Multiple deaths in Limpopo bus crash at infamous spot where previous deadly tragedy occurred
Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia reaches its peak with the completion of its soaring central tower.
BARCELONA, Spain — Barcelona’s towering Sagrada Familia basilica reached its maximum height on Friday, though the magnum opus of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí remains years away from completion.
A crane placed the upper arm of a cross atop the “Tower of Jesus Christ,” the church’s soaring central piece, which now stands 172.5 metres (566 feet) above the city, the church said.
While the unfinished monument is already the world’s tallest church, with Friday’s addition, the Sagrada Familia inched closer to being done.
The first stone of the Sagrada Familia was placed in 1882, but Gaudí never expected it to be completed in his lifetime. Only one of its multiple towers was finished when he died at the age of 73 in 1926, after being hit by a tram.
In recent decades, work has sped up as the basilica became a major international tourist attraction with people around the world visiting Barcelona to see the monument, enthralled by Gaudí’s radical aesthetic that combines Catholic symbolism and organic forms.
The inside of the “Tower of Jesus Christ” is still being worked on and its exterior is flanked by construction cranes and scaffolding. But topping the central tower, which soars above the transept, has been a priority ahead of celebrations this June that will mark the centenary of Gaudí’s death.
The scaffolding surrounding the central tower is expected to be removed by June, in time for the inauguration of the “Tower of Jesus Christ,” the church said.
As Gaudí had planned, the cross has four arms so its shape can be recognized from any direction, said Sagrada Familia’s rector, the Rev. Josep Turull. If Barcelona’s city government will allow it, the original plan also includes a light beam shining from each of the cross’s arms, symbolizing the church’s role as a spiritual lighthouse, he added.
Millions of tourists visit the Sagrada Familia every year, and entrance fees largely fund the ongoing construction.
This year, the Sagrada Familia will hold several events to celebrate the Catalan Modernist’s legacy, which includes other stunning buildings in Barcelona and elsewhere in Spain.
The Sagrada Familia became the world’s largest church last October, when it rose above the spire of Germany’s Ulmer Münster, a Gothic Lutheran church built over 347 years starting in 1543. That church tops out at 161.53 metres (530 feet).
A prayer verse from the Gloria that Catholics recite at mass is installed at the base of the cross installed Friday afternoon at Sagrada Familia, the church’s rector said.
It reads: “You alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High.”
The Associated Press
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Canada’s Jacobs tops American Casper to improve to 2-0 in round-robin play at Games
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Netanyahu wants Trump to demand more from Iran. The leaders will meet this week.
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is heading to Washington on Tuesday to encourage U.S. President Donald Trump to expand the scope of high-stakes nuclear talks with Iran. The negotiations resumed last week against the backdrop of an American military buildup.
Israel has long called for Iran to cease all uranium enrichment, dial back its ballistic missile program and cut ties to militant groups across the region. Iran has always rejected those demands, saying it would only accept some limits on its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
It’s unclear if Iran’s bloody crackdown on mass protests last month, or the movement of major U.S. military assets to the region, has made Iran’s leaders more open to compromise, or if Trump is interested in broadening the already difficult negotiations.
Netanyahu, who will be in Washington through Wednesday, has spent his decades-long political career pushing for stronger U.S. action toward Iran. Those efforts succeeded last year when the U.S. joined Israel in 12 days of strikes on Iran’s military and nuclear sites, and the possibility of additional military action against Iran is likely to come up in this week’s discussions.
Decisions are being made
Netanyahu’s visit comes just two weeks after Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser, met with the prime minister in Jerusalem. The U.S. envoys held indirect talks in Oman with Iran’s foreign minister on Friday.
“The Prime Minister believes that any negotiations must include limiting ballistic missiles and ending support for the Iranian axis,” Netanyahu’s office said over the weekend, referring to Iran-backed militant groups like the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Years of nuclear talks have made little progress since Trump scrapped a 2015 agreement with Iran, with strong encouragement from Israel. Iran has shown little willingness to address the other issues, even after suffering repeated setbacks. But the meeting with Trump gives Netanyahu an opportunity to shape the process and may also bolster his standing back home.
“Clearly these are the days when decisions are being made, America is expected to complete its force buildup, and it’s trying to exhaust the prospect of negotiations,” said Yohanan Plesner, head of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank.
“If you want to have influence on the process, only so much can be done via Zoom.”
Israel fears a narrow agreement
Trump threatened a military strike against Iran last month over the killing of protesters and concerns of mass executions, moving a number of military assets into the region. Thousands were killed and tens of thousands detained at Iranian authorities crushed the protests over widespread economic distress.
As the protests largely subsided, Trump shifted his focus to Iran’s nuclear program, which the U.S., Israel and others have long suspected is aimed at eventually developing weapons. Iran insists its program is entirely peaceful and says it has the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.
Sima Shine, an Iran expert formerly with Israel’s Mossad spy agency who is now an analyst at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said Israel fears that the U.S. might reach a narrow agreement with Iran in which it would temporarily halt uranium enrichment.
A deal in which Iran halts enrichment for several years would allow Trump to claim victory. But Israel believes any such agreement that does not end Iran’s nuclear program and reduce its ballistic missile arsenal will eventually require Israel to launch another wave of strikes, she said.
Iran might be unable to enrich uranium after last year’s strikes, making the idea of a temporary moratorium more appealing.
Some members of Netanyahu’s cabinet have signaled that unilateral action remains on the table for Israel even if a deal is reached that Trump hails as a victory, with Energy Minister Eli Cohen telling Army Radio on Tuesday that Israel views Iran’s ballistic missiles as a grave threat and “reserves the option to act” should an agreement not meet its security needs.
In November, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran was no longer enriching uranium due to the damage from last year’s war. The U.S. and Israeli airstrikes killed nearly 1,000 people in Iran, while Iranian missile barrages killed almost 40 in Israel.
It’s unclear how much damage was done to Iran’s nuclear program. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been unable to visit the bombed nuclear sites. Satellite images show activity at two of them.
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Ecuadorian drug gang leader captured in Spain years after faking his death. Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa said that Wilmer Chavarria, also known as “Pipo,” was captured in the Spanish city of Malaga in a joint operation with Spanish police. In a message on X, Spain’s National Police posted a photo of Chavarria wearing a black and green track suit as he was escorted by police officers toward a patrol car.
Chavarria is believed to be the leader of Los Lobos, a drug trafficking group with around 8,000 fighters that was recently designated a terrorist organization by the United States. Los Lobos has been linked to political assassinations in Ecuador and has also been accused of working closely with Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Noboa said Chavarria faked his death in 2021 during the COVID pandemic, obtained a new identity and moved to Spain, from where he coordinated drug shipments, ordered assassinations and ran extortion rackets against gold mines in Ecuador.
Ecuador was one of the most peaceful countries in South America in the early 2010s. But the nation of 18 million people has experienced a spike in homicides and other violent crimes, as it becomes a key transit point for cocaine produced in neighboring Colombia and Peru. Drug trafficking gangs have attacked presidential candidates, municipal officials and journalists as they fight for control over ports and coastal cities.
Chavarria’s capture comes as Ecuadorians vote on a four-part referendum, where they will be asked if the nation’s constitution should be amended to allow foreign countries to run military bases in Ecuador.
Noboa has argued that this reform is necessary to further anti drug cooperation with countries like the United States and increase pressure on drug traffickers.
Manuel Rueda, The Associated Press
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for federal agents to conduct sweeping immigration operations for now in Los Angeles, the latest victory for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration at the high court.
The conservative majority lifted a restraining order from a judge who found that roving patrols were conducting indiscriminate stops in and around L.A. The order had barred immigration agents from stopping people solely based on their race, language, job or location.
The court’s 6-3 decision followed a pattern of at least temporarily allowing some of the Republican administration’s harshest policies, while leaving room for the possibility of a different outcome after the legal case plays out fully. The net effect, meanwhile, has Trump pushing ahead in many of the areas he considers most critical.
The majority did not explain its reasoning, as is typical on the court’s emergency docket. But Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the lower-court judge had gone too far in restricting how Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can carry out brief stops for questioning. “The prospect of such after-the-fact judicial second-guessing and contempt proceedings will inevitably chill lawful immigration enforcement efforts,” he wrote in a concurrence.
Dissent says constitutional freedoms threatened
In a stinging dissent joined by her two liberal colleagues, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision erodes constitutional freedoms.
“Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor,” she wrote. “Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.”
Kavanaugh, for his part, suggested stops in which agents use force could yet face legal challenges.
The Supreme Court’s decision comes as ICE agents also step up enforcement in Washington as part of Trump’s unprecedented federal takeover of the capital city’s law enforcement and deployment of the National Guard.
The lawsuit will now continue to unfold in California, with a hearing set for Sept. 24. It was filed by immigrant advocacy groups that accused the Trump administration of systematically targeting brown-skinned people during his administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration in the Los Angeles area.
U.S. District Judge Maame E. Frimpong in Los Angeles had found a “mountain of evidence” that enforcement tactics were violating the Constitution. The plaintiffs included U.S. citizens swept up in immigration stops. An appeals court had left Frimpong’s ruling in place.
Federal attorneys have said immigration officers target people based on illegal presence in the U.S., not skin color, race or ethnicity. Even so, the Justice Department argued that ICE agents can use at least some of those factors in combination with others, and Kavanaugh said apparent ethnicity could be a relevant factor for a stop.
More than 5,000 arrests made
The Department of Homeland Security said last week that authorities had made 5,210 immigration arrests since June 6 and praised the work of its lead commander there, Gregory Bovino, whose “success in getting the worst of the worst out of the Los Angeles region speaks for itself.”
The agency promised in an online post to “continue to FLOOD THE ZONE in Los Angeles” after the high court’s decision.
The region has been top priority for the Trump administration, and its hard-line immigration strategy has spurred protests and the deployment of the National Guard and the Marines.
The number of raids in the L.A. area appeared to slow shortly after Frimpong’s order came down in July, but recently they have become more frequent again, including an operation in which agents jumped out of the back of a rented box truck and made arrests at an L.A. Home Depot store as the administration carries out the president’s goal of mass deportations.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and border czar Tom Homan both separately applauded the ruling. “Now, ICE can continue carrying out roving patrols in California without judicial micromanagement,” Bondi wrote in a social media post.
The order from Frimpong, who was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden, barred authorities from using factors like apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, presence at a location such as a tow yard or car wash, or someone’s occupation as the only basis for reasonable suspicion for detention. It had covered a combined population of nearly 20 million people, nearly half of whom identify as Hispanic or Latino.
`I was born here in the States’
The plaintiffs argued that Frimpong’s order only prevents federal agents from making stops that do not align with the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent.
Chris Newman, legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said the Supreme Court decision will fuel aggressive immigration enforcement in other major cities. “The Supreme Court majority makes clear that average non-white workers are targets, and it functionally gives its stamp of approval for Trump to trample their bedrock constitutional rights,” he said.
Plaintiffs included three detained immigrants and two U.S. citizens. One of the citizens was Los Angeles resident Brian Gavidia, who was shown in a June 13 video being seized by federal agents and pressed against a metal fence with his arm twisted behind his back as he yelled: “I was born here in the States. East L.A., bro!”
A terrified Gavidia was released about 20 minutes later after showing agents his identification, as was another citizen stopped at a car wash, according to the lawsuit.
Democratic leaders in California condemned the decision. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said she has directed city departments to follow rules barring the use of municipal resources on federal immigration enforcement. “This isn’t just an attack on the people of Los Angeles. This is an attack on every person in this city, and in every city in this country,” Bass told reporters.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta pointed out the Supreme Court recently ruled that race can’t be considered in college admissions. “They prevent the use of race (in college admissions) to tackle discrimination but allow the use of race to potentially discriminate,” he said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a vocal Trump opponent, said the order would allow agents wide latitude to make stops “including U.S. citizens and children, to deliberately harm California’s families and small businesses.”
Plaintiff Pedro Vasquez Perdomo said ICE agents never explained why they stopped him or showed a warrant.
“I was treated like I didn’t matter -- locked up, cold, hungry, and without a lawyer. Now, the Supreme Court says that’s okay?” he said in a statement. “That’s not justice. That’s racism with a badge.”
By Lindsay Whitehurst.
Associated Press writers Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles, Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, Calif., Tran Nguyen in Sacramento, Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco and Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.
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#US no longer gives arms to Ukraine, supplies weapons at Europe’s expense — Rubio
The US Secretary of State specified that European countries are using #NATO to buy the weapons and transfer them to #Ukraine.
The United States is no longer supplying weapons to Ukraine directly, selling them instead while receiving payments from European countries via NATO, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
"We're no longer giving Ukraine weapons. We're no longer giving Ukraine money. We are now selling them weapons, and European countries are paying for it through NATO. They are using NATO to buy the weapons and transfer them to Ukraine," he noted in an interview with Fox News following US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Zelensky and European leaders.
Trump held a meeting with Zelensky and several European leaders on resolving the Ukraine conflict in the White House on Monday. The talks involved Finnish President Alexander Stubb, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
The White House hosted such a large number of top leaders simultaneously for the first time in history. This unprecedented lineup of participants, which underscores the importance of the issue under discussion, was also noted by the US president.
In addition, Trump held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the meeting. According to the US leader, they discussed, among other things, the prospects for a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, followed by trilateral talks. Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov said that the leaders of Russia and the United States spoke in favor of continuing direct talks between Moscow and Kiev, including the possibility of elevating their level.
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Cape Town #Opera is performing the work at the Theatre on the Bay until 17 August, directed by Sylvaine Strike.
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