Hawaii wildfires: Governor warns dozens more could be dead

Published

2 years ago

August 15, 2023

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Hawaii’s governor has warned that dozens more could be dead on the island of Maui following devastating wildfires – which have already claimed the lives of 96 people.

“We are prepared for many tragic stories,” Governor Josh Green told US media on Monday.

“They will find 10 to 20 people per day, probably, until they finish. And it’s probably going to take 10 days. It’s impossible to guess, really.”

Cadaver dogs and dozens of searchers have been sweeping through homes and buildings reduced to ash by the wildfires.

“Right now, they’re going street by street, block by block between cars, and soon they’ll start to enter buildings,” Jeff Hickman, director of public affairs for the Hawaii Department of Defence told NBC’s Today.

Fires continue to burn on the island, including one wildfire in the centrally located Upcountry area, which is still only 60% contained.

Hot spots in ditches and other hard to reach places have made controlling the fire difficult, according to officials in their latest update.

Firefighters say the Lahaina blaze is now 85% contained, while wildfires in the Pulehu and Kaanapali areas have now been 100% contained.

The town of Lahaina has been the worst hit area, with nearly every building in the town of 13,000 people destroyed.

Hotels are being made available for locals who have been displaced by the fire – while aid workers will also be put up in rooms as the recovery efforts continue.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has started to provide $700 (£550) to displaced residents to cover the cost of food, water, first aid and medical supplies, agency administrator Deanne Criswell said Monday.

“We’re not taking anything off the table, and we’re going to be very creative in how we use our authorities to help build communities and help people find a place to stay for the longer term,” Criswell said.

British rock star Mick Fleetwood, who has lived in Hawaii for decades, described the situation in Lahaina as “catastrophic”.

The Fleetwood Mac drummer told Sky News that the disaster had been “an incredible shock for everyone” – and described the scene as “complete devastation”.

Fleetwood revealed he was in LA visiting family when the fires broke out but flew back immediately, bringing supplies with him.

His house was untouched but the town of Lahaina, where he owns a popular restaurant, has been decimated.

His restaurant, Fleetwood’s on Front St, was about to celebrate its 11th anniversary this week – but it has been destroyed by the blaze, and many of his staff have lost everything.

Gusts of up to 85mph and dry conditions helped fuel the flames and prevented helicopters aiding the efforts of firefighters to contain the blaze, according to officials.

Experts say a lot of the landscape of Maui is now covered in “highly flammable grass species” as people have moved away from farming, while others have warned climate change is increasing the likelihood of more extreme weather.

The fire is the deadliest wildfire that the US has seen in more than 100 years – surpassing the 85 who died in California’s Camp Fire in 2018 – while Governor Green said it was the largest natural disaster the US state had ever faced.

The deadliest fire in US history was in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, in 1871, which killed more than 1,150 people.

US

What’s affected by internet outage – all we know so far

Published

8 hours ago

October 20, 2025

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What's affected by internet outage - all we know so far

Dozens of websites, banks and apps are being affected by a major internet outage.

The problem, which started on Monday morning, appears to be related to an issue at Amazon Web Services (AWS).

As of 9.20am, there were more than 2,000 reports of the Amazon Web Services outage in the US alone, according to Downdetector, which monitors issues and outages in real-time.

Follow live updates here

On its service status page, the company said it was seeing “increased error rates” and delays with “multiple AWS services”.

Here’s what we know so far.

What has been affected?

Multiple banks, the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website, mobile phone networks and video-chatting platform Zoom are among the websites having technical issues.

All Amazon products – including Prime Video and Amazon Music – have also been affected, as well as the main Amazon website.

Here’s a full list of what has been affected by the internet outage, according to Downdetector:

• Snapchat
• Ring
• Roblox
• Amazon Web Services
• Life360
• My Fitness Pal
• Amazon
• Xero
• Signal
• Canva
• Fortnite
• Blink Security
• Zoom
• HMRC
• Clash Royale
• Clash Of Clans
• Asana
• Wordle
• Slack
• Smartsheet
• Epic Games Store
• Duolingo
• Amazon Alexa
• Jira
• Vodafone
• Tidal
• Coinbase
• Atlassian
• IMDB
• Amazon Prime Video
• Pokemon Go
• BT
• Peloton
• EE
• Ancestry
• Square
• Playstation Network
• Eventbrite
• Amazon Music
• Sky
• Flickr
• Hay Day
• Rocket League
• Perplexity AI
• Dead By Daylight
• Bank Of Scotland
• Lloyds Bank
• Halifax

What has AWS said?

AWS confirmed it was suffering from “increased error rates and latencies” for multiple services.

What is Amazon Web Services?

Mickey Carroll

Science and technology reporter

Amazon Web Services was named as the cause of the problem by the chief executive of AI company Perplexity.

Aravind Srinivas posted on X saying: “Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it.”

AWS describes itself as “the world’s most comprehensive” cloud service.

It offers companies a virtual backbone, giving them access to servers, databases and storage without having to build their own infrastructure.

Millions of businesses are thought to use AWS, so when something goes wrong, it can have a huge impact. AWS hasn’t put out any information on the outage. Sky News has contacted the company for comment.

In a statement on its website, the company said: “We are actively engaged and working to both mitigate the issue and understand root cause,” an update on its website says.

“We will provide an update in 45 minutes, or sooner if we have additional information to share.”

The company is posting regular updates on the situation and said its engineers were “immediately engaged” as soon as they spotted the issue.

Concentrated in the US

ThousandEyes, a website that tracks the performance of local and wide area networks, servers and applications, shows many of the outages appear to be concentrated in the US.

A large portion is focused in Virginia, which is widely considered as the global capital for data centres.

Has something like this happened before?

US

Donald Trump mocks ‘No Kings’ protests with AI video of himself dropping brown sludge on protesters from jet

Published

1 day ago

October 19, 2025

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Donald Trump mocks 'No Kings' protests with AI video of himself dropping brown sludge on protesters from jet

Donald Trump has responded to so-called “No Kings” rallies with an AI video of himself in a fighter jet, pouring brown sludge over protesters.

Millions of people were expected to take part in the demonstrations this weekend – the second such gathering after an initial nationwide day of protest in June coinciding with the US president’s birthday.

The term “No Kings” reflects the belief by some that Mr Trump is behaving like a “king” and some in his administration are depicting him as a monarch.

On Sunday, the president shared the AI video on his social media platform, Truth Social.

In the clip, an AI-generated version of Mr Trump is wearing a crown and sitting in a jet with “King Trump” written across it, to the soundtrack of Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone, from the film Top Gun.

The jet then drops thick brown sludge on to AI-generated protesters.

Supporters say the marches are a patriotic defence of free speech, while critics are calling them anti-American.

Mr Trump’s Republican Party has dismissed the demonstrations as “Hate America” rallies.

Many of the events featured marching bands, huge banners and signs, as well as effigies of the president and demonstrators wearing inflatable costumes.

The protests follow Mr Trump’s return to the White House and come against the backdrop of a government shutdown which has closed federal programmes and services.

There has also been criticism of what some see as an aggressive executive, confronting Congress and the courts, in ways that protest organisers believe are a slide toward authoritarianism.

So far, the atmosphere at most of the protests appears to have been largely energetic and upbeat, with protesters calling for accountability and protections for civil liberties.

Organisers said events would be peaceful – a direct response to Republican and Trump administration claims that the protests could be unsafe.

US

US airstrike destroyed ‘drug-carrying submarine’, says Trump – as survivors repatriated

Published

1 day ago

October 19, 2025

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US airstrike destroyed 'drug-carrying submarine', says Trump - as survivors repatriated

Two survivors of a US airstrike, targeting what Donald Trump has described as a “drug-carrying submarine” in the Caribbean, have been repatriated to their home countries.

The US president posted footage of Thursday’s operation, part of a recent military campaign targeting boats transporting drugs to America.

“It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“US intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics,” he added.

The US military staged a helicopter rescue for the survivors on Thursday after the strike on their semi-submersible
vessel, suspected of trafficking illegal narcotics. They were then transported to a US Navy warship.

Two other crew members on board were killed.

President Trump confirmed the survivors would be returned to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador “for detention and prosecution”. Both countries subsequently confirmed they had been handed over.

“America will not tolerate narcoterrorists trafficking illegal drugs, by land or by sea,” he added.

On Saturday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro posted on X: “We have received the Colombian detained on the narco submarine, we are happy he is alive and he will be processed according to the law.”

The Trump administration has said previous strikes in the Caribbean have killed 27 people, raising concerns among some about the legality of the military operations.

The strikes also come against the backdrop of a US military buildup in the Caribbean that includes guided missile destroyers, F-35 fighter jets, a nuclear submarine and around 6,500 troops as the US president escalates a standoff with the Venezuelan government.

On Wednesday, Mr Trump disclosed he had authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela, adding to speculation in Caracas that the US is attempting to topple Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Mr Maduro has denied any connection to drug smuggling and claimed the US boat strikes are a pretext for regime change, and violations of sovereignty and international law.