damage

Southern California Edison increased the number of Eaton fire victims that are eligible to file claims for damages in its final compensation proposal, though some Altadena residents say the utility’s program still falls short.

After talking to residents about the plan it released in July, Edison said it decided to expand the area of homes that are eligible for compensation for smoke damage.

“Expanding the eligibility area is one of the most significant updates made as a result of feedback,” said Pedro Pizarro, the chief executive of Edison International, the utility’s parent company. “The number of qualified properties nearly doubled for those with damage from smoke, soot or ash.”

The utility also increased the amount of compensation it is offering for some victims. For example, each child in a family that lost its home will be eligible to receive $75,000 for pain and suffering, up from $50,000 in the initial plan.

To receive payments under the utility’s Wildfire Recovery Compensation Program, families must agree to drop any lawsuits they filed against the utility for the Jan. 7 fire.

The program also is open to businesses that lost revenues and renters who lost property. And it covers those who suffered physical injuries or had family members who died.

Edison is launching the victim compensation program even though government fire investigators have not released their report on the cause of the fire. The inferno swept through Altadena, destroying 9,400 homes and other structures and killing 19 people.

Videos captured the fire igniting under a century-old transmission line in Eaton Canyon that Edison had not used since 1971, and Pizarro has said a leading theory is that the line somehow re-energized and ignited the blaze. Edison said in a federal securities filing this week that “absent additional evidence, SCE believes that it is likely that its equipment could be found to have been associated with the ignition.”

In documents detailing its final compensation plan, the utility included the example of a family of four with a 1,500-square-foot home that was destroyed. The family would receive $900,000 to rebuild, $360,000 for personal property, $140,000 for loss of use and $380,000 for pain and suffering. It also would receive a $200,000 “direct claim premium” for agreeing to settle outside of court.

That total of $1,980,000 is then reduced by the family’s $1 million of insurance coverage, according to the company’s example.

On Thursday, state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena) sent a letter to Edison saying she was concerned about how the utility was requiring victims to waive their future legal rights in order to get compensation. And she called on Edison to provide immediate housing assistance to fire victims.

“Having acknowledged its potential role in starting the Eaton Fire, Edison must do everything within its power to prioritize the needs of survivors and make this commitment a core part of its corporate duty,” she wrote to Pizarro. “This means ensuring fire victims can recover and rebuild their lives with the support they are owed.”

Edison expects to be reimbursed for most or all of the payments it makes to victims by a $21-billion state wildfire fund that Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers created in 2019 to shield utilities from bankruptcy. Administrators of the wildfire fund told members of the state Catastrophe Response Council this week that they expect Eaton fire claims “to be in the tens of billions of dollars.”

In September, Newsom signed a bill that will bolster the money available by another $18 billion for future wildfires. Under that bill, Edison is allowed to raise electric rates for any Eaton fire costs that exceed the original $21-billion fund.

Some Eaton fire survivors told the council, which oversees the wildfire fund, that Edison’s program fails to fully cover damages suffered by victims. Joy Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, recently sent the council a report detailing where her group found shortfalls. For example, Chen said, Edison is deducting a homeowner’s full insurance coverage from the compensation amounts even if the insurer has reimbursed the family for only part of that amount.

“Nine months after Edison’s negligence shattered our lives, the toll is clear,” the group’s report states. “Many have drained retirement savings, maxed out credit cards, or watched marriages and health deteriorate under the strain. “

“You destroyed our homes, lives and community,” the report says of Edison. “Fix what you broke. “

Chen’s group joined with Perez in calling for Edison to provide emergency housing assistance for victims.

Edison said its program is designed “to help the community recover and rebuild faster.” The utility said a report by RAND, the non-profit research group it hired to assess the compensation plan, determined the payment amounts “used modern statistical methods and in our judgment were thoughtfully done and well executed.”

Edison said victims can start filing for claims now and that it expects to get back to them with an offer within 90 days.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Tuesday that the federal government owes him “a lot of money” for prior Justice Department investigations into his actions and insisted he would have the ultimate say on any payout because any decision will “have to go across my desk.”

Trump’s comments to reporters at the White House came in response to questions about a New York Times story that said he had filed administrative claims before being reelected seeking roughly $230 million in damages related to the FBI’s 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago property for classified documents and for a separate investigation into potential ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump said Tuesday he did not know the dollar figures involved and suggested he had not spoken to officials about it. But, he added, “All I know is that, they would owe me a lot of money.”

Though the Justice Department has a protocol for reviewing such claims, Trump asserted, “It’s interesting, ‘cause I’m the one that makes the decision, right?”

“That decision would have to go across my desk,” he added.

He said he could donate any taxpayer money or use it to help pay for a ballroom he’s building at the White House.

The status of the claims and any negotiations over them within the Justice Department was not immediately clear. One of Trump’s lead defense lawyers in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, Todd Blanche, is now the deputy attorney general at the Justice Department. The current associate attorney general, Stanley Woodward, represented Trump’s valet and co-defendant, Walt Nauta, in the same case.

“In any circumstance, all officials at the Department of Justice follow the guidance of career ethics officials,” a Justice Department spokesperson said. A White House spokesperson referred comment to the Justice Department.

Trump signaled his interest in compensation during a White House appearance last week with Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, who was part of Trump’s legal team during one of the impeachment cases against him.

“I have a lawsuit that was doing very well, and when I became president, I said: ‘I’m suing myself. I don’t know. How do you settle the lawsuit?’” he said. ”I’ll say, ‘Give me X dollars,’ and I don’t know what to do with the lawsuit. It’s a great lawsuit and now I won, it looks bad. I’m suing myself, so I don’t know.”

The Times said the two claims were filed with the Justice Department as part of a process that seeks to resolve federal complaints through settlements and avert litigation.

One of the administrative claims, filed in August 2024 and reviewed by the Associated Press, seeks compensatory and punitive damages over the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate and the resulting case alleging he hoarded classified documents and thwarted government efforts to retrieve them.

His lawyer who filed the claim alleged the case was a “malicious prosecution” carried out by the Biden administration to hurt Trump’s bid to reclaim the White House, forcing Trump to spend tens of millions of dollars in his defense.

That investigation produced criminal charges that Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith abandoned last November because of department policy against the indictment of a sitting president.

The Times said the other complaint seeks damages related to the long-concluded Trump-Russia investigation, which continues to infuriate the president.

Days after a photo went viral showing damage that the aircraft carrier USS Truman incurred during a February collision with a freighter was apparently painted over, the Navy released an explanation.

“The exterior cosmetic damage to USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) sustained from the collision will get repaired during the ship’s upcoming Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH) at Newport News Shipbuilding as planned,” a Navy official said. “Immediately following the collision, while in Souda Bay, Greece, new bulkheads were installed inside each of the damaged spaces to establish weathertight integrity.”

The carrier is expected to begin RCOH in the next twelve months. We have reached out the Navy for a firmer date.

Truman was damaged during a collision with the cargo ship M/V Besiktas-M off the coast of Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea.

A photo taken at the time showed multiple large tears through a sponson on the starboard side of the stern end of the ship near one of the aircraft elevators. It was unknown at the time whether there was damage elsewhere. You can see the damage in the following photo taken at the time.

About a week after the collision, Truman was back at sea conducting routine operations after being in port in Greece for repairs. The Navy announced at the time that Truman waas conducting routine operations in the Mediterranean after leaving Greece’s Souda Bay following a so-called Emergent Repair Availability (ERAV). The carrier first arrived in Souda Bay for the ERAV, which was immediately preceded by a more comprehensive damage assessment, on Feb. 16.

The photo showing the painted-over damage was taken on Monday, during U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to the vessel in Norfolk, Virginia, to celebrate the Navy’s 250th birthday. Though the event was attended by thousands, the damage was partially hidden from view by a huge Navy banner.

It was not until the photo appeared on social media that questions were raised about the existing damage and why it hadn’t been repaired. We reached out to the Navy on Monday and finally received the aforementioned response.

“The U.S. Navy’s ability to rapidly repair its warships anywhere in the world is a testament to our lethality and the warfighting advantage of relationships with Allies and partners,” the Navy official added on Friday. “RCOH is a multi-year project, performed only once during a carrier’s 50-year life and includes refueling of the ship’s two nuclear reactors, as well as significant repair, upgrade and modernization work.”

We will continue to monitor the progress of repairs to the Truman and provide updates when available.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Russia’s atomic energy agency said a Ukrainian drone struck a cooling tower of the Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant (NNPP), located about 100 miles north of the border. While officials say there was no substantial damage to the plant, it was the fourth nuclear power facility in the region to have munitions land on or very close to it in the past two weeks.

Regardless of the level of damage incurred at NNPP, Russia is worried enough about drone strikes on its nuclear facilities that it is beefing up its defenses at a test site in the Arctic. You can read more about that later in this story.

The NNPP cooling tower was hit by a drone flying near the plant that was downed by electronic warfare, Russia’s Rosenergoatom claimed on Telegram. As a result, the agency said it hit the cooling tower of the No. 6 reactor and exploded upon impact. These structures are generally built to withstand light aircraft impacts.

“There is no destruction or casualties; however, a dark mark remained on the cooling tower from the consequences of the detonation,” Rosenergoatom stated. “The safety of the nuclear power plant operation is ensured, the radiation background at the industrial site of the Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant and the adjacent territory has not changed and corresponds to natural background levels. Law enforcement agencies are working at the scene.”

The reactor is working and producing the planned 1,139 MW electricity output, according to Rosenergoatom. Three other units are also still working, while a fourth is shut down for routine maintenance.

“As a result of a detailed inspection of the cooling tower attacked by the UAV, NNPP specialists found no damage affecting the load-bearing capacity of the structure and the operability of the cooling tower,” the agency added.

Ukrainian officials have yet to comment on this incident, which took place as Kyiv’s drones frequently attack the Voronezh region. Despite Ukraine’s ongoing campaign against energy facilities in Russia, it is quite likely that this strike was inadvertent. Kyiv has been attacking oil and gas plants, not nuclear ones, though Russia claims it downed a drone in August that caused a fire and temporarily reduced the electrical output at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant. However, we can’t tell for sure if either of these strikes was deliberate or not. Russia frequently blames damage from drone strikes on electronic warfare or air defense shootdowns, even if an intended target was hit.

It is also possible that the damage at NNPP was caused by Russian air defenses. These systems can fail, as you can see in the following video. Russia has also claimed that damage caused by failed air defenses was caused by enemy munitions in the past.

Regardless, as Ukraine develops newer long-range weapons with far larger warheads, even an accidental strike on one of these sites could have far greater consequences. You can read more about one of Ukraine’s newest long-range weapons in our story we published today here.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has yet to comment, but has expressed high concern about drones flying near the South (SNPP) and Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). 

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi issued warnings about ZNPP. That plant has been operating on backup diesel fuel generators since Sept. 23, after power lines were downed. Ukrainian officials claim Russia cut the lines on purpose, which Russia denies. ZNPP is inactive; however, pumps are needed to keep water cooling reactors so they don’t melt down. The power outage is the longest experienced by ZNPP during this conflict, Grossi stated.

Regardless of who cut the lines, munitions are dropping close to the plant, which Russia occupied in the early days of the war.

The IAEA team at ZNPP “today heard multiple rounds of incoming and outgoing shelling, adding to nuclear safety risks at a time when the plant has been without off-site power for nearly two weeks,” Grossi said in a statement on Monday. “The shelling occurred between [2:05 pm and 3:30 pm] local time, totalling about 15 rounds at near and middle distance from the site, the team reported. Some explosions triggered car alarms.”

Around the same time, “the ZNPP informed the IAEA team that two rounds of shelling struck around 1.25 km (about three-quarters of a mile) from the site perimeter, in the vicinity of a fire extinguisher charging station. No casualties were reported and there was no immediate information about any damage.”

“The nuclear safety and security situation is clearly not improving,” Grossi cautioned. “On the contrary, the risks are growing. The plant has now been without off-site power for almost two weeks, forcing it to rely on emergency diesel generators for the electricity it needs to cool its shutdown reactors and spent fuel. This is an extraordinarily challenging situation.”

The massive atomic energy plant in Zaporizhzhia has been a continuous cause for major concern since not long after the war broke out. In March 2022, there was global alarm after Russia shelled a building on the site of ZNPP that sparked a fire and global concerns about potential radiation leaks. The following video shows scenes from that incident.

Fortunately, the reactors were undamaged and no radiation was released.

On Sept. 25, a drone was downed and detonated about a half mile from SNPP in Ukraine, according to the IAEA. SNPP, still active, is located about 150 miles from the front lines in Ukraine’s south-central Mykolaiv region. 

While there was no effect on the plant operations and no casualties, Grossi described the incident as another “close call.”

“The team was informed by the plant that 22 unmanned aerial vehicles were observed late last night and early this morning within its monitoring zone, some coming as close as half a kilometer from the site,” IAEA reported. “South Ukraine is one of the country’s three operational nuclear power plants (NPPs), its three reactors currently generating electricity at full capacity.”

From their accommodation near the plant, IAEA team members heard gunfire and explosions around 1 am local time. When they visited the location where one of the drones landed, they observed a crater measuring four square meters (about 43 square feet) at the surface and with a depth of around one meter (about 3 feet).

Nearby metal structures had been hit by shrapnel and the windows of vehicles close to the impact area were shattered, the team reported. A 150 kilovolt (kV) regional power line was also damaged, the plant said, though it was not connected to SNPP.

“Once again, drones are flying far too close to nuclear power plants, putting nuclear safety at risk,” Grossi said at the time. “Fortunately, last night’s incident did not result in any damage to the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant itself. Next time we may not be so lucky. I continue to urge both sides to show maximum military restraint around all important nuclear facilities.”

Last month, the defunct Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant lost power for five days after what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed was a drone strike on a nearby energy substation stopped the flow of electricity to a containment structure. Russian officials again denied any involvement. Power was ultimately restored five days later. 

Earlier this year, the containment structures at Chernobyl, shuttered since the 1986 disaster, were damaged by a Russian drone in February. You can see video and images of that incident below. There have been concerns about attacks there since the all-out Russian invasion. Moscow’s forces captured CNPP on the first day of the war as they pushed through the Exclusion Zone surrounding the plant in their initial thrust.

While there was little damage caused at the NNPP, Russian officials are concerned enough about drone strikes, both from near and far, on their nuclear facilities to add new layers of protection. Satellite imagery published by the Barents Observer shows that the Russians have installed so-called metal cope cages on fuel tanks at the Novaya Zemlya nuclear test site, more than 1,500 miles north of Ukraine. In 1961, the world’s largest nuclear bomb, the so-called Tsar Bomba, was dropped over the site.

After the mess, the mop-up.

That’s one way to understand Taylor Swift’s new album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” on which music’s biggest star offers up a dozen precision-cut pop songs just 18 months removed from last year’s sprawling and emotionally unstable “The Tortured Poets Department.”

That earlier LP, which contained 16 tracks before Swift expanded it with 15 more, was perhaps the most divisive of the singer’s two-decade-long career; it racked up bonkers sales and streaming numbers, of course — at this point, she’s truly too big to fail — but its mixed reception among tastemakers and even some fans seemed to rattle Swift, who for all her alertness to the brutality of being a woman in the public eye has become accustomed to a certain level of idolatry.

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So here’s “Showgirl,” her 12th studio LP, for which she stepped away from her longtime creative partner Jack Antonoff to reteam with Max Martin and Shellback, the two hit-making Swedish producer-songwriters who helped her transition cleanly from country to pop in the mid-2010s with blockbuster albums like “Red” and “1989.” Swift has said she made the new album while roaming around Europe in the summer of 2024 on her record-obliterating Eras tour, which explains the title even as it begs all sorts of questions about her psychotic work ethic.

And let’s be clear: These three can craft a hook as neatly and as skillfully — as deviously, really — as anyone in the business. In contrast with the bleary “Tortured Poets,” which yielded only one pop-radio monster in the Hot 100-topping “Fortnight,” “Showgirl” is likely to spin off several, not least the album’s lead single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” which rides an irresistible new wave groove that evokes the veteran hookmeisters of Eurythmics. (Look ’em up, kids.)

As a piece of psychological portraiture, though — the framework, for better or for worse, by which Swift has trained us to interpret her music — this collection of expertly tailored bops falls well short of its predecessor; “Showgirl” feels like a retreat from the vivid bloodletting of “Tortured Poets,” which captured a woman whose one-of-one success had emboldened her to speak certain toxic truths.

Is that because she’s ended up in a healthy romantic relationship with Travis Kelce, the NFL star whom she’s engaged to marry? One hates to indulge hoary ideas about happiness being bad for songwriters. Yet there’s no denying that Swift’s lyrics about love here lack the kind of depth she’s mined in tunes thought to have been inspired by the dastardly likes of John Mayer and Matty Healy.

“Please, God, bring me a best friend who I think is hot,” she sings, somehow, in the electro-trappy “Wish List,” which recounts all the hoping and dreaming she did before she finally met Mr. Right; “Wood,” a kind of kiddie-disco number that sounds like Martin was aiming it for the “Trolls” movie franchise, exults in the erotic thrill of a guy brandishing “new heights of manhood.” (In case you missed it, I’m sorry to say that’s a reference to Kelce’s podcast, on which Swift recently appeared and dropped a bar about her fiancé — “He may not have read ‘Hamlet,’ but I explained it to him” — that she really should have saved for “The Fate of Ophelia.”)

Elsewhere, she makes familiar complaints about the punishing experience of celebrity, as in “Elizabeth Taylor” — “Oftentimes, it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me” — and “Cancelled!,” which feels like a goth-Nirvana redo of “Look What You Made Me Do,” from 2017’s genuinely startling “Reputation.”

And then there’s the acidic “Actually Romantic,” which seems to be a response to Charli XCX’s “Sympathy Is a Knife,” in which Charli expressed her anxieties about being compared to Taylor in a zero-sum pop scene; Swift gets off some funny lines about chihuahuas and cocaine but totally forgoes the sense of empathy that made her such an icon to every pop songwriter who’s come up behind her.

What’s good on “Showgirl”? “Opalite” is a gorgeous soft-rock tune about overcoming old instincts — “I had a bad habit of missing lovers past / My brother used to call it ‘eating out of the trash’” — while “Ruin the Friendship” looks back at a shoulda-woulda high-school dalliance with the pin-prick precision that Swift has always mustered when writing about her adolescence. Both songs ride coolly laidback Fleetwood Mac-style grooves that feel new for Martin and Shellback, who throughout the album rely more than you’d expect on live instrumentation. (Hang with “Wish List,” if you can, for a killer bass line that shows up in the second verse.)

Swift sings more than once about legacy and inheritance on this album: “Father Figure,” which interpolates George Michael’s late-’80s classic of the same name, is narrated by a mentor who’s betrayed by his protégé; the Broadway-ish title track, which closes the album with a feature from Sabrina Carpenter, tracks the aspirations of a showbiz hopeful from fresh-faced naivete to all-knowing cynicism.

Maybe those songs are Swift’s way of telling us that she knows “The Life of a Showgirl” isn’t as sharp as it could’ve been. We’ll see if it’s as tidy as it needed to be.

THE highstreet discount store is asking shoppers to stop using Harry Potter mugs immediately as they contain ‘unsafe metals’.

TKMaxx is recalling Harry Potter and South Park mugs, because they do not meet the safety standards required for materials that come into contact with food or drink.

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The Harry Potter mug from Blue Sky Designs Limited allowed fans to “create their own Hogwarts” by customising the mug with 13 reusable stickers.

The other mug features characters from hit American cartoon South Park.

People who bought the items with product codes 013167 and 596096 should return the items to any TK Maxx or Homesense store.

The recall on both mugs was triggered when testing revealed that the coating may release levels of heavy metals that exceed safe limits, potentially posing a health risk if used to consume food or drinks.

Heavy metals include arsenic, mercury and lead as well as lesser known ones such as cadmium – but it is unclear what metals the warning includes.

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Therefore TKMaxx is urging anyone who bought either the Harry Potter or South Park mug, sold between May and September 2025 to “stop using it immediately”.

A TK Maxx spokesperson said: “The vendor is recalling these products because they do not meet safety standards for materials intended to come into contact with food.”

“Testing has shown that the coating may release levels of heavy metals that exceed safe limits, which could pose a potential health risk if used with food or beverages.”

Possible side effects of consuming unsafe metals include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, confusion, and organ damage to the brain, kidneys, and liver.

Chronic exposure, if left untreated can result in serious long-term issues, including anemia, miscarriage, developmental problems in children, and brain damage.

Shoppers are to return the items to any TK Maxx or Homesense store for a full refund or replacement.

Anyone with further questions can call 01923 473561 or email [email protected]. 

This comes only days after the company urgently recalled a kids’ swimming item that “could pose a risk of drowning.”

From April to August, the retailer had sold a range of Children’s Swim Vests that they’ve now said could pose a safety hazard.

TK Maxx says the affected product codes on price ticket and receipt include 819852, 819854, 819856, 819864, 819866, 819868, 819870, 819884, 819886, 819888, 819904, 819906, 819908, 819910, 819911, 819912, 819914.

Sept. 30 (UPI) — President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke before a gathering of top military brass in Quantico, Va., brought in from around the world Tuesday.

Trump, after lamenting that the room was so quiet when he walked in, told the meeting of top military leaders, “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future, but you just feel nice and loose, OK?”

Hegseth told the military officers that they had gone soft and that reforms would overhaul the Department of Defense inspector general and equal opportunity programs.

“I call it the ‘no more walking on eggshells’ policy,” he said. “We are liberating commanders and NCOs. We are liberating you.”

“We are overhauling an inspector general process — the IG that has been weaponized,” he said. “We’re doing the same with the equal opportunity and military equal opportunity policies. No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complaints, no more smearing reputations. No more endless waiting, no more legal limbo. No more side-tracking careers, no more walking on eggshells.”

Hegseth told them to quit, if they disagreed. “If the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, you should do the honorable thing and resign.”

Trump said his administration plans to make more announcements soon to “fully embrace the identity of the Department of War.”

“I love the name. I think it’s so great. I think it stops wars,” Trump said. “The Department of War is going to stop wars.”

Trump also characterized his sending troops to U.S. cities as a war at home.

“This is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room,” Trump said. “That’s a war, too. It’s a war from within. Controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security. We can’t let these people in.”

He brought up nuclear power and said he sent a nuclear submarine to Russia earlier this year.

“We were a little bit threatened by Russia recently, and I sent a submarine, nuclear submarine, the most lethal weapon ever made,” Trump said. “Number one, you can’t detect it. There’s no way. We’re 25 years ahead of Russia and China in submarines.”

Modern nuclear submarines are difficult to detect, but are not undetectable.

“Frankly, if it does get to use, we have more than anybody else,” Trump said. “We have better, we have newer, but it’s something we don’t ever want to even have to think about.”

He called the word “nuclear” the second “n-word.” “I call it the n-word. There are two n-words, and you can’t use either of them.”

He reiterated his call for making Canada a 51st state. He said Canada called him and said it wanted to be part of Trump’s plans for a “Golden Dome” missile defense shield.

“They want to be part of it, to which I said, ‘Why don’t you just join our country? You become 51, become the 51st state, and you get it for free,” he said. “So I don’t know if that made a big impact, but it does make a lot of sense … because they’re having a hard time up there in Canada now, because, as you know, with tariffs, everyone’s coming into our country.”

He also talked again about former President Joe Biden‘s autopen use, though he has used an autopen himself.

THE majority of home insurance policies do not include cover for accidental damage such as spills or smashed windows, analysis reveals.

When households take out buildings or contents insurance, many assume that they are also covered for accidental damage.

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This is protection against certain mishaps, including spilling drinks or paint on the carpet or accidentally smashing a window with a ball.

But analysis by consumer group Which? of 78 home insurance policies from 35 providers revealed this is not the case.

It found that only 28% of buildings insurance policies and 27% of contents policies included accidental damage cover as standard.

But seven in ten policies offered this cover as an optional extra or provided basic cover, such as for windows or bathroom fixtures, that you can upgrade.

The remainder of insurers don’t offer it at all.

But 31% of consumers who had bought insurance thought their policy would cover them for anything that was not their fault, according to a recent Which? survey of 4,000 people.

A similar proportion believed that if they had cover for possessions, they are protected against any event that involved those possessions – including accidental damage.

But accidental damage is one of the most common reasons that people make a home insurance claim.

This means hundreds of thousands of people could be caught out each year.

In a separate Which? survey of 2,804 people who had tried to make a claim on their policy in the last two years, accidental damage made up around a fifth of cases.

Which? said lack of clarity when people take out insurance is leading to poor outcomes for customers.

Its previous research had found customers do not understand what is included and excluded, and can’t tell the difference between products.

The findings come after Which? launched a super-complaint to industry regulator the Financial Conduct Authority.

In the complaint Which? outlined its concerns about “serious failings” in the home and travel insurance markets.

The consumer group is now calling for a fundamental reset in how insurance companies treat their customers.

What does accidental damage cover?

Home insurance is primarily designed to cover you for significant losses from events such as fire, storms and floods.

Meanwhile, accidental damage is an add-on that can provide you with further protection.

But the definition of what is covered will vary between providers, which is why it’s important to check your policy.

Sam Richardson, deputy editor of Which? Money, said: “When it comes to making a claim on your insurance, it’s sadly all too common to get caught out by the small print.”

Most policies that offer accidental damage cover include issues caused by broken glass and underground pipes.

But in many cases the cover won’t include damage caused by cleaning or by lodgers. 

Meanwhile, the insurance doesn’t include damage due to a lack of upkeep or damage caused by pets.

A spokesperson for the Association of British Insurers said: “Always check your policy details or speak to your insurer to make sure you have the right level of protection for your needs.”

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing [email protected].

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

Across the nation’s beloved national parks this summer, skeleton crews — whittled down by the Trump administration’s reduction of the federal workforce — have struggled to keep trash from piling up, latrines from spilling over and injured hikers from perishing in the backcountry.

They’ve mostly succeeded, but it has been a struggle.

Now, as bickering politicians in Washington, D.C., threaten to shut the government down and furlough federal employees as soon as next week if a budget deal isn’t reached, 40 former stewards of the nation’s most remote and romantic landscapes have sent an “urgent appeal” to the White House.

If the government shuts down, close the national parks to prevent a free-for-all inside the gates.

Pointing to the strain the parks are already enduring since the new administration fired or bought out roughly 24% of the workforce, the retired superintendents — including those from Yosemite, Joshua Tree, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon — warned of chaos.

If the parks stay open with no employees to manage them, “these nascent issues from the summer season are sure to erupt,” the former superintendents wrote to Doug Burgum, secretary of the Department of the Interior, on Thursday. “Leaving parks even partially open to the public during a shutdown with minimal — or no — park staffing is reckless and puts both visitors and park resources at risk.”

Unlike many federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, whose once obscure and mundane day-to-day operations have become flash points in the nation’s toxic and polarizing culture war, the national parks remain a beloved refuge: a place where Americans of all stripes can unplug, exhale and escape.

In 2024 the parks set an attendance record with over 331 million visitors; that’s nearly two and a half times the number of people (136 million) who attended professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey games combined.

It’s not hard to understand the appeal. Exhausted by the bickering on cable news and social media feeds? Go climb Half Dome in Yosemite, or stroll among the giant trees in Sequoia, or camp beneath the stars in Joshua Tree.

But if the parks stay open with nobody around to maintain them, that cleansing experience will turn nasty the moment a bathroom door opens, according to the retired superintendents.

In previous shutdowns stemming from budget disputes or the COVID-19 pandemic, facilities inside the parks deteriorated at an alarming rate.

Unauthorized visitors left human feces in rivers, painted graffiti on once pristine cliffs, harassed wild animals and left the toilets looking like “crime scenes,” according to a ranger who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

“It’s just scary how bad things can get when places are abandoned with nobody watching,” she said.

In an interview Thursday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said a government shutdown was still “avoidable” despite sharp divisions ahead of Wednesday’s deadline to pass a funding bill.

“I’m a big believer that there’s always a way out,” the South Dakota Republican said. “And I think there are off-ramps here, but I don’t think that the negotiating position, at least at the moment, that the Democrats are trying to exert here is going to get you there.”

Thune said Democrats are going to have to “dial back” their demands, which include immediately extending health insurance subsidies and reversing the healthcare policies in the massive tax bill that Republicans passed over the summer. Absent that, Thune said, “we’re probably plunging forward toward the shutdown.”

After a shutdown in late 2018 and early 2019, park rangers in Death Valley returned to find mounds of feces and what they jokingly called “toilet paper flowers” scattered across the desert floor.

At Joshua Tree, officials found about 24 miles of unauthorized new trails carved across the desert by off-road vehicles, along with some of the park’s namesake trees toppled.

In the absence of park staff, local climbers volunteered to keep the bathrooms clean and stocked with toilet paper, and gently tried to persuade rowdy visitors to put out illegal fires and pick up their trash.

Some complied right away, climber Rand Abbott told The Times in 2019, but “70% of the people I’m running into are extremely rude,” he said. “I had my life threatened two times. It’s crazy in there right now.”

People weren’t the only unruly guests moving in and making themselves at home.

At Point Reyes National Seashore, along the Marin County coast, officials had to close the road to popular Drakes Beach during the shutdown. The absence of humans created an ideal opportunity for about 100 elephant seals to set up a colony, taking over the beach, a parking lot and a visitor center.

The seals didn’t just poop everywhere, they threw a full-scale bacchanal. As far as the eye could see, enormous, blubbery beasts — males can reach 16 feet long and weigh up to 7,000 pounds — were rolling in the sand and mating in broad daylight.

Females, which can weigh up to a ton themselves, wound up giving birth to something like 40 new pups. When the park reopened, flustered officials had little recourse but to open a public viewing area at a safe distance and send employees — primly referred to as “docents” — to explain what was happening on the once serene seashore.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.