Fire at girls school in Kenya kills at least 16 students, minister says
Parents and guardians stand at Utumishi Girls Academy following the deadly fire in Nakuru, north of the Kenyan capital Nairobi on May 28, 2026. (Simon Maina/AFP via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — At least 16 students died in an overnight fire at a boarding school for girls in central Kenya, a government minister said Thursday.
Education Minister Julius Ogamba said in a statement posted to X that a “regrettable fire tragedy befell Utumishi Girls Academy in Nakuru County. Most unfortunately, 16 learners lost their lives while several others suffered injuries in the incident.”
The Kenya Police Service said in a statement posted to Facebook that “several other students were injured and are receiving treatment.”
The blaze broke out in a dormitory at the Utumishi Girls Senior School in the town of Gilgil in Kenya’s Nakuru County, police said, around 74 miles from the capital Nairobi.
Search and rescue operations are ongoing, police said. “We are working to account for all students and support affected families during this difficult time,” the service said in its statement.
The fire was reported early Thursday at around 3:30 a.m. local time, according to the Kenya Red Cross, which said its team were supporting the ongoing multi-agency response. “Several students have been evacuated and are receiving treatment in various hospitals,” Kenya Red Cross said.
Ogamba expressed “our heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and relatives of the learners who lost their lives in this sorrowful incident. We wish a quick recovery to those who were injured. We pray that God grants everyone strength and fortitude during this difficult and painful period.”
“Investigations into the cause of the fire are ongoing and updates will be provided in due course,” the minister added.
ABC News’ Charlotte Gardiner contributed to this report.
Olympic rings stand in front of Ponte di Castelvecchio on day fourteen of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games on February 20, 2026 in Verona, Italy. (Photo by Claudio Lavenia/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Transgender women athletes cannot participate in female Olympic events, the International Olympic Committee said on Thursday, as the committee announced a new policy limiting eligibility for female events to biological females.
The policy will begin for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
The committee said the decision was “evidence‑based and expert‑informed,” and “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category.”
The IOC said eligibility will be “determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening.”
The committee said “athletes with an SRY-positive screen, including XY transgender and androgen-sensitive XY-DSD athletes, continue to be included in all other classifications for which they qualify. For example, they are eligible for any male category, including in a designated male slot within any mixed category, and any open category, or in sports and events that do not classify athletes by sex.”
IOC President Kirsty Coventry said in a statement that the new policy “is based on science and has been led by medical experts.”
“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” she said. “So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”
Smoke rises after an explosion in the industrial zone, caused by debris after interception of a drone by air defence, according to the Fujairah media office on March 05, 2026, in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Christopher Pike/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — On Feb. 28, the United States and Israel launched massive strikes on Iran in an operation targeting military and government sites that President Donald Trump has said could last as little as four weeks.
One month later, both countries remain engaged in a war that has impacted the wider Gulf region, killing thousands of people, as the Pentagon is preparing to surge thousands of troops to the Middle East, according to U.S. officials.
As the U.S. enters its fifth week of the conflict, here’s a look at how we got here, where things stand and where they may go from here.
Negotiations break down Operation Epic Fury began months after the U.S. and Israel carried out strikes on nuclear weapons facilities in Iran, with Trump declaring at that time that the regime’s nuclear capabilities had been “obliterated.”‘
In the weeks leading up to the Feb. 28 strikes, the U.S. tried to negotiate with the Iranian regime to reach a nuclear deal, with Trump saying he was weighing whether to strike. A day before launching Operation Epic Fury against Iran, Trump said he was “not happy” with the negotiations.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among those killed in Tehran in the initial strikes, with his son Mojtaba Khamenei later chosen to succeed him.
Trump said at the start of the “major combat operations,” which occurred without Congressional approval, that they were to “defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” and he called on the Iranian people to depose the regime.
In the weeks since, more than 1,440 civilians, including at least 217 children, have died from U.S. and Israeli strikes in Iran as of March 23, according to a report from several human rights groups. Iranian officials have blamed the U.S. for a missile strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed nearly 170 people. The Trump administration has said it is investigating the incident.
Regional allies attacked Iran retaliated against the strikes with missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases and multiple Gulf nations, primarily targeting U.S. interests in the region.
Thirteen American servicemembers have been killed since the war began, including seven from retaliatory strikes in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and six from an aircraft crash in Iraq. Over 300 troops have also been injured, a U.S. official said Friday.
Iran has also launched a series of retaliatory strikes against the energy infrastructure in several Gulf states after Israel hit its largest gas field — in what one Qatari official called a “dangerous escalation.”
Experts say the strikes and the threat of further attacks risk throwing global energy markets into a state of protracted chaos.
Amid the conflict, Israel has also intensified its long-running strike campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and expanded its ground operations in the south of the country. More than 1,000 people have been killed and thousands more injured in Lebanon amid this escalation, according to Lebanese officials.
In response to the U.S.-Israeli strikes, Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital maritime passage for the oil and shipping trades, threatening an energy crisis.
Iran has attacked several oil tankers since the war began in late February, halting nearly all shipping traffic. The supply shock has sent the price of oil surging.
Trump has threatened to attack Iran’s power plants if it doesn’t fully reopen the strait, since extending the deadline to do so to April 6.
US’ expansive aims Trump’s stated goals in Iran have shifted and expanded in the weeks since the conflict began, from talks of regime change and peace throughout the Middle East to, more recently, reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Among other key aims, the U.S. military has said Iran’s navy and ballistic missile stocks and production capabilities have been degraded by airstrikes.
Making sure Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon has been another major goal of Trump’s. Iran’s intent to build a nuclear weapon, according to Trump, was a central justification for the war.
Trump has suggested that Americans could go in to seize Iran’s enriched uranium. Experts previously told ABC News that a large American force on the ground would likely be needed to take the nuclear material but would carry a lot of risk.
During a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance emphasized the importance of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and warned that there are “further military options” possible.
Where things go from here The White House has said “productive” negotiations have been ongoing between the U.S. and Iran, while officials in Tehran have publicly denied that any talks have taken place.
The U.S. has presented Iran with a 15-point framework for a peace deal via Pakistan, according to White House special envoy Steve Witkoff. As of Friday, the U.S. has not received a response from Iran, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Sources previously told ABC News the plan addressed Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs as well as maritime routes.
The negotiations come as the U.S. is preparing to surge as many as 5,000 troops to the Middle East, according to two U.S. officials, and the Pentagon is seeking $200 billion in supplemental funding for the war. The funding request has been met with bipartisan skepticism from some lawmakers.
Rubio on Friday declined to answer questions from reporters on whether the U.S. planned to deploy ground troops in Iran. Though he said the U.S. can achieve its goals without putting boots on the ground.
Trump, who has said he believed the war could last up to four weeks, and at other times four to six weeks, said this week that the operation is “ahead of schedule” and should end soon. Rubio told reporters Friday that the operation could end in a “matter of weeks, not months.”
The Israel Defense Forces said Friday they need “a few more weeks” to fully degrade Iranian military capabilities, such as missile-launchers, a senior Israeli security official told ABC News.
A seagull stands on the 16th-century Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, Monday, April 13, 2026. (Photo by Danil Shamkin/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(VENICE, Italy) — One of the world’s most iconic cities could be heavily impacted by climate change and sea level rise in the coming years, leading researchers to search for solutions on how to protect it.
Venice, the historic Italian city known for its canals that serve as water traffic corridors, has been said to be sinking for nearly a century. The site within the vicinity of the Venetian Lagoon has flooded increasingly over the past 150 years, according to a paper published in Scientific Reports on Thursday.
Historically, there have been 28 events in which seawater flooding impacted at least 60% of the city, according to the paper. Eighteen of those events have taken place in the last century.
Piero Lionello, a professor of atmospheric physics and oceanography at the University of Salento in Italy and native Venetian, has noticed an uptick in flooding events throughout his lifetime, he told ABC News.
“The rate has been quite impressive the last three decades,” he said.
Climate experts are now calling for long-term planning to protect the city from rising sea levels over the next several centuries.
The Venetian Lagoon is a “special system” because it is so connected to the Adriatic Sea, said Lionello, the lead author of the paper.
Proposed strategies to prevent flooding as sea levels rise include movable barriers, ring dikes — which are circular or oval-shaped embankments designed to protect localized areas from floodwaters — or even closing the Venetian Lagoon and relocating the city, according to the paper.
Currently, the city is defended by a trio of movable barriers at the edge of the Venetian Lagoon. The MOSE project, installed in the 1990s, is a system of mobile flood barrier shields as tall as a five-story building that can be raised to separate the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea during high tides.
The system allows the waterways of Venice to function normally during high tide and has prevented flood disasters from storm surge. But it won’t be sufficient in the future, Lionello said.
“The present system, it will certainly be become inadequate,” he said.
The existing movable barriers may be effective against sea level rise up to 1.25 meters, or about 4.1 feet, according to the paper. But this benchmark is likely to be exceeded by the year 2300 under a low-emissions scenario due to rising global temperatures and ground subsidence — the gradual sinking of the ground — the researchers said.
Dikes may be necessary to protect Venice’s city center from the rest of the lagoon, according to the paper. The dikes would consist of walls surrounding the city, separating it from the lagoon, Lionello said.
Construction of dikes could cost between $600 million and $5.3 billion, according to the paper.
A “super levee” that could cost more than $35 billion to construct may be needed to close the lagoon and protect the land that is already below sea level.
If sea levels rise enough, it may be necessary for the city’s residents and historic landmarks to be moved inland, the researchers said. Relocating the city could be necessary beyond a 4.5-meter, or nearly 15-foot, sea level rise, which is projected to occur after 2300 under a high emissions scenario, according to the paper. Relocating the city could cost up to $118 billion, according to the researchers.
This solution is the most “provocative” and would involve moving individual buildings and monuments inland, Lionello said.
“You can preserve a building. You can have different solution to keep people living there, but it will be a completely different Venice from the Venice that we have now,” Lionello said.
The system of mobile barriers has been working overtime, according to officials. The MOSE barriers were lifted from the seabed to stop water from the Adriatic Sea from entering the lagoon 31 times during a six-month period between October 2023 and April 2024.
Climate scientists have predicted a steady rise in sea levels in the Adriatic Sea — with the lagoonal ecosystem in Venice experiencing relative sea level rise of about 2.5 millimeters per year, a 2021 study found.
Over the past 60 years, high tides in the Venetian Lagoon have become more frequent.
Between 1870 and 1949, 30 high tides exceeded 1.1 meters — or 3.6 feet — the level above which the MOSE barrier system is activated, according to the Venice Tide Study Center. There were 76 such high tides between 2015 and 2024 alone.
Rapid action to protect the city of Venice from climate change is “essential,” especially since the construction of large-scale interventions could take decades, the researchers said.
