Ukraine accuses Russia of destroying major dam near Kherson, warns of ecological disaster

A satellite image shows Nova Khakovka Damn in Kherson region. (Reuters)
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Updated 06 June 2023
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Ukraine accuses Russia of destroying major dam near Kherson, warns of ecological disaster

  • Both sides blamed the other for destroying the dam
  • President Volodymyr Zelensky called an emergency meeting to deal with the crisis

KYIV, Ukraine: The wall of a major dam in a part of southern Ukraine that Moscow controls collapsed Tuesday after a reported explosion, sending water gushing downriver and prompting dire warnings of ecological damage as officials from both sides in the war ordered residents to evacuate.
Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam and hydroelectric power station, while Russian officials blamed Ukrainian military strikes in the contested area.
The fallout could have far-reaching consequences: flooding homes, streets and businesses downstream; depleting water levels upstream that help cool Europe’s largest nuclear power plant; and draining supplies of drinking water to the south in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed.
The dam break added a stunning new dimension to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, now in its 16th month. Ukrainian forces were widely seen to be moving forward with a long-anticipated counteroffensive in patches along more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) of frontline in the east and south of Ukraine.
It was not immediately clear whether either side benefits from the damage to the dam, since both Russian-controlled and Ukrainian-held lands are at risk of flooding. The damage could also potentially hinder Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south, while at the same time Russia depends on the dam to supply water to the Crimea region it annexed illegally in 2014.
Amid official outrage, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he convened an urgent meeting of the National Security Council. He alleged that Russian forces set off a blast inside the dam structure at 2.50 a.m. (2350 GMT) and said some 80 settlements were in danger.
Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom said in a Telegram statement that the damage to the dam “could have negative consequences” for the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is Europe’s biggest, but wrote that for now the situation is “controllable.”
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement there was “no immediate risk to the safety of the plant,” which requires water for its cooling system.
It said that IAEA staff on site have been told the dam level is falling by 5 centimeters (2 inches) an hour. At that rate, the supply from the reservoir should last a few days, it said.
The plant also has alternative sources of water, including a large cooling pond than can provide water “for some months,” the statement said.
Ukrainian authorities have previously warned that the dam’s failure could unleash 18 million cubic meters (4.8 billion gallons) of water and flood Kherson and dozens of other areas where hundreds of thousands of people live.
The World Data Center for Geoinformatics and Sustainable Development, a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization, estimated that nearly 100 villages and towns would be flooded. It also reckoned that the water level would start dropping only after five-seven days.
A total collapse in the dam would wash away much of the broad river’s left bank, according to the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Working Group, an organization of environmental activists and experts documenting the war’s environmental effects.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that “a global ecological disaster is playing out now, online, and thousands of animals and ecosystems will be destroyed in the next few hours.”
Videos posted online began testifying to the spillover. One showed floodwaters inundating a long roadway; another showed a beaver scurrying for high ground from rising waters.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry called for residents of 10 villages on the Dnipro’s right bank and parts of the city of Kherson downriver to gather essential documents and pets, turn off appliances, and leave, while cautioning against possible disinformation.
The Russian-installed mayor of occupied Nova Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, said it was being evacuated as water poured into the city.
Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply.
Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said in a video posted to Telegram shortly before 7 a.m. that “the Russian army has committed yet another act of terror,” and warned that water will reach “critical levels” within five hours.
Ukraine’s state hydro power generating company wrote in a statement that “The station cannot be restored.” Ukrhydroenergo also claimed that Russia blew up the station from inside the engine room.
Leontyev, the Russian-appointed mayor, said Tuesday that numerous Ukrainian strikes on the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant destroyed its valves, and “water from the Kakhovka reservoir began to uncontrollably flow downstream.” Leontyev added that damage to the station was beyond repair, and it would have to be rebuilt.
Ukraine and Russia have previously accused each other of targeting the dam with attacks, and last October Zelensky predicted that Russia would destroy the dam in order to cause a flood.
Authorities, experts and residents have for months expressed concerns about water flows through — and over — the Kakhovka dam.
In February, water levels were so low that many feared a meltdown at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, whose cooling systems are supplied with water from the Kakhovka reservoir held up by the dam.
By mid-May, after heavy rains and snow melt, water levels rose beyond normal levels, flooding nearby villages. Satellite images showed water washing over damaged sluice gates.


Trump administration rescinds Biden-era guidance on emergency abortions

Updated 6 sec ago
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Trump administration rescinds Biden-era guidance on emergency abortions

  • The Biden-era memo was issued in July 2022, weeks after the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutionally enshrined right to abortion
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has revoked a Biden-era health guideline that protected emergency abortions when medically required, even in states that ban the procedure.
The Biden-era memo was issued in July 2022, weeks after the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutionally enshrined right to abortion.
As health providers suddenly found themselves embroiled in legal uncertainty over abortion, the memo provided an interpretation of the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), arguing it supersedes state abortion laws when needed to stabilize a pregnant patient.
The directive was fiercely contested by anti-abortion advocates.
In a letter Tuesday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the EMTALA guidance did not reflect the current administration’s policy.
“CMS is rescinding this memo ... effective May 29, 2025, consistent with Administration policy,” it said.
Offering its own interpretation, CMS said EMTALA provides the right for any hospital patient to receive “either stabilizing treatment or an appropriate transfer to another hospital.”
It said the US Health and Human Services would no longer enforce the Biden-era guidance.
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute said the Trump administration’s revocation of the EMTALA guidelines showed “callous disregard for the law and people’s lives.”
Lawrence O. Gostin, a health law expert at Georgetown University, wrote in the New York Times that the CMS letter “basically gives a bright green light to hospitals in red states to turn away pregnant women who are in peril.”
According to Guttmacher, 13 US states, mostly in the south and east of the country, have “a total abortion ban” as of May 28.
While these states generally provide narrow exceptions in the event of a threat to the mother’s life, it is unclear what constitutes a life-threatening condition in the eyes of the law.
Since returning to office, US President Donald Trump has taken a series of moves to restrict abortion access.
In his first week back in the White House, Trump revoked two executive orders protecting access to a pill widely used to terminate pregnancies and the ability to travel to states where the procedure is not banned.

Cologne starts its biggest evacuation since 1945 to defuse WWII bombs

Updated 46 min 20 sec ago
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Cologne starts its biggest evacuation since 1945 to defuse WWII bombs

  • Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany

COLOGNE: More than 20,000 residents were being evacuated from part of Cologne’s city center on Wednesday as specialists prepared to defuse three unexploded US bombs from World War II that were unearthed earlier this week.

Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany.

Disposing of them sometimes entails large-scale precautionary evacuations such as the one on Wednesday, though the location this time was unusually prominent and this is Cologne’s biggest evacuation since 1945. There have been bigger evacuations in other cities.

Authorities on Wednesday morning started evacuating about 20,500 residents from an area within a 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) radius of the bombs, which were discovered on Monday during preparatory work for road construction.

They were found in the Deutz district, just across the Rhine River from Cologne’s historic center.

As well as homes, the area includes 58 hotels, nine schools, several museums and office buildings and the Messe/Deutz train station. It also includes three bridges across the Rhine — among them the heavily used Hohenzollern railway bridge, which leads into Cologne’s central station and is being shut during the defusal work itself. Shipping on the Rhine will also be suspended.

The plan is for the bombs to be defused during the course of the day. When exactly that happens depends on how long it takes for authorities to be sure that everyone is out of the evacuation zone.


Trump envoy says risk levels ‘going way up’ after Ukraine struck Russian bombers

Updated 50 min 47 sec ago
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Trump envoy says risk levels ‘going way up’ after Ukraine struck Russian bombers

MOSCOW: US President Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy said the risk of escalation from the war in Ukraine was “going way up” after Ukrainian forces used drones to strike nuclear-capable bombers at several air bases deep inside Russia.
Ukraine said it attacked airfields in Siberia and Russia’s far north over the weekend, striking targets up to 4,300 km (2,670 miles) from the front lines of the conflict.
“I’m telling you, the risk levels are going way up — I mean, what happened this weekend,” Trump’s envoy, Keith Kellogg, told Fox News.
“People have to understand in the national security space: when you attack an opponent’s part of their national survival system, which is their triad, the nuclear triad, that means your risk level goes up because you don’t know what the other side is going to do. You’re not sure.”
Russia and the United States together hold about 88 percent of all nuclear weapons.
Each power has three main ways of attacking with nuclear warheads, known as the nuclear triad: strategic bombers, land-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Kellogg said the damage to the Russian bombers at the weekend was less important than the psychological impact on Russia and that he was particularly concerned by unconfirmed reports of a Ukrainian attack on a naval base in northern Russia.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that Trump had not been informed in advance of Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russia’s bombers.
Russia and Ukraine held talks in Istanbul on Monday but made little headway toward ending the war that has raged since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine more than three years ago.
Kellogg said Ukraine had come up with a “very reasonable position” but Russia had come with a “very maximalist position,” and that the aim now was to “try to bridge that.”


Australian accused in mushroom murders recounts fatal lunch

Updated 04 June 2025
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Australian accused in mushroom murders recounts fatal lunch

  • Erin Patterson is accused of using poisonous mushrooms to murder three elderly relatives of her estranged husband
  • Prosecution accuses her of knowingly serving the guests lethal death cap mushrooms in a Beef Wellington pastry dish

SYDNEY: An Australian woman accused of using poisonous mushrooms to murder three elderly relatives of her estranged husband gave on Wednesday her account of the fatal lunch, in a case that has gripped the public.

Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with the July 2023 murders of her mother-in-law Gail Patterson, father-in-law Donald Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, along with the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband.

The prosecution accuses her of knowingly serving the guests lethal death cap mushrooms in a Beef Wellington pastry dish at her home in Leongatha, a town of about 6,000 some 135 km (84 miles) from Melbourne.

She denies the charges, with her defense calling the deaths a “terrible accident,” but faces a life sentence if found guilty.

She wept repeatedly on Wednesday as she told the court she might have accidentally included foraged mushrooms in the meal she served.

“Now I think there was a possibility there were foraged ones in there,” she said in questioning by her lawyer, Colin Mandy.

The court also heard that Patterson, who began giving evidence on Monday as the first witness for her own defense, had invented medical issues partly to elicit sympathy from her estranged husband’s relatives, as she felt they were growing apart.

“I didn’t want their care of me to stop, so I kept it going. I shouldn’t have done it,” she told the court.

“Did you lie to them?” Mandy asked.

“I did lie to them,” she replied, through tears.

The prosecution accuses Patterson of having invented the medical issues to lure the victims to her home for the meal, a claim she denies.

Investigation panic

Previously the court heard that shortly after the lunch, Patterson disposed of a food dehydrator found to contain traces of death cap mushrooms, while mobile phones she owned were reset to factory status three times.

On Wednesday, Patterson said she had disposed of the dehydrator before a visit from child protection workers investigating her living arrangements.

“I was scared of the conversation that might flow about the meal and the dehydrator,” she said. “I was scared they would blame me for it, for making everyone sick. I was scared that they would remove the children.”

The phones were reset either due to damage or because she panicked during the police investigation, she told the court.

The prosecution rested its case on Monday, after a month of evidence from witnesses, including relatives and medical, forensic and mushroom experts.

The trial, which began on April 29, has drawn intense media interest, with podcasters, journalists and documentary-makers descending on the town of Morwell, about two hours east of Melbourne, where it is being held.

State broadcaster ABC’s daily podcast about the proceedings is currently Australia’s most popular, while many domestic newspapers have run live blogs.

The trial, set to conclude this month, continues.


Madrid’s ghost towns revived as Spain’s housing crisis escalates

Updated 04 June 2025
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Madrid’s ghost towns revived as Spain’s housing crisis escalates

  • Sesena, a development near Madrid, gained notoriety as one of the so-called ‘ghost towns’ created when Spain’s property bubble burst in 2008
  • Sesena has been adopted as a commuter town as Madrid overflows, even though it is located in the neighboring Castile-La Mancha region

SESENA, Spain: The first call came two minutes after estate agent Segis Gomez posted a listing in Sesena, a development near Madrid that gained notoriety as one of the so-called “ghost towns” created when Spain’s property bubble burst in 2008.

Half-built and half-empty for more than a decade, these days the squatters have gone from this development 40 kilometers south of the capital and middle-class families, driven out of the city center by an acute housing crisis, are moving in. Construction, meanwhile, has restarted.

Demand is so strong in Sesena that Gomez has a waiting list of 70 people for each property. Property prices have recovered their original value after plunging to less than half during the crisis, he said.

As anger grows over the cost of housing in Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has made providing affordable homes one of his main goals – even as he encourages population growth through immigration. The size of the challenge is clear in Madrid, which grew by 140,000 people in 2024, but only registered permits to build 20,000 new homes.

Short supply is being exacerbated by a boom in holiday lets, record migration and onerous planning laws.

“The problem is that we can’t match supply and demand quickly enough. So prices go up, or people have to trade price for distance,” said Carles Vergara, a real estate professor at IESE Business School in Madrid.

Sesena has been adopted as a commuter town as Madrid overflows, even though it is located in the neighboring Castile-La Mancha region and still lacks good transport links to the capital and public services, which caused homebuyers to reject it in the past.

Its founder and original developer, Francisco Hernando, had a vision of 13,000 affordable apartments with gardens and swimming pools on the Spanish plain where author Cervantes set his best-known work Don Quixote, but the project became a byword for speculative greed and corruption. Only 5,000 homes ended up being built. Hernando, who began his project in 2004, failed to tell homebuyers he hadn’t secured access to water or that the town had no public transport or schools. Hernando died in 2020.

When the market collapsed, initial investors saw the value of their property plummet, while many homes ended up in the hands of banks.

Madrid’s expansion

Today, Sesena teems with life as parents drop children at its three schools, drink coffee in its bars and visit recently-opened gyms and pharmacies. Impact Homes, a developer, is constructing 156 one-to-four bedroom apartments it expects to complete this year. Next door, another building has already pre-sold 49 percent of its units, it said in an email. “Sesena is at 100 percent,” said Jaime de Hita, the town’s mayor.

Nestor Delgado moved to Sesena in 2021 with his family from Carabanchel in south Madrid because an apartment cost 20 percent less to rent. In May, he bought a house with his wife for €240,000 ($272,808).

“We chose (Sesena) because we can afford it,” Delgado, 34, said.

The trade-off is rising before 5 a.m. (0300 GMT) to be among the first in the queue for the 6.30 a.m. bus to Madrid to arrive at his construction job by 8 a.m. or face an hour’s wait for the next bus.

Back to life

Other ghost towns are also coming back to life. Valdeluz, a development 75 km east of Madrid originally envisioned to house 30,000 people, was abandoned a quarter of the way through when the property bubble burst.

Mayor Enrique Quintana told Reuters the town’s 6,000-strong population is swelling with people from Madrid and could expand by 50 percent in the next four years.

A development on the edge of the village of Bernuy de Porreros, 100km north of Madrid, which as recently as six years ago was mostly abandoned, is now bustling with activity as handymen put the finishing touches on homes.

Lucia, a 37-year-old state employee, bought her house in April. Her daily commute to Madrid involves a 15-minute drive to the train station in Segovia and 28 minutes on the high-speed train, which costs her 48 euros for 30 trips thanks to a frequent traveler discount.

The development began to revive when Spain’s so-called bad bank Sareb, which was set up to take bad loans from the financial crisis, in 2021 began selling the homes for as little as €97,000. Four years later, one property was resold for double that, said resident Nuria Alvarez.

Until recently a relatively compact city, Madrid is on the way to becoming a metropolis like Paris or London, with commuter zones stretching beyond its administrative boundaries, said Jose Maria Garcia, the regional government’s deputy housing minister.

The metropolitan area’s population of 7 million will grow by a million in the next 15 years, the government estimates. Madrid has a deficit of 80,000-100,000 homes that’s growing by 15,000 homes a year and plans to build 110,000 homes by 2028, Garcia said.

Sesena, meanwhile, is once again dreaming big.

Its mayor, de Hita, said the town is securing permits for a new project dubbed Parquijote, with a proposed investment of €2.3 billion to build a logistics park that will create local jobs, along with 2,200 homes.

It’s no quixotic fantasy, de Hita said.

“This time we have learned from what happened,” he said. “It is fundamental that we look for growth by learning from the past.”