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CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) — The fire burned for about nine hours, billowing smoke and scorching the wooden trestles of a nearly 75-year-old railroad bridge that spans the Marys River in Corvallis, home to Oregon State University. Long after the flames died out, Michelle Emmons, a local environmental advocate, could still smell the noxious stench of charred creosote — a chemical preservative used to treat outdoor wooden structures.The bridge is owned by Portland & Western Railroad, which says it made repairs after the 2022 fire. Emmons wanted more.“It was most alarming to us to see that there were still rail cars…

The number of people in the United States illegally surged to an all-time high of 14 million in 2023, a research group said Thursday, a major increase that still falls well short of estimates from President Donald Trump and some critics of immigration.The Pew Research Center’s closely watched gauge rose from 11.8 million a year earlier and surpassed the previous high of 12.2 million in 2007. The increase was driven by some 6 million who were in the country with some form of legal protection. Trump has stripped many of those protections since taking office in January. Pew, whose estimates…

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Mexico, Guatemala and Belize have announced plans to create a huge reserve of tropical forest spanning across the three countries. Pushing out criminal gangs and protecting the land from ranchers, miners and loggers won’t be easy. The nature reserve announced last week and called the Great Mayan Jungle Biocultural Corridor would stretch across jungle areas of southern Mexico and northern parts of the two Central American nations, encompassing more than 14 million acres (5.7 million hectares). It would become the second largest reserve in the Americas, behind only the Amazon.In interviews this week, the environment ministers…

James OlleyAug 21, 2025, 06:07 AM ETCloseJames Olley is a senior soccer writer for ESPN.com. Read his archive here and follow him on Twitter: @JamesOlley.Follow on XEmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsVillarreal are close to signing Chelsea defender Renato Veiga for a fee in the region of €30 million ($34.9m), sources have told ESPN.Veiga, 22, only joined the Chelsea last summer in a deal worth around €14m from Basel and made just one Premier League start before spending the second half of the campaign on loan at Juventus.Sources said Villarreal will pay an initial €25m with a further €5m in add-ons.Renato Veiga struggled…

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in July as homebuyers were encouraged by a modest pullback in mortgage rates, slowing home price growth and the most properties on the market in over five years.Existing home sales rose 2% last month from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.01 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday.Sales edged up 0.8% compared with July last year. The latest sales figure topped the 3.92 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.Home prices rose on an annual basis for the 25th consecutive month, although the rate of growth continued…

The most talked about player in Germany right now is not Bayern Munich’s new signing Luis Diaz nor is it perennial top scorer Harry Kane. Both netted as Bayern won the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup but all eyes were on the striker still wearing a Stuttgart shirt.Nick Woltemade is a target for Bayern after a fine first season at Stuttgart during which he scored 17 goals before going on to become the top scorer at the European Under-21 Championship in the summer. He made his senior debut for Germany just before that. Such things do not go unnoticed at Bayern, as…

A matter of weeks after captaining Derby to promotion from Sky Bet League One in May 2024, Conor Hourihane was released upon the expiry of his contract.At 33, and having played 85 of a possible 92 league matches during his stay at Pride Park, signing the former Republic of Ireland international was an attractive proposition. But, on a personal level, he found himself at a crossroads – did he continue playing? Or was it time to start exploring the next chapter? Image: Hourihane captained Derby to promotion from League One in 2023/24 In the end, he was able to combine…

James Dobson, a child psychologist who founded the conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family and was a politically influential campaigner against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, died on Thursday. He was 89. Born in 1936 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Dobson launched a radio show counseling Christians on how to be good parents and started Focus on the Family in 1977. He became a force in the 1980s for pushing conservative Christian ideals in mainstream American politics alongside fundamentalist giants like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. At its peak, Focus on the Family had more than 1,000 employees and gave Dobson a…

Crowds waiting for food, empty pots in hand. Children missing an arm, a leg, sometimes both. Emergency workers killed and buried in a mass grave beside their crushed ambulances. Palestinians gunned down at aid distribution sites. Families facing mass displacement from Gaza City. Journalists like Anas al-Sharif assassinated for bearing witness. As many have pointed out, these are not scenes of death. They are scenes of elimination – the systematic destruction of life through relentless bombing, starvation, thirst, life-altering injury, untreated illness, trauma, exhaustion, and the deprivation of shelter from cold, floods, and heat. In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians have also faced deadly…

Chelsea and United States women’s national team defender Naomi Girma was among the stars modelling the club’s new third kit for 2025-26. Chelsea FCChelsea have released their new third kit for the 2025-26 season which sees the club returning to the wild, wonderful and often weird reign of José Mourinho in search of inspiration.The jersey forms part of Nike’s new “Total 90” throwback range and as such features styling directly influenced by those popular designs of the mid-2000s. We have the shield-shaped piping, the central crest positioning and the sort of pointy collars and trim that was commonplace two decades ago.Chelsea…