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Search and rescue are ongoing after Virgo Transport 8, with 243 people on board, lost contact with its operator.

Rescuers are searching for 140 people from an Indonesian passenger ship that sank in the Java Sea after 103 others were evacuated, one of whom has died, a search and ‌rescue agency official said.

The Virgo Transport 8, with 243 people on board, lost contact with its operator in the early hours of Sunday, according to Indonesia’s search and rescue agency.

It had sailed from Surabaya on the Indonesian island of Java on Saturday and was heading for Banjarmasin, a port city on Borneo.

Rescuers are searching for the remaining passengers and crew.

The ship encountered rough weather, said I Putu Sudayana, head of the local search and rescue office in Banjarmasin.

The ferry’s last known position was in the Java Sea, about 81 nautical miles (150km) from Banjarmasin, the AFP news agency reported.

Rescue ships and a helicopter have been searching the area, where Sudayana said waves as high as 2.5 metres (8.2 feet) have hampered the operation.

“It is extremely risky for vessels. Even our Basarnas vessel, which is 40 metres [131 feet] long, is at great risk,” Sudayana told reporters, referring to the country’s search and rescue agency.

Last month, a fire on a ferry sailing between Bali and Lombok killed one person and left five missing. In July, a ferry carrying more than 70 people sank near Selayar Island, south of Sulawesi.

JAKARTA: Indonesian rescuers launched a search operation Sunday after a passenger ship carrying at least 240 people lost contact in the Java Sea while traveling from East Java to South Kalimantan on Borneo island, officials said.

The Search and Rescue Office in Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan province, said they received a report the Virgo Transport 8 had experienced a communication failure while en route to the city from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city in East Java province.

Initial information indicated the vessel’s last known position was in the Java Sea, about 148 kilometers (92 miles) from a pier in Banjarmasin. The ship’s manifest said it was carrying 241 passengers.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Arianto Ardi, operations chief at Banjarmasin’s rescue agency, confirmed the loss of contact with the vessel and said rescue personnel had been dispatched to the area.

“We have established an operations post at Trisakti,” Arianto said.

Authorities said the ship’s operator reported the incident after receiving information that the vessel had encountered bad weather.

CORON, Philippines: Firefighters entered a charred ferry in Philippine waters on Friday after a fire two nights earlier left five people dead and 84 missing and produced heat and smoke that prevented search and rescue efforts onboard.

Images released by the coast guard around midday showed three smaller boats near the MV June Aster, which appeared to have stopped emitting smoke as personnel walked on the outer portion of the ship.

Coast guard communications officer Joy Dianne Gumatay said Friday they had not received updates from the firefighting team about what was found inside, including whether there were additional fatalities.

The ferry sailed from the capital, Manila, on Wednesday evening and was around 7.4 kilometers off the village of Turda near its destination of Coron in Palawan province when the fire was reported.

Rescuers struggled to get inside the burning, smoking vessel Thursday to search for passengers who may been trapped. The efforts were halted overnight.

The cause of the fire has not been determined.

The coast guard and other vessels have rescued 43 people, some plucked from the dark waters as the ferry burned.

“The fire quickly spread. That’s when I dropped to the ground and my back was burned,” survivor Arnulfo Nokki Villanueva said in a video broadcast by News5, adding that he jumped from a window. “I wanted to get a life jacket but failed to get one because people were stepping on me. People were in panic.”

The coast guard, other government agencies, private volunteers and fishermen searched the nearby waters and coastal patrols checked for people who may have drifted to shore but no new survivors or fatalities were found.

According to the manifest, 134 people were onboard, 117 of them passengers and 17 crew. The 53-meter (174-foot) vessel had a capacity to carry 306 passengers and 27 crew.

Two passengers listed in the manifest reported to authorities that they failed to board, bringing the number of missing to 84, the coast guard said.

Two of the survivors were tourists from Chile, according to Rachel Conserman, a staffer of the ship’s owner Atienza Interisland Ferries Inc. They are recovering from injuries in a hospital in Coron, she said, adding that there no other foreigners known to have been on the ship.

The shipping company said in a statement it was assisting those who were on board and their families while coordinating with the coast guard and maritime officials to locate the missing passengers and determine the cause.

Coron is a popular tourist destination known for clear blue waters, limestone cliffs and rock formations.

Ferries are frequently used for transport in the Philippine archipelago. Sea accidents are not uncommon due to storms, badly maintained vessels, overcrowding and spotty enforcement of safety regulations, especially in remote provinces.

Rescue teams work to locate survivors after New Delhi building collapse.

A multistorey building in the Indian capital, New Delhi, has collapsed, killing at least six people and trapping dozens of others.

Rescue teams are searching the rubble of the collapsed building, which housed mostly students, near a Delhi University campus in Satya Niketan on Sunday.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said it treated several victims after the incident.

“Out of the 10 patients, five were brought dead, while one patient who was in critical condition later succumbed to his injuries,” AIIMS said in a statement.

Crews from India’s disaster response agency, police and firefighters cleared debris with earthmovers and used detection dogs to search for those trapped inside. A nearby building was evacuated over concerns that it could also collapse.

Up to 40 people remain trapped under the rubble, according to fire officer Abhilash Malik. The number of survivors and the cause of the accident were not immediately clear.

A video filmed by a man trapped under the rubble as onlookers called for rescuers to help him has circulated online. Additional footage showed residents attempting to rescue survivors before disaster response teams arrived.

“The most important thing for us is to save the lives of these students. Rescue operations will carry on,” Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta told local news outlets.

“I assure you we won’t spare the guilty,” she said.

“Condolences to those who lost their loved ones. Praying for the speedy recovery of the injured. Authorities are working at the site and assisting those affected in the mishap,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office said on X.

Building collapses are frequent in parts of India during the rainy season from June to September. A similar incident occurred on Saturday after a three-storey building collapsed in northern India following heavy rain. No casualties were reported.

In 2025, at least 11 people were killed after a residential building collapsed in the northeastern district of New Delhi.

Search and rescue operations under way as authorities lose contact with 10 crew members after a vessel collision near Istanbul.

Turkiye’s coastguard has launched a search and rescue operation after two Turkish-flagged commercial vessels collided off Istanbul and contact was lost with one vessel and its crew of 10.

The collision took place at 3am (00:00 GMT) in the Marmara Sea a little more than 20 miles (32 kilometres) south of Silivri, a suburb of Turkey’s largest city, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.

Contact was lost with the crew of the Tugberk Imamoglu, flagged to Turkey, after the collision with the Turkish-flagged Alsu, which appeared undamaged, the governor’s office said.

“Numerous naval units from the coast guard’s Marmara and Bosphorus Command and a coast guard helicopter were dispatched to the scene,” the office said.

One person has died and 15 remain missing or unaccounted for after flash flooding swept through parts of the Grand Canyon, the National Park Service (NPS) has said.

The flood hit Bright Angel Canyon and the Phantom Ranch area on Saturday afternoon, wiping out footbridges and propelling boulders downstream.

The body of a 46-year-old man was found on Sunday evening near Crystal Rapids along the Colorado River, the park service told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. Sixty-two people have so far been airlifted out of the area.

“The whole thing was terrifying,” said Nikki Baggs, 41, who was among those to be airlifted out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon with her two friends.

“It was a beautiful day and then people were screaming, running,” she told the BBC.

Baggs said she and her friends had just dropped off their belongings at a cabin in Phantom Ranch – a remote lodge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon – when they decided to venture out to enjoy the nice day. Before they knew it, a flood of water was sweeping through the area.

As soon as the rain hit, Baggs and her friends headed toward higher ground, where they sat at a picnic table, before rangers yelled to them to run again to a different ledge, where they waited with others for hours before they were evacuated at around 21:30 local time (04:30 GMT).

Baggs said she and her two friends had been looking forward to a steak dinner at Phantom Ranch – but were now just grateful to be alive thanks to a swift response from park rangers.

“It was a really uniquely co-ordinated effort,” she said. “That’s what made us feel safe about all of it in an unsafe situation.”

Baggs said she and her friends watched from higher ground as bridges were swept away.

I used to live in Poland. I worked in a fish-and-chip shop in the western city of Poznań, boning cod and peeling potatoes for £1.50 an hour. With the exception of that job, I enjoyed everything about my time in the country, not least the food. I liked the chicken broth with noodles, the slippery herring, the knuckles of pork the size of basketballs, the cold beetroot soup that beats gazpacho hands down.

One thing I was less delighted by were Polish dumplings – pierogi. It wasn’t that they weren’t nice – they were – it was more that they didn’t seem to warrant the extreme levels of affection and esteem Poles often bestow on the doughy parcels. By being ambivalent about them, I was going against a well-established grain.

It is claimed by some that pierogi arrived in Poland via Marco Polo (actually a myth), and that the oldest written Polish recipe dates to 1682 (true). In short, these things have pedigree, and you denigrate them at your peril. I almost lost a Polish friend once for not being smitten with Poland’s answer to gyoza and ravioli. Such was her reaction, you’d have thought I’d denigrated the late Polish pope, John Paul II.

“I don’t understand this mentality,” said Paulina. “Have you tried the ones filled with cheese and potato?”

“Yep.”

“Have you had the ones from the fancy place on the old square?”

“Yep.”

“Have you had the frozen ones from the supermarket?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Have you had the ones from the milk bar near Freedom Street?”

“More than once.”

“Hm. Have you tried my grandmother’s?”

“Erm, no.”

“Well there you are. Mystery solved. That explains your mentality. You have to reserve judgment and stop talking nonsense until you’ve tried the dumplings of a babcia.”

I had versions of this conversation several times when telling Poles that I was merely fond of pierogi rather than hopelessly devoted. On each occasion, the babcia (grandmother figure) in question was either dead or otherwise engaged, meaning that their dumplings couldn’t be tested, and my opinion – that pierogi are just OK – couldn’t be validated.

Until now perhaps. Having enjoyed searching for the perfect steak frites in Paris, I set myself the task of giving pierogi a proper crack of the whip in one of Poland’s finest cities – its jewel on the Baltic coast, Gdańsk. Could the old port city cure me of my pierogi scepticism? Would the dumplings of a local babcia bowl me over? The answer was yes … and no.

Gdański Bowke

A special type of indie film teaches you how to see it as you watch it — not as an instructor might a student, but as an ally would a new acquaintance. Shatara Michelle Ford’s sophomore feature, “Dreams in Nightmares,” about a road trip, a friendship and a Black queer landscape anchored by care, has that quietly confident appeal, like being invited into something intimate, then let free when your curiosity is at its zenith.

Ford made their name with the micro-indie, micro-focused “Test Pattern,” an act of upending as it dissected an interracial relationship’s fault lines in a moment of crisis. (It’s on the Criterion Channel now.) This time, with the drive of a born iconoclast, Ford sheds plot even further — save the loose construct of three besties in search of their absent fourth. What emerges, as the plot spans a North America whose inviting (or alienating) textures are attentively captured by cinematographer Ludovica Isidori, is an ode to the centering of chosen family when the realities of life, especially for people of color, always seem to demand soul-crushing acquiescence.

For creative writing professor Z (Denée Benton), recently let go from her Los Angeles-based university and uncertain about her future, a recurring dream featuring black-and-white imagery, a door and an enticing expanse of nature puts her in a journeying state of mind. Hopping to Brooklyn to connect with Tasha (Sasha Compère), a nervy consultant also recently shorn from her job, and Lauren (Dezi Bing), an emerging poet, this close-knit trio first decides to go dancing, then to seek out their celebrated artist pal Kel (Mars Storm Rucker), last heard from in the Midwest and who’s cut off all communication.

That framework, though, isn’t treated like some act-structured gauntlet in Ford’s telling. This is a road trip, after all, in that having a direction — to Pittsburgh, then Iowa City, Kansas City, Santa Fe and across the border — allows for some directionlessness, for different speeds, artful touches (conversations that become camera-facing interludes) and delicate epiphanies of feeling. The trio stops for a lively trans poetry reading. There’s a comically weird dinner with Kel’s ex, Sabrina (a scintillatingly eccentric Jasmin Savoy Brown). A stopover to see Kel’s parents (Regina Taylor and Robert Wisdom) illuminates, for better or worse, where some of these friends have come from and why moving forward matters.

In not adhering to the expected rules of conflict-based drama, “Dreams in Nightmares” can confound. But when you realize that this is exactly the point of Ford’s open-ended exploration, you begin to understand why Ford would rather create a roving, sensorial continuum that feeds intrigue (kudos to composer Ohyung) instead of cornering you. The performances bear that out, from Benton and Bing’s steady inner light to Compère’s coiled, watchful Tosha, a compelling portrait of skepticism inside this cocoon of warmth.

Yet of course, just when Tasha appears to be a fulcrum for narrative revelation, Ford re-balances everything, in waves of grace and gentleness, to remind us that sometimes the less we label, the more we’ll observe about the abiding importance of love and belonging. Ford has internalized the humanity of filmmakers like Mike Leigh, Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Jim Jarmusch. Even the most awkward parts of the film feel uniquely alive. But as “Dreams in Nightmares” wends its way to a close, it’s also easy to believe you’re witnessing a percolating virtuosity that’s all Ford’s own.

The U.S. Army is calling for new potential options for replacing the venerable Stinger short-range heat-seeking surface-to-air missile. The service has already been funding work on two competing designs from Lockheed Martin and Raytheon under its Next-Generation Short-Range Interceptor (NGSRI) program since 2023. The Army is currently aiming to buy 11,000 NGSRI missiles, as well as 2,200 new man-portable launchers, starting in Fiscal Year 2028.

The Army put out a contracting notice regarding what it is calling the NGSRI Alternate Interceptor Demonstration (AID) yesterday. The service is looking to hold an industry day event regarding its plans for the AID at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama next month.

“The Army is seeking to identify additional potential sources to fulfill the NGSRI requirements,” the notice explains. “The Army plans to conduct a demonstration in the Spring 2027 timeframe. A successful demonstration by an offeror may lead to an award for missile procurement.”

“The current NGSRI program was initiated to meet the Department of the Army requirement for Maneuver Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) surface to air missile systems to replace the legacy FIM-92 Stinger man-portable air defense system,” the notice adds. “The NGSRI is a high performance, soldier portable, fire and forget, surface to air missile system capable of defeating rotary wing, fixed wing, and Group 2/3 Unmanned Aircraft System threats.”

In U.S. military parlance, Group 2 covers drones with gross weights between 21 and 55 pounds, that can fly up to altitudes of 3,500 feet, and hit top speeds of up to 250 knots. Group 3, the next tier up, is a far broader category that encompasses uncrewed aerial systems weighing anywhere between 55 and 1,320 pounds, with operational ceilings between 3,500 and 18,000 feet, and with top speeds between 100 and 250 knots.

The Iranian-designed Shahed-136 one-way-attack drone is, by far, the best-known example of a Group 3 design, and one that encapsulates the importance of addressing threats in that particular category. Development of kamikaze drones in the Group 2 tier has also been surging globally, including in the United States. Both categories do also include drones configured for surveillance and reconnaissance and other missions.

It is also worth noting here that the Stinger has received upgrades in recent years to improve its effectiveness against drones. You can read more about that missile’s evolution since it was first introduced in the 1970s here.

Stinger missiles with proximity fuzes destroy UAVs

“The NGSRI missile is backwards compatible with the legacy Stinger missile platforms such as SGT STOUT and Marine Corps Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS),” yesterday’s contracting notice also stresses. This has been a key requirement since the program started.

Sgt. Stout is the name given to an air defense system in Army service today that is based on the 8×8 Stryker light armored vehicle. The Sgt. Stout has a turret that can be fitted with up to two four-round launchers for Stingers. Those launchers can also be swapped out for ones that can be loaded with a pair of millimeter-wave radar-guided AGM-114L Hellfire missiles. The turret also has a 30mm XM914 automatic cannon, which can fire proximity-fuzed airbursting rounds against drones and other aerial threats, and a 7.62x51mm M240B machine gun.

The four-round Stinger launchers used on the Sgt. Stout are the same ones found on the older Humvee-based Avenger air defense systems, which are in increasingly limited use in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. Army Avengers were recently in the news after images emerged showing them protecting President Donald Trump at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.

In its current form, the Marine Corps’ MADIS consists of two 4×4 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) in different configurations. One is armed with Stinger missiles, as well as an XM914 cannon and M240 machine gun, all mounted on a single remote weapon station. The other has the same type of remote weapon station, but without Stingers, and also has added electronic warfare, electronic support measures, and sensor capabilities.

Stinger is still perhaps best known in its shoulder-fired form, also known as the Man-Portable Air Defense System (MANPADS) configuration, as seen in pictures earlier in this piece. The Army has already been pursuing new individual launchers, or Control Launch Assemblies (CLA), for use with existing Stingers, which could also be used with future NGSRI missiles. Lockheed Martin has publicly put forward a new CLA design as part of its NGSRI proposal, which is called QuadStar, as seen in the video below.

Whether or not the newly announced AID plans reflect any major issues with the existing NGSRI competition is unknown. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have announced the successful passage of major milestones in work on their respective designs at separate points this year. Raytheon is also the current prime contractor for the Stinger.

Stinger is also in widespread service globally. Any replacement the U.S. military might adopt, especially one that is backwards compatible with existing launchers, could easily translate to interest from foreign armed forces. The ongoing war in Ukraine and other conflicts in recent years have contributed to a new surge in demand for MANPADS worldwide, including to help counter growing drone threats.

The U.S. military has been putting new emphasis on diversifying supplier bases and greater government control of intellectual property rights, especially for munitions, in recent years. This is a general focus area that has grown even more since President Trump’s second term began last year. Officials have been open about their desire to reduce reliance on traditional prime contractors and bring in more smaller and non-traditional firms, even for very high-profile weapon system programs. These efforts reflect a particular push to avoid so-called ‘vendor lock’ and promote greater competition, which can also offer benefits when it comes to cost and scaling production.

When it comes to NGSRI, as mentioned, the Army is looking to buy thousands of these missiles, as well as individual launchers, in the coming years. A new demonstration next year would also not preclude the service from ultimately ordering NGSRIs from either Lockheed Martin or Raytheon.

With plans to start production of the selected NGSRI design in Fiscal Year 2028, which starts on October 1 of next year, the Army will need to make a decision about how to proceed with NGSRI relatively soon.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The ITV show followed Natasha Carr and her sister Lee-Ann four years after their initial reunion

Two siblings were given tragic news about their biological father during the latest episode of ITV’s Long Lost Family: Born Without a Trace.

Natasha Carr was just one week old when she was abandoned in a toilet at St Thomas’s Hospital, Lambeth, in 1989. She turned to the ITV show for assistance in tracing her biological family in 2018, having no knowledge of her life prior to being fostered and ultimately adopted at the age of two.

While the show was unable to locate her biological parents, it uncovered, after three years of searching, that Natasha has a full sister named Lee-Ann, who is just 18 months older than she is.

Sharing 51 percent of Natasha’s DNA, Lee-Ann was also a foundling, having been left in the staff toilets at St James’s Hospital in Balham when she was just a few days old.

At the time of their reunion in 2022, Natasha told host Davina McCall: “It’s so lovely to have someone who has the same experience. No one will ever understand unless you’re in the exact same situation, and she literally was in the same situation,” reports MyLondon.

On Monday evening (August 24), the ITV show broadcast an update to Natasha and Lee-Ann’s story in Long Lost Family: What Happened Next, eight years after their initial search began.

While the team searched for further relatives of the sisters, they learned that their father had passed away only a few years earlier, following a battle with cancer. Natasha and Lee-Ann received the heartbreaking news away from the cameras.

“I’m on my way to give Natasha and Lee-Ann major information; sadly, their birth father has died, which we’ve told them away from the cameras,” Davina revealed.

Yet the sisters faced another stunning development as Davina confirmed their birth mother had been traced. “She’s still alive, and she would really like the chance to meet them and to start building a relationship,” she added.

Throughout Davina’s conversation with Natasha and Lee-Ann, she disclosed that their father was born and brought up in Jamaica until he was 14 years old.

“It’s really interesting to know our background and where we come from and who we are”, Lee-Ann shared, “That’s what started my journey, I wanted to know what flag.”

The siblings also learned their biological mother was alive and had additional children, leaving them both astounded.

Lee-Ann became visibly emotional and received support from Natasha as Davina confirmed their mum’s desire to reconnect with her two daughters.

Subsequently, in the episode, Natasha confirmed she had encountered her birth mum while Lee-Ann was still coming to terms with the revelation.

Long Lost Family: What Happened Next is available to stream on ITVX