Foreign News
Five dead as huge winter storm grips swathe of US
At least five people have died in a winter storm that has seized a swathe of the US in its icy grip, leading to mass school closures, travel chaos and power cuts.
Seven US states declared emergencies: Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Arkansas.
More than 2,300 flights have been cancelled, with nearly 9,000 delays also reported owing to the extreme weather caused by the polar vortex of icy cold air that usually circles the North Pole.
Over 200,000 people had no power on Monday night across states in the storm’s path, according to Poweroutage.us. Snow and sleet is forecast to continue in much of the north-eastern US on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
While the precipitation will then dissipate, cold Arctic air is expected to keep conditions icy across a chunk of the country for several more weeks.
In Washington DC – where lawmakers met on Monday to certify Donald Trump’s win in November’s election – about 5-9in (13-23cm) of snow fell, with up to a foot recorded in parts of nearby Maryland and Virginia.
In front of the Washington Monument, hundreds of local residents gathered at a local park for a snowball fight, a now 15-year-old tradition.
“Just having fun,” one local man told the BBC. “Never done a snowball fight before.”
Former US Olympic skier Clare Egan was found cross-country skiing on the National Mall, the central thoroughfare of the US capital city. She told the Associated Press she had thought “my skiing days were maybe behind me”, after moving to the city.
Washington DC’s weather emergency is declared until the early hours of Tuesday as a result of the system, which was named Winter Storm Blair by the Weather Channel.
Children who had been due to go back to classes on Monday after the winter holiday break were instead enjoying a snow day as school districts closed from Maryland to Kansas.
In other parts of the US, the winter storm brought with it dangerous road conditions. In Missouri, the state’s highway patrol said at least 365 people had crashed on Sunday, leaving dozens injured and at least one dead. In nearby Kansas, one of the worst-hit states, local news reported that two people were killed in a car crash during the storm.
In Houston, Texas, a person was found dead from cold weather in front of a bus stop on Monday morning, authorities said.
In Virginia, where 300 car crashes were reported between midnight and Monday morning, authorities warned local residents to avoid driving in large parts of the state.
At least one motorist was killed, according to local media reports.
Matthew Cappucci, a senior meteorologist at the weather app MyRadar, told the BBC that Kansas City had seen the heaviest snow in 32 years.
Some areas near the Ohio River turned to “skating rinks” in the frigid temperatures, he added.
“The ploughs are getting stuck, the police are getting stuck, everybody’s getting stuck – stay home,” he said.
[BBC]
The chief executive of the Washington Post is stepping down, the newspaper has announced, days after overseeing mass lay-offs.
William Lewis said it was the right time to leave, saying in a message to staff that was shared online that “difficult decisions” had been made to ensure the paper’s future.
On Wednesday the newspaper announced it was cutting a third of its workforce, dramatically scaling back its coverage of sport and international news.
The decision was condemned by many journalists and prompted criticism of the Post’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos. Executive editor Matt Murray said the cuts would bring “stability”.
Jeff D’Onofrio, who joined as chief financial officer of the newspaper last year, will serve as acting publisher and CEO, the Post said as it announced Lewis’s departure.
A former Dow Jones chief executive and publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Lewis was appointed to the role at the Washington Post in 2023.
He has faced criticism from subscribers and employees as he tried to reverse financial losses at the daily.
Hundreds protested in front of the paper’s headquarters in Washington DC on Thursday after the mass lay offs, which included the paper’s entire Middle East staff and its Kyiv-based Ukraine correspondent.
Marty Baron, the Post’s executive editor until 2021, said the cuts ranked “among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organisations”.
The departure of Lewis marks the latest upheaval for the leading US newspaper, which has seen a series of staff cuts and controversial editorial decisions in recent years.
Shortly before the 2024 US presidential election, Bezos, the founder of Amazon, broke with decades of tradition by deciding the newspaper would not endorse a presidential candidate.
The newspaper had endorsed a candidate in most presidential elections since the 1970s – all of whom had been Democrats.
The move caused widespread criticism and led to the loss of tens of thousands of subscribers.
Meanwhile, the opinion editor resigned in February last year when Bezos decided to focus the paper’s comment section on “personal liberties and free markets”.
Bezos, who acquired the newspaper in 2013, said pieces opposing those views would not be published.
[BBC]
King Charles III and Queen Camilla will host Nigeria’s president in the country’s first state visit to the UK in 37 years, Buckingham Palace has announced.
Bola Tinubu and First Lady Oluremi Tinubu have accepted an invitation to be guests of the King at Windsor Castle from 18 to 19 March.
State visits are considered a form of soft-power diplomacy, using the pomp of royal hospitality to strengthen relations with important international partners.
The last Nigerian state visit to the UK took place in 1989, when military ruler Gen Ibrahim Babangida travelled to meet the late Queen Elizabeth II for a four-day trip.
Although this will be Tinubu’s first formal state visit to the UK, he has already met the King since taking office following Nigeria’s disputed election in 2023.
Tinubu and his wife were received at Buckingham Palace in September 2024 and also held a bilateral meeting with the King on the sidelines of the COP28 summit in Dubai.
But a state visit allows for ceremonial pageantry aimed at elevating the occasion and demonstrating the importance with which the UK views those visiting.
The visit comes at a time of improving diplomatic and economic links between the UK and Nigeria – with trade between the two worth more than £8bn in the year to October, government figures show. This makes the African nation one of the UK’s most important partners in the continent.
In 2024, the two countries signed a new trade and investment partnership designed to expand opportunities for business.
The agenda for the March visit has not been disclosed, nor details of the events planned for it – but state visits typically include carriage processions and a state banquet, and usually coincide with visiting leaders having political meetings.
In 2025 alone, the King presided over three state visits – those of French President Emmanuel Macron, US President Donald Trump and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier – the first time the UK had held such a number in a single year since 1988.
The King has longstanding ties to Nigeria, a Commonwealth country, having expressed a love for Pidgin English and Nigerian Afrobeats music.
Before becoming monarch, he visited the country four times as the Prince of Wales – in 1990, 1999, 2006 and 2018. Camilla, then the Duchess of Cornwall, joined him on the latter trip.
In 2023, the King’s Trust International – formerly the Prince’s Trust – officially launched in Nigeria, announcing a project aimed at tackling youth unemployment.
[BBC]
The co-owner of a Colorado funeral home where nearly 200 decaying bodies were found has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for corpse abuse.
Before Jon Hallford was sentenced, he apologised in court and listened to family members describe having nightmares about their loved ones decomposing in his care. They called him a “monster” who should rot in jail.
His ex-wife and co-owner Carie Hallford has pleaded guilty to similar charges and is awaiting sentencing.
The Return to Nature home, in the town of Penrose, Colorado, had given fake ashes to grieving relatives instead of their loved-ones’ remains. Prosecutors said 189 bodies were improperly stored in the building over four years.
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