California man is found guilty of starting Line Fire
(The New York Times) A California man could face life in prison after he was found guilty of starting the Line Fire, which burned 44,000 acres and forced thousands of people to evacuate in Southern California last September, the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office said.The man, Justin Halstenberg, from Norco, California, was found guilty of aggravated arson of forest land, arson of property and possession of flammable materials, among other charges, the district attorney's office said in a statement late Thursday.The fire started on Sept. 5 in San Bernardino County, east of downtown Los Angeles. It spread quickly, aided by temperatures as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with little respite at night. Two years of wet conditions enabled the growth of grass and shrubs, which then dried out during the hot summer of 2024, providing fuel for the fire.The fire caused more than $7 million in property damage, according to prosecutors.The police arrested Halstenberg on Sept. 10 and charged him with 11 counts of arson, including using incendiary devices to set multiple fires.Prosecutors said at the time that the Line Fire was ignited on Halstenberg's third attempt within an hour to start a blaze. The first fire he set was reported and extinguished by firefighters, prosecutors said. His second attempt was "stomped out by a good Samaritan,' according to the San Bernardino District Attorney's Office."Undeterred, he ignited a third fire,' the district attorney's office said.Peak fire season in California has traditionally been from August to October, but they are a year-round threat in the state.Wildfires are burning hotter and moving faster, with soaring temperatures worldwide leading to heat waves and drought. That can leave communities vulnerable to dangers like mudslides when heavy rains return to scorched terrain.
Santa Ana winds - desert winds that happen in colder months - can also fuel fires. Those winds helped fuel the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles in January, during which at least 30 people died and thousands of buildings in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighbourhoods were destroyed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Etihad
4 days ago
- Al Etihad
192,000 play kitchens recalled after child dies of strangulation
2 Aug 2025 08:48 (THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE)About 192,000 children's play kitchens that pose 'a risk of serious injury or death' are being recalled after the shirt of a 23-month-old boy got caught on one of its hooks and he asphyxiated, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said this play kitchens, which were marketed as the KidKraft Farm to Table Model Play Kitchens, have three hooks intended to hang accessories. They can pose a strangulation and asphyxia hazard, the commission to the recall notice from the commission, issued in conjunction with Canada's health agency, Health Canada, children who crawl onto the kitchen set could get caught on the hooks and asphyxiate or suffocate product was sold by Backyard Kids of Plano, Texas, and previously KidKraft. In a statement, KidKraft said safety is its 'first priority.'It warned customers of the danger, adding that they 'should immediately stop using the recalled play kitchens.'Anyone who owns the kitchen toy set should remove the hooks and contact Backyard Kids for free replacement hooks, the consumer agency and the brand's statement said.A representative for Backyard Kids could not be immediately reached Friday.A photo released with the recall shows a children's kitchen with a small fridge, sink and oven measuring 43 inches tall and 44 inches area behind the sink and oven is backless with a rod that holds three hooks meant to hold play pots and pans. The promotional image for the product shows some toy kitchen utensils hanging from February 2023, the clothing of the 23-month-old boy in Oregon got snagged on one of the hooks leading to his death, the commission recalled kitchens were sold online at and from 2018 through July 2025. The model number 53411 is found on a sticker on the back of the play set, the commission filed for bankruptcy in 2024, the commission said. KidKraft is a brand under Backyard Kids, according to the company's information about the recall is available on the company's website.
Al Etihad
26-06-2025
- Al Etihad
India recovers data from black boxes after deadly crash
26 June 2025 14:30 AHMEDABAD, INDIA (AFP)Indian investigators have successfully retrieved data from the black boxes of a Boeing plane, after it crashed in one of the deadliest air disasters in decades, the government said but one of the 242 people on board the Air India flight were killed on June 12 when the jet crashed in the western city of Ahmedabad, where at least 19 others were left weeks after the disaster, the civil aviation ministry said investigators have started "the data extraction process" from the plane's cockpit voice and flight data recorders."The analysis... is underway. These efforts aim to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the accident and identify contributing factors to enhance aviation safety and prevent future occurrences," a ministry statement two black boxes were found within days of the crash, but were only flown to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau in New Delhi on of the victims' relatives said they were waiting for answers."For now, all we know is the plane took off and then fell. How? Why? Nobody knows. And we want to know. We deserve to know," said Imtiyaz Ali, whose brother was on the plane with his wife and two children."I refuse to believe that our aviation sector is this bad that we still don't have even a slight indication about what went wrong," he told AFP on India said last week that the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was "well-maintained" and that the pilots were accomplished have recovered more than 100 mobile phones with the aim of retrieving any recordings that "may provide clues about the final moments of the flight", Ahmedabad police commissioner GS Malik said last plane was being reconstructed at an undisclosed location "to detect any signs of mechanical failure, structural faults, or explosions", he told journalists. 'We are moving forward' Forensic scientists have meanwhile been analysing hundreds of DNA samples in order to identify the the jet bursting into a fireball when it smashed down moments after takeoff, a forensic dentist told AFP the team has been able to find matches through teeth."A protected molar tooth can withstand a temperature of over 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit," or 980 degrees Celsius, Jayasankar P Pillai painstaking forensic process has enabled the majority of victims to be identified."So far 260 deaths have been confirmed through DNA and police identification," Gujarat health minister Rushikesh Patel victim remains unidentified, a member of the forensic team told AFP on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.A police source told AFP two days after the disaster that 279 bodies had been recovered from the crash plane slammed into accommodation for medics, killing four doctors and injuring at least 24 as it hit the Patel, a medical intern, joined a gathering this week to open a makeshift kitchen. "For us, reopening the mess is symbolic... despite everything, we are moving forward," he said.
Al Etihad
25-06-2025
- Al Etihad
Eurostar trains delayed and cancelled after cable theft
25 June 2025 20:45 LONDON (THE NEW YORK TIMES) Eurostar, the high-speed train service that connects Britain with continental Europe, was facing a second consecutive day of severe delays after cables were stolen near Lille, France, and two people were killed when they were hit by trains, the company train operator said there were delays and last-minute cancellations Wednesday after a "cable theft' that morning near the station in northern France, and advised passengers to cancel or postpone their was also forced to cancel routes Tuesday, after two people were stuck in separate incidents near Lille and Arras, both in northern France, on its high-speed line between Lille and Paris. The company said in an emailed statement that normal traffic resumed by 1 p.m. in London, although it expected some delays through the problems come during a time of heightened fears about sabotage in Europe, and they follow several other major disruptions to European rail services because of cable theft or May, more than 10,000 passengers were stranded in Spain after what the country's transport minister, Oscar Puente, called a theft of "low-value cable.'Last July, arsonists in France cut and burned cables for high-speed rail lines before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, targeting important signal stations in three different areas. Experts say that the unusually dense French rail network is especially vulnerable to sabotage, in part because it is so 600 meters, or nearly 2,000 feet, of copper wiring was stolen from Eurostar, Julien Duperray, a spokesperson for France's national railway company, wrote in an email. Though no motive was given for the latest theft, railways have been vulnerable to thieves looking to make some quick cash, in addition to vandals and of copper wiring have recently surged in both the United States and France, in part because the price of the conductive metal has soared with the rise of electric vehicles and other technologies. "We implement protection measures, and security devices are arranged along the railway network, but robbery sometimes happens - the value of copper is presently high,' Duperray said.
