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Get you up to speed: Arsonists use cats with rags tied to tails to spread Italian wildfires | News World
Investigators in southern Italy are examining potential arson after reports that live cats were sent into wildfires with flammable rags tied to their tails. The Italian Association for the Defence of Animals and the Environment has filed a criminal complaint and is offering a €1,000 reward for information regarding this matter.
Authorities found glass bottles containing flammable liquid, indicating deliberate actions to ignite fires in dry areas. Firefighters have been tackling the ongoing wildfire in Tintwistle Moor for over a month, with efforts expected to continue into early next week, while a nearby major road remains closed.
Authorities in southern Italy are investigating potential arson linked to recent wildfires, with the Italian Association for the Defence of Animals and the Environment filing a criminal complaint and offering a €1,000 reward for information. In the UK, the Welsh government has activated crisis management arrangements due to a shortage of aerial firefighting support, while a wildfire in Derbyshire continues to burn, affecting over 600 hectares.
What remains unclear — Authorities have not disclosed how many individuals may have been involved in the potential arson.
Authorities investigate use of cats to spread wildfires in southern Italy
Wildfires have ravaged much of the UK and Europe this week, and southern Italy is no exception.
But authorities are now investigating whether the flames may have been spread deliberately – and in a rather harrowing way.
Investigators believe arsonists sent live cats into the blazes ‘with flammable-soaked rags tied to their tails’.
The Italian Association for the Defence of Animals and the Environment has filed a criminal complaint and is offering a €1,000 reward for information about who sent the cats into the flames.
Wildfires in Palermo, Sicily (Picture: Alberto Lo Bianco/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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Firefighters and police tackle a blaze near Rome (Picture: Francesco Benvenuti/LaPresse via AP)
Costarella said authorities also found glass bottles fitted with wicks and flammable liquid, which they say were used to set off fires in areas covered in dry grass.
It’s not the first time cats have been used as living ignition devices in the region.
In 2016, Italian police said the mob had used cats to start fires at a national park near Mount Vesuvius.
This year, fires have broken out across Italy, including near Rome and Sicily’s capital of Palermo.
Firefighters in the Calabria region alone put out more than 160 fires in 24 hours, Italian broadcaster RAI said on Wednesday.
Aircraft and helicopters battle wildfires in Sicily (Picture: Alberto Lo Bianco/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Scorched earth left behind after a wildfire in Stefano, Sicily, in July (Picture: Reuters)
Wildfires have broken out across Europe in recent weeks after relentless heatwaves created the perfect warm, dry conditions for the flames to spread.
In the UK, Wales has activated ‘crisis management arrangements’ amid concerns there are not enough helicopters to tackle fires.
Although wildfires are still burning in the north and south of the country, the Welsh government said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had told it there was ‘no aerial support available for anywhere in the UK’.
Meanwhile, an ongoing wildfire in a Derbyshire moorland has scorched more than 600 hectares since it began a month ago – the equivalent of 900 football pitches.
The blaze, which started at Tintwistle Moor near Glossop, is still not extinguished as firefighters aim to manage hotspots and keep flare-ups under control.
Firefighters are expected to continue working at the site into early next week. The nearby A628 will remain closed in both directions between the A57 at Hollingworth and the A616 at Flouch until at least Monday.
The flames come following three record-breaking heatwaves in May, June and July, which saw the implementation of hosepipe bans and other safety measures.
Some 2,700 excess deaths were attributed to the heat in England and Wales over the course of the first two heatwaves.
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October 12, 2024
6:18 am
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
To downplay the genocide, the israelis claim there’s only 20,000 people left in north Gaza, says
@MahaGaza
: the real number exceeds 400,000
Man of the right wing Nigel Farage taking more second jobs and freebie helicopter rides
Gosh he’ll soon be a true blue Tory at this rate
Or far far worse
The cost-of-living crisis is far from over, yet the government’s 50% increase to the bus fare cap is a political choice, adding hundreds to annual costs.
To address hardship & the climate crisis, the government must keep the £2 cap & make public transport accessible for all.
G20 waters down support for Ukraine amid pressure for peace talks
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November 23, 2024
8:25 am
Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.
The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.
During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.
Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.
Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.
Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
November 23, 2024
8:17 am
Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.
The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.
At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.
“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.
The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.
It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.
The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.
Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.
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