In northern California on Sunday, sheriff’s investigators scoured wreckage left by the most destructive fire in state records, in search of remains of the dead. The death toll in and around the destroyed town of Paradise had reached 23 and seemed likely to climb. The toll for the state as a whole was 25, after two people were confirmed to have died near Los Angeles.

There, taking advantage of a break in dry winds on Saturday, fire crews battling the 83,275-acre Woolsey fire were able to achieve 10% containment, officials said. But on Sunday morning, Scott Jalbert, unit chief for the Cal Fire San Luis Obispo division, told reporters the weather was likely to worsen and that strong dry winds would cause new fires. “This has us very concerned,” he said. “We need to make sure all citizens are vigilant that they do nothing to start a new fire.” He added that more than 8,000 firefighters from various agencies were on the front lines.

“Everyone here, all state, federal and local firefighters, are doing everything they can to fight these fires,” he said. “Sadly with these winds it’s not over yet.” In the north, near Paradise, Butte sheriff Kory Honea said an anthropology team from California State University, Chico was assisting as in some cases “the only remains we are able to find are bones or bone fragments”. A mobile DNA lab was also on the way.(theguardian)…[+]

Southwestern Division police arrested three Venezuelan nationals for possession of a sub-machine firearm and ammunition on Saturday. The men, ages 20, 23 and 25, were held during an anti-crime exercise conducted in the division at daybreak.

Police said the men were found hiding in a house at Icacos Village, Cedros. The officers searched the premises and found a Kel-Tec Sub 2000, one magazine, 264 rounds of 9mm ammunition and 87 rounds of 5.56mm ammunition. The firearm and ammunition were stashed in a crocus bag, police said. The three suspects were taken to the Cedros police station. The arrests were made after a video was posted on social media showing people jumping off a fishing boat and wading to the shore at a beach in Erin. The seven foreign men and four foreign women were found at a hotel in Erin. Police said there were eight Venezuelans, one Guyanese and two Syrians.(stabroeknews)…[+]

Grenada – The Green Climate Fund and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) today signed a legal agreement to open doors for more climate finance projects in the Caribbean Region.

The signing of the Accreditation Master Agreement (AMA) took place on the margins of the Green Climate Fund’s Caribbean Structured Dialogue meeting, taking place this week in Grenada, which brings together regional stakeholders to plan climate action across the Caribbean Region.

Javier Manzanares, GCF Executive Director a.i., welcomed the agreement and stressed its importance for increasing financial flows to climate projects in the region: “The Caribbean is particularly vulnerable to climate change devastating impacts and significant investments are needed in the region’s infrastructure to strengthen its resilience. The Caribbean Development Bank has a long and successful track record and I’m convinced that our partnership is a huge step towards unlocking new climate finance potential in the region. GCF is looking forward to new climate projects by CDB and to working together to accelerate climate action in the Caribbean”.

“CDB views the signing of this Accreditation Master Agreement as an important milestone in our relationship with GCF. This Agreement will catalyse our efforts to mobilise much-needed funding to build climate resilience in the Bank’s Borrowing Member Countries. We are looking forward to a productive partnership with GCF, having taken this very important step towards implementing innovative climate solutions in our region,” said Monica La Bennett, Vice-President (Operations), CDB…[+]

Five men have been arrested in Croatia for allegedly stealing €2m (£1.7m) worth of jewellery owned by a member of Qatar’s royal family from Venice’s Doge’s Palace in early January.

In a case that baffled police, the thieves managed to deactivate the alarm system, break into a reinforced case, seizing some earrings and a brooch before blending into the crowds during the final day of the four-month Treasures of the Mughals and the Maharajahs exhibition, which brought together a collection of five centuries of Indian craftmanship. Local police called on experts to help try to establish how they managed to pull off the heist in the Chamber of the Scrutinio, one of the rooms within the vast premises of the palace, which was once the residence of the former republic of Venice’s rulers and now attracts up to 4,000 visitors a day.

Four Croatians and one Serbian, aged between 43 and 60, were arrested in the Croatian capital, Zagreb. One of the suspects was said to be part of the Pink Panthers, an international network of jewel thieves. Investigators had been on the hunt for the same suspect following the robbery of €10m worth of jewels during an exhibition in Basel, Switzerland in 2011.(theguardian)…[+]

Michelle Obama says she felt “lost and alone” after suffering a miscarriage 20 years ago and underwent in vitro fertilization to conceive her two daughters. “I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages were, because we don’t talk about them,” the former first lady said in an interview broadcast on Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America breakfast show. She told the television station: “We sit in our own pain, thinking that somehow we’re broken.”

Obama, 54, said she and her husband Barack Obama had fertilization treatments to conceive daughters Sasha and Malia, now 17 and 20. “I realized that as I was 34 and 35, we had to do IVF,” she said in excerpts from an ABC special set to air on Sunday. “We had to do IVF.” The revelations come before Tuesday’s release of Obama’s memoir Becoming.

In the new book she criticises Donald Trump for “encouraging wingnuts and kooks” and she writes openly about everything from growing up in Chicago to confronting racism in public life and becoming the country’s first black first lady.(theguardian)…[+]

SHELDON and Lystra Jackson, the parents of sick baby Sheenece Jackson, are racing against time to shed over 100 pounds to save their only daughter. They have less than five months to do it.

Sheenece must have a liver transplant before she turns two next March, and with no other donor coming forward, doctors have told her parents, who share her O-positive blood type, they are compatible donors. The one obstacle is their weight. Lystra has already lost approximately 30 pounds through diet and exercise – but is appealing to anyone who can help them to shed the pounds faster to call her.

She needs to lose another 50 pounds before having tests to prove her compatibility with her 19-month-old daughter, who has been diagnosed with biliary atresia. This disease causes cirrhosis of the liver. In Sheenece’s short life she has already undergone two liv­er biop­sies, three blood transfusions and surgery to re­move her gall­blad­der. Every week she makes at least three vis­its to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, for different tests. Her eyes are yellow with jaundice, her skin itches and she is only a little heavier than the 12 pounds she weighed at birth. She also retains fluid, which accumulates in her abdomen, causing it to swell.(Trinidad Newsday)…[+]

The European Union’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has called on pro-EU forces to defend the fragile union from populism, saying there is now “a Farage in every country”. In a speech at the conference of the powerful centre-right European People’s party (EPP), Barnier did not go into details of the deadlocked Brexit negotiations, but warned the EU project was “under threat”.

“We will have to fight against those who want to demolish Europe with their fear, their populist deceit,” he told more than 700 EPP delegates in Helsinki, before naming the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage.

In a wide-ranging speech that moved from European defence to electric vehicles, he mentioned Brexit only to promise to “fulfill my Brexit mission to the end” and make a brief opening joke that his speech would be short because “the clock is ticking”.

Barnier was speaking as Brexit talks were in stalemate over the issue of the Irish backstop – an insurance plan to avoid creating a hard border on the island of Ireland. A crucial cabinet meeting to agree the UK’s Brexit negotiating position was delayed from Thursday to the weekend or early next week amid a row over whether senior ministers should be given the government’s full legal advice on the backstop.

Barnier, a former French foreign minister with a long career in centre-right politics, also issued veiled criticism of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who is seeking to present himself as a defender of Europe’s liberal and multilateral values, against populists on the far right and far left.(theguardian)…[+]

Senior Republicans led a chorus of public warnings that the special counsel Robert Mueller must be allowed to continue his Russia investigation after Donald Trump finally fired his attorney general, Jeff Sessions.As Trump replaced Sessions with a senior aide, Matthew Whitaker, a critic of Mueller’s inquiry, Senator Susan Collins was among the first Republicans to warn: “It is imperative that the administration not impede the Mueller investigation … Special Counsel Mueller must be allowed to complete his work without interference.”Mitt Romney, who won the race on Tuesday to become a senator for Utah, aimed his first broadside at Trump, tweeting: “It is imperative that the important work of the Justice Department continues, and that the Mueller investigation proceeds to its conclusion unimpeded.”

As progressives activated a plan for mass protests across the United States, starting at 5pm on Thursday in all time zones, the former CIA chief John Brennan predicted that it was likely Mueller had already completed his report for the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who was yesterday relieved of his duty overseeing the investigation into Russian election interference and any collusion with the Trump campaign.

Brennan told MSNBC: “If there are some major indictments coming down the pike, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re going to see it very soon. Generally the report that the special counsel will draft and deliver to Rod Rosenstein, I wouldn’t be surprised if that is ready to go.”…[+]

Port of Spain, Trinidad. Both Grenada and Antigua and Barbuda voted against the move to have the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as their highest appellate court in separate referenda held yesterday. President of the CCJ, the Hon. Mr. Justice Adrian Saunders said, “while the news is not what we hoped for, we respect the people of both nations and their decision. The court will naturally continue ongoing initiatives with justice sector bodies in each of these countries, and the wider Caribbean, through the JURIST project and otherwise.”

In both Grenada and Antigua and Barbuda, the turnout of voters was low. In Grenada, of 21, 979 votes cast, some 9,846 persons voted to adopt the CCJ as the final Court of Appeal. In Antigua and Barbuda, the margin was a little closer. There were 9,234 votes against and 8,509 votes in favour of the adoption of the CCJ. The CCJ will still be serving both Grenada and Antigua and Barbuda. The CCJ President emphasised that, “these results will not, of course, deter us from serving with distinction those nations that currently send their final appeals to us. As well, the Court will also continue to process and hear applications from all CARICOM States, and from CARICOM itself, in our Original Jurisdiction, and our justice reform work in the region will also continue”.

In addition, there is an Original Jurisdiction case currently before the Court originating from Grenada. The JURIST Project, which is a multiyear justice reform project being implemented by the Caribbean Court of Justice on behalf of the Conference of Heads of Judiciary of CARICOM states, is working on a Sexual Offences Model Court to be housed at the High Court of Antigua and Barbuda in 2019. The CCJ Academy of Law is also hosting a legal conference in Jamaica in December 2018 at which jurists from both countries, as well as the wider Caribbean, are participating…[+]

Uganda is to administer an experimental Ebola vaccine for health workers in high-risk areas bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The vaccination programme launches on Wednesday with support from the World Health Organization, targeting 2,000 frontline workers in districts close to DRC’s North Kivu province, which is currently experiencing an outbreak of the deadly virus.

Uganda is the first country in the world to give the vaccine without an active outbreak of the disease, but is judged to be at very high risk. “In previous [Ebola] outbreaks, Uganda lost health workers, including the renowned Dr Matthew Lukwiya, as they cared for patients,” said Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam, WHO’s Uganda representative. “Scientists believe such invaluable lives would have been saved had a vaccine been in existence then.” In December 2000, Lukwiya, a medical superintendent of Lacor Hospital in the northern district of Gulu, died along with 12 nurses after contracting the highly contagious disease, which is transmitted through contact with body fluids.(theguardian)…[+]