According to Spanish news agency EFE, citing fire department sources, authorities believe all the deceased were young people, and some may have been underage

International News via Reuters:

Five people have died and four others suffered minor injuries in a fire at an apartment building in Spain’s northeastern Catalonia, regional firefighters said late on Monday.

According to Spanish news agency EFE, citing fire department sources, authorities believe all the deceased were young people, and some may have been underage.

The blaze broke out in a storage room of a five-story building in Manlleu, a town of 21,000 in the Osona area north of Barcelona, firefighters said in a statement.

For reasons still unknown, the victims were unable to escape the storage area, they added. The Mossos d’Esquadra – Catalan police – have opened an investigation into the cause of the fire.

The victims’ identification will be completed throughout Tuesday morning, as some of the bodies were charred.

Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Kim Coghill

A spokesperson for Indra declined to comment on Third Point’s purchase, which was first reported by Bloomberg

International News via Reuters:

U.S. hedge fund Third Point has bought a stake in Spanish defence company Indra and supports its chairman’s plan to acquire smaller rival Escribano Mechanical & Engineering, a market source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.

A spokesperson for Indra declined to comment on Third Point’s purchase, which was first reported by Bloomberg. This cited a letter sent to Indra’s board and holding group Sepi, which manages Madrid’s 28% stake in the company. 

The size of the stake was not mentioned in the letter.

A spokesperson for Sepi also declined to comment.

The potential acquisition of Escribano Mechanical & Engineering, which is owned by Indra chairman Angel Escribano and his brother Javier, has caused tension among some Indra shareholders concerned about conflicts of interest. 

Third Point’s chief executive Dan Loeb wrote in his letter to Indra and Sepi that he strongly supported the plan to acquire EM&E, viewing it as a unique opportunity to create a Spanish defense champion, Bloomberg reported.

Reporting by Paolo Laudani and Victoria Waldersee, Editing by Alexander Smith

Data from some of the world’s leading scientific agencies shows global warming has sped up markedly since the mid‑2010s

International News via Reuters:

Ten years after the Paris Agreement took effect, newly released climate datasets show the world warming at an accelerating pace, with 2025 ranking among the three hottest years ever recorded, and ocean heat and sea levels crossing new thresholds.

U.S. President Donald Trump, a climate-change sceptic, has rolled back a series of environmental policies over the past year and has described climate change as a hoax – a stance which has helped lead to the environmental agenda being challenged across the globe.

Although countries agreed a deal to pledge more funding for poorer countries to adapt to extreme weather at the annual United Nations meeting in Brazil last year, they failed to agree on more explicit plans to phase out fossil fuels and strengthen emissions-cutting plans.

Data from some of the world’s leading scientific agencies shows global warming has sped up markedly since the mid‑2010s.

EMISSIONS: A WIDENING GAP

The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Global Atmosphere Watch network shows concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide climbing to record highs, driving the temperature spike observed from 2023 to 2025, scientists say.

Global fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions are projected to climb to a record 38.1 billion tonnes in 2025, driven by rising coal, oil and gas use despite rapid growth in renewable energy, according to the latest Global Carbon Budget report.

The report — produced by an international team of more than 130 scientists — estimates global fossil fuel CO₂ emissions will rise 1.1% next year, pushing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations to roughly 52% above pre‑industrial levels.

Researchers warn there is only room for about 170 billion more tonnes of CO₂ — equivalent to roughly four years of emissions at current rates – if the world wants to cap global warming at 1.5° Celsius above the pre-industrial average.

Emissions are projected to increase in China, India, the United States and the European Union, while falling in Japan, although China has made significant investments in renewable energy.

TEMPERATURES: A DECADE OF ACCELERATION

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) said the Earth’s surface in 2025 was 1.19°C above the 1951–1980 average, effectively tying with 2023 as one of the warmest years ever measured.

The WMO’s consolidated dataset places 2025 at 1.44°C above pre‑industrial levels, ranking it among the top-three warmest years over the 176 years of recorded temperatures. [nasa.gov] [wmo.int] [berkeleyearth.org]

ARCTIC: RAPID COLLAPSE OF SEA ICE

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) 2025 Arctic Report Card confirmed that October 2024–September 2025 was the warmest period since 1900, and the region continues to warm more than twice as fast as the global average.

Sea‑ice extent reached the lowest winter maximum ever recorded in March 2025, at about 14.47 million square kilometers, according to the U.S. National Ice Center.

OCEANS: HEAT AND RISING SEAS

The oceans absorbed record amounts of heat in 2025, setting a new global high for upper‑ocean heat content, according to NOAA and Berkeley Earth.

Sea levels, measured by tide gauges and satellites, continue to rise. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects a 0.20–0.29 meter rise by 2050 relative to 1995–2014.

Reporting by Canan Sevgili, Vera Dvorakova, Lucie Barbier and Alessandro Parodi; Editing by Simon Jessop and David Holmes

Hukmiya Mohamed, a co-director of Roj camp, told Reuters that the 34 Australians had been handed to members of their families who had come to Syria for the release

International News via Reuters:

Thirty-four Australians released earlier on Monday from a camp holding families of suspected Islamic State militants in northern Syria have returned to the detention centre due to “technical reasons,” two sources told Reuters.

Hukmiya Mohamed, a co-director of Roj camp, told Reuters that the 34 Australians had been handed to members of their families who had come to Syria for the release. They were put on small buses for Damascus ahead of their departure from the country with a military escort.

However, the Australian families returned to Roj camp shortly after leaving, the sources said, due to “technical problems” between the families and the Damascus government.

The sources said that the families will head back to Damascus later on Monday.

“It’s purely a procedural issue to be resolved today,” a Syrian official said.

Roj camp holds more than 2,000 people from 40 different nationalities, the majority of them women and children.

Thousands of people believed to be linked to Islamic State militants have been held at Roj and a second camp, al-Hol, since the jihadist group was driven from its final territorial foothold in Syria in 2019.

The Australian government said in a statement that it will not repatriate people from Syria.

“Our security agencies have been monitoring – and continue to monitor – the situation in Syria to ensure they are prepared for any Australians seeking to return to Australia.

“People in this cohort need to know that if they have committed a crime and if they return to Australia they will be met with the full force of the law.

“The safety of Australians and the protection of Australia’s national interests remain the overriding priority.”

Syrian government forces seized swathes of northern Syria from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in January, before agreeing a ceasefire on January 29. 

The U.S. military last week completed a mission to transfer 5,700 adult male Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq.

Mohamed said the Syrian Kurdish-led authorities had previously facilitated numerous releases from Roj, via coordination with foreign governments.

Roj camp is where British-born Shamima Begum is held. The British government took away her citizenship on national security grounds in 2019.

“Shamima Begum’s situation is the same as that of all the women in Roj camp … If her country wants her back, our doors are open,” Mohamed said.

Reporting by Orhan Qereman in Roj, Syria, Alasdair Pal in Sydney; Additional reporting by Feras Dalatey; Writing by Tom Perry and Feras Dalatey; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Sharon Singleton