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A group of young off-duty Ukrainian soldiers gathered at a military distribution center to enjoy a rare respite from the fighting that has again engulfed their fractured home in eastern Ukraine.

As they shared jokes and a pizza, artillery explosions could be heard a few kilometers away — a reminder of the looming battle that threatens to unfold here in the city of Slovyansk, which was occupied by Russian proxy fighters in 2014.

“Everyone knows that there will be a huge battle in Slovyansk,” said one of the soldiers, who could not be named for security reasons.

Now, eight years after their city was last occupied, the war has returned. Slovyansk could become the next major target in Moscow’s campaign to take the Donbas region, Ukraine’s predominantly Russian-speaking industrial heartland.

Russia’s defense minister said Russian army forces and a separatist militia on Sunday captured the city of Lysychansk and now control all of eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk province.

Slovyansk, located 70 kilometers (43 miles) to the west in Donetsk province, came under rocket attacks Sunday that killed an unspecified number of people, Mayor Vadym Lyakh said.

Another soldier interviewed earlier by The Associated Press, a 23-year-old accountant who joined up when the invasion began, said Ukrainian forces simply do not have the weapons to fight off the superior arsenal of the approaching Russian army.

“We know what’s coming,” he said with a sad smile.

These soldiers were still teenagers when pro-Russian separatists captured and held the town for three months. The brief occupation in 2014 terrorized Slovyansk, where dozens of officials and journalists were taken hostage, and several killings took place.

Fierce fighting and shelling broke out when the Ukrainian army laid siege to the city to recapture it.

“Actually, the war never left Slovyansk. It didn’t leave people’s heads,” said Tetiana Khimion, a 43-year-old dance choreographer who converted a fishing store into a hub for local military units.

“On the one hand, it is easier for us because we know what it’s like. On the other hand, it is more difficult for us since we’ve been living like this for eight years in a suspended condition.”

Slovyansk is a city of splintered loyalties. With a large retired population, it is not uncommon to hear older residents express sympathy toward Russia or nostalgia for their Soviet past. There is also distrust of the Ukrainian army and government.

After a recent shelling of his apartment block, one resident named Sergei said he believed that the strike was launched by Ukraine.

“I’m not pro-Russian, I’m not pro-Ukrainian. I am somewhere in between,” he said. “Both Russians and Ukrainians kill civilians — everyone should understand that.”

On Thursday, a group of elderly residents couldn’t hide their frustration after a bomb blast slashed open their roofs and shattered their windows.

Ukraine “says they are protecting us, but what kind of protection is this?” asked one man, who did not provide his name.

After 2014, Khimion said, it became easier to know “who is who” in Slovyansk. “Now you can easily see: These people are for Ukraine, and these people are for Russia.”

She said not enough was done after 2014 to punish people who collaborated with Russian proxies to prevent a repeat of the situation.

“That is why we cannot negotiate, we need to win. Otherwise it will be a never-ending process. It will keep repeating,” she said.

The mayor of Slovyansk reflects the city’s new trajectory. Taking his cues from Ukraine’s wartime leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Vadym Lyakh has decorated his office with Ukrainian flags, anti-Russian symbols, portraits of national poets — even a biography of Winston Churchill.

But before 2014, Lyakh was part of a political party that sought closer ties with Russia. He said while pro-Moscow sentiment in the city has faded — in part because of the horrors witnessed in 2014 — there are still “people who are waiting for the return of the Russian troops.”

As the front line moves closer, attacks on the city intensify. Three-quarters of its pre-war population has fled, but the mayor said too many residents are still in Slovyansk, including many children. He encouraged them to evacuate while he spends his days coordinating humanitarian aid and strengthening the city’s defenses.

Lyakh said he cannot allow himself to relax, even for a few minutes.

“It is emotionally difficult. You see how people are dying and being harmed. But nevertheless, I understand that this is my job.”

More and more, Lyakh is among the first responders at the scene of bombardments. Associated Press journalists following the mayor recently witnessed what authorities described as a cluster bomb attack on a residential area. One person was killed and several others wounded.

The mayor says that shelling now occurs at least four or five times a day, and the use of cluster munitions increased in the past week. Although he remains optimistic that Ukrainian forces can keep the enemy at bay, he is also clear-sighted about his options.

“Nobody wants to be captured. When there is an imminent danger of the enemy troops entering the city, I will have to go,” he said.

One morning last week, Lyakh paid a visit to an apartment building that was shelled overnight. Most of the windows were blown out, doors were broken wide open, and a power line was severed.

The same building was bombed in 2014, leaving a gaping hole on the sixth floor, and many residents suffered broken bones.

Andrey, a 37-year-old factory worker who has lived in the building for 20 years, recalled the bombing and occupation. He said separatist forces “did and took what they liked.”

People in his circle have different opinions about Russia.

“Those who have suffered understand what this ‘Russia world’ means: It means broken houses, stolen cars and violence,” he explains. “There are those who miss the Soviet Union, who think we are all one people, and they do not accept what they see with their own eyes.”

In the eight years since the separatists retreated, he said, life markedly improved in Slovyansk.

The statue of Vladimir Lenin that once stood in the central square has been removed. Water and power supplies were renovated. New parks, squares and medical facilities were built.

“Civilization was returned to us,” Andrey said.

At a military distribution hub where they go to unwind, the young soldiers talk wistfully about their lives before the invasion.

“I had a great car, a good job. I was able to travel abroad three times a year,” said the former accountant, who plans to stay in Slovyansk with the others to defend the city. “How can we let someone just come and take our lives away from us?”

Khimion’s husband is on the front lines, and she put her teenage daughter on a train to Switzerland as soon as the invasion began.

“I have been deprived of everything — a home, husband, child — what should I do now?” she asks. “We are doing everything we can to stop (the offensive), to keep it to a minimum … But to be afraid is to abandon this place.”

At the entrance to the city, a monument bearing Slovyansk’s name is riddled with bullet holes from 2014. It has been painted over several times. It now bears the national colors of Ukraine, and a local artist has painted red flowers around each perforation.

Residents of Slovyansk wonder — some with hope, many in fear — if the sign will soon be painted yet again, in the red, white and blue of the Russia flag.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin declared victory Monday in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk province as Ukrainian troops retreated from their last stronghold in the city of Lysychansk.  

Moscow’s forces immediately turned their attention to fighting in the adjoining Donetsk province. It is part of the industrialized Donbas region Putin has sought to take control of during his invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth month, after failing earlier to topple the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or capture the capital, Kyiv.   

Ukraine said Russian forces are now trying to advance on Siversk, Fedorivka and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, about half of which is controlled by Russia.  

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin in a televised meeting Monday that Russian forces had taken control of Luhansk. In turn, Putin, said that the military units “that took part in active hostilities and achieved success, victory” in Luhansk, “should rest, increase their combat capabilities.”  

Ukraine’s Luhansk governor, Serhiy Haidai, told the Associated Press Monday that Ukrainian forces had retreated from Lysychansk to avoid being surrounded.  

“There was a risk of Lysychansk encirclement,” Haidai said, saying that Ukrainian troops could have remained a while longer but would have potentially sustained too many casualties.

“We managed to do centralized withdrawal and evacuate all injured,” Haidai said. “We took back all the equipment, so from this point withdrawal was organized well.”

The Ukrainian General Staff said that Russian forces, aside from pushing toward Siversk, Fedorivka and Bakhmut, are also shelling of the key Ukrainian strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, deeper in Donetsk.

Ukrainian authorities said that on Sunday, six people, including a 9-year-old girl, were killed in the Russian attack on Sloviansk and another 19 people were wounded. Kramatorsk was also shelled Sunday.

The British Defense Ministry intelligence briefing Monday called the conflict in Donbas “grinding and attritional,” and said it is unlikely to change in the coming weeks.

Military analysts said the Russian army has a massive advantage in firepower, but not any significant superiority in the number of troops. Ukraine is hoping to counter the Russian onslaught in Donbas with the ongoing resupply of munitions from Western nations, including the United States.  

Zelenskyy acknowledged the Ukrainian withdrawal from Lysychansk during his nightly video address late Sunday but vowed that the country’s forces will fight their way back.

“If the command of our army withdraws people from certain points of the front where the enemy has the greatest fire superiority, in particular this applies to Lysychansk, it means only one thing: We will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons,” Zelenskyy said.  

“The fact that we protect the lives of our soldiers, our people, plays an equally important role. We will rebuild the walls, we will win back the land, and people must be protected above all else,” Zelenskyy said.    

Luhansk Governor Haidai told the Reuters news agency there was nothing critical in losing Lysychansk, and that Ukraine needed to win the overall war, not the fight for the city.   

“It hurts a lot, but it’s not losing the war,” he said Monday.   

Recovery plan  

Switzerland is hosting a conference Monday and Tuesday focusing on what it will take to rebuild Ukraine.  

The meeting in Lugano brings together leaders from dozens of countries as well as international organizations and the private sector.  

Ukraine’s ambassador to Switzerland, Artem Rybchenko, said the conference would help produce a roadmap for his country’s recovery.  

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Pope Francis has dismissed rumors he plans to resign anytime soon, and says that he hopes to visit Moscow and Kyiv after traveling to Canada later this month.

Francis also told Reuters in an interview published Monday that the idea “never entered my mind” to announce a planned retirement at the end of the summer, though he repeated he might step down some day as Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI did in 2013.

He revealed that his knee trouble, which has caused him to use a wheelchair for over a month, was caused by a “small fracture” that occurred when he stepped awkwardly while the knee ligament was inflamed.

He said it is “slowly getting better” with laser and magnet therapy.

Francis was due to have visited Congo and South Sudan this week but had to cancel the trip because doctors said he needed more therapy. He said he was on board to travel to Canada July 24-30 and said he hoped to visit Russia and Ukraine sometime thereafter. 
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The man behind a shooting in a Copenhagen shopping mall which left three people dead and several wounded was jailed for 24 days on Monday after facing preliminary questioning in a city court, Danish police said. 

The 22-year-old Danish male, who on Sunday afternoon opened fire on shoppers in the Field’s mall a few kilometers south of downtown Copenhagen, was arrested and charged with manslaughter and intent to kill. 

He will be kept in custody in a closed psychiatric ward, authorities said. 

The incident rocked Denmark at the end of a week in which it hosted the first three stages of the Tour de France cycle race and hundreds of thousands of cheering Danes took to the streets across the country. 

The shooter, whose name is subject to a publication ban, shot and killed two 17-year-olds, a man and a woman, and a 47-year-old Russian citizen living in Denmark. Four other people were also wounded by gunshots. 

Three of them were now stable and one remained in critical condition, a health official from Danish emergency medical services said. 

The wounded included two Swedish citizens, a 50-year-old man and a 16-year-old woman. 

The incident could not be viewed as an “act of terror” based on current evidence, Chief Police Inspector Soren Thomassen told reporters earlier on Monday, adding there was no indication the suspect had acted together with others. 

“There has been some sort of deliberation and preparation (by the suspect) up to this terrible event,” Thomassen told a news conference without providing details on the perpetrator’s possible motives. 

“Our current assessment is that these are random victims.” 

A number of people were slightly injured when fleeing the scene, but not by gunshots. 

The attack took place when many young people had flocked to the mall ahead of a concert due to be held by British singer Harry Styles in Copenhagen on Sunday evening not far from the shopping center. The concert was cancelled.  

“I’m heartbroken along with the people of Copenhagen. I adore this city. The people are so warm and full of love. I’m devastated for the victims, their families, and everyone hurting,” Styles wrote on Twitter. 

“I’m sorry we couldn’t be together. Please look after each other.” 

The suspect, who police said was known to psychiatrists in Denmark, was in possession of a rifle, ammunition and a knife when he was arrested. 

Danish gun laws are strict and all weapons, with the exception of some hunting rifles, require a license issued by the police. The type of weapons used by the suspect had been legal, police said, but the shooter did not have a license to use them. 

Denmark’s largest cinema operator Nordisk Film, which has a venue at the Field’s shopping center, said it had decided to close its theaters across the country on Monday due to the shooting. 
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French President Emmanuel Macron replaced several ministers Monday, in a Cabinet reshuffle that was expected after his ruling alliance lost its majority in parliament.

Macron appointed French Red Cross director Jean-Christophe Combe as the new minister for solidarity and for the disabled, replacing Damien Abad, who is under investigation in a sex scandal. Abad has denied any wrongdoing.

While the foreign, finance and defense portfolios remained unchanged, Macron made several changes in other key positions.

Macron appointed Laurence Boone, the chief economist of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as new Europe minister to replace Clement Beaune, a key negotiator for Brexit, who becomes the new transport minister.

Christophe Bechu, mayor of the city of Angers, was appointed as environment minister, in place of Amelie de Montchalin, a Macron loyalist who lost her seat in the June 19 parliamentary elections.

The health and environment ministers were also replaced after failing to retain their seats.

While Macron’s alliance won the most seats in the parliamentary polls, it lost its majority and will now need to build coalitions to advance legislation.

Political analysts saw the elections outcome as a major defeat for Macron, who had easily secured a second presidential mandate in May, defeating far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to win back territory with the help of advanced weapons after his forces withdrew from Lysychansk, the last remaining Ukrainian-held territory in the eastern Luhansk province. 

In his nightly address Sunday, Zelenskyy said Russia was focusing its firepower on the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, and that Ukrainian forces would respond with long-range weapons supplied by Western allies such as the U High Mobility Artillery Rocket System from the United States. 

“The fact that we protect the lives of our soldiers, our people, plays an equally important role. We will rebuild the walls, we will win back the land, and people must be protected above all else,” Zelenskiyy said. 

Ukraine’s military said Sunday it decided to withdraw its remaining fighters from Lysychansk because continuing defense efforts in the face of superior Russian troop numbers and equipment “would lead to fatal consequences.” 

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly urged allies to help bolster its arsenal with more advanced weapons to help them match up against Russia’s military. 

Since failing early in its four-month invasion of Ukraine to topple Zelenskyy or capture the capital, Kyiv, Russia has focused on taking control of the Donbas region, which includes Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Ukraine retains control of several cities in Donetsk. 

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed President Vladimir Putin that the Luhansk People’s Republic — as the pro-Russian separatist government that claims control over Luhansk calls itself — has been “liberated,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Telegram. “As Army General Sergei Shoigu reported, as a result of successful combat operations, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, together with units of the People’s Militia of the Lugansk People’s Republic, have established full control over the city of Lisichansk and a number of nearby settlements, the largest of which are Belogorovka, Novodruzhesk, Maloryazantsevo and Belaya Gora,” the ministry said in its post, using the Russian spelling of Lysychansk. 

Meanwhile, Russian officials said blasts Sunday in a Russian city bordering Ukraine killed at least three people. 

Dozens of residential buildings were damaged in the explosions in Belgorod. Russian lawmaker Andrei Klishas has called for a military response. 

“The death of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Belgorod,” Klishas posted on Telegram, “are a direct act of aggression on the part of Ukraine and require the most severe — including a military — response.” 

Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the Russian claims about the Belgorod explosions. 

Recovery plan 

Switzerland is hosting a conference Monday and Tuesday focusing on what it will take to rebuild Ukraine. 

The meeting in Lugano brings together leaders from dozens of countries as well as international organizations and the private sector. 

Ukrainian Ambassador to Switzerland Artem Rybchenko said the conference would help produce a roadmap for his country’s recovery. 

Zelenskyy is expected to address the gathering by video, while Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal made a rare trip outside of Ukraine to attend in person. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

 
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Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said on Sunday there were casualties among civilians and law enforcement officers after rare protests in the Central Asian country, and an exiled opposition politician said at least five people had been killed. 

Separately, a local government official told an Uzbek news website that thousands of people have been hospitalized. 

In a statement posted online, Mirziyoyev said rioters had carried out “destructive actions” in the city of Nukus, capital of the northwestern Karakalpakstan region, by throwing stones, starting fires and attacking police. 

“Unfortunately there are victims among civilians and law enforcement officers,” he said. The statement did not specify the number and nature of the casualties. 

Sultanbek Ziyayev, the head of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, told news website Daryo.uz that hospitals in Nukus were full of patients who had been wounded when protesters clashed with security forces. 

“Thousands of wounded have been hospitalized and are being treated,” he said, according to the website. 

Photographs from Nukus published on Sunday by another news website, Kun.uz, showed street barricades, burned trucks and a heavy military presence including armored personnel carriers. 

Videos shared on social media showed at least two severely wounded people being carried by their arms and legs. One was bleeding from the abdomen, while the other was screaming. 

Another showed a young man crouching by an apparently lifeless body in the street, screaming “A man is dying” and then running for cover as shots rang out. Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the videos. 

An exiled opposition politician, Pulat Ahunov, told Reuters that, based on contacts with local sources and video evidence, at least five people had been killed. He said there were unconfirmed reports of dozens more dead. 

Ahunov said people were unable to move around and obtain more information because of a state of emergency imposed by the authorities. 

Uzbekistan is a tightly controlled former Soviet republic where the government clamps down hard on any form of dissent. 

It was the second outbreak of unrest in Central Asia this year, after Kazakhstan crushed mass protests in January and Russia and other former Soviet republics sent in troops to help the authorities restore order. 

The protests in Uzbekistan were prompted by planned constitutional changes that would have stripped Karakalpakstan of its autonomous status. In an about-turn, the president dropped those plans on Saturday. 

Ahunov, chairman of the opposition Berlik party, told Reuters from Sweden that he condemned the use of lethal force. 

“The authorities, from the start, should have opted for dialogue and negotiations,” he said. 

He said he feared the potential for the situation to escalate into an ethnic conflict between Uzbeks and Karakalpaks, a minority group with their own language. Authorities had called a public meeting for Tuesday to discuss the situation, he added. 

Kazakhstan said it was concerned by the events in Uzbekistan and welcomed moves by the authorities to stabilize the situation. 

Steve Swerdlow, Associate Professor of Human Rights at the University of Southern California and an expert on the region, said Uzbekistan should engage as transparently as possible in declaring casualties and the use of force and over the longer term look at what concerns were at the heart of the protests. 

(Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov in Almaty and Mark Trevelyan in London, Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Alexandra Hudson)
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Germany and Ireland on Sunday told Britain there was no legal or political justification for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to override parts of the Brexit deal governing trade with Northern Ireland.

The British parliament is considering a new law which would unilaterally change customs arrangements between Britain and Northern Ireland that were initially agreed as part of its exit deal from the European Union.

Britain says the changes are necessary to ease the overly burdensome requirements of the divorce deal, designed to prevent goods flowing into EU member Ireland via British province Northern Ireland. Johnson says the checks are creating tensions that threaten the region’s 1998 peace deal.

But, writing in the Observer newspaper, foreign ministers from Germany and Ireland rejected that argument.

“There is no legal or political justification for unilaterally breaking an international agreement entered into only two years ago,” Germany’s Annalena Baerbock and Ireland’s Simon Coveney said.

“The tabling of legislation will not fix the challenges around the protocol. Instead, it will create a new set of uncertainties and make it more challenging to find durable solutions.”

Johnson’s government says its preference remains to find a negotiated solution with the EU, but that Brussels needs to be more flexible to make that possible. The EU says it has put forward a range of possible solutions.

“We urge the British government to step back from their unilateral approach and show the same pragmatism and readiness to compromise the EU has shown,” Baerbock and Coveney said.

The legislation, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, passed its first parliamentary hurdle last week, but is expected to face stiffer tests before it becomes law with many parliamentarians opposed to breaking a treaty obligation.

It is next due to be debated in parliament on July 13.
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The number of pubs in England and Wales has plunged to its lowest ever level, according to analysis published on Monday which blames the coronavirus pandemic and soaring costs.

In the first half of this year, pub numbers dropped below 40,000 — a fall of more than 7,000 since 10 years ago.

A total of 200 pubs called “last orders” for good from the end of December to the end of last month, real estate advisers Altus Group said.

Pubs, which have been central to British communities for centuries, have either been demolished or converted into homes and offices, it added.

The analysis comes after the pub trade and wider hospitality sector suffered a slump in business due to the series of coronavirus lockdowns and social distancing restrictions.

Throughout the public health crisis, industry bodies urged the government for more financial support to prop up affected businesses and prevent many from going to the wall.

But with inflation now at 40-year highs, pubs have been confronted with a new challenge.

“Whilst pubs proved remarkably resilient during the pandemic, they’re now facing new headwinds grappling with the cost of doing business crisis through soaring energy costs, inflationary pressures and tax rises,” Altus Group UK president Robert Hayton said.

Separate research from industry bodies the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), UKHospitality and the British Institute of Innkeeping suggests only about one-third (37%) of hospitality businesses are in profit.

Rising costs of energy, goods and labor were blamed.

BBPA chief executive Emma McClarkin said: “When pubs are forced to close it’s a huge loss to the local community, and these numbers paint a devastating picture of how pubs are being lost in villages, towns and cities across the country.”

She called on the government to act or risk losing more pubs every year.

Britain is facing the prospect of a wave of public sector strikes over pay and conditions, as the cost of living rises.

Pub owners have said a series of walkouts by railway workers have also hit trade.
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A large chunk of an Alpine glacier broke loose Sunday afternoon and roared down a mountainside in Italy, sending ice, snow and rock slamming into hikers on a popular trail on the peak and killing at least six and injuring eight, authorities said.

There could be about 10 people missing, Civil Protection official Gianpaolo Bottacin was quoted as saying by the online version of Italian daily Corriere della Sera. But Bottacin later told state television that it wasn’t yet possible to provide a firm number.

The glacier, in the Marmolada range, is the largest in the Dolomite mountains in northeastern Italy and people ski there in the winter. But the glacier has been rapidly melting away in recent years.

Experts at Italy’s state-run CNR research center, which has a polar sciences institute, says the glacier won’t exist anymore in the next 25-30 years and most of its volume is already gone. The Mediterranean basin, shared by southern Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa, has been identified by U.N. experts as a “climate change hot spot,” likely to suffer heat waves and water shortages, among other consequences.

By Sunday evening, officials were still working to determine just how many hikers were in the area when the ice avalanche struck, said Walter Milan, a representative for the national Alpine rescue corps who provided the death and injury toll.

Rescuers were checking license plates in the parking lot to determine how many people might be unaccounted for, a process that could take hours, Milan told The Associated Press by telephone.

“We saw dead (people) and enormous chunks of ice, rock,” exhausted-looking rescuer Luigi Felicetti told Italian state TV.

Nationalities or ages of the dead weren’t immediately available, Milan said. Of the eight hospitalized survivors, two were in grave condition, authorities said.

The fast-moving avalanche “came down with a roar that could be heard at great distance,” local online media site ildolomiti.it said.

Earlier, the National Alpine and Cave Rescue Corps tweeted that the search of the area of the Marmolada peak involved at least five helicopters and included rescue dogs.

Temporarily, the search for any more victims or missing was halted while rescuers evaluate the risk that more of the glacier could break off, Walter Cainelli told state television. The interview took place after he conducted a rescue mission with a search dog.

Rescuers said blocks of ice were continuing to tumble down. In the early evening, a light rain began to fall.

The SUEM dispatch service, which is based in the nearby Veneto region, said 18 people who were above the area where the ice struck would be evacuated by the Alpine rescue corps.

But Milan said some on the slope might be able to get down by themselves, including by using the peak’s cable car.

SUEM said the avalanche consisted of a “pouring down of snow, ice and rock.” The detached section is known as a serac, or pinnacle of ice.

Marmolada, towering about 3,300 meters (about 11,000 feet), is the highest peak in the eastern Dolomites, offering spectacular views of other Alpine peaks.

The Alpine rescue service said in a tweet that the segment broke off near Punta Rocca (Rock Point), “along the itinerary normally used to reach the peak.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the section of ice to break away and rush down the peak’s slope. But the intense heat wave gripping Italy since late June could be a factor.

“The temperatures of these days clearly had influence” on the glacier’s partial collapse, Maurizio Fugatti, the president of Trento Province, which borders Marmolada, told Sky TG24 news.

But Milan stressed that high heat, which soared unusually above 10 C (50 F) on Marmolada’s peak in recent days, was only one possible factor in Sunday’s tragedy.

“There are so many factors that could be involved,” Milan said. Avalanches in general aren’t predictable, he said, and heat’s influence on a glacier “is even more impossible to predict.”

In separate comments to Italian state television, Milan called the recent temperatures “extreme heat” for the peak. “Clearly it’s something abnormal.”

The injured were flown to several hospitals in the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto, according to rescue services.
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Peter Brook, one of the world’s most innovative theater directors who perfected the art of staging powerful drama in bizarre venues, has died aged 97, his publisher said Sunday.

The British director used the world as his stage mounting productions ranging from challenging versions of Shakespeare through international opera to Hindu epic poems.

Brook put on plays in gymnasiums, deserted factories, quarries, schools and old gas works in towns around the world.

His 1970 Stratford production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” played all in white and with a huge, garlanded swing, secured his place in the annals of theater history.

According to Le Monde, Brook – who had been based in France since 1974 – died in Paris Saturday.

A statement from his publisher confirmed his death Sunday.

Although Brook was regarded with awe in theatrical circles, he was less well known among the wider public because of his refusal to bow to commercial taste. He left Britain to work in Paris in 1970.

He often shunned traditional theatrical buildings for the “empty space” which could be transformed by light, words, improvisation and the sheer power of acting and suggestion.

“I can take any empty space and call it a stage,” he wrote in his ground-breaking 1968 book The Empty Space.

His quest for inspiration took him as far afield as Africa and Iran and produced a variety of original improvised plays marked by his eye for detail and challenging approach.

Born in London March 21, 1925, his father was a company director and his mother a scientist. He left school at 16 to work in a film studio and then went to Oxford University and took a degree in English and Foreign Languages.

In 1970 he transferred from Britain to work in Paris, founding the International Center of Theater Research which brought together actors and designers of many different nationalities.

Brook continued working into his 90s.

“Every form of theater has something in common with a visit to the doctor. On the way out, one should always feel better than on the way in,” he wrote in his 2017 book Tip of the Tongue.
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