Just one house left unscathed on land scorched by California’s largest single forest fire
It is the completeness of the destruction in this small town that hits you first.
We’d seen the images and we’d spoken to some of the evacuees, but only by being here is it possible to absorb the enormity of it all. There is almost nothing left.
Greenville, California: population 1,000; swept away in the largest single forest fire this state has ever seen.
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Wildfire leaves US town burned to ashes
The people whose town this was were almost all evacuated. They have their lives but have lost everything else.
Businesses and livelihoods are gone and with them, memories and dreams.
The local restaurant is only recognisable by the tables and chairs still set. The town’s offices are marked just by their metal filing cabinets. And dotted chimney stacks are all that’s left of the town’s homes.
Beyond the starkness of all this, it is the silence that hits you. It’s beyond eerie.
How different it must have sounded as the fire swept through late last Wednesday night.
With this all around, you look for hope. And down the road, by some miracle, there was some.
Greenville in California has been devastated by wildfires
One house survived unscathed; not a scratch, while all around the land is scorched.
It belongs to Sheri and Terry Wert.
The residents are not allowed back yet, and honestly, most won’t want to see it. But it’s a boost certainly for these two.
The wonders of technology allowed us, via video call, to show them their little miracle.
Terry and Sheri Wert
“Oh my gosh. Terry, you gotta come…” Sheri says. “Oh, it looks perfect….”
She asks us to walk around the side of the house. Their son’s van is undamaged. So too is the chicken coop. The wind vane still turns.
Driving down the mountain, the smoke is thick for miles. The fire is still raging not far away.
The state governor, Gavin Newsom, has said it is the largest single fire in Californian history. More than 8,000 firefighters are working round the clock to contain it and at the moment they are not winning.
It’s an hour down to the town where the evacuees now wait. Terry and Sheri among them.
“Our home is still there and we are one of the very few lucky people and our heart just goes out to our community,” Sheri tells me.
We talk about what caused all this. It’s clear there are serious local concerns about forest management. Managed, controlled fires were stopped years ago and locals have long argued that a misguided fire suppression policy for almost a century has caused huge build-up on the forest bed.
It’s become a tinderbox and a warming climate is the catalyst for the fires.
“Now it’s an annual thing. It ruins every summer. It takes people’s homes away. It’s taken people’s lives,” Sheri says.
She explains that the summers are definitely getting warmer and the winters are less cold.
“We are not getting anywhere near the amount of rain, precipitation that we used to get, nor the snowpack, even up high,” she says.
Thousands of firefighters were drafted to Greenville, which has a population of just 1,000
What about the sustainability of places like Greenville, I ask. In the years ahead can it remain a viable place to live?
“This is our home,” Terry tells me. “We’ll rebuild Greenville.”
They have done it before. Way back in 1881, a fire destroyed the town. But still, the viability of communities like this feels ever more precarious and dependent on our relationship with the environment, both local and global.
Jurors in the trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs have reached a verdict on four of the five counts against him – but the hip-hop mogul will have to wait to learn his fate.
In tense scenes towards the end of the court day on Tuesday, jurors sent a note to say they had reached verdicts on two charges of sex trafficking and two charges of transportation for prostitution, but had been unable to reach a unanimous decision on the charge of racketeering conspiracy.
Combs‘s lawyers surrounded him at the defence table after the note was sent to the court, and at one point he held his head in his hands.
After discussions with prosecution and defence lawyers, Judge Arun Subramanian told jurors to continue deliberating on Wednesday rather than deliver a partial verdict.
Combs and one of his lawyers, Marc Agnifilo, earlier in the day. Pic: Reuters/Jane Rosenberg
The jury has testimony from more than 30 witnesses to consider – including Combs’s former long-term partner Casandra “Cassie” Ventura and another former girlfriend called “Jane”, who testified under a pseudonym to protect her identity.
Prosecutors allege the 55-year-old rapper used his fame and power to force Cassie and “Jane” into drug-fuelled sex sessions with male sex workers, which were referred to as “freak-offs”, “wild king nights”, or “hotel nights”.
He was also physically violent and blackmailed them with footage, jurors were told.
They also heard from “Mia”, a former employee who alleged she was sexually assaulted by the rapper on several occasions during her career. She also testified using a pseudonym.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges and his defence team has argued that prosecutors are attempting to criminalise what they say was a consensual “swingers lifestyle”.
The rapper chose not to testify and his lawyers did not call any witnesses, building their arguments instead through lengthy cross-examinations of the witnesses called by the prosecution.
What is racketeering conspiracy?
Racketeering conspiracy, which is count one on the verdict sheet, is the most complicated of the charges against Combs.
Jurors need to decide not only whether the rapper created a “racketeering enterprise”, but also if he was involved in various offences as part of this, including kidnapping, arson and bribery.
The charge falls under the US’s RICO laws (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act), which is best known for being used in relation to organised crime and drug cartel cases.
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Prosecution’s closing argument
Defence’s closing argument
After closing arguments last week, jurors began deliberation on Monday and had spent about 13 hours discussing in total by the time they sent their note.
Before reaching the verdict on the four counts, they had requested to review crucial testimony from Cassie about her account of an assault in a hotel in Los Angeles in 2016.
Captured on CCTV, the footage was played in court several times – showing Combs, wearing only a towel and socks, beating, kicking and dragging Cassie in a hallway.
His defence team admitted in their opening statement that this was domestic violence, and said the music star regretted these actions – but that they did not amount to any of the federal charges against him.
Read more:
The rise and fall of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
What we learned from Cassie’s testimony
As well as Cassie’s evidence on that assault, they asked to see her testimony on an incident at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013 – when she said Combs accused her of taking drugs from him and kicked her off of his yacht.
On their way back to the US, she told the court, he threatened to release explicit videos of her having sex with an escort.
Jurors also wanted to review testimony given by a male sex worker at the start of the trial.
Combs could face 15 years to life in prison if he is convicted of all charges.
Jurors will continue deliberating on the racketeering conspiracy charge on Wednesday.
Elon Musk has stepped up his attacks on Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill – weeks after a spectacular fallout between the world’s richest man and the US president.
Following weeks of relative silence after clashing with Mr Trump over his “big beautiful bill”, the billionaire vowed to unseat politicians who support it.
In a post on X, Musk said those who had campaigned on cutting spending but then backed the bill “should hang their heads in shame”.
He added: “And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”
Musk also threatened to put their faces on a poster which said “liar” and “voted to increase America’s debt” by $5trn (£3.6trn).
The posts attracted a swift reply from Mr Trump, who claimed the billionaire “may get more subsidy than any human being in history” for his electric car business.
“Without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”
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Elon’s dad on the Musk-Trump bust-up
Musk spent at least $250m (£182m) supporting Mr Trump in his presidential campaign and then led the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which sacked about 120,000 federal employees.
He has argued the legislation would greatly increase the US national debt and wipe out the savings he claimed he achieved through DOGE.
As the Senate discussed the package, Musk called it “utterly insane and destructive”.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said the bill’s massive spending indicated “we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!”
“Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people,” he wrote.
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Musk previously said some of his social media posts during his dramatic fallout with Mr Trump “went too far”.
He had shared a series of posts on X, including one that described Mr Trump’s tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination”.
He also claimed, in a since-deleted post, that the president appeared in files relating to the disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
But Musk later wrote: “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.”
In response, the president told the New York Post: “I thought it was very nice that he did that.”
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