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  • Ceuta grapples with aftermath of border surge after most migrants leave the Spanish territory

    Ceuta grapples with aftermath of border surge after most migrants leave the Spanish territory

    CEUTA, Spain — By the end of last weekend, the Spanish North African exclave of Ceuta had begun to return to a superficial sense of normalcy. Storefronts that had closed amid the unprecedented border crisis had reopened their doors, and open-air terraces, restaurants and cafes across the city — home to just 84,000 permanent residents — were once again filled with locals and casual visitors. Yet the chaos that unfolded earlier that week remained the focal point of every conversation, leaving deep, unresolved rifts across the multi-cultural community.

    Earlier that week, an estimated 60,000 migrants, the majority of whom were young men, crossed into Ceuta from Morocco in a sudden mass border breach. Many swam across the coastal waters, climbed over border barriers, and pushed through frontier checkpoints to enter the tiny territory. By Sunday, most of these migrants had voluntarily returned to Morocco, while a smaller contingent remained in Ceuta, attempting to integrate into daily life undetected. As the city cleared out, Spanish Civil Guard vessels continued to comb the coastal waters near the breached urban beach, searching for the bodies of migrants who did not survive the crossing.

    Spanish authorities confirmed that at least 72 people lost their lives in the surge: some drowned in the choppy coastal waters, while others were killed in a deadly stampede as crowds pushed across a concrete breakwater barrier. This sudden humanitarian catastrophe has reignited fierce, long-simmering debates over immigration policy across Europe, drawing political actors from across the ideological spectrum to Ceuta in the wake of the crisis.

    Many local residents, including Ceuta native Mohamad Abdelkader Driss, a 44-year-old fried fish restaurant waiter, place blame for the crisis squarely on political leadership, not the migrants themselves. “If you open the border, of course everyone comes in, but the young men aren’t to blame. The authorities are responsible,” Driss explained. Migrants who returned to Morocco after the surge also reported that the border was effectively open, with Moroccan authorities taking little to no action to stop thousands of people from crossing into Ceuta over the two-day surge on Thursday and Friday. At the peak of the crisis, the influx of migrants swelled Ceuta’s total population by more than 70%, a staggering strain on the small city’s infrastructure. Driss added that despite the unprecedented disruption, the migrants who entered behaved far more calmly than many residents feared, noting “It could have been much worse.”

    The crisis quickly drew far-right anti-immigration political figures and high-profile right-wing influencers to Ceuta over the weekend, a move that sparked immediate counter-protests from the city’s large Muslim community, many of whom are of Moroccan descent. On Saturday evening, far-right Member of the European Parliament Alvise Pérez delivered a public call for all remaining migrants to be expelled, speaking to a small group of supporters before he was confronted by an angry crowd of counter-protesters. Pérez was forced to take shelter in a local bar, where residents banged on the windows in protest, until police could escort him out of the area.

    Noor Ahmed, a 20-year-old university student and lifelong Ceuta resident who joined the counter-protests, denounced far-right figures like Pérez as opportunists seeking to exploit a humanitarian crisis for political gain. “They just want to take advantage of the humanitarian crisis Ceuta is currently experiencing,” Ahmed said.

    Vox Party leader Santiago Abascal, the head of Spain’s largest far-right political party, visited Ceuta on Sunday, doubling down on harsh criticism of the Spanish central government. Abascal framed the migrant surge as “an invasion” and accused the sitting government of failing to protect Spain’s territorial borders. “The frontiers of Ceuta and Melilla are the walls of our home and homeland, and they are not being protected by a corrupt and traitorous government,” Abascal said.

    Beyond the high-profile political clashes, the crisis has put Ceuta’s long-held reputation as a haven of cross-cultural tolerance under unprecedented strain. For decades, the city has prided itself on the peaceful coexistence of its four major religious and cultural communities: Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Hindus. But the events of the week have sown doubt among some long-term residents.

    Eva Barrientos, a logistics worker and Ceuta resident who attended Saturday’s far-right gathering, said she believed another mass surge would happen in the near future, and questioned the national loyalty of Ceuta’s foreign-born residents. “In Ceuta, we have always lived together. We have four cultures living very well, without any problems,” she said. “But the only thing we are realizing now is that there is an enemy within.” Barrientos accused many foreign-born residents of holding greater loyalty to Morocco than to Spain, their country of residence.

    The international community has begun to weigh in on the crisis as well. Pope Leo XIV, who has made immigration reform a central priority of his papacy and highlighted the issue during a recent visit to Spain’s Canary Islands — one of Europe’s busiest entry points for migrant arrivals — released a statement Sunday addressing the situation. “I am following with concern the alarming situation in Ceuta, asking God … that solutions of peace, stability and justice may be found,” the Pope said.

    In the wake of the crisis, Spanish authorities have begun installing a new sea barrier along Ceuta’s border with Morocco to prevent future mass breaches, even as local residents remain divided over what caused the surge, who bears responsibility, and how the city should move forward from the event that upended its quiet, multi-cultural way of life.

  • Of thee I sing: A guide to US patriotic songs, from ‘The Liberty Song’ to Jay-Z and Kanye West

    Of thee I sing: A guide to US patriotic songs, from ‘The Liberty Song’ to Jay-Z and Kanye West

    From the fiery colonial protests against British rule to the post-9/11 cultural reckoning with national identity, American patriotic music has never been a monolith. Instead, it stands as a dynamic, evolving reflection of what it means to love one’s country – a spectrum of expressions that range from defiant celebration to critical hopefulness.

    For centuries, this body of work has carried two core truths about American national identity. First, love of country can take multiple, even conflicting forms: while anthems like *The Star-Spangled Banner* honor resilience through crisis and *God Bless America* invokes divine favor for the nation, songs from Woody Guthrie’s *This Land Is Your Land* to Curtis Mayfield’s *This Is My Country* anchor patriotism in a long tradition of social protest. These works embrace the idea that progress toward a “more perfect union” can only happen when a nation openly acknowledges its flaws. Second, patriotic music chronicles America’s journey toward cultural independence: well into the 19th century, most American patriotic lyrics were adapted to popular existing melodies imported from Britain, a practice that modern musicologists compare to setting new lyrics to a well-known Beatles track today, to make new messages instantly accessible to widespread audiences.

    To understand this rich, varied tradition, experts at the Library of Congress highlight a selection of the most influential patriotic songs spanning the nation’s history, from the colonial era to the 21st century.

    ## The Early Revolutionary Era: Forging a National Sound
    One of the earliest surviving patriotic anthems, *The Liberty Song* emerged in the late 1760s, written with lyrics by Pennsylvania-Delaware statesman John Dickinson – a figure most often remembered for his controversial refusal to sign the Declaration of Independence, believing a break from Britain was premature. Adapted from the melody of the British Royal Navy march *Heart of Oak*, Dickinson’s lyrics were a bold assertion of colonial rights and a warning against outside oppression, capturing growing fears of disenfranchisement with the iconic lines: “In freedom we’re born, and in freedom we’ll live/Our purses are ready/Steady, Friends, steady.”

    Like *The Liberty Song*, *Yankee Doodle* began as a foreign work, originating as a British marching song performed by British troops occupying Boston to mock colonial revolutionaries. By the end of the Revolutionary War, however, American rebels reclaimed the tune, turning it into a rallying cry to accompany the retreat of British forces. Fully Americanized today, it serves as Connecticut’s state song and gained wider pop culture fame as the title of the Oscar-winning World War II-era film starring James Cagney.

    ## 19th Century: Growing into a Distinct National Identity
    Written between 1831 and 1832, *My Country ‘Tis of Thee* saw theology student Samuel Francis Smith set a new hymn of freedom to the melody of Britain’s *God Save the King*. Smith’s work, which condemned tyranny and celebrated American liberty, has occupied a central place in moments of both protest and national unity: Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted its lyrics during his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, while Aretha Franklin performed it at Barack Obama’s first inauguration. It also holds a poignant place in Civil War history: eyewitness accounts record that after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a gathering of formerly enslaved Black people in South Carolina spontaneously sang the anthem upon hearing the news of their freedom.

    Julia Ward Howe, a prominent 19th-century abolitionist, adapted her *Battle Hymn of the Republic* (1861–1862) from the melody of *John Brown’s Body*, a popular Union camp tune she heard during a public review of Union troops. Howe, whose husband supported the martyred anti-slavery activist John Brown, would later recall that the lyrics came to her in a morning twilight half-waking state: “I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind.” The song has remained a staple of American public life, performed at events ranging from the 1971 Super Bowl to former President Jimmy Carter’s 2024 funeral.

    ## 20th Century: Expanding the Definition of Patriotism
    Written by immigrant songwriter Irving Berlin in 1918 for a World War I revue and revised in 1938 amid rising global fears of a second world war, *God Bless America* marked a clear break from earlier patriotic works. As Library of Congress folklorist Stephen Winick notes, the song is a deeply personal statement of allegiance (“Land that I love”) rather than a call to collective force – a framing that drew contemporary criticism. “He got mail from people basically saying, ‘How is it that you, this Russian Jew, has any right to ask God to bless America?’” Winick says.

    Woody Guthrie’s 1940 standard *This Land Is Your Land* was written explicitly as a response to Berlin’s work, which Guthrie argued failed to capture the full breadth of America’s natural beauty and working-class experience. Blending poetic imagery of “diamond deserts” and “wheat fields waving” with quiet social critique, Guthrie’s work embodies the protest patriotism tradition – one version of the lyrics includes a wry rebuke of the seemingly sacred American right to private property, noting: “As I went walking I saw a sign there/And on the sign it said “No Trespassing./But on the other side it didn’t say nothing.”

    Rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry wrote *Back in the U.S.A.* in 1959 after feeling homesick during a tour of Australia. Berry’s tribute to the open road, skyscrapers, and small-town diners stretching from California to Delaware has been covered by icons from Bruce Springsteen to Linda Ronstadt, but critics have long noted its subtle undercurrent of critique. Music writer Dave Marsh once observed that Berry’s line about searching for a local eatery carried unspoken weight: in the 1950s, many public establishments refused service to Black Americans, and Berry intentionally wove that contradiction into his seemingly celebratory anthem. “Berry never lets you be sure that he’s coming to grips with the contradictory mess we’ve made of things,” Marsh wrote.

    Two distinct versions of *This Is My Country* written decades apart reflect shifting conversations about American identity. The first, a brisk 1940 march by Don Raye and Al Jacobs, was written as war broke out across Europe, and emphasized unity across regional divides with the lyrics: “What diff’rence if I hail from North or South/Or from the East or West?/My heart is filled with love for all of these.” It has since become a staple of public events, from Disney theme park fireworks shows to military recordings. By contrast, Curtis Mayfield’s 1968 soul version, recorded with his group the Impressions amid the civil rights movement, is an unflinching assertion of Black patriotism forged through centuries of oppression: “I’ve paid 300 years or more/Of slave driving, sweat, and welts on my back/This is my country.”

    Bruce Robinson’s 1996 narrative folk classic *Travelin’ Soldier*, revised in 1999, tells the quiet, devastating story of a lonely Vietnam War soldier corresponding with a young woman back home. The song, which ends with the soldier’s death and the woman’s grief, offers a moving meditation on the human cost of military sacrifice. It became a breakout hit for The Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks) in 2002–2003, a moment when the nation was locked in bitter debate over patriotism in the wake of 9/11 and the impending Iraq War, and was revived again by artist Cody Johnson in 2024.

    ## 21st Century: Competing Visions of National Pride
    The post-9/11 era sparked a new wave of patriotic music across genres, particularly in country and rock. Zac Brown Band’s *Chicken Fried*, originally recorded in 2003 and released in 2005, is an ode to simple American pleasures from cold beer to well-worn jeans that became an unexpected anthem thanks to its often-overlooked a cappella closing verse: “I thank God for my life / And for the stars and stripes / May freedom forever fly, let it ring.”

    Even songs sharing the same title reflect the stark diversity of 21st-century patriotic expression. Toby Keith’s 2011 *Made in America* almost did not get released: Keith feared he had already recorded too many patriotic songs, until a conversation with co-writer Bobby Pinson and actor-singer Scott Reeves convinced him to move forward. The track is a celebration of traditional American values, centered on an elderly farmer who chooses to “spend a little more in the store for a tag in the back that says ‘USA’” out of loyalty to domestic goods. The same year, Jay-Z and Kanye West released their own *Made in America* (originally titled *Sweet Baby Jesus*), a protest-inflected rap track that echoes Martin Luther King Jr.’s framing of the American Dream as an unfulfilled promissory note: “Built a republic that still stands/I’m tryna lead a nation, to leave to my little man’s/Or my daughter, so I’m boiling this water/The scales was lopsided, I’m just restoring order.”

    Across centuries and styles, American patriotic music remains a living conversation – one that continues to ask what it really means to love the country you call home.

    Contributed by AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

  • Moscow mayor calls Saturday’s deadly bomb attack on restaurant a ‘terrorist act’

    Moscow mayor calls Saturday’s deadly bomb attack on restaurant a ‘terrorist act’

    A deadly explosion that tore through a popular restaurant in central Moscow Saturday evening has been labeled a brutal terrorist attack by the city’s top official, as Russian law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies continue their probe into the incident with no suspects or groups stepping forward to claim credit.

    Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed the attack in a social media post Sunday, acknowledging the loss of innocent life and confirming that injured survivors were receiving targeted medical care at city-run hospitals across the capital. “Yesterday, a brutal terrorist act was committed in Moscow that claimed human lives. The victims are currently in the city’s hospitals, where they are receiving all necessary care,” Sobyanin wrote, stopping short of assigning blame for the coordinated attack.

    Per Russian state media, which cited official local sources, three people were confirmed dead in the blast: a working security guard at the restaurant, one civilian guest, and the female attacker who carried the explosive device. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee, in statements carried by Russia’s official state news agency RIA Novosti, added that at least 21 other people sustained injuries of varying degrees when the device detonated at the venue on Kudrinskaya Square, a busy public space in the heart of the city.

    The Moscow Investigative Committee confirmed Saturday evening that it had launched a full official investigation into the circumstances of the attack. As of early Sunday afternoon, Russian federal and local authorities had not released any new updates on the progress of the probe, and no individual or extremist organization had issued any public statement claiming responsibility for the bombing.

  • Runner on smashing Alps ultramarathon record by 6 days

    Runner on smashing Alps ultramarathon record by 6 days

    In an extraordinary display of human endurance and mental fortitude, British ultra-runner Sophie Woods has etched her name into the history books of long-distance trail running by obliterating the existing record for the iconic Via Alpina ultramarathon by a staggering six days.

    Stretching across more than 2,600 kilometers through the heart of the European Alps, the route cuts through eight different countries, presenting runners with some of the most punishing and unpredictable terrain on the planet. Over the course of her journey, Woods faced a relentless barrage of extreme weather challenges that would have stopped most athletes in their tracks. Severe storm systems rolled through mountain passes, bringing lashing rain, high winds, and reduced visibility that turned narrow alpine trails into dangerous slippery tracks. When the skies cleared, she was forced to confront sweltering heat that pushed temperatures as high as 37 degrees Celsius, testing her body’s ability to regulate temperature and maintain hydration over thousands of meters of elevation gain.

    Beyond temperature extremes, Woods also had to navigate rapidly changing environmental hazards, dodging widespread flood zones in low-lying valleys and shifting wildfire smoke and burn areas that emerged across parts of the alpine region during her run. The multi-country route exposed her to a wide range of trail conditions and regional climate variations, requiring constant adaptability and quick decision-making to stay on course and safe.

    Her achievement has sent shockwaves through the global ultra-running community, where the Via Alpina record is widely regarded as one of the most challenging markers of elite long-distance performance. The six-day margin of improvement over the previous record is far larger than most experts predicted possible, highlighting both Woods’ exceptional preparation and her extraordinary resilience in the face of unforeseen challenges.

  • Europe’s wildfire crisis fractures as Greece evacuates and France guards megafire scar

    Europe’s wildfire crisis fractures as Greece evacuates and France guards megafire scar

    By the end of a scorching European summer, a continent-wide wildfire crisis was splitting into starkly divergent situations across the region on Sunday, with gale-force winds pushing flames closer to the Greek capital of Athens and triggering new evacuation orders, while France maintained a tense watch over a massive, still-active blaze that already carved a destruction zone four times the size of Paris, and major wildfires in Spain finally halted their spread.

    Greece remained the epicenter of immediate, life-threatening risk on Sunday. Violent gale-force winds pushed growing fire lines deeper into western Attica, the administrative region that encompasses Athens, putting coastal villages and an industrial zone outside the city of Megara in grave danger. The same powerful gusts that amplified fire spread also grounded firefighting aircraft, preventing crews from scooping water from nearby seas to douse the flames.

    As of Sunday, Greek authorities had ordered fresh mandatory evacuations for three additional communities: Kandili, Agia Skepi and Toutouli, with officials flagging particular concern for Porto Germeno, a popular seaside community on the Gulf of Corinth. Nearly 500 firefighters and 23 aircraft were deployed to contain the blaze, which ignited Friday near Agios Vasileios before sweeping toward coastal areas and pushing into the forested Geraneia Mountains west of Athens.

    For coastal communities cut off by fast-moving flames and smoke, evacuation by sea became a last-resort escape route. By Saturday, rescuers had pulled 254 people from the sea near Agios Vasileios and an additional 12 from Porto Germeno. Wildfire meteorologist Theodore Giannaros estimated Saturday the blaze had already scorched between 40 and 50 square kilometers of land, though Greek officials had not released an official confirmed estimate as of Sunday.

    Local resident Minas Tzortzanis, a farmer in the area, described the irreversible damage to the once-lush landscape. “A pristine forest, a paradise, was surrendered to the hands of the fire,” he said Saturday. “There are no words to explain what has happened. Destruction. Total destruction.”

    The unfolding disaster carries grim historical weight for Greece: in 2018, a similarly wind-fueled wildfire trapped residents in the seaside Athens suburb of Mati, killing 104 people in what remains the deadliest wildfire Europe has seen this century.

    Hundreds of kilometers to the west, where emergency conditions had begun to ease, little relief was available for thousands displaced by France’s largest wildfire on record. The Gironde megafire, which forced the evacuation of 224,000 people — what officials say is likely the largest peacetime evacuation in French history — has already scorched 420 square kilometers of dense forest, an area four times the size of the city of Paris. While the fire’s forward spread has been contained, active hotspots still burn deep within the destruction zone, and thousands of evacuated residents remain unable to return to their homes.

    Nearly 3,000 firefighters are still deployed across two major French blazes: the Gironde megafire in the southwest, and a second large wildfire in Provence that stopped spreading but has not been fully contained. The Gironde region remains under France’s highest red wildfire alert, with persistent dry conditions, record-high temperatures near Bordeaux and expected afternoon winds continuing to raise the risk of the fire breaking through containment lines.

    To reinforce overstretched crews, additional firefighters from Ukraine, Lithuania and French Polynesia were scheduled to arrive in the region over Sunday and Monday.

    In southeastern France’s Var department, hundreds of kilometers from Gironde, nearly 1,500 firefighters continued to battle a separate blaze that tore through 18 square kilometers of the Gros Bessillon hills in just over 24 hours. Authorities reported the fire had been stabilized by Sunday morning, meaning its perimeter did not expand overnight, but it had not yet been declared fully contained.

    Firefighting aircraft supported ground crews working to hold the fire back from small villages scattered across the vineyards, olive groves and wooded hills that give the region its nickname of Green Provence. Roughly 2,500 residents have been evacuated as the fire advanced, marking the fourth major wildfire to hit central Var since July 19. Earlier that week, a smaller blaze near Brignoles forced Hollywood actor George Clooney, his family and 700 other local residents to evacuate before it could be brought under control.

    French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu noted that most wildfires across the country were currently under control, but warned that conditions could shift rapidly at any time. He also announced that a national coordinator based out of the prime minister’s office would oversee long-term reconstruction efforts for communities and ecosystems damaged by the blazes. Since the start of 2022, more than 1,170 square kilometers of French land has burned in wildfires.

    The ongoing wildfire crisis across Europe is unfolding against a well-documented climate backdrop: the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirms Europe has warmed more than twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, making it the world’s fastest-warming continent. Higher average temperatures and prolonged drought have left forests and scrubland far drier and more flammable, allowing wildfires to spread faster and burn with far greater intensity than in decades past.

    In a rapid analysis released Thursday while French blazes were still actively spreading, a team of scientists from World Weather Attribution found that human-caused climate change has doubled the likelihood of the extreme fire weather conditions that fueled the Gironde megafire.

    Taken together, wildfires in France and Spain alone have displaced roughly 330,000 people from their homes and summer vacation sites, emptied entire communities at the peak of tourist season, and stretched firefighting resources and emergency services thin as crews responded to multiple simultaneous disasters across the continent.

  • Island residents fear delays to emergencies amid changes to fire service

    Island residents fear delays to emergencies amid changes to fire service

    Off Ireland’s northwest coast, the remote inhabited island of Arranmore is facing a growing conflict over emergency services, as locals push back against Donegal County Council’s plan to phase out the island’s last retained paid firefighters and transition to an all-volunteer fire brigade once the current personnel retire.

    For decades, Arranmore’s fire service has operated under a hybrid model: two full-time paid retained firefighters backed by a team of local volunteers. But that structure is set to change, with the council moving to an entirely volunteer-led service to fill upcoming vacancies created by retirement. For island residents, the shift raises urgent questions about the reliability of emergency response during a high-risk season for wildfires.

    Longtime local firefighter Finbar Gallagher, one of the most vocal critics of the plan, explained that the island’s unique geography and seasonal population swings make an all-volunteer force unworkable. Arranmore is particularly prone to fast-spreading gorse fires during the warm summer months, when the island’s permanent population of roughly 500 swells to as many as 900 people as tourists descend on its Atlantic coastlines. Gallagher noted that many current volunteers already split their time across multiple critical emergency services, serving on both the RNLI lifeboat crew and local ambulance service in addition to fire brigade duties.

    “The days of relying solely on volunteers for an essential service like fire response are gone,” Gallagher told BBC Radio Foyle. “Every community on the mainland has access to retained paid firefighters, and there’s no logical reason why Arranmore should be different. The additional cost to the council is negligible, especially when weighed against the risk to human life.”

    Residents have already launched a formal petition demanding the council reverse its decision and commit to hiring six full-time retained firefighters for the island. Siobhan Cox, a member of the community committee organizing the petition, said locals are united in their deep concern over the proposed changes. She pointed to a recent gorse fire that was extinguished in just 10 minutes by the existing on-island crew – a response time that would be impossible if the island had to wait for reinforcements from the mainland.

    Cox explained that rough Atlantic seas regularly suspend ferry services to Arranmore, meaning mainland fire crews could face delays of up to an hour or be unable to reach the island at all during an emergency. That window, she said, is more than enough for a small gorse fire to spread to residential areas and cause catastrophic damage. Beyond emergency response, Cox added that creating new paid positions would also support long-term efforts to attract young people to move to the island, boosting its declining permanent population. She also noted that the Aran Islands, another inhabited Irish island group, currently receive funding for 12 retained firefighter positions, making the council’s refusal to approve six posts for Arranmore even more confusing.

    For its part, Donegal County Council has defended its plan, arguing that current volunteer recruitment efforts meet and exceed the requirements laid out in national government policy for fire services on inhabited offshore islands. The council noted that five new local residents have already expressed interest in joining the volunteer brigade to fill the gaps left by upcoming and recent retirements. It added that the island’s fire equipment has essentially the same functional capability as that used by mainland retained brigades, with only minor differences in water capacity and ladder size.

    But community leaders remain unconvinced, accusing the council of ignoring their concerns and attempting to sweep the issue under the rug. As the peak summer wildfire season gets underway, the fight over Arranmore’s fire service highlights the ongoing challenges facing remote island communities in Ireland, as local authorities balance budget constraints with the need for reliable, accessible emergency services for year-round and seasonal residents alike.

  • Dry, hot summers are putting Dutch dikes at risk and threatening German river trade

    Dry, hot summers are putting Dutch dikes at risk and threatening German river trade

    Across sweltering Western Europe, a record-breaking summer drought has left iconic infrastructure, agricultural sectors and key shipping routes reeling, with the low-lying Netherlands — a nation defined by its centuries-long battle to hold back water — facing an unprecedented test of its famed flood defense network. As wildfires rage across southern France and Spain, and major waterways including the Danube and Rhine drop to historic lows, the Netherlands has mobilized hundreds of volunteers to patrol its thousands of kilometers of dikes, hunting for hidden cracks and weaknesses that could spell disaster in future rain events.

    Near the small agricultural town of Waddinxveen, located east of The Hague and roughly 5 meters below sea level, volunteers Jeroen Wouda and Dirk Boom follow a slow, methodical route along an inland peat dike, probing the bone-dry earthen embankment with metal rods and scanning parched grass for subtle patches of green that signal an unseen leak. This modern patrol echoes the centuries-old folk tale of the Dutch boy who plugged a dike breach with his finger, but today’s monitoring uses 21st-century tools: volunteers log potential flaws directly in a mobile app, alerting water authorities who can dispatch repair crews within hours.

    Peter van Duijvendijk, flood defense manager at the Schieland en de Krimpenerwaard water corporation, one of 21 regional water management bodies that oversee flood protection across the Netherlands, says 140 trained volunteers in his district alone patrol 100 kilometers of dikes throughout the dry season. So far, no major structural damage has been detected, but patrols will remain active through the fall as soil conditions stay unstable. “These volunteers are our eyes and ears on the dike,” van Duijvendijk explained to the Associated Press. Unlike concrete coastal flood barriers, inland dikes in the Netherlands are often built from peat, a porous organic soil that relies on consistent moisture to retain its structural strength. When peat dries out, it shrinks and weakens, creating gaps that can allow water to breach the barrier and flood low-lying reclaimed polder land during periods of heavy rain. “Because it is so dry right now the peat loses moisture, and because of that it becomes weaker,” van Duijvendijk said. “If that peat becomes weaker, then there is a chance that water will flow through the dike.”

    The drought’s impacts extend far beyond dike integrity, rippling through regional economies and critical transport networks. The Rhine, Europe’s most vital inland freight waterway that connects North Sea ports to industrial heartlands in Germany and landlocked Central Europe, dropped below its 2018 record low near Cologne, Germany, over the weekend. Marcel Beck, manager of the western German ports of Neuss, Düsseldorf and Cologne for logistics firm RheinCargo, called the low water levels “devastating” for commercial shipping. Whereas a single cargo vessel can typically carry 2,000 to 2,500 metric tons of freight along the Rhine, water depths are now so shallow that most ships can only load 400 to 600 metric tons to avoid running aground on sandbars. “This places an enormous burden on the entire transport chain to reorganize everything in order to still get the goods inland,” Beck said. In the eastern Netherlands, the Waal river — the main Dutch branch of the Rhine — has receded so far that long-submerged items like rusted bicycles and discarded shopping carts are now exposed on the dry riverbed, and dozens of houseboats are sitting directly on the exposed sandy river bottom. Frans Schilte, a houseboat owner in the city of Nijmegen, has observed that low-water seasons have grown longer and more severe in recent years, extending from the historic one-month average to three full months. His own steel-hulled boat now rests on the riverbed, sitting slightly off-level as a result. “It’s not a big problem,” Schilte said, “but it’s the negative effect of climate change.”

    For the Netherlands, a country where roughly one-third of total land sits below sea level, managing water has always required a delicate balancing act: winter brings the constant threat of catastrophic flooding, while extended summer droughts increasingly bring the opposite problem of water scarcity. Deltares, an independent Dutch water research institute, says the country has enough total annual freshwater to meet all needs, but seasonal distribution is the core challenge. “In the winter we drain it away quickly because we want to keep our feet dry and we don’t want water on the land,” explained Vince Kaandorp, a groundwater hydrologist at Deltares. “How can you ensure that you do that slowly and give water time to sink into the ground?” Kaandorp notes that solutions don’t require massive high-tech infrastructure: simple adjustments like adding hedgerows along river banks can slow runoff, giving rainwater more time to seep into deep groundwater reserves. Dutch water authorities are currently researching how to modify agricultural and riparian soil to act like natural sponges, holding more moisture through dry summer months.

    Even with these adaptive measures, the drought has already caused significant disruption for Dutch agriculture. Some regions have banned farmers from pumping canal water for crop irrigation as authorities work to preserve freshwater supplies and prevent saltwater intrusion into low-lying reclaimed lands. Western Dutch polders, which produce much of the country’s fruit and vegetable crops, are facing increasing salinization as freshwater levels drop and seawater seeps into groundwater reserves. Farmers are warning of reduced harvests and higher consumer prices for summer fruit this year. “It is an extremely challenging year for growers,” said John Kusters, chair of the Netherlands Fruit Growers’ Organization, in a public statement.

  • How Spain’s migrant crisis created a political storm – whipped up by social media

    How Spain’s migrant crisis created a political storm – whipped up by social media

    In the aftermath of a sudden, massive influx of tens of thousands of Moroccan migrants who swam across the border to reach Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta on July 30, the majority of those arrivals have now been escorted back to Moroccan territory by Spanish security forces. What began as an extraordinary mass crossing has ended in tragedy, with at least 67 migrants confirmed dead, their bodies recovered from the Strait of Gibraltar alongside discarded rubber flotation devices and swimming flippers. Beyond the human cost, the crisis has sent political shockwaves across the European Union, reopening long-simmering rifts over the bloc’s most divisive migration policy debates.

    Root causes of the unprecedented surge remain unconfirmed, with two leading hypotheses emerging. One line of inquiry points to viral social media content that falsely promised an open, unregulated path into Europe for migrants. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, leader of the country’s Socialist government, argues that smugglers misrepresented a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling barring immediate pushbacks of sea arrivals to lure hopeful migrants. Notably, most participants in the crossing were Moroccan citizens who did not pay smuggler fees; instead, false claims that “Spain is open” spread rapidly across social platforms, with videos of young migrants in wetsuits jumping into the water and footage from inside Ceuta racking up tens of thousands of likes from accounts that only launched weeks earlier.

    The other open question is whether the influx was a deliberate, organized act to weaponize migration for political gain, echoing the 2021 crisis on the Belarus-EU border. While Sanchez has refrained from blaming Morocco, a key Spanish ally that currently faces new tensions with Madrid over the Western Sahara dispute, critics argue that Moroccan border forces could not have missed large crowds gathering for the crossing. Observers also note that external actors have already seized on the crisis to exacerbate division in Europe: Russian state actors have gloated over the chaos that weakens allies of Ukraine, while former U.S. President Donald Trump, who faces an upcoming election and has a longstanding rift with Spain over its opposition to his Iran policy, has labeled the event a “catastrophic invasion.”

    Within the EU, the crisis has sparked open confrontation between Spain and Italy, whose far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni moved quickly to condemn Sanchez’s approach. Meloni’s party, Fratelli d’Italia, early on shared viral images of migrants in Ceuta mocking what it called the “Sanchez model” favored by Italy’s left-wing opposition. Meloni then announced Italy would suspend its Schengen Zone free movement agreement with Spain, citing a national security threat. The move drew fierce anger from Madrid, which points out that Ceuta is not part of the Schengen area, meaning migrants could never travel unchecked to mainland Europe. Analysts widely view Meloni’s hardline stance as a political calculation: with Italian elections scheduled for next year and her coalition losing support to a more virulently anti-immigrant new party, the crisis gave her an opportunity to bolster her tough-on-migration credentials to recapture voters.

    Meloni is far from alone in criticizing Spain’s migration approach. Her call for an urgent meeting of EU interior ministers this week has been co-signed by nearly two dozen EU heads of state, who are pushing to scrap policies they frame as “pull factors” drawing migrants to Europe. Their primary target is Spain’s controversial 2025 policy that allowed hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants to apply for work and residence permits to regularize their status, a pragmatic move for a rapidly aging country facing critical labor shortages. Notably, the migrants who arrived in Ceuta were not eligible for this program, which has already closed to new applicants.

    In response to the crisis, Spanish authorities have moved quickly to secure the Ceuta border, extending barriers out into the water with lines of orange buoys patrolled by ships to deter future mass swimming crossings. For the next several weeks, Italian police will conduct random document checks on travelers arriving from Spain, a largely symbolic move that does little to alter cross-border travel in practice. Next week, EU interior ministers will convene to discuss strengthening the bloc’s external borders, with populist right-wing parties across the continent emboldened by the crisis to push for harder line policies.

    Amid the political maneuvering and policy debates, the deepest tragedy of the event remains: dozens of young migrants who chased the false promise of a new life in Europe shared online now lie dead, their bodies returned to Morocco in coffins.

  • Young guns for hire – the teenage hitmen recruited to kill across Europe

    Young guns for hire – the teenage hitmen recruited to kill across Europe

    On a frigid February night last year in a quiet Stockholm suburb, a figure cloacked in all black emerged from the darkness. Armed with a loaded handgun, he tracked 20-year-old Murad Abdelkader, a university student heading home after a late shift at a local McDonald’s. The gunman, 18-year-old Atilla Azimov, opened fire repeatedly as he closed in on his target, delivering a final execution-style shot to Abdelkader’s head as the young man lay defenseless on the ground. What made the tragedy even more senseless: Azimov had killed the wrong man.

    Azimov was not acting on his own. He had been hired to carry out the killing for a fee by the Foxtrot Network, a ruthless transnational organized crime syndicate with deep ties to the Iranian regime that has gained infamy for its brutal ‘violence-as-a-service’ (VaaS) business model. Since 2002, law enforcement estimates the network has been behind approximately 35 murders across Europe, plus multiple planned and executed attacks against Israeli targets, including two incidents involving explosives and hand grenades.

    The network’s core operating strategy is cynical and calculated: it recruits vulnerable, impressionable teenagers to carry out contracted hits for large promised payouts, yet almost never follows through on payment, as most of the young hired killers are arrested before they can collect. The recent conviction of Norwegian teenager Johannes Natland on conspiracy to murder charges by a London jury at the Old Bailey this week lays bare exactly how this exploitative system works.

    According to OTF GRIMM, a specialized Europol task force created to counter the spread of VaaS across the continent, Foxtrot recruits teen hitmen entirely through social media, and structures instructions in a gamified format that mimics the progression of popular video games. Andy Kraag, head of Europol’s European Serious and Organised Crime Centre, describes the model as ‘the calculated outsourcing of murder’ that preys on young people facing instability or vulnerability. Currently, 11 European nations impacted by the VaaS phenomenon participate in the task force: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

    Foxtrot’s leader, Rawa Majid, first fled Sweden, then left his subsequent operating base in Turkey, and now operates freely from Tehran, the capital of Iran. Investigations by Swedish investigative journalist Diamant Salihu, who has spent three years probing Foxtrot’s connections to the Iranian government, reveal that the network began working on behalf of the regime after Majid fled to Iran in October 2023. In exchange for safe haven and the ability to live without restriction in Iran, Majid agreed to carry out attacks on the regime’s behalf, targeting dissidents, opposition journalists, and Israeli interests. Some of the network’s attacks are still tied to domestic European drug turf wars, but a growing share align with Iran’s geopolitical goals. The UK government sanctioned both Foxtrot Network and Majid in April 2025.

    The Natland case offers a step-by-step look at how the network grooms and deploys young recruits. Natland, the 18-year-old son of two Norwegian journalists from Stavanger, grew up in a comfortable home but struggled with substance abuse and psychosis, spending time in rehab and a youth children’s home. It was there he met another teen who went by the online alias UnknownHustler, who first showed him a recruitment post: ‘Killing in England 270k’ – equal to roughly £21,000 (270,000 Norwegian kroner). The post originated from a 16-year-old recruiter operating under the name Generalen, who had lived in a children’s home for three years, and he formally brought Natland into the plot.

    Natland was then passed up the chain to a senior Foxtrot member with the username Agent 47, a reference to the protagonist of the popular Hitman video game franchise. Swedish authorities have identified Ali Shehad Ahmed, a close associate of Majid who often appears in photos alongside the network leader, as Agent 47. Agent 47 booked Natland a one-way ticket to Manchester Airport, helped him secure an emergency passport, and guided him through every step of his journey via the encrypted messaging app Signal before handing him off to a logistics coordinator known only as ‘1’.

    Treating Natland like a player in a video game, ‘1’ sent him custom maps and pre-recorded videos marking the location of hidden guns in woodland outside Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, followed by another clip showing where a hidden cache of cash was stashed near a pedestrian foot tunnel. After Natland checked into a local hotel and retrieved the weapons, Agent 47 messaged him to confirm the hit would move forward the next day. But law enforcement was already one step ahead: Natland was arrested the next morning before he even received the identity of his target. British counterterrorism investigators are still working to determine if the planned hit was part of a criminal turf dispute or a political assassination ordered by the Iranian regime.

    Generalen, the teen recruiter who brought Natland into the plot, was far more active than just this one planned attack. He was also responsible for recruiting at least two other teen killers who carried out murders in Sweden: Atilla Azimov, the man who mistakenly killed Abdelkader and is now serving a life sentence, and a 17-year-old who shot dead Ahmed Zamzam in Lund, southern Sweden, three and a half weeks before the Huddersfield plot was disrupted. As with almost all of Foxtrot’s recruits, neither killer ever received their promised payment – both were arrested before they could collect, a deliberate feature of the network’s business model, according to Salihu.

    ‘They don’t care at all if the teenagers get caught. Because when they get caught, they cannot ask for money that they have been offered, and we see no examples of money being paid to these young killers,’ Salihu explained. ‘It has been a deliberate policy to recruit younger and younger teenagers because they don’t think about the consequences of getting caught, and they are more willing to take the risks.’

    Generalen was ultimately caught when he plotted to kill the 14-year-old son of a Norwegian police officer. He recruited a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old to carry out the knife attack, but the 15-year-old tipped off police. When Generalen was arrested, investigators discovered details of the Huddersfield plot on his phone, allowing British authorities to arrest Natland before any violence occurred. Generalen was convicted in May and is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence.

    In the 15 months since OTF GRIMM launched, the task force has notched a series of key wins, with more than 280 arrests of suspects across the network, including several high-level leaders. One of the most significant arrests was that of Ali Shehad Ahmed, the suspected Agent 47, who was detained by Iraqi authorities in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah. Sweden has formally requested his extradition to face charges for his role in the network. In May 2026, another key Foxtrot figure, former rapper Mohamed ‘Moewgli’ Mohdhi, was arrested in Tunisia.

    Despite these successes, Foxtrot’s leader Rawa Majid remains beyond the reach of law enforcement, operating openly from Tehran. ‘He’s still active,’ Salihu warned. ‘And as long as this network is active we will still continue, I fear, to see attacks on the enemies of the Iranian regime.’

    While law enforcement continues to dismantle key parts of the network, it remains unclear how deeply the organization’s ability to operate has been degraded. Compounding the threat is the fact that rival criminal groups, including the Dalen Network, Foxtrot’s main competitor, have already adopted the same VaaS model of exploiting vulnerable teens for hits. The model first emerged in Sweden, spread rapidly across Scandinavia and northern Europe, and reached the United Kingdom by 2025, as the Natland case demonstrates – meaning the risk of further violence remains very real for countries across the continent.

  • EU calls emergency meeting to discuss Ceuta migrant crossings

    EU calls emergency meeting to discuss Ceuta migrant crossings

    In the wake of an unprecedented mass influx of some 60,000 migrants crossing from Morocco into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta on July 30, the European Union has been forced into urgent diplomatic action, scheduling emergency talks for Tuesday to address the escalating migration crisis that has already sparked sharp divisions between member states. By early August, Spanish officials confirmed that nearly all of the migrants who entered the territory have returned to Morocco, but the human cost of the mass crossing has already climbed to at least 67 dead.

    The crisis has laid bare deep rifts within the bloc over migration policy. Twenty-two EU member states have signed a joint letter addressed to European Council President Antonio Costa, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and Irish Taoiseach Michael Martin – as Ireland holds the rotating Council presidency – calling for coordinated bloc-wide action and stricter security at the EU’s external borders. The letter warns that what unfolded in Ceuta risks creating a dangerous perception that illegal entry into the EU is achievable, a narrative that could fuel further attempted crossings, erode public trust in the bloc’s common migration framework, and create ripple effects across all member states. It also frames the incident as a potential hybrid threat targeting EU border stability.

    Spain, for its part, has pushed back against harsh criticism from several member states, condemning what it calls a “selfish, polarising and unlawful” response. Shortly after the surge, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced a one-month suspension of Italy’s participation in the EU’s Schengen border-free arrangement with Spain, a move that received public backing from Finland and Denmark. A handful of other states, including France and Portugal, have also announced they are reviewing or considering reinstating internal border checks, while Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has called on the bloc to evaluate all possible responses, including a broader suspension of Schengen cooperation.

    Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has hit back at critics, noting that Ceuta has never been part of the Schengen Area, and confirming that his government regained full control of the border and blocked any unauthorised movement of migrants toward mainland Europe in less than 48 hours. In a separate letter to von der Leyen, Sánchez expressed deep concern over the actions of some European governments, arguing that while most member states extended solidarity and support to Spain, others opted to launch attacks driven by prejudice, misinformation, ignorance, or narrow domestic political interests.

    On Friday, Sánchez pointed to migrant smuggling networks as the main culprits behind the surge, noting that traffickers exploited a recent ruling from Spain’s Supreme Court that limited the government’s authority to carry out immediate deportations of migrants who arrive by sea. By Saturday, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters that the situation in Ceuta had returned almost entirely to normal, with local businesses having reopened their doors. To prevent future mass crossings, the government is currently developing an inflatable water barrier to block irregular maritime entry routes into the enclave.

    Top EU officials have echoed growing concern over the incident. Von der Leyen described images of the mass crossing as unacceptable, writing on social media that “We cannot allow anyone to come to our Union without abiding by our rules.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called on Moroccan authorities to immediately take back all irregular migrants that crossed into Ceuta, while the United Kingdom, which left the EU in 2020, has offered assistance to Spain: UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham confirmed he had spoken with Sánchez over the weekend and that the country was providing all possible support to address the aftermath of the crisis.

    Long a key flashpoint for irregular migration toward Europe, Ceuta – along with the neighboring enclave of Melilla – forms the EU’s only land border with Africa. Many migrants attempt to reach the enclave by swimming short distances from the Moroccan coast, and large-scale crossing attempts are a common occurrence during the summer months, often organized via social media platforms. The 2026 surge is far larger than the last major incident in 2021, when roughly 8,000 migrants entered Ceuta over several days, sparking a major diplomatic rift between Spain and Morocco. Contextual factors including recent anti-government protests led by Gen Z in Morocco, driven by demands for better economic opportunities and improved public services, have also contributed to greater migration pressure in the region.

    Spain has maintained one of the more liberal approaches to migration within the EU in recent months: in April this year, the government approved a sweeping regularization plan that grants legal status to 500,000 undocumented migrants already residing in the country, allowing them to integrate formally into the Spanish workforce.