BRASÍLIA (AFP) – The government of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has fired 13 more soldiers from his security detail as it tightens protection following violent anti-government riots on January 8. A notice in the official gazette Wednesday said the 13 troops were dismissed from the institutional security office attached to the presidency. On Tuesday, it was announced another 40 soldiers had been removed from the presidential detail at Alvorada palace, where Brazil’s presidents live.

 

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Key roadways remained closed and officials estimated thousands of homes were seriously damaged in California as weeks of wild weather that flooded roadways, collapsed hillsides and toppled countless trees finally became calm Tuesday. Tallying the damage will take time, but the number of houses and other structures that will be red-tagged as uninhabitable could be in the “low thousands,” said Brian Ferguson, spokesperson for the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. The damage is spread across 41 of California’s 58 counties, Ferguson said. In unincorporated Santa Barbara County, after more than 60 inspections at properties that sustained damage from mudslides and downed trees, four homes were red-tagged and 32 were yellow-tagged as needing extensive repairs, said Kelsey Buttitta, the county’s communications manager.

 

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KIVU Province, DRC (Al-Jazeera) - Police have fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern city of Goma. Protesters on Wednesday were calling for authorities to enforce an agreed withdrawal of M23 rebels from occupied territory in the region. Regional leaders brokered a ceasefire in November, under which the Tutsi-led M23 group – which launched a fresh offensive last year – was meant to pull out of recently captured positions. The deadline for this was January 15, according to the DRC’s presidency. But M23 has been accused of flouting the deal and occupying territory elsewhere to compensate for withdrawals that critics have argued were mainly ceremonial. President Felix Tshisekedi made similar accusations on Tuesday.

 

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CALIFORNIA (AFP) -Law enforcement officials in California have offered a $10,000 reward and asked for the public’s help in solving the “deliberate, intentional and horrific” murders of six people at a home in the state’s Central Valley. Investigators believe a gang or drug cartel targeted the family, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux told a news conference on Tuesday. Deputies had conducted a drug-related search warrant at the same home recently. Among the dead in the 3:30am (11:30 GMT) shooting on Monday were a 17-year-old and her 10-month-old son.

 

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WALES, Alaska (AP) — A polar bear has attacked and killed two people in a remote village in western Alaska, according to state troopers. Alaska State Troopers said they received the report of the attack at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in Wales, on the western tip of the Seward Peninsula, KTUU reported. “Initial reports indicate that a polar bear had entered the community and had chased multiple residents,” troopers wrote. “The bear fatally attacked an adult female and juvenile male.” The bear was shot and killed by a local resident as it attacked the pair, troopers said.

 

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PARIS (AP) — A French nun who was believed to be the world’s oldest person has died a few weeks before her 119th birthday, the spokesperson for her nursing home in southern France said Wednesday. Lucile Randon, known as Sister André, was born in the town of Ales, southern France, on Feb. 11, 1904. She was also one of the world’s oldest survivors of COVID-19. Spokesman David Tavella said she died at 2 a.m. on Tuesday at the Sainte-Catherine-Laboure nursing home in the town of Toulon. The Gerontology Research Group, which validates details of people thought to be 110 or older, listed her as the oldest known person in the world after the death of Japan’s Kane Tanaka, aged 119, last year.