadalquivir valley near Seville in the south of the country, forecasters predicted.

On the Spanish island of La Palma in the Canaries, meanwhile, at least 4,000 people had to be evacuated as a forest fire burned out of control following a heatwave, authorities said.

Europe's highest recorded temperature of 48.8C , registered in Sicily two years ago, could be exceeded in the coming days, notably on the Italian island of Sardinia, meteorologists have said.

The heatwave has stretched across the Mediterranean to Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was hospitalized on Saturday suffering dizziness and apparent dehydration. He was discharged on Sunday.

"I ask you all, spend less time in the sun, drink more water, and may we all have a good new week," he said.

The United States was also in the grip of high temperatures, with nearly a quarter of the population under warnings for extreme heat, from the Pacific northwest, down through California, through the Southwest and into the Deep South and Florida.

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Trump sworn in as 47th US president

Former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama attended the inauguration. Tech tycoon and Trump’s biggest supporter Elon Musk also attended the ceremony.

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Donald Trump sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday at the Capitol Rotunda by Chief Justice John Roberts.

At the ceremony, Trump vowed to make America "greater, stronger and more exceptional" than ever before.

Former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama attended the inauguration. Tech tycoon and Trump's biggest supporter Elon Musk also attended the ceremony.

The inauguration ceremony took place indoors due to the cold temperatures in Washington, DC, unprecedented in decades.

In the meantime, Trump signed a barrage of executive orders following the ceremony.

The new orders include tougher anti-immigration measures as well as pardons for people convicted for their role in the Capitol Hill attack on January 6, 2021.

Ahead of his inauguration, Trump met at the White House with the outgoing president Joe Biden – a courtesy the Republican had denied his Democratic successor in 2021.

Earlier, Trump had attended a church service. Alongside, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Google's Sundar Pichai and Apple's Tim Cook, some of the most powerful tech moguls in the world, attended the service.

Trump, 78, was a political outsider at his first inauguration in 2017 as the 45th president.

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Trump promises harsh immigration crackdown on inauguration eve

Trump repeated his campaign pledge to launch the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, which would remove millions of immigrants

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Donald Trump told thousands of roaring supporters he would impose severe limits on immigration on his first day in office, vowing to swiftly fulfill the central promise of his presidential campaign at a rally on Sunday inside a packed Washington arena a day before he returns to power.

"By the time the sun sets tomorrow, the invasion of our country will have come to a halt," he said to cheers at a "Make America Great Again Victory Rally" at the Capital One Arena.

Trump repeated his campaign pledge to launch the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, which would remove millions of immigrants. An operation of that scale, however, would likely take years and be hugely costly, Reuters reported.

The rally resembled the free-wheeling campaign speeches that have been a Trump staple since his first serious White House run in 2016, with the former and future president delivering a mix of boasts, false claims and sweeping promises to the delight of the crowd.

"This is the greatest political movement in American history, and 75 days ago, we achieved the most epic political victory our country has ever seen," he said. "Starting tomorrow, I will act with historic speed of strength and fix every single crisis facing our country."

The event marked his first major address in Washington since his speech on Jan. 6, 2021, that preceded the storming of the U.S. Capitol by an angry mob of his supporters. 

Trump has said he will pardon many of the more than 1,500 people convicted or charged in connection with the attack.

Trump's rally, along with his inaugural address on Monday, could preview the tone he plans to adopt during his second White House term. 

In recent weeks, Trump has bewildered foreign allies by musing aloud about taking over Greenland and the Panama Canal and turning Canada into a U.S. state.

He vowed to repeal "every radical and foolish executive order of the Biden administration" within hours of assuming the presidency at noon.

A source familiar with the planning said Trump will take more than 200 executive actions on Monday.

Border security will figure prominently in Trump's first executive orders, another source said, including classifying drug cartels as "foreign terrorist organizations," declaring an emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border and moving toward reinstatement of the "Remain in Mexico" policy that forces non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court dates.

Trump's deportation plans have unsettled immigrants subject to removal, including some who immigrant advocates say are law-abiding, long-term residents with U.S.-citizen spouses and children.

Trump said he would "get radical woke ideologies the hell out of our military" and order the military to construct a missile defense shield over the U.S., though he has yet to offer details on how to carry it out.

He also pledged to release classified documents relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and his brother Senator Robert Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., both in 1968.

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Fuel tanker truck blast kills at least 70 in Nigeria

The accident in Niger state follows a similar blast in Jigawa state last October that killed 147 people, one of the worst such tragedies in Nigeria, Reuters reported.

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At least 70 people were killed and more injured in northern Nigeria on Saturday when a petrol tanker truck overturned, spilling fuel that exploded, the country's national emergency agency said.

The accident in Niger state follows a similar blast in Jigawa state last October that killed 147 people, one of the worst such tragedies in Nigeria, Reuters reported.

"As of this report, over 70 bodies have been recovered, 56 individuals are injured, and more than 15 shops have been destroyed," the National Emergency Management Authority said in a statement.

"The injured have been transported to hospitals for treatment, while recovery efforts for the deceased are ongoing."

A Reuters witness said residents and officials were digging graves with a view to bury the victims on Saturday night in accordance with Islamic rites. Niger is a largely Muslim state in Africa's most populous nation.

Earlier, Kumar Tsukwam, the Federal Road Safety Corps sector commander for Niger state, said most of the victims were impoverished local residents who had rushed to scoop up the spilled petrol after the truck overturned.

"Large crowd of people gathered to scoop fuel despite concerted efforts to stop them," Tsukwam said in a statement.

Tsukwam said firefighters had managed to put out the fire.

Such accidents have become common in Africa's largest oil producer, killing dozens of people in the country grappling with its worst cost of living crisis in a generation, read the report.

The price of petrol in Nigeria has soared more than 400% since President Bola Tinubu scrapped a decades-old subsidy when he came into office in May 2023.

Bologi Ibrahim, spokesperson to Niger state governor, said residents should give priority to their safety when petrol tanker trucks are involved in accidents.

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