killed

Several others were injured in the attack on a building sheltering displaced people as Israel continues to violate the ‘ceasefire’.

At least four Palestinians have been killed, and several others injured, after an Israeli air attack targeted a residential building sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, a further violation of an October “ceasefire”.

Emergency teams were seen rushing to transport injured people to nearby hospitals after Monday’s attack in the Nassr neighbourhood.

Last week, Gaza’s Government Media Office reported that Israel had violated the “ceasefire” 1,520 times since it came into effect on October 10. The Ministry of Health in Gaza said 581 people have been killed and 1,553 wounded since then.

Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim Al Khalili, reporting from Gaza City, said the residential building was being used as a shelter for displaced Palestinians after it was struck and damaged during Israel’s genocidal war.

“People have been forced to shelter in this partially damaged residential building due to the lack and scarcity of shelter due to the destruction of most of Gaza’s residential buildings,” he said.

Al Khalili said this latest violation of the ceasefire agreement by Israel has raised significant concerns in the territory.

“This attack has spread panic and left people wondering what might come next in the light of this deadly escalation carried out by the Israeli military.”

Elsewhere on Monday, Israeli forces shot dead Palestinian farmer Khaled Baraka in an area to the east of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, according to local sources who spoke with the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

In a separate incident, Israel’s military said it had killed four fighters who emerged from a tunnel in southern Gaza and attacked its troops.

Hamas military spokesman Abu Obeida later described the incident as “heroic resistance”.

Hamas said in late November that dozens of its fighters were holed up in southern Gaza’s tunnels, beneath areas controlled by the Israeli military.

This was a sticking point in the early days of the ceasefire, with Israel insisting the fighters posed a security threat, while Hamas sought safe passage for them.

Since then, many of the fighters have been killed in clashes with Israeli troops during operations targeting tunnels near Rafah, according to the military.

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said that the steadfastness of Palestinians in Gaza despite genocide, shows ‘the failure of Israel’. Barghouti is at the Al Jazeera Forum, an event focusing on geopolitical shifts in the Middle East.

A suicide bomb attack during Friday prayers at a Shia mosque in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad has killed dozens of people and injured at least 170 others.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Rescue teams reach the site after blast reported at a mosque in Tarlai Kalan during Friday prayers.

At least 15 people have been killed and more than 80 wounded after a blast at a Shia mosque in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, local officials say.

The explosion occurred at Khadija Tul Kubra mosque, in southeastern Islamabad’s Tarlai Kalan area, during Friday prayers.

Rescue teams have reached the site of the explosion.

At least 15 of those injured were taken to hospitals with some of them in critical condition, rescue official Mohamed Amir said, according to dpa news agency.

Islamabad police spokesperson Taqi Jawad said the cause of the blast has yet to be determined, local news outlet Dawn reported.

In November last year, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of the Islamabad District Judicial Complex, killing at least 12 people and wounding dozens.

Al Jazeera’s Abid Hussain contributed to this report.

Leonardo is the latest in a series of half a dozen storms to batter the Iberian Peninsula this year.

A man has lost his life in Portugal after floodwaters engulfed his car, and in Spain, a girl has been reported missing after being swept away by a river as Storm Leonardo has battered the Iberian Peninsula with torrential rain and gale-force winds.

Leonardo is the latest in a wave of half a dozen storms to sweep across Portugal and Spain this year, causing several fatalities, destroying infrastructure and leaving thousands of homes without power.

Portuguese authorities confirmed on Wednesday that a 70-year-old man died in the southern region of Alentejo after floodwaters swept his vehicle off a road near a dam.

In southern Spain’s Malaga province, a girl remains missing after she was dragged away by the Turvilla River in Sayalonga while trying to rescue her dog. The animal reportedly managed to reach safety, and emergency teams resumed the search for the girl at first light on Thursday, according to local and national news reports.

“We spent the whole afternoon and night yesterday searching in the river from the place where the girl fell in until the very end of the river. We found the dog, but not her,” Malaga fire chief Manuel Marmolejo said on Spanish television on Thursday.

Spain’s State Meteorological Agency has warned that Storm Marta, the next front in the ongoing “storm train”, is expected to reach the region this weekend.

Portuguese Economy Minister Manuel Castro Almeida stated that reconstruction efforts after Storm Kristin alone may exceed 4 billion euros ($4.7bn).

In Alcacer do Sal in southern Portugal, residents were forced to wade through waist-deep water after the Sado River breached its banks following a series of storms. Restaurant terraces were submerged, and shopkeepers and homeowners used stacked sandbags in an attempt to protect their properties from the rising floodwaters.

“I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s surreal,” resident Maria Cadacha told the Reuters news agency. “There are a lot of people here, very good people, many shopkeepers, homes with damage. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.”

Andalusia’s emergency services reported attending to more than a million incidents by midnight on Wednesday.

Antonio Sanz, head of the regional government’s interior department, confirmed that 14 rivers and 10 dams were at “extreme” risk of overflowing due to the severe conditions.

In Portugal, the National Civil Protection authority registered at least 70 incidents by early Thursday as the region continued to monitor the impact of the storm.

Kremlin spokesperson says Russian forces would continue fighting until Kyiv makes necessary ‘decisions’ to end the war.

The number of Ukrainian soldiers killed on the battlefield as a result of the country’s war with Russia is estimated to be 55,000, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, adding that a “large number” were also missing.

President Zelenskyy’s remarks on Wednesday came in the run-up to the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and amid crucial ceasefire talks in Abu Dhabi, where negotiators are trying to end Europe’s largest conflict since World War II.

“In Ukraine, officially the number of soldiers killed on the battlefield – either professionals or those conscripted – is 55,000,” said Zelenskyy, in a prerecorded interview with France 2 TV.

Zelenskyy, whose comments were translated into French, added that on top of that casualty figure was a “large number of people” considered officially missing.

The Ukrainian leader did not give an exact figure for those who are still missing.

Zelenskyy had previously cited a figure for Ukrainian war dead in an interview with the United States television network NBC in February 2025, saying that more than 46,000 Ukrainian service members had been killed on the battlefield.

In the middle of 2025, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, estimated that close to 400,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded since the war began.

Last month, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported that Russian attacks had killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in Ukraine in 2025, almost a third higher than the number of casualties in 2024.

Russia has also incurred heavy losses in the ongoing war.

In January, Ukraine’s military commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, was quoted as saying that in 2025 alone, almost 420,000 Russian soldiers were killed and wounded while fighting against Ukrainian forces.

An October 2025 estimate by British defence intelligence put the overall number of Russian soldiers killed or wounded in the war at 1.1 million.

Both Ukraine and Russia rarely disclose their own casualty figures in the war, though they actively report enemy losses on the battlefield.

Analysts say both Kyiv and Moscow are likely underreporting their own deaths while inflating those of the other side.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russia would keep fighting until Kyiv made the “decisions” that could bring the war to an end, while in Abu Dhabi, Ukrainian and Russian officials wrapped up a “productive” first day of new US-brokered talks, Kyiv’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov said.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has been pushing both Kyiv and Moscow to find a compromise to end the fighting, although the two sides remain far apart on key points despite several rounds of talks.

The most sensitive issues are Moscow’s demands that Kyiv give up land it still controls and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which now sits in a Russian-occupied area of Ukraine.

Moscow has demanded that Kyiv pull its troops out of all the Donbas region, including heavily fortified cities regarded as one of Ukraine’s strongest defences against Russian aggression, as a condition for any deal to end the fighting.

Ukraine said the conflict should be frozen along current front lines and rejects any unilateral pullback of its forces from territory it still controls.

Russian forces occupy about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 invasion.

A father driving his daughter and two other families from the Santa Clarita Flyers hockey club to a tournament in Colorado was killed last week in a horrific crash in treacherous weather.

Three days later the Flyers won the Western Girls Hockey League 12U title with a 1-0 victory in overtime Sunday, their fifth win of the tournament.

The players met for two hours the night of the accident and decided they would participate rather than pull out and head home.

“We knew that the families in the crash would want us to play and decided not just to do it for ourselves, but do it for them mostly,” Flyers captain Sophia Boyle told Denver 9News. “We are more than a team. It’s like we are a giant family.

“We knew what we wanted, we tried our hardest and we got it.”

The driver of a Colorado Department of Transportation plow truck traveling on snow-covered and wet roads Thursday morning lost control on Interstate 70, drove through the median and hit the Flyers’ Ford Transit van head-on, according to the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office.

The van was knocked down an icy embankment before coming to rest, and the driver, Manuel Lorenzana of Chatsworth, was pronounced dead at the scene. Four children were treated for minor injuries at a local hospital; a fifth was flown to a trauma center with critical injuries. Three adults were admitted to the hospital, one in serious condition.

Lorenzana, 38, a noted tattoo artist and lifelong San Fernando Valley resident, was remembered as “a hero and the epitome of what an amazing man, father, partner and friend should be,” his family wrote on a GoFundMe page.

“He was the most thoughtful, loving and supportive man to his soulmate April, and the most caring, involved, fun, kind and loving parent, and best friend, to his daughter Brody.”

Brody was released from the hospital and joined her teammates Saturday. After opening the double-elimination tournament with two victories Friday and a loss in their first game Saturday, the Flyers advanced with a 14-0 win.

Santa Clarita Valley residents gathered at the Flyers’ home rink, the Cube Ice and Entertainment Center, to watch a stream of the game that unfortunately malfunctioned. Still, the crowd stayed, with several people refreshing the league’s website to keep up with the game and shouting when the Flyers scored.

Two victories Sunday — both shutouts — gave the Flyers the title. Moments before the championship game, the Flyers raised their sticks in a silent nod to Manny Lorenzana. Khaleesi Bewer scored the winning goal in overtime, and afterward the Flyers sang Katy Perry’s “California Gurls. ”

“It’s unbelievable how much people have rallied behind these girls,” said Prescott Littlefield, president of the Flyers organization. “If there is a silver lining to this, the amount of support they’ve gotten is beyond my ability to comprehend. The families are so grateful.”

Feb. 1 (UPI) — One police officer was killed and another wounded in a shooting Sunday at a suburban Atlanta hotel, according to authorities, who said the gunman has been arrested.

The shooting occurred Sunday morning in Stone Mountain, located northeast of Atlanta, the Gwinnett County Police Department said in a statement.

Two officers with the Gwinnett County Police Department were responding to a fraud call at the Holiday Inn Express on 1790 E. Park Place Boulevard shortly before 8 a.m. EST. After the officers made contact, the subject opened fire, striking both Gwinnett County officers.

The suspect, who has since been identified as 35-year-old Kevin Andrews of Decatur, Ga., was struck by return fire, sustaining non-life-threatening injuries.

Officer Pradeep Tamang died from injuries sustained in the shooting, the Gwinnett County Police Department said, adding that the other officer, David M. Reed, underwent surgery at a hospital where he remains in critical but stable condition.

“Our hearts are with the families of Officer Pradeep Tamang and with MPO David Reed, their loved ones and the entire Gwinnett County Police Department during this incredibly difficult time,” Nicole Love Hendrickson, chair of the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners, said in a statement.

“We are deeply grateful for their continued dedication, and we stand united with our officers, their families and all of you as we navigate this challenging time together.”

Tamang joined the Gwinnett County Police Department in July 2024. Reed, a master police officer, has been with the force since September 2015.

Andrews, the suspect, will be transported to Gwinnett County Jail once he is released from the hospital, authorities said.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the shooting, said in a statement that the officers were called to the hotel in response to a South Carolina individual stating their credit card had been fraudulently used there.

The hotel desk manager advised Tamang and Reed that the room in question was being rented to Andrews, whom they spoke to about the alleged fraudulent use of the credit card.

After learning Andrews had an active warrant for failure to appear in DeKalb County, Tamang and Reed attempted to arrest the man, who allegedly pulled out a handgun and fired on the officers.

Andrews has been charged with one count each of malice murder, felony murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and two counts of aggravated assault upon a public safety officer.

“Today, we join @GwinnettPD in mourning the loss of a brave officer and are praying for the swift recovery of another,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said in a statement on X.

“This is the latest reminder of the dangers law enforcement face on a daily basis, and we are grateful for every one that puts themselves in harm’s way to protect their fellow Georgians.”

Israel has killed more than 500 Palestinians since agreeing to end its genocidal war under a US-brokered ‘ceasefire’, which has been a truce in name only. Here are some of their stories.

Two people are reported killed in a drone strike at Maghazi camp in central Gaza while three others die in Rafah.

Israeli shelling and drone strikes across Gaza have killed at least five people and injured 11 others, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials.

The deadly strikes on Friday in central Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp and the southern city of Rafah came as Israel carried out continued targeted operations in the besieged territory, despite the ongoing ceasefire.

Two Palestinian men were killed in Maghazi after they were targeted in a drone strike, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

In Rafah, Israeli forces said in a statement that the air force had killed three “terrorists” as a group of eight had emerged from an underground location.

They said that further strikes were launched and that “soldiers continue to conduct searches in the area in order to locate and eliminate” the remaining people

Also in Rafah, Israeli naval gunboats pursued fishing boats and opened heavy machinegun fire on fishermen off the coast, according to Wafa. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Rafah is the location of a strategic border crossing to Egypt. It is the only passage between the Gaza Strip and the outside world that does not lead to Israel, and is a vital conduit for humanitarian aid.

Palestinian authorities have demanded the immediate reopening of the Rafah crossing, a stipulation of the second phase of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, saying the continued blockade has prevented the entry of necessary supplies for the tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in the area.

Elsewhere in southern Gaza, six Palestinians were injured after Israeli forces shelled a tent sheltering displaced people in the al-Mawasi area, just west of Khan Younis, sources from al-Helal field hospital and Nasser Hospital told Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Hani al-Shaer.

Anadolu news agency reported that a pregnant woman was among those injured in the attack.

Israeli strikes and operations have killed at least 492 Palestinians and injured 1,356 since the ceasefire came into force in October, according to Palestinian authorities in Gaza.

The US-brokered ceasefire, which sought to halt the fighting between Israel and Hamas since October 7, 2023, has been in place for more than three months. Both sides accuse each other of repeated violations.

Earlier in January, Washington announced that the ceasefire had progressed to its second phase, intended to bring a definitive end to the war. However, signs of progress on the ground remain scant.

On Thursday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed the need to fully implement the ceasefire agreement, including the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip.

However, the Israeli military has said its forces “remain deployed in accordance with the ceasefire agreement and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat”.

After an enormous storm dumped 3 feet of snow on Mammoth Mountain, rookie ski patroller Claire Murphy and a partner scrambled to help make the resort safe for guests ahead of a very busy — and very lucrative — Presidents Day weekend.

In howling wind and blowing snow, the patrollers labored to clear enormous piles of fresh, unstable powder from a steep, experts-only run, one of a group appropriately named the “Avalanche Chutes.”

Ski patrollers use hand-held explosives, and their own skis, to deliberately trigger small slides in the chutes before the resort opens, to prevent an avalanche from crashing down later in the day on thousands of paying customers gliding happily — and obliviously — along the much gentler slopes below.

Mammoth Mountain ski patrol members Claire Murphy, left, and Cole Murphy (no relation) both died while doing avalanche mitigation on the mountain.

(Courtesy of Lisa Apa; Tracy Murphy)

But something went horribly wrong that day. Instead of remaining safely above the sliding snow, Murphy and her partner got caught in it. He was buried up to his neck but survived. She was trapped beneath the collapsing wall of white and got crushed to death against a towering fir tree. She was 25 years old.

The avalanche that killed the young patroller on Feb. 14, 2025, stunned Mammoth’s tight-knit ski community. Her friends and colleagues were consumed with grief, but most regarded it as a freak accident, something that hadn’t happened before and was unlikely to be repeated.

But then, less than a year later, it happened again.

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In late December — after a “Christmas miracle” storm dumped more than 5 feet of snow on the previously parched resort — 30-year-old ski patroller Cole Murphy (no relation to Claire) and his partner were hurrying to clear the same chutes before the busiest week of the year.

They, too, were caught in a deliberately triggered slide. Cole’s partner suffered a serious leg injury, but he survived.

Signs on top of Lincoln Mountain at Mammoth advise skiers that the runs are for experts only.

Cole was swept away and carried hundreds of feet down the mountain, where he suffocated beneath more than a meter of avalanche debris, according to two sources. Both were involved in the effort to save Cole, but asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

With the sudden deaths of two young patrollers in such a short span, and in such distressingly similar circumstances — Claire and Cole came to rest within a few hundred yards of each other — questions began to swirl.

Were the resort’s managers pushing too hard to open the mountain after major storms? Had training standards slipped, pushing relatively inexperienced ski patrollers into dangerous situations? Are young ski patrollers afraid to speak up, even when they think they’ve been asked to take unreasonable risks?

Lisa Apa, Claire Murphy’s mother, said she begged mountain officials to take a hard look at their training and safety procedures after her daughter’s death — to figure out what went wrong and make sure it never happened again.

They blew her off, she said.

A small memorial remains at a tree, where an avalanche claimed the life of ski patrol member Claire Murphy.

When she heard about the second death, Apa said she immediately fired off a text to a senior ski patrol manager at Mammoth: “You killed another ski patroller … you’ve learned nothing!”

She told a Times reporter last week, “Claire would be f—ing furious if she knew this happened a second time.”

Mammoth Mountain officials have remained measured in their public response.

In a statement emailed to The Times, Mammoth Mountain President and Chief Operating Officer Eric Clark wrote that, after Claire Murphy’s death, the ski patrol had been empowered to “pursue a slower, phased opening of the mountain on storm days.”

After Cole Murphy’s death 10 months later, Clark wrote that resort managers “immediately instituted” measures to “de-pressurize storm mornings,” giving ski patrol more time to work and more latitude to keep chair lifts closed until the mountain is deemed safe.

In a follow-up interview, Clark insisted the pressure on Mammoth’s managers to open quickly after big storms comes from customers desperate to ski fresh powder, not from corporate executives chasing profits.

Chair 22 takes skiers to the top of Lincoln Mountain at Mammoth, where two ski patrollers have been killed by avalanches in the last year.

“Maybe 10 years ago that was different,” Clark said. But after the most recent accident, the message from the resort’s owners — Alterra Mountain Co., a privately held, multibillion-dollar conglomerate that owns 19 resorts across the U.S. and Canada — was to use caution.

“Make sure you’re taking your time,” Clark said they told him.

Apa, who sobbed talking about her daughter, gasped when she heard that.

Of course senior executives offer reassuring words after a tragedy, she said. But as a former business journalist, who once anchored a show called “Street Smart” on Bloomberg TV, Apa said she spent her career around top corporate officers. Anyone who believes profit motive doesn’t drive such decisions is naive, she said.

“Maybe you’re not getting a phone call, or an email, from the CEO saying, ‘get this mountain open today!’” she said. But any manager who develops a reputation as someone who’s afraid to open after a storm, on the busiest day of the year, “won’t be around very long,” she said.

No doubt, many skiers are desperate to hit the slopes after a storm brings fresh powder.

The sensation of floating down the hill with almost no resistance is dreamlike and addictive. No other conditions compare.

That’s why social media is full of influencers bragging about their epic “pow days,” and why hordes of paying customers start champing at the bit when the mountain is covered in a fresh blanket of white, but the ski patrol won’t let them at it.

A former Mammoth ski patroller recalled years of riding lifts with eager customers complaining that the steepest runs with the deepest powder were still closed for avalanche control.

Mammoth Mountain‘s summit is more than 11,000 feet high and averages nearly 400 inches of annual snowfall.

“I’d point to all of the mountains around Mammoth,” he said. There are dozens of beautiful, towering summits in the surrounding eastern Sierra with absolutely no rules and nobody to stop an adventurous soul from climbing up and skiing down.

But there are no chairlifts, so getting up those mountains is a physically exhausting test of will. And there’s no avalanche control, so you’re on your own when it comes to determining which slopes are safe, which are death traps.

“If you’re such an expert, why aren’t you over there,” the ski patroller said he’d ask, usually ending the conversation.

Within the boundaries of commercial ski resorts, avalanche control takes many forms.

At Mammoth, the steepest slopes near the 11,000-foot-high summit are controlled with a howitzer — an actual cannon. When the resort is closed, crews fire explosive shells across a valley up into the highest, heaviest and most threatening piles of fresh snow. Their aim has to be excellent, since stray shrapnel can do serious damage to ski lifts. But it’s a remarkably efficient way to get enormous quantities of snow sliding down the mountain without putting anyone at risk.

The ski patrol office at the top of Lincoln Mountain.

Another option is called a “Boom Whoosh,” which looks like an industrial chimney and is installed just above spots where dangerous piles of snow frequently accumulate. It works by remote control, igniting a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen — like lighting a gigantic camping stove — to create a shock wave that triggers an avalanche. Mammoth has one at the moment, near the summit above a run called Climax, and officials are hoping to install more.

Then there’s the old-fashioned technique: sending ski patrollers into the steepest, most technical terrain with backpacks full of explosives.

That’s what happens in the Avalanche Chutes — known locally as “the avis” — a handful of natural rock and snow slide paths carved by thousands of years of erosion into the side of a 10,000-foot sub-peak called Lincoln Mountain. Patrollers start early in the morning after a storm and ride a snowcat — like a school bus on tank treads — to a plateau just above the chutes.

Big red signs with black diamonds are everywhere on Lincoln Mountain, indicating its trails are for experts only. The chutes are the steepest trails of all, marked on maps with two black diamonds, the highest rating possible. Casual skiers go weak in the knees at the thought of making a wrong turn onto a vertigo-inducing “double-black.”

After hopping out of the snowcat, patrollers divide into pairs and work their way toward the chutes. Sometimes the wind is so strong it scours nearby boulders free of snow, so they have to take off their skis and climb over the bare rocks in their awkward, plastic boots to get to the edge.

Once in place, one of the patrollers tosses a hand-held explosive — it looks like a cartoon stick of dynamite — down the hill. The patrollers cover their ears, wait for the boom, and hope the explosion has loosened the big stuff and sent it sliding.

Then they ski down in carefully choreographed zigzags, sometimes hopping up as they go, to dislodge any remaining loose slabs beneath their feet.

A view of the Avalanche Chutes at Mammoth, where two ski patrollers have died in the last year.

The key to “ski cutting,” as it’s called, is to make sure your partner is anchored in a secure spot, usually off to the edge of the chute and out of the way of a potential slide, before you start moving.

In normal conditions, it’s just another day at the office. But after a massive “atmospheric river” storm, the risks increase.

This season’s Christmas storm was a monster, and it arrived with the biggest crowds of the year.

To keep the customers happy, Mammoth executives opened the lower part of the mountain on Christmas Day, the portion least exposed to avalanche risk. But there was so much fresh snow, patrollers spent the day digging out people who had simply gotten stuck in huge drifts, even on the relatively flat terrain.

And then, in the early afternoon, Raymond Albert, a 71-year-old regular known to fellow skiers as “every day Ray,” was spotted in a pocket of deep, fresh snow beside a well-traveled run near the bottom of Lincoln Mountain.

He had somehow popped out of his skis, which were behind him, and pitched forward, ending up with his head in the snow and his feet in the air, according to a written report of the incident provided to his family.

Looking down one of the Avalanche Chutes at Mammoth Mountain.

It’s unclear how long he was in that position before bystanders dug him out. When ski patrollers arrived he had no pulse. With so much fresh snow on the ground, the patrollers struggled to find a firm enough surface to lay him on his back and perform CPR. They finally used a bystander’s legs as a makeshift platform, according to the report, but could not revive him.

In a normal week, Albert’s death would have been big news, but it received almost no public attention because early the next morning, Cole Murphy and his colleagues headed up Lincoln Mountain to clear the chutes.

It’s still not publicly known what caused the slide that buried Murphy and his partner, but according to two people involved in the effort to save Murphy’s life, witnesses said that an avalanche triggered by an explosive in a neighboring chute might have “propagated” horizontally to where Murphy and his partner were working — taking them by surprise.

Resort officials declined to answer detailed questions about either Claire or Cole Murphy’s deaths, saying their lawyers advised them not to offer specifics during ongoing investigations by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

As soon as Cole Murphy disappeared in that wall of white, the clock started ticking. More than 90% of avalanche victims survive if they can be freed within 15 minutes, according to the Utah Avalanche Center, but the odds drop “catastrophically” after that.

It took Cole’s desperate colleagues 18 minutes to locate him and dig him out, sources said. When they finally pulled him free, his skin was blue and he wasn’t breathing, the sources said.

He was airlifted to a hospital in Reno and pronounced dead days later.

Tracy Murphy, Cole’s mother, said her son loved Mammoth Lakes and the tight bonds he forged on that “little island” of outdoor enthusiasts, surrounded on all sides by hundreds of miles of mountains and desert.

After Claire’s accident, Tracy Murphy said her son was “shaken to the core.”

Cole’s roommate was the patroller in the chute with Claire that day, she said. Last month, the roommate was among the patrollers frantically trying to dig Cole free.

She’s waiting for OSHA’s report, but for now, Murphy said, “I believe that Mammoth would not have knowingly put any patroller in danger. I feel, in my heart, that this was just an extremely unlucky event.”

Her son had been on the job for a few years before his accident; Claire Murphy had been a ski patroller for only a couple of months before hers.

The wind was howling “like a jet engine” that day, according to accounts Apa received from ski patrollers who were there.

The witnesses told Apa that Claire’s partner triggered the fatal avalanche with his skis, and was quickly swallowed by it. But he survived, at least in part because he was about 6½ feet tall and his head remained above the debris.

It’s still a mystery why Claire was in the path of the slide, but the difficulty of hearing and seeing each other amid the wind and blowing snow probably played a part, Apa said.

Seconds after the slide began, it slammed Claire into the tree. When her colleagues dug her out, she was upright, with her back pinned against the trunk. She was facing uphill, Apa said, looking straight at the wall of snow bearing down on her.

Claire probably had no time to react, Apa said, pausing to steady herself before finishing the thought, but she hoped her daughter didn’t suffer. “It kills me to think of her trapped there, scared,” she said.

After hearing about the accident, Apa raced to Mammoth from the East Coast on a private jet provided by the mountain. She implored doctors to keep Claire’s heart beating until she arrived, she said. “I can’t come to a dead body, you have to keep her alive so I can hold her hand,” she begged.

Lisa Apa, left, with her daughter Claire Murphy.

(Lisa Apa)

Apa arrived in time to spend a few days in a Reno hospital with her unconscious daughter. She washed and braided her hair, read her letters from people wishing her well, and thought about what she wanted to say to the other young women on the ski patrol.

“Don’t get out of the snowcat if you’re scared,” she said she told them at Claire’s memorial service and in private conversations. “Go back down the mountain if you think what they’re doing is wrong. You have to say something, you have to.”

But that’s tough, Apa acknowledged, because there are only so many ski patrol jobs in the country, and most of those women had been dreaming about it since they were little girls.

Becoming persona non grata at either of the two big companies that dominate the U.S. ski industry — Alterra and Vail Resorts — could be a career killer, patrollers fear.

Apa said she is still haunted by the possibility that concern for their jobs prevents patrollers from pushing for safer working conditions, and that what happened to Claire and Cole will soon be forgotten.

On a cold, crisp day last week, beneath an almost impossibly peaceful cobalt sky, a reporter skied the Avalanche Chutes with a group of locals including a former patroller and a professional mountain guide who trains clients on avalanche safety.

There had been no significant fresh snow for weeks, so no one was worried about avalanches. Alone on the broad, steep face, the only sound came from the metal edges of skis biting into the hard surface.

The group pointed their skis toward a stand of tall fir trees hundreds of feet below. Some of them had been snapped in half by previous avalanches, one was still caked on its uphill side with thousands of pounds of snow.

And one, just below it, had a recent boot track around its base. A photographer trained his sharp eye on a faded strand of red cloth, light as gossamer, pinned to the trunk at eye level. Dried rose petals hung around it.

Claire’s tree. She hasn’t been forgotten.

Authorities in India say they’re investigating the cause of a plane crash that killed Ajit Pawar, the deputy chief minister of India’s Maharashtra state, and four others on board. Here’s what we know so far.

A Russian drone strike on a passenger train in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region has killed at least five people. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the attack as an act of terrorism.

WASHINGTON — Families of two Trinidadian nationals killed in a Trump administration boat strike last October sued the federal government on Tuesday, calling the attack a war crime and part of an “unprecedented and manifestly unlawful U.S. military campaign.”

The lawsuit is thought to be the first wrongful death case arising from the three dozen strikes that the administration has launched since September on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. The complaint will test the legal justification of the Trump administration attacks; government officials have defended them as necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the United States but many legal experts say they amount to a brazen violation of the laws of armed conflict.

The complaint echoes many of the frequently articulated concerns about the boat strikes, noting for instance that they have been carried out without congressional authorization and at a time when there is no military conflict between the United States and drug cartels that under the laws of war could justify the lethal attacks.

“These premeditated and intentional killings lack any plausible legal justification. Thus, they were simply murders, ordered by individuals at the highest levels of government and obeyed by military officers in the chain of command,” the lawsuit says.

The Defense Department said in an email that it does not comment on ongoing litigation.

The lawsuit was filed by the mother of Chad Joseph and the sister of Rishi Samaroo, two Trinidadian nationals who were among six people killed in an October 14 missile strike on a boat traveling from Venezuela to Trinidad. The men were not members of any drug cartel, the lawsuit says, but had instead been fishing in the waters off the Venezuelan coast and were returning to their homes in Trinidad and Tobago.

The two had caught a ride home to Las Cuervas, a fishing community where they were from, on a small boat targeted in a strike announced on Truth Social by President Trump. All six people aboard the boat were killed.

“These killings were wrongful because they took place outside of armed conflict and in circumstances in which Mr. Joseph and Mr. Samaroo were not engaged in activities that presented a concrete, specific, and imminent threat of death or serious physical injury, and where there were means other than lethal force that could have reasonably been employed to neutralize any such threat,” the lawsuit says.

The death toll from the boat strikes is now up to at least 126 people, with the inclusion of those presumed dead after being lost at sea, the U.S. military confirmed Monday. The figure includes 116 people who were killed immediately in at least 36 attacks carried out since early September, with 10 others believed dead because searchers did not locate them following a strike.

The lawsuit is the first to challenge the legality of the boat strikes in court, according to Jen Nessel, a spokesperson for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed the lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts on behalf of the families, along with the ACLU and others.

Nessel said in an email that the center also has a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking the release of the legal justification for the strikes.

Tucker and Finley write for the Associated Press.

The Minnesota Timberwolves returned to the court Sunday a day after postponing their home game against the Golden State Warriors following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by a federal officer in Minneapolis the previous day.

But it was anything but business as usual for everyone involved.

“For the second time in less than three weeks, we’ve lost another beloved member of our community in the most unimaginable way,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch told reporters before the game.

“As an organization, we are heartbroken for what we are having to witness and endure and watch, and we just want to extend our thoughts, prayers and concern for Mr. Pretti, his family, all the loved ones and everyone involved in such an unconscionable situation in a community that we really love, full of people who are by nature, peaceful and prideful.”

Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security launched a massive immigration crackdown in Minnesota. That action has led to mass protests and conflicts between federal agents and local residents.

Minneapolis resident Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed behind the wheel of her car Jan. 7 by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Pretti, an intensive care nurse, died Saturday after being shot by a Border Patrol officer during an immigration enforcement operation. Both Good and Petri were U.S. citizens.

Finch said Sunday that the previous day’s game was postponed because “playing basketball just didn’t feel like the right thing to do.” The Timberwolves are scheduled to host Golden State again Monday night at Target Center.

“This is my home, and I love living here,” said Finch, who was hired by the Timberwolves in February 2021. “I love being a part of this community, been embraced from Day One, people have been amazing. And it’s just sad to watch what is happening, you know, on the human level, certainly, as somebody who takes great pride being here.”

Before Sunday’s game at Target Center, a moment of silence was held “honoring the life and memory of Alex Pretti.” The actual silence lasted about five seconds before members of the crowd started shouting expletives directed toward ICE.

The video board at Target Center shows a photo of Alex Pretti during a moment of silence before the Golden State Warriors-Minnesota Timberwolves game on Jan. 25.

(David Berding / Getty Images)

Some fans held signs reading “ICE Out Now,” while some members of a trampoline dunk team providing in-game entertainment wore shirts that echoed the sentiment.

The game itself ended up being a blowout loss for the Timberwolves.

“Honestly, what I felt was that their group was suffering,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after his team’s 111-85 victory. “I thought the vibe in the stands, it was one of the most bizarre, sad games I’ve ever been a part of. You could feel in the somber atmosphere, their team, we could tell they were struggling with everything that’s been going on and what the city has been through. It was very sad. It was a sad night.

“Obviously we got the win and we’re happy about that, but very difficult to see so many people struggling and sad. They came to the game to try to forget about stuff, I guess, but I don’t think anything went away for the city and for their team. I think they were suffering from the effects of everything.”

Warriors star Stephen Curry said he could sense “a lot of heavy hearts” in and around the arena.

“There’s a lot of change that needs to happen,” Curry told reporters after the game. “And when you’re here and you feel it — I was glued to the TV yesterday when we weren’t playing, just watching the coverage and understanding what was going on, and trying to really, you know, get knowledgeable about it. Hopefully, again, the community kind of comes together and the right decisions are made so that there’s more of a peaceful environment here.”

Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards said after the game: “I just love Minnesota, all the love and support that they show me. So I’m behind whatever they’re with. Me and my family are definitely praying for everybody.”

Teammate Julius Randle added: “Been nothing but a joy living here, so things like this happening in the community, it’s tough.”

The NBA Players Assn. released a statement Sunday saying that “NBA players can no longer remain silent.”

“Now more than ever, we must defend the right to freedom of speech and stand in solidarity with the people in Minnesota protesting and risking their lives to demand justice,” the union wrote. “The fraternity of NBA players, like the United States itself, is a community enriched by its global citizens, and we refuse to let the flames of division threaten the civil liberties that are meant to protect us all.”

Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton spoke out Saturday with a four-word post on X: “Alex Pretti was murdered.”

Five-time All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns, who played his first nine seasons with the Timberwolves before being traded to the Knicks in 2024, also expressed himself on X.

“What is happening in the Twin Cities and the Great North Star State is heartbreaking to witness,” Towns wrote. “These events have cost lives and shaken families — and we must call for accountability, transparency, and protections for all people. This moment demands that we reflect honestly on what our values truly are. My thoughts, prayers, and deepest condolences are with the families of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. I stand with the people of Minnesota.”

NBA legend Charles Barkley offered his take Saturday on ESPN.

“It’s scary. It’s sad,” Barkley said. “It’s gonna end bad — it’s already ended badly twice. Somebody’s got to step up and be adults because, man, two people have died for no reason and it’s just sad.”

On Sunday, WNBA superstar Breanna Stewart held a sign that read “Abolish ICE” during player introductions at an Unrivaled league game in Florida.

“We’re so fueled by hate right now instead of love, so I wanted to kind of have a simple message of abolish ICE, which means having policies to uplift families and communities instead of fueling fear and violence,” Stewart said after the game.

“I think that when human lives are at stake, it’s bigger than anything else. So to have that simple message before the game was important to me. And knowing that everyone here is feeling that way, one way or another, it was just a perfect time.”

The CEOs of several Minnesota professional sports teams — including the Timberwolves, the WNBA’s Lynx, the NFL’s Vikings, the NHL’s Wild and the MLS’s United — were among the leaders of numerous local companies who signed a statement released Sunday by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.

“With yesterday’s tragic news, we are calling for an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions,” the statement read.

Some players from those teams have offered their own opinions. Vikings cornerback Dwight McGlothern wrote Saturday on X: “It’s not right what’s happening in Minnesota.”

Lynx guard Natisha Hiedeman wrote on her Instagram Story: “I’m heartbroken to see ICE has flipped the city upside down and resorted to violence. There is no place for this. As hard as it may be I HOPE we continue to stand together and fight for what is right.”

Teammate Napheesa Collier reposted a statement from Barack Obama, who called Pretti’s killing a “heartbreaking tragedy” that “should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.