Multiple people have been killed and injured and some are still missing after a major chemical explosion at a paper mill in Washington, authorities said.

The explosion occurred at 07:15 PDT (15:15 GMT) at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility in Longview, 130 miles (210km) south of Seattle.

Investigators said in a news conference on Tuesday that 10 people have been injured and transported to hospital. Officials have not yet said how many people have died or are unaccounted for.

The explosion occurred due a “rupture of a tank containing white liquor”, the company said in a statement. White liquor is a highly corrosive chemical used in the paper-making process.

Cowlitz Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said there are an “unknown number of fatalities at this moment,” adding that officials have “confirmed that there are fatalities, but the exact number is undetermined”.

Nine of the people injured are employees at the factory, and one is a firefighter, Goldstein said. Their injuries range from “critical severe to minor”, and include burn and inhalation injuries. The company statement said there were “multiple critical injuries”.

The tank that ruptured holds about 80,000 gallons (300,000 litres), he said, and it was roughly 60% full when the explosion occurred.

The scene is stable, the chief said, but the public should stay away from the area as firefighting efforts continue. He said the fire does not pose any threat to the larger community.

“The scene remains in the recovery phase as emergency responders continue operations,” the Longview Fire Department said in a statement.

“No identifying information regarding injured or deceased individuals will be released at this time pending notification of family members.”

White liquor is an alkaline chemical containing sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide.

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson said state ecology workers have been sent to the site to assist local officials.

“I’m deeply saddened to hear that there have been fatalities,” Ferguson said in a statement.

“My thoughts are with the workers and their families, and with the first responders.”

According to local media, the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility was also the scene of a major fire in July 2023, when piles of wood at the site burned for days.

The plant makes tissues, printer paper, cups, plates, cartons, and other goods, according to CBS, the BBC’s US partner. It employees 1,000 people, according to the Washington State Department of Ecology.

[BBC]

A school assistant was to go on trial in Paris on Tuesday accused of sexual mistreatment of young children in his care.

It is the latest case in a year-long scandal that has shaken the school system in the French capital, where some 15,000 such assistants – known as animateurs – are employed as non-teaching staff.

Currently enquiries are under way at nearly 100 Paris crèches, kindergartens and junior schools where animateurs have been accused of inappropriate, aggressive or sexualised behaviour.

Trials in three other cases are to take place over the summer, and a verdict is due in a fourth which was held earlier this month. More are likely to follow.

Last week police detained 16 people after a swoop at three schools in the 7th arrondissement or district. Three people were subsequently charged with sexually inappropriate behaviour to children.

Tuesday’s case centres on the Alphonse Baudin junior school in the 11th arrondissement, where the animateur is accused of sexualised touching with five children.

One man told the BBC that in April 2025 he had already spotted unusual signs in his four-year-old daughter when another parent reported that their child had been molested.

“My wife took our daughter into the garden and asked her if she had been touched in after-school time, and she said ‘Yes, David touches me and gives me cuddles.’

“My wife said, ‘Show me’, and my daughter started stroking her back in a bizarre way. That’s when we knew something was wrong.”

The scandal has created a climate of mistrust and fear among parents of young children in Paris, many of whom accuse the City Hall – which employs the animateurs – of failing initially to take the complaints seriously.

According to after-school association SOS-Périscolaire, the main problem has been the low quality of animateurs, who are poorly paid and at most need only a basic certificate in child management to get a job. Sometimes the pressure to recruit is so great that even that requirement is waived.

Elisabeth Guthmann, who founded the association in 2021, said it was in response to the growing number of stories circulating among parents about teasing, taunting and other types of low-level abuse by animateurs.

She cited a case of four animateurs at a junior school in the 16th arrondissement who “set up a fight-club with the other children standing around shouting ‘Hit him!'”.

The new mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, has vowed to reform the recruitment system with €20m (£17.2m) for training and monitoring. He also said animateurs would be automatically suspended after a single complaint had been lodged. Since the start of the year nearly 80 have been suspended.

[BBC]

Cambodia’s ​former opposition leader Kem Sokha, who was serving a 27-year sentence for treason, has been pardoned, the country’s former prime minister said.

Hun Sen, ​who is currently Cambodia’s acting head of state, said he signed a decree pardoning Sokha on behalf of King Norodom Sihamoni.

Sokha, the former leader of the now-dissolved Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), was first arrested in 2017 over a video where he said he had received support from US pro-democracy groups.

He has been held under house arrest since he was found guilty of treason in 2023. The charges have been widely derided as politically motivated by human rights groups.

Hun Sen posted on Facebook that Sokha had been “pardoned”, alongside a photo of the royal decree signed by him.

The pardon came after an appeal against Sokha’s sentence was rejected last month. But it did not include overturning a ban on the politician leaving Cambodia for five years.

Hun Sen, who ruled Cambodia for nearly four decades, has been accused of weaponising the country’s courts to target his opponents. He stepped down as prime minister in 2023 and handed power to his eldest son, Hun Manet.

However, Hun Sen still wields immense power in Cambodia and is acting head of state while King Norodom Sihamoni receives medical treatment abroad.

Sokha’s CNRP party came close to securing a shock victory in the 2013 general election victory over Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP).

The opposition leader was arrested in 2017, less than a year ahead of the next general election, which the CNRP was banned from contesting.

[BBC]