Shocking footage shows the moment a man hurled racial slurs and threats of murder and rape at his terrified black neighbors at their Oregon apartment complex. 

Shirtless Dominic Austin, 19, is seen pounding on the door as he makes the sinister threats, pacing menacingly in front of the mother and daughters’ doorstep.

He even stabs their front door with a knife and in one clip he can be heard saying: ‘I’ll f**king rape your daughter, b**ch.’ 

‘You’re about to get murdered,’ he says in another, before ominously adding: ‘Call the cops, b**ch.’ He is also heard mumbling angrily about slavery, before asserting that he wants the women to be whipped.

The tenants on the other side, Nubrittany Smith and her elderly, live-in mother Tasha, say they have been subject to such behavior since June and have filed a restraining order against Austin.

However, Austin was only handed an eviction notice this week, before being arrested Wednesday for menacing the women and violating Smith’s August 23 protective order.

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In his arrest report, officers with the Gresham Police report wrote how Austin violated the stalking order at least 10 separate times – repeatedly showing up the mother and daughter’s door to harass them while appearing increasingly unstable.

Smith said she reported the threats to police after ‘each event’ – with videos captured on her Ring Security Camera appearing to show Austin’s escalating behavior, which she said took a turn for the worse on September 8.

According to documents obtained by KOIN, that was when Austin was officially notified by management at The Landings at Morrison that he was being thrown out of the complex due to a stipulation in his rental agreement says tenants will be evicted within 24 hours if they should ever threaten another tenant.

The outlet, however, reported that an eviction notice was only handed to Austin on Monday, allowing him roughly two weeks to ramp up his campaign of harassments against the two women, who moved in in June.

The threats began soon after, with the family filing their first formal complaint against Austin on June 30.

Still, no action was taken until this month – and an arrest was not made until Wednesday, hours after KOIN unmasked Austin’s alleged behavior.

Footage posted to social media by Smith further substantiated her and her mothers’ claims – showing Austin issuing death threats to the pair through their locked door.

He remains shirtless in all of the videos, which were all shared to Instagram by Smith.

In a GoFundMe asking for money to relocate, she alleged that Austin – who at this point was a day from being evicted – was suffering from a mental affliction, and had been coming down to the unit in such a manner since June 29.

‘Every time he comes down he is either holding a knife or beating on [our] door,’ she wrote on September 17, adding ‘the property management is aware of the situation and appears not to be concerned in our health or safety.’

She further revealed: ‘My mother has requested accommodations as far as being transferred to a different unit or paying for to place us in a hotel.

‘The property management declined both accommodations,’ she said.

Within a day after posting the profile – which has raised more than 10,000 in the span of a week – KOIN published its story about the alleged pattern of abuse, and brass at the posh complex near Portland formally hit Austin with an order to vacate.

That notice came nearly two weeks after management hit him with the 24-warning, which they inexplicably did not act on despite Austin’s visits – and the families complaints – persisting to this past Tuesday, when he was handed the order.

The next day, only after being named in the KOIN piece, Austin was placed under arrest  – on 10 charges of violating protection orders, and one count of menacing – a felony.

Upon his arrest, it was also revealed that Austin had a stalking protection order filed against him on August 23 by another tenant at the complex.

In that case, cops said Austin continued to violate that order, as well as Smiths’ until Tuesday – the day before his arrest.

Smith has since retained an attorney, alleging staffers at the Gresham apartment complex failed their tenants by allowing Austin’s pattern of abuse to continue unhindered.  

‘I was failed by the system and by the Landings at the Morrison,’ Smith told KOIN Wednesday after Austin’s arrest, adding ‘I don’t feel safe because he’s in jail today… I don’t know what tomorrow is going to be.’

She told the station: ‘He could be released at any time. Then what happens next?’

Citing how she reported the behavior to police multiple times, Smith said: ‘As a Black woman, we, I felt that we weren’t heard – I feel that we were not important.’

Her lawyer, citing the landlords’ failure to act on their own policy of booting tenants within a day of making threats against a neighbor, said: ‘The people who run this very large apartment complex didn’t give a damn. The police did not give a damn.’

Claiming that both cops and the complex failed Smith and her mom, he added: ‘I don’t know how anyone can look at those videos and come to any other conclusion.’

Gresham police, meanwhile, sent out a statement in response Wednesday, finally addressing Smith’s complaints.

‘We are aware of the terrible conduct of the suspect in this case, including statements that indicate the motivation for the crime is hate or bias. 

‘We share in our communities’ concern and appreciate the unique impact bias crimes, in particular, have on victims.

‘Although the suspect has been arrested and is currently in custody, the investigation is continuing. 

‘We are working with the district attorney’s office to ensure the suspect is charged with the appropriate crimes.’

Experts have warned dogwalkers to be on the lookout for a toxic algae that looks like ‘green mashed potato’ which can be fatal if ingested. 

Blue-green algae spreads in ‘blooms’ over lakes and rivers, transforming the water into a vibrant green colour and giving it an earthy or musty smell. 

But the substance contains toxins that stop a dog’s liver from functioning, potentially resulting in death within just one hour. 

One woman tragically lost her beloved two-year-old pooch after he came into contact with the lethal substance at a lake in Somerset. 

One badly affected freshwater lake – Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland – is being devastated by the algae, which has formed uncontrollable blooms over the summer. 

It comes as environmentalists at Lough Neagh stage a ‘wake’ to mark what they say is the death of the famous lake due to the substance, officially known as cyanobacteria. 

Lough Neagh, the biggest freshwater lake in the UK or Ireland, supplies 40 per cent of Northern Ireland’s drinking water and sustains a major eel fishing industry. 

While ingestion of the cyanobacteria is not known to be fatal to humans, it can cause us severe illness. 

‘The state of the loch at the moment is simply appalling,’ environmental scientist Dr Leslie Gornall told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday. 

‘At the end of the loch there is a green mashed potato-looking crust which is a minimum of six inches deep and possibly 18 inches deep. 

‘If you put the oar of a boat into it the full blade of the oar can scoop up and act like a shovel…it smells disgusting.’

Blue-green algae contains toxins that can kill livestock, wild animals and domestic pets – both cats and dogs. 

‘If you drop your dog in there to chase a ball it will come out, lick it’s coat and then it’ll be dead in 24 hours,’ Dr Gornall said. 

‘It does need immediate action otherwise we’re going to lose not only the loch but the Lough Neagh eel will become extinct…we will lose tourism as well.’ 

Blue-green algae is not unique to Lough Neagh by any means, and the substance has been recently sighted in Lake Windermere in Cumbria, Highams Park Lake in London, Jubilee River in Berkshire and Wimbleball Lake in Somerset. 

An interactive map shows locations of the cyanobacteria in UK waters, as reported by members of the public. 

Blooms make waters look like pea soup or spilled green paint, but they can also look like more solid clumps or foams, especially near the shorelines. 

Some councils have erected signs that warn of the dangers if a lake is poisoned by the blooms, but this is not always the case.

Dogs that run away from their owners while off the lead could enter an affected river or lake before the owner has even realised it. 

A spokesperson at the Blue Cross said there is no antidote for the toxins produced by the blue-green algae.

‘If caught early enough, your vet will likely try to make your dog sick and attempt to flush the toxins from the body before they take hold,’ they said.

‘Sadly, blue-green algae poisoning often eventually causes fatal liver failure.’

In humans, contact with blue-green algae can cause skin rashes, sickness, stomach pains, fever and headaches.

There have been some reports of more serious illnesses including liver and brain damage, according to the Blue Cross, but there are no confirmed human deaths. 

Children are at greater risk than adults of developing problems because of their comparative lower body weight. 

Due to the health risks, anglers are being urged not to eat anything they catch from waters that they suspect might be affected. 

Although the cyanobacteria is not a new species, growth has been fuelled in the past few months by summer heat. 

A combination of warm temperatures, sunlight, and nutrient-rich waters is what causes blue-green algae to reproduce rapidly, or ‘bloom’. 

Nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural fertiliser running off fields is believed to be another major factor  

The spread of the invasive Zebra mussel species is also understood to have played a role, as they have made the water clearer, allowing more sunlight to penetrate, stimulating photosynthesis. 

Girl’s father threatens to kill headteacher for enforcing abaya dress ban at French school – after his daughter twice ignored the rule

• The abaya dress ban came into action on Wednesday  

By Shivalika Puri

Published: 07:00 EDT, 8 September 2023 | Updated: 07:02 EDT, 8 September 2023

A Texas woman has been arrested and charged with threatening the federal judge overseeing Donald Trump‘s January 6 case – while identifying information about grand jurors in Trump’s latest indictment has been posted online. 

The developments are among a series of threatening or potentially threatening incidents amid the high-profile trials swirling around the former president. 

The woman, Abigail Jo Shry of Alvin, called the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. where judge Tanya Chutkan is overseeing the Trump case, allegedly saying, ‘We want to kill you,’ according to prosecutors.

That event, revealed in a filing by prosecutors, came during a week when Trump was at the center of attention in another cases, following his indictment by a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia over his election overturn effort there.

In that case, the names of grand jurors were posted on far-right messages boards after they were included in the indictment. That happened on a site that has posted messages from ‘Q’ of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Other sites posted the names as part of a ‘hit list.’

Fulton County DA Fani Willis has herself been the recipient of racist attacks, she revealed weeks before the indictment. 

Early this month, she forwarded to county commissioners one of the threats she said she has received, with the guidance to ‘stay alert’ and ‘stay safe.’ 

She also forwarded an obscene message she said she received in the run up to the indictment of Trump and 18 other people, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

It called her a ‘corrupt (racial expletive),’ threatening, ‘You are going to fail, you Jim Crow Democrat (expletive).’ 

The threat against Chutkan came August 5, according to court records. 

Trump this week put the judge back in the spotlight by going after her online, calling her ‘highly partisan,’ and calling out her language while sentencing a January 6 defendant. ‘She obviously wants me behind bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!.’ 

Chutkan had herself warned Trump not about attacks on herself, but against statements that might intimidate a witness or impact the jury pool.  She said ‘inflammatory statements’ might cause her to have to speed up the trial due to jury considerations.

The Texas woman, a supporter of Donald Trump has been charged with threatening to kill the federal judge overseeing a criminal case against the former president, as well as a member of Congress. 

Abigail Jo Shry of Alvin, Texas, allegedly called the federal courthouse in Washington and left the threatening message – using a racist term for U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan – on August 5, court records show. 

‘Hey, you stupid slave n****r,’ she began the message, which she left at the judge’s chambers at 7:50 p.m., according to Department of Homeland Security officials. 

Investigators traced her phone number and she later admitted to making the threatening call, according to a criminal complaint.

In the call, Shry told the judge, who is overseeing the federal election interference conspiracy case against Trump, ‘You are in our sights, we want to kill you,’ the documents stated.

Special prosecutor Jack Smith has indicted Trump for alleged crimes to obstruct the 2020 election results and also for his mishandling of classified documents. Trump also faces state charges in New York for alleged hush-money payments. 

This week, the former president was also indicted in Georgia for his alleged role, along with 18 co-defendants, to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state. 

Smith has called for the trial on the federal election interference charges to start in July.  

Prosecutors allege Shry also told Chutkan in the message, ‘If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly b***h.’ 

She also threatened to kill U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat running for mayor of Houston, according to court documents.

In addition, she set her sights on ‘all Democrats in Washington D.C. and all people in the LGBTQ community.’ 

‘You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it,’ she added. 

When she was questioned by DHS agents, Shry claimed she had no plans to go to Washington but said if Lee came to Alvin, ‘then we need to worry.’ 

A judge earlier this week ordered Shry jailed. 

On Monday, she was held without bond and charged with communicating a threat to injure another person across state lines, according to WUSA.  

Shry has been charged four times in the last year on similar charges and has been jailed 30 times.  

She was out on bond on a July 11 charge of misdemeanor threat causing fear of imminent serious bodily injury when she threatened Chutkan. 

Court records show Shry is represented by the Houston public defender´s office, which did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Wednesday. Shry is scheduled to appear at a full bond hearing on September 13.

Trump has publicly assailed Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, calling her ‘highly partisan’ and ‘ VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!’ because of her past comments in a separate case overseeing the sentencing of one of the defendants charged in the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Chutkan in a hearing Friday imposed a protective order in the case limiting what evidence handed over by prosecutors the former president and his legal team can publicly disclose. 

She warned Trump´s lawyers that his defense should be mounted in the courtroom and ‘not on the internet.’

Chutkan also warned the former president’s lawyers he could face a faster trial if he keeps making ‘inflammatory’ statements that could taint the jury pool.

In a stern message, she said she would not let the trial over allegations he subverted the 2020 election turn into ‘a carnival atmosphere of unchecked publicity and trial by media.’ 

At least 36 people have been killed in the Hawaii wildfires with the death roll expected to rise as locals continue to ‘pull bodies from the water’ in Maui and frantically search for missing relatives. 

Maui firefighters are desperately hunting for survivors in the scorched remains of the historic town of Lahaina, which one resident says has nearly been ‘wiped off the map’.

All of the victims were in Lahaina, the ‘decimated’ town where some 271 buildings have been destroyed by the blaze which has ravaged 800 hectares of land, fanned by powerful winds. 

Lahaina, the former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, was a hub of history and culture on the island. 

Now, hundreds of people who lived there are homeless and countless relics have been destroyed.  

While the exact source of the fires remain unknown, they began on Tuesday fueled by strong winds from the passing Hurricane Dora. Low humidity and a prolonged drought season which dried trees also contributed to the disaster, according to officials.  

As fires closed in all the way up to the shoreline, frantic locals jumped into the water in the harbor to escape the flames on Tuesday night. Twelve people were rescued from the waves by boats. 

Governor Josh Green, who had been traveling with his family, today as distraught residents of Lahaina woke up to photos and videos of their homes entirely destroyed. 

‘We just had the worst disaster I’ve ever seen. All Lahaina is burnt to a crisp. It’s like an apocalypse,’ said one resident. 

Another escaped with his wife, children and dog and slept in a Whole Foods parking lot before waking to the news that their home had been destroyed. 

‘We got to this side of the island midnight last night, with my wife and dog, we slept in a parking lot at Whole Foods. We woke up and got on our phones to pictures of our house down to slab. Nothing but smoke and cinders. We have the clothes we got on, a dog and two kids. And here we are,’ he told NBC News. 

One local told reporters on Wednesday: ‘We’ve still got dead bodies floating on the seawall. They’ve been sitting there since last night. We’ve been pulling people out since last night, trying to save peoples’ lives.’ 

Authorities, who had earlier put the death toll at six, are struggling to find shelter for huge numbers of locals and tourists who fled the inferno, while firefighters are making little headway in battling the flames.

Some 11,000 people flew out of Maui yesterday and another 1,500 are expected to leave today if they can.  

The wildfires, which have been whipped up by strong winds from Hurricane Dora passing far to the south, took the island of Maui by surprise, leaving behind burned-out cars and smoking piles of rubble where historic buildings  stood.

Flames roared throughout the night, forcing adults and children to dive into the ocean to escape the fire. 

The blaze began early on Tuesday, threatening homes, businesses and more than 35,000 people on the island of Maui, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency said. Thousands of tourists at the popular holiday destination are stuck on the island and seeking temporary shelter after being ordered to evacuate.

President Joe Biden has now ordered ‘all available federal assets’ to battle the wildfires and sent in Black Hawks to help douse the flames.

Democratic Senator for Hawaii, Brian Schatz, warned Lahaina has been ‘almost totally burned to the ground’ while a local resident described the town as ‘like a warzone’. 

Another witness said it was a scene of ‘utter devastation… It is far from hyperbole to say that Lahaina has been wiped off the map’.  

Officials are nervously awaiting a presidential declaration of emergency, which they hope will be made in the coming ‘hours or days’ as the state estimates it is facing billions of dollars of damage. 

At a press conference, Lt Governor Sylvia Luke said she had flown over Lahaina, a town of 12,000 people, to see the damage with her own eyes.

‘[It] was just so shocking and devastating… The whole town was devastated, the whole town was decimated,’ she said.

A longtime Maui resident who filmed the scenes of devastation in Lahaina said he would not share some footage as it was too graphic. Emerson Timmins told local news outlet KHON2 News: ‘There were cars abandoned on the road, I assume those people couldn’t get out in time.

‘They probably headed to the ocean, the ones that could make it, and people leaving their homes.

‘If a young person could barely get out of there with their family, then the elderly are trapped, those that are handicapped.

‘It’s terrifying to think about all those families losing their loved ones and their homes.’

Firefighters were still struggling to contain three of the biggest fires raging on the island by midnight on Wednesday – fueling fears that many will wake up on Thursday with their homes scorched to cinders. 

Meanwhile, Hawaii Governor Josh Green warned that there is not enough shelter ‘for long-term living’ to aid those several hundreds of residents who have lost homes in the wildfires. 

Currently, around 2,000 tourists are in shelters near the island’s airport. 

The entirety of West Maui remains without power, and has no landline or cellphone service due to the wildfires. 

 

A mass bus evacuation at Sheraton Maui Resort in Kaʻanapali late on Wednesday took tourist to Kahului Airport where travellers have been desperately trying to board departing flights.

Shelters remain open at War Memorial Gymnasium in Wailuku, Maui High School in Kahului and Hannibal Tavares Community Center in Pukalani, the state said early on Thursday morning. 

Governor Josh Green told CNN: ‘What we’re trying to do right now is to make sure that anyone who doesn’t need to be in Maui for anything but essential travel does not go to Maui. 

‘I’m making a call right now to all the people of Hawaii: If you have an ADU on your property, if you have a rental that’s not occupied right now, we will be promoting a program quite quickly to put people back into shelter.

‘We already struggle with homelessness and a severe shortage of housing in our state, so this of course exacerbates that problem.’ 

The harbor has been severely impacted – and there is widespread damage to the West Maui town, according to federal forces. 

Four helicopters have been deployed for water drops in Lahaina, while two Chinooks, along with four Windward Aviation helicopters and Black Hawks have been called in. 

Three helicopters from the US Coast Guard and US Navy were conducting search and rescue along the West Maui coastline late on Thursday night.

Maui Memorial Medical Center announced it had treated seven patients, two of which are in critical condition, for fire-related injuries.

Some are being treated for burns and smoke inhalation. An additional seven patients have been transferred to Oahu for specialty services. 

Wade Ebersole, Chief Operations Officer of the hospital said: ‘Our caregivers care deeply about this community’s health and well-being and are working to ensure that all of our patients’ needs are being met.

‘Our hearts and support are with our community and first responders during this challenging time.’

Satellite images, taken before and after the fires erupted, showed the devastation to the landscape and infrastructure. 

While tourists usually flock to Lahaina for its white sandy beaches and stunning resorts, for residents it is a town rich with heritage and filled with historical sites. 

Locals are fearing that the historic banyan tree in Lahaina, which has stood outside the town’s courthouse for 150 years, may have fallen victim to the flames.

Thought to be the oldest living banyan in Maui, the beautiful tree holds a special meaning for Hawaiians.

‘Only time will tell if it survives the injuries sustained in the fires, but it feels like a small beacon of hope in this disaster,’ said one person on social media.

Video appears to show the famous tree amongst the charred devastation, but still standing strong. 

‘Only time will tell if it survives the injuries sustained in the fires, but it feels like a small beacon of hope in this disaster,’ said one person sharing the footage online. 

Pictures revealed that the Lahaina Heritage Museum has been incinerated to the point that its roof has collapsed, according to CNN.

The Baldwin Home Museum – where the physician who saved Maui from an epidemic of smallpox lived in the 19th century – has reportedly been destroyed.

The Wo Hing Temple Museum, which was a social and spiritual meeting point for Hawaii’s Chinese immigrant community, has also been burned down in the travesty.

On Wednesday afternoon, Joe Biden called for Federal aid to reach Hawaii on Wednesday evening, and said the U.S. Coast Guard, Navy Third Fleets and U.S Marines are supporting response and rescue efforts.

Mayor Richard Bissen Jr confirmed the devastating fatalities: ‘I’m sad to report that just before coming on this, it was confirmed we’ve had 6 fatalities. We are still in a search and rescue mode.

‘We’ve had many dwellings – businesses, structures – that have been burned, many of them to the ground.

‘As a result of three fires that have occurred that are continuing here on our island we have had 13 evacuations from different neighborhoods and towns, we’ve had 16 road closures, we’ve opened five shelters.’  

Power remains out for 11,209 Hawaiians, and the fires are ongoing. 

James Kunane Tokioka, the state’s business, economic development and tourism director, said: ‘Local people have lost everything.

‘They’ve lost their house, they’ve lost their animals and it’s devastating.’ 

The National Weather Service has warned that more destruction is on the way.

Initiating a red flag warning, it said on Wednesday afternoon: ‘Very dry fuels combined with strong and gusty easterly winds and low humidities will produce critical fire weather conditions through the afternoon hours.’  

US President Joe Biden said in a statement: ‘Jill and I send our deepest condolences to the families of those who lost loved ones in the wildfires in Maui, and our prayers are with those who have seen their homes, businesses, and communities destroyed. 

‘We are grateful to the brave firefighters and first responders who continue to run toward danger, putting themselves in harm’s way to save lives.

‘I have ordered all available Federal assets on the Islands to help with response. The Hawaiian National Guard has mobilized Chinook Helicopters to help with fire suppression and search and rescue on the Island of Maui. 

‘The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy Third Fleets are supporting response and rescue efforts. The U.S. Marines are providing Black Hawk Helicopters to fight the fires on the Big Island. 

‘The Department of Transportation is working with commercial airlines to evacuate tourists from Maui, and the Department of the Interior and the United States Department of Agriculture stand ready to support post fire recovery efforts.

‘I urge all residents to continue to follow evacuation orders, listen to the instructions of first responders and officials, and stay alert.’

Victoria Wayne-Bowley was born and raised in the historic town of Lahaina. This morning the Hawaiian native woke up to non-stop phone calls from frantic friends and extended family claiming their homes had either burned down or were under threat from the devastating fires that have ravaged Maui.

‘Everyone is sleep deprived not knowing where their loved ones are. I never would have imagined this type of catastrophe. It’s the most devastating disaster in the history of Maui,’ Wayne Bowley told DailyMail.com. 

‘The whole Lahaina is a complete wasteland. There were people whose only choice was to jump into the ocean, while the coastguard raced to help them. It looks like Hiroshima.

‘Literally people were driving to dinner last night like everything was safe and in just a short period of time within 24 hours this happened,’ said Wayne-Bowley who lived in Lahaina for 25 years before moving to New Jersey, but still travels to Maui on a regular basis for work.

Wayne-Bowley and her family run a popular clothing company throughout the island called Maui Clothing Company with some 70 employees. As of this afternoon, cell phone usage was dodgy or no longer viable because of the fires. 

Her father Edward Wayne founded the business in 1982 which has grown to 14 stores. Three of which are under immediate threat.

‘We still can’t get in touch with our employees. No one is reachable in the Lahaina area,’ Wayne-Bowley explained. ‘I’ve been communicating through email, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

‘I am 99% sure that our original store on Front Street in Lahaina burned down today. My parents opened it in 1982, the year I was born. Back them it was called Lobster & Roses, but the name was changed to the Maui Clothing Company. 

‘Our other two stores, Maui WaterWear and Cruise Maui Boutique, are located in another shopping area called Whalers Village in Kaanapali which is also under threat.’

Both locations are Lahaina’s most popular tourist destinations for shopping.

‘It’s really sad to see this scale of devastation. We have family and friends that started restaurants and stores decades ago, only to be destroyed. There are historical landmarks that have been burned down.’

‘We don’t know all the details, but these are nostalgic places that people have gone to for the past 50 years that are no longer there.’

‘I feel sad. It’s devastating. It’s tragic and it’s heartbreaking. You feel like everyone is your family on the island and everyone treats each other like family.’

Longtime friend and well known dermatologist in Lahaina, Dr. George Martin narrowly escaped the deadly fire which came within just 1/4 mile away from his ranch with one hundred animals.

‘Our close friend Dr. Martin has close to one hundred animals, horses, chickens, ponies. He had to evacuate them all last and fortunately people from other parts of the island offered to help. That’s what people are like here. Everyone is helping and posting messages online saying they have land and to bring your animals.’

A disheartened local shared a heartbreaking Instagram post saying, ‘My brother says there are bodies on the ground in Lahaina.’

Devastating aerial video shows the extent of the damage in Lahaina, where thousands of locals fled in the dead of the night to escape being trapped. 

Claire Kent, who was among those who took to the water in boats, said she had lost ‘everything’. 

‘I am out of Lahaina, safe with a few friends in Waiehu. My home is gone, my town is gone, my job is gone. We lost everything. 

‘This is the scariest thing I have ever experienced. So incredibly devastated.’ 

Multiple burn patients were today flown out of Maui to Honolulu to be cared for as the ‘apocalyptic’ blazes rage on. 

The fires, fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Dora, have burned structures, forced evacuations and caused power outages in several communities.

The worst of the fires is on Maui. One is torching parts of northern Wailea – where tourist hotels like the Four Seasons and Hilton scatter the beach – and another has destroyed the town of Lahaina. 

A worker at the Four Seasons Wailea told DailyMail.com that the resort has not been affected aside from ‘some air quality issues’. The $990-a-night hotel is where the first season of The White Lotus was filmed.

A Lahaina resident whose home was burned down but stayed in the town to help told Hawaii News Now: ‘We’re gonna do our best to get past this and it’s gonna be tough… It’s going to take years to fix. This is not even the worst of it.’

‘This is an unprecedented disaster as an indirect result of Hurricane Dora passing just south of our island. It is truly devastating and my heart goes out to the residents of Maui and all those impacted,’ Lt. Governor Sylvie Luke said Wednesday morning. 

One fire in Kula, central Maui, is raging near to where Oprah recently purchased hundreds of acres of land. 

‘This is so unprecedented. An emergency in the night is terrifying… right now it is all-hands-on-deck and we are anxious for daybreak,’ Maui County spokesperson Mahina Martin said in the early hours of Wednesday morning. 

‘We are already in communication with other hospital systems about relieving the burden — the reality is that we need to fly people out of Maui to give them burn support because Maui hospital cannot do extensive burn treatment. 

‘In addition to dealing with disaster, we’re dealing with major transportation issues as well,’ she told CNN on Wednesday. 

‘911 is down. Cell service is down. Phone service is down. That’s been part of the problem. The Maui County has not been able to communicate with residents on the west side, the Lahaina side. 

‘What we are trying to do is deploy individuals to go into areas with satellite phone service. 

‘We have only been in contact with perhaps one hotel because the one hotel, the people in charge of that hotel have satellite phones. That’s the only way you can make connection. 

‘It’s impeding communication. It’s impeding efforts to evacuate residents and we are very concerned about that,’ she said. 

Fire chiefs yesterday warned residents to evacuate their homes before it is too late. 

‘The fire can be a mile or more from your house, but in a minute or two, it can be at your house. Burning airborne materials can light fires a great distance away from the main body of fire,’ Maui County Fire Assistant Chief Jeff Giesea said. 

Fire crews on Maui were battling multiple blazes concentrated in two areas: the popular tourist destination of West Maui and an inland, mountainous region.

Footage shot from a yacht in Lahaina Mooring Field in Maui shows the sky bruising as huge plumes of smoke rise from the fires. 

Video also shows fires raging through a residential area in Maui surrounded by grassland with black smoke billowing into the sky. 

Mark Zuckerberg could launch his own rival platform to Twitter in the coming months, all part of his masterplan to capitalize off the chaos and user dissatisfaction under Elon Musk’s leadership.

Coding began at Facebook’s parent company Meta this past January on the new social app, codenamed Project 92, as Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox told a companywide meeting earlier this month. 

And big name celebrities are already in talks to commit their posts to the platform, including broadcasting legend Oprah Winfrey and Tibetan religious leader the Dalai Lama — a curious choice, coming in the wake of the Buddhist icon’s bizarre ‘suck my tongue’ incident this past spring. 

‘We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run,’ Cox told Meta employees, lobbing a thinly veiled criticism at Musk’s Twitter operations. 

The dig elicited cheers from Meta’s assembled staff, according to The Verge. 

The rich, the famous and the influential, Cox said, are desperate for a new platform ‘that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution.’ 

Reports suggest that the new app’s public-facing name could become ‘Threads’ and that it will feature a continuous scroll of text, just like Twitter, along with buttons akin to both the Like and Retweet functions. 

Threads will also hew closer to Twitter’s original 180-character limit, offering a slightly longer, but still short 500-character limit per post. As one social media industry inside put it, Threads will look ‘remarkably similar to Twitter.’

Many ordinary Twitter users, as well as the platform’s large community of scientific experts, academics and even former NASA astronauts, have also sought out alternatives in recent months.

Mastodon — a free, decentralized and open-source microblogging platform — has increasingly become a haven for scientists hoping for more level-headed conversations between themselves.

‘I have been much more active there than I have been on Twitter,’ astronomer Mark McCaughrean of the European Space Agency told Science late last year, following his own move to Mastodon. 

Many have described the platform as a more democratic alternative than Twitter, because Mastodon’s decentralized structure means that no single person, company or sever has full control of its operations.

Last November, Mastodon reported over 70,000 new sign-ups on a single Friday, in direct response to Musk’s finalized $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.

‘If it becomes too toxic and abusive,’ Emory University virologist Boghuma Titanji also told Science amid Twitter’s raucous transition, ‘I will leave to preserve my well-being and consider other platforms.’

Former NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez vowed to jump from the platform as well, amid Musk’s plans to convert ‘blue check’ verification into a pay-to-play scheme, although Hernandez nevertheless remains an active tweeter to date. 

But Musk has also received praise by those, like Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Republican Senator John Kennedy on Capitol Hill, who see the billionaire as a champion of free speech for reinvigorating First Amendment rights on the platform.

Musk, Senator Kennedy said last December, had taken a ‘very courageous stand on the First Amendment’ since acquiring Twitter. ‘He’s tough as a pine knot.’

‘Project 92,’ which Cox explicitly described as ‘our response to Twitter,’ will integrate with Instagram’s current account system, allowing Instagram users to automatically transfer their followers and user information straight to the new microblogging site.

It will also integrate with Mastodon, and other decentralized platforms that use the same ActivityPub API system as Mastodon, Cox said. 

The design of the app, according to social media consultant Matt Navarra, ‘looks remarkably similar to Twitter,’ or really old Twitter, as Musk’s version continues to experiment with everything from longer posts, to newsletters, to exclusive live broadcasts. 

Navarra, who claimed internal knowledge of Meta’s plans, told the Sydney Morning Herald that Meta’s Twitter-killer could launch as soon as ‘the end of the month or beginning of next month.’

‘They have been onboarding people for a little while,’ Navarra said. ‘I know for a fact they’ve been talking to a British celebrity, and some US big name stars.’

That said, the only name disclosed by Meta’s chief product officer Cox as a lock for their new platform was the Minneapolis, Minnesota-native music producer DJ Slime, who Cox boasted had committed to using the app. 

Cox told company employees that Meta’s goal for ‘Project 92’ was to make an app that emphasized ‘safety, ease of use, reliability’ to ensure that creators had a ‘stable place to build and grow their audiences.’  

Meta, Cox said, will be making the app public ‘as soon as we can.’

How sewer robots helped a Taiwan city kill off disease-carrying mosquitoes: Machine scanned sewers for larvae to eliminate

By Matthew Phelan Senior Science Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Updated: 16:15 EDT, 16 June 2023

Vladimir Putin appeared adrift from reality today as he told Russians the ‘biggest pleasure and happiness is children’ as his ballistic missiles killed a nine-year-old girl and her mother in Kyiv.

The dictator addressed his people on Children’s Day in both Russia and Ukraine.

The out-of-touch 70-year-old president – believed to have a secret young family with Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva who he has hidden from his people – pontificated: ‘What is it, to live for yourself?

‘What does it mean? Perhaps it means to enjoy yourself, to enjoy life.

‘But it looks like those who say it don’t understand that the biggest pleasure and happiness is children.’

He spoke as a Kyiv girl was killed and thousands of children were evacuated from Belgorod region – where anti-Putin partisans backed by Ukraine carried out intense shelling.

Harrowing photos showed a grandmother collapsed in grief today after she discovered her daughter and granddaughter had been killed in the strike in Ukraine’s capital that left three dead. 

Her agonising screams and wails tore through the deathly silence in the city as she saw the charred bodies of her daughter and nine-year-old granddaughter on the ground in front of her.

The barrage of cruise and ballistic missiles struck at 3am and tore through homes, a kindergarten and a medical clinic in the Ukrainian capital, leaving a scene of utter devastation.

The strikes have been relentlessly hitting the capital for weeks. 

Bizarrely, Putin also informed Russians about his sleeping habits as his war inflicted terror both on Ukrainians and his own people.

‘Of course, like all people I sleep,’ he announced.

‘Unlike some people, you know, I try not to give up playing sports, and this helps in my work.

‘I sleep, well, in general, maybe a little, six to seven hours, six mostly.

‘Today, however, I slept much less, it happened so.’

On Tuesday it is believed he was also woken by explosions from Ukrainian drones near his high security official residence in Moscow region.

His incongruous ramblings aired today came as videos showed the Russian city of Belgorod hit by powerful explosions.

Earlier repeated shelling on blitzed Russian border town Shebekino led to mass evacuations amid fears they will lose control of a swathe of territory in his latest humiliation of the war.

The attacks meant Russians tasted the horror that Putin has inflicted on Ukrainian towns and cities for more than 15 months.

It was the most intense day of attacks on Russian territory since the start of the war deepening the failure of Putin’s war which was meant to see Ukraine crumble in less than a week.

One strike hit a plant of Monocrystal, in Shebekino.

Monocrystal is the world’s largest producer of artificial sapphires, used in the production of expensive glass for Apple smart watches.

But the premises were reportedly used by the Russian military.

The Russian Volunteer Corps claimed to be fighting on the outskirts of Shebekino.

The Free Russia Legion issued an appeal to Russian servicemen to mutiny.

‘The time has come to make the right decision,’ they said in a statement.

‘You are sent to a criminal, predatory war – but you are not slaves.

‘The Putin regime puts you before a choice: go to die in a foreign country, or undergo cannibalistic prison punishments for refusing to become an occupier.

‘We urge you to cast aside this slave paradigm and move to the side of good.’

They are urged to ‘lay down your arms and make a decision – no longer participate in this war and sit out the hostilities in Ukrainian captivity in humane conditions, under the supervision of representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ – or to join Russian patriots ‘who are waging a war of liberation against the Putin regime’.

A video showed Russian district administration officials in border town Shebekino burning documents amid fears the settlement will be grabbed by anti-Putin partisans backed by Ukraine.

Russians were seen queuing for petrol to escape their own region amid real signs it could be under the control of Putin foes and Ukrainians.

A female student told of ‘fear and panic’ in her blitzed Russian border town Shebekino, highlighting how Putin’s war has left residents exposed to acute danger.

The frightened and desperate unnamed 18-year-old said in a video: ‘My family has no money and no way to travel outside the town.

‘I’ve been caught in the shelling more than once.

‘I’ve seen people running out of their houses, literally in their underwear to shelters, basements, or [they] just fell on the ground and hid.

‘I’ve seen mothers covering their children.

‘I saw fear and panic in people’s eyes.

‘It scares me to think that children as young as seven know what…Grad shells are.

‘This is literally destroying our children’s psyche.’

The nerves of residents are ‘shot’, she said, accusing the Russian authorities of failing to provide safety for citizens.

The technical college student pleaded: ‘I want to live like other cities in Russia.

‘Shebekino is part of Russia…

‘We are asking for help.’

The student added: ‘We do not know who will protect us, who will help us.

‘Why do we have to leave the city by ourselves?

‘Why do we have to leave the land where we were born?’

The FBI has unsealed a trove of classified documents relating to visits to the US made by Queen Elizbeth II, revealing a potential assassination plot by Irish nationalist sympathisers.

The documents, which show how authorities repeatedly braced for threats from supporters of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), were revealed as a result of FOI requests submitted after the death of the Queen in September last year.

The potential assassination threat was revealed the night before the late Queen was due to arrive in San Francisco in 1983 when a police officer warned federal agents about a potential attack.

It involved attempting to drop ‘an object’ from the Golden Gate Bridge as the royal yacht Britannia sailed beneath it. 

It comes as part of a huge release of more than 100 pages of documents related to the late monarch following Freedom of Information Acts sent to the FBI following her death in September last year. 

What has been revealed by the FBI documents? 

• An assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth II was foiled the night before her arrival in the US in 1983;
• The FBI warned it would be ‘very hard’ to avoid events which would ’embarrass’ the Queen during the trip;
• There were also warnings of an attack by IRA sympathisers during a visit in 1981;
• The FBI assessed the threat of the IRA to the British royal family as ‘ever present’. 

The police officer who tipped off authorities drank regularly at an Irish pub and told agents about an IRA sympathiser who was set on getting his revenge over the death of his daughter.

It followed a phone call he received in February from a man who he knew through the pub, ‘who claimed that his daughter had been killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet’.

This phone call came around a month before then-President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan hosted the 57-year-old Queen and Prince Philip in California.

Official documents state the man told the officer he planned to ‘attempt to harm’ the late Queen by either dropping ‘an object’ off the Golden Gate Bridge or otherwise try and kill her during a visit to Yosemite National Park.

The memo into the assassination attempt states: ‘This man additionally claimed that he was going to attempt to harm Queen Elizabeth and would do this either by dropping some object off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the royal yacht Britannia when it sails underneath, or would attempt to kill Queen Elizabeth when she visited Yosemite National Park.’

The documents add the man in question had previously been involved in police investigations. He was described as having been ‘generally coopertive, although he makes no secret of his sympathies for the IRA.’ 

The documents also reveal that FBI agents warned ahead of the visit: ‘It will be very hard to anticipate and prevent incidents which may embarrass either the queen or the president.’

Although possibly the most substantial threat, it was not the first time that the FBI had warned of possible attacks on Her Majesty. 

Two years prior, the FBI warned of a ‘potential attack’ against Elizabeth II when she visited US cities with strong Irish links including Boston and New York.

Another document from 1989 stated: ‘The possibility of threats against the British Monarchy is ever present from the Irish Republican Army.’

It continued: ‘Boston and New York are requested to remain alert for any threats against Queen Elizabeth II on the part of IRA members and immediately furnish same to Louisville.’

And in 1976, a pilot in New York was summoned by police to prevent him from flying a ‘England, Get out of Ireland’ banner while Elizabeth II was in the city.

The frequent concerns of the US authorities and the royal family themselves were far from without basis – in 1979 Elizabeth II’s second cousin Lord Mountbatten was famously murdered in an IRA bombing.

He and three others died after his fishing vessel was filled with explosives which were later detonated.

The other victims were Mountbatten’s grandson Nicholas Knatchbull, crew member Paul Maxwell and Nicholas’ paternal grandmother Doreen, Dowager Lady Brabourne.

There were also previous assassination attempts against the Queen which made the threat of the IRA even more potent.

In 1981 a teenager from New Zealand aimed and fired a gun at Her Majesty as she stepped out of a car. 

Christopher John Lewis fired a rifle, which missed, during the Queen’s tour of the country. But he soon became obsessed with the idea of wiping out the royal family.

Two years later he attempted to overpower guards at a psychiatric hospital where he was being detained in order to try and kill Prince Charles, who was in New Zealand with Princess Diana and Prince William.

In the same year an anti-royal extremist shot blanks at the Queen six times during the Trooping of the Colour.

She again emerged uninjured from the attempt, carried out by 17-year-old Marcus Sarjeant. 

He was later sentenced to five years in prison on terrorism offences, but only served three – during which time he wrote to Elizabeth II and apologised for his actions. 

And in 1970 a plot was uncovered in Australia after the train she and Prince Philip were travelling in struck a log on the track.

Fortunately the driver noticed the log and slowed enough that the train did not derail, but former detective superintendent Cliff McHardy in 2009 said that his investigation had concluded the log had been put in place deliberately.

If the driver had not seen the log, the train could have derailed, sending the royal couple into a deep embankment below.