التصنيف: أخبار

A child’s body has been found encased in concrete in a storage unit – as police in the US continue to search for two youngsters missing since 2018.

Officers in Pueblo, Colorado, discovered the remains on 10 January when the unit was being cleared out after the rent was not paid.

Sergeant Franklyn Ortega said the remains were found in a metal container filled with hardened concrete.

Meanwhile, Pueblo Police are continuing to search for two children, who would have been aged five and three when they were last seen in the summer of 2018.

Sgt Ortega said there had been “no sign, no indication” of Jesus Dominguez, who would now be 10, and Yesenia Dominguez, who would be nine 9.

Police have talked with their parents, but the children had not been reported missing.

It is not immediately clear how the two children are connected to the remains found in the metal container.

Storm Ingunn has battered Norway – with wind gusts of more than 120mph (193km per hour).

Households in central areas on Thursday woke to find they were without power, while a bus was blown off a road northeast of Bergen.

None of the 14 passengers on board were injured, police said.

Some areas were flooded, and the hurricane-force winds forced airlines and ferry operators to temporarily suspend services.

There were reports of schools closing, as well as roads, tunnels and bridges.

Several windows were also blown out of a hotel in Bodo in the Nordland district, where police had issued a “danger to life” warning in Downtown Bodo. Bodo is situated just north of the Arctic Circle.

The hotel’s manager confirmed damage to the top floor of the 13-storey Radison Blu to Norwegian regional newspaper Rana Blad.

A police cordon was set up around central Bodo, according to local newspaper Avisa Bordland.

A hospital in Harstrad also suffered damage. Photos in Norwegian media showed a helicopter landing pad littered with debris.

“Roof tiles are flying everywhere throughout the town and visibility is poor,” the town’s spokesperson, Oivind Arvola, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

The storm, named by Norwegian meteorologists as the most powerful the country has seen in three decades, landed in the central region of the Scandinavian country on Wednesday, before moving north on Thursday.

The Meteorological Institute had issued a red warning – its highest alert – for the Arctic region.

A Norwegian record was set on Wednesday night for mean wind, according to the country’s media.

The mean wind is an average wind speed over a certain time period, usually 10 minutes.

Kvaloyfjellet, in the municipality of Somna, measured wind of 54.4 metres per second between 1am and 2am, reported Norwegian broadcaster NRK. This equates to 121mph.

A mean wind speed of that strength is the equivalent to a category three (major) hurricane.

Read more from Sky News:
‘No farmers, no food’: Fires erupt during Brussels protests
Trump legal claim over ‘sex party’ allegations dismissed
Lewis Hamilton to leave Mercedes and join F1 rival

The UK’s Met Office said: “Storm Ingunn… produced wind gusts in excess of 120mph to the Faroe Islands and parts of Norway during Wednesday along with heavy rain and mountain snowfall.

“This system will move away to the northeast and weaken through Thursday, with winds rapidly decreasing across Norway.”

Bjornar Gaasvik, a police spokesman in the Troendelag region, told Norwegian news agency NTB that the country’s public safety agency received between 40 and 50 reports overnight from people affected by the storm – and more were expected on Thursday.

Sigmund Clementz of IF Insurance told Norwegian newspaper VG it was too early to estimate the cost of the storm damage.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin has admitted he “did not handle this right” and should have told President Biden and the public about his prostate cancer diagnosis.

However, he said he didn’t order his staff to hide his condition.

“We did not handle this right and I did not handle this right. I should have told the president about my cancer diagnosis. I take full responsibility,” Mr Austin said.

Middle East latest: Austin warns US will take ‘necessary action’ amid ‘dangerous moment’

The defence secretary was diagnosed in early December, and had surgery on 22 December, but did not tell the president and other senior figures until days after complications forced him into intensive care on 1 January.

Mr Austin admitted his error in his first news conference since he was diagnosed.

His slow disclosure of his condition has prompted an internal Pentagon review and an inspector general review into his department’s notification processes.

Mr Austin was taken back to hospital by ambulance with severe pain 10 days after his surgery.

It emerged one of his staff asked paramedics not to use lights and sirens when collecting him from his Virginia home.

The 70-year-old passed decision-making authority to deputy defence secretary Kathleen Hicks, but did not inform her why.

Mr Austin is just below the president in the military chain of command and is required to be available at a moment’s notice to respond to any national security crisis.

“I never directed anyone to keep my January hospitalisation from the White House,” he told reporters on Thursday.

President Biden previously said it was poor judgement from Mr Austin not to tell him he was in intensive care.

However, he said he still had confidence in him.

Mr Austin worked from home for two weeks after being discharged on 15 January and returned to the Pentagon on Monday.

Back on his defence duties, he briefed reporters today on the latest situation following the deaths of three soldiers in a drone attack on a US base in Jordan.

He said “terrorist groups backed by Iran and funded by Iran” had been increasing attacks in the Middle East during a “dangerous moment” for the region.

Read more:
What are Biden’s options after drone attack?
Middle East one move away from bigger war – analysis

However, he stopped short of blaming a particular group for the attack in Jordan.

“We will respond where we choose, when we choose and how we choose,” said the defence secretary.

But he stressed the US wanted to avoid a wider conflict while taking “necessary” action to protect their interests.

Mr Austin said that included freedom of navigation in the Red Sea – where the US and UK have targeted Houthi forces from Yemen who have been attacking commercial ships.

The response to the Jordan attack would be “multi-tiered”, Mr Austin said, and America would have the ability to strike back a number of times.

President Biden indicated this week that he had already decided how the US would hit back.

A pigeon accused of being a Chinese spy has been cleared by police and released back into the wild.

The bird was detained by officers after it was captured in May last year near a port in Mumbai, news agency Press Trust of India reported.

It was found with two rings tied to its legs featuring words that appeared to be Chinese.

Detectives suspected the pigeon was involved in espionage and took it in, before later sending it to Mumbai’s Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals.

However, after eight months in captivity, it emerged that the creature was an open-water racing bird from Taiwan which had escaped and flown to India.

Police then approved the bird’s transfer to the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, where doctors set free the falsely accused avian on Tuesday.

Read more from Sky News:
Man wanted over chemical attack named
Trump legal claim over ‘sex party in Russia’ dismissed
Fugitive monkey shot with tranquiliser

Pigeons have been used in spying and combat throughout history, including by UK forces in the First World War and Second World War to deliver messages.

A pigeon called Gustav brought the first news of D-Day back to the UK, after a correspondent wrote a report and attached it to the bird while landing on Sword Beach in Normandy on 6 June 1944.

India has also previously detained the birds over security fears. In 2020 suspicious police in Indian-controlled Kashmir captured a pigeon that belonged to a Pakistani fisherman.

An investigation found the bird was not a spy, and had simply flown across the border between the countries.

In 2016 another pigeon was detained after it was allegedly found with a note that threatened Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The idea of Lewis Hamilton moving to Ferrari is simultaneously shocking but not remotely surprising.

Hamilton is, obviously, a prodigiously talented driver. We all know that. But he’s not just fast, he’s smart.

At his best, he can manage races and exploit the strengths of the car while minimising its weaknesses.

And, like the very best drivers, he always keeps a bit of brain space free for analysing what his opponents are doing.

It’s that blend of outright speed and tactical nous that separates the greats from the rest.

There is a reason why Alain Prost, the man who memorably declared that the point of Formula One was to win a race at the lowest possible speed, was known as The Professor.

Or why Michael Schumacher once performed the truly astonishing feat of finishing second in a race, despite only being able to use fifth gear.

He simply worked out the answer to a problem that most of us would find insurmountable.

But even the most thoughtful racing driver can be susceptible to a malaise that is chronic among Formula One’s greatest drivers – the obsession with Ferrari.

Put simply, there is a niggling fear among this most select of clubs that, once retired, you’ll look back on your career, forget the wins, the championships, the glory and the champagne, and rue the feeling that you never drove for the sport’s most revered team.

Because to win in a Ferrari is the ultimate goal.

The allure of Ferrari

I don’t think there is another sports team quite like the Ferrari F1 team.

All sports have great, world-famous sides, whose successes ebb and flow – Real Madrid, Manchester United or the New York Yankees. But for all the fans who love those teams, there is another group who can’t stand them.

With Ferrari, the spectrum is different.

Everyone is, at least, interested in them. Many like them, plenty adore them. But very few, in my 40 years of watching the sport, truly hate Ferrari. Even the ones who say they do, normally, don’t.

It is a team that has bounced between success and awful underachievement, and that, of course, is what attracts the great drivers.

What better feeling, what more romantic ambition, than to resuscitate Ferrari, who haven’t won the drivers’ title since 2007?

Read more:
Troubled Las Vegas Grand Prix hit by lawsuit
Iconic 1962 race car becomes most expensive Ferrari ever sold at auction

It’s the same rationale, the prospect of recapturing the glorious past, that has brought a line of stellar managers to Manchester United over the past decade.

It’s what lured Schumacher to Italy (he succeeded, spectacularly), it’s what Ayrton Senna intended to do, and it’s the dream that now beguiles Hamilton.

You can understand it. Just cast your eyes over the people who’ve won a title in a Ferrari – such luminaries as Juan Manuel Fangio, Alberto Ascari, Niki Lauda and, of course, Schumacher.

Two British drivers have done so – Mike Hawthorn and John Surtees, both achieved more than 60 years ago.

Hamilton does have the chance to do something extraordinary.

Where Ferrari has fallen short

Except, of course, Ferrari doesn’t just have the ability to delight, but also to disappoint.

The team somehow managed to avoid winning the title with Sebastian Vettel, despite putting an in-form, four-time world champion into the quickest car on the circuit.

They did the same with Fernando Alonso.

Recently they’ve spent fortunes on developing a car that shows flashes of genius, and then either breaks down, slows down or is hobbled by the team’s strategic blunders.

Somehow, Ferrari have become the recidivists at snatching failure from the jaws of success. And that can’t just be down to bad luck.

Hamilton will know what he’s walking into.

But once upon a time, he shocked everyone by leaving McLaren when they were supreme and joining a nascent Mercedes team. That worked out really rather well.

Maybe, just maybe, he could be the key to unlocking Ferrari’s dreams.