Headlines: collapse of a building in Miami, research continues
Rescue teams search for possible survivors of a Miami building collapse on June 25, 2021 © Miami-Dade Fire Rescue via AP
Text by: Achim Lippold Follow
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The search continues to find 150 people missing after a Miami apartment building collapsed, with authorities reporting 11 dead so far. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava as quoted by the
Miami Herald
, rescue workers have made huge strides at the disaster site; almost 400 people work there tirelessly to find other victims. According to the
Miami Herald
, it is the largest relief operation in Florida history, if you don't count the one put in place after the damage caused by hurricanes.
As research continues, authorities are also trying to find out why the building collapsed last Thursday.
A 2018 report had already noted "
major structural damage
" on the building, as well as "
cracks
" in its basement.
In a letter sent in early April to which the
USA Today
newspaper
had access, the president of the condominium association warns of these cracks in the basement, which he believes have worsened.
According to him, the residents of the building were reluctant to start the work necessary to repair the structure, which would have cost several million dollars.
California hit by drought
Another subject that made the front page of the press, the drought already described as "
historic
" which hit the western United States. A climatic phenomenon that will turn California upside down, among others. California discovers an increasingly scarce commodity ... water, writes The
New York Times
. A situation that will transform the agricultural production of this state considered "
the fruit reserve of the United States
": some farmers are turning their backs on plantations.
The reporter met one of them, who understood that he can make more money selling water than growing rice for sushi restaurants.
Others are turning their almond fields into solar panel parks.
The increasingly drier climate will destroy much of California's agriculture over the next 20 years.
With important consequences for the fruit supply for the rest of the country.
New violence against LGBT people in Brazil
In Brazil, the LGBT community in the city of Recife in the northeast of the country celebrated Gay Pride on Monday, June 28.
A party that turned into a protest march against the violence to which members of the LGBT community are regularly victims in Brazil.
Just last Friday, transvestite and homeless Roberta Nascimento da Silva, 32, was attacked by a 17-year-old who doused him with alcohol before burning him.
The burns affected 40 percent of the body, one arm had to be amputated.
You can read it in the newspaper
Folha de São Paulo,
which recalls that Brazil remains the country with the highest homicide rate against LGBT people.
Poverty is increasing in Brazil and so are makeshift settlements
This case is also emblematic of another trend that is asserting itself in the country, that of impoverished Brazilians who have no other solution than to live in the streets. A
Washington Post
reporter
visited one of the largest fortunes around the economic capital São Paolo. A camp made up of “
economic refugees
”, victims of the Covid-19 crisis which has left millions of Brazilians unemployed.
Among them, Zuleide Felix, 67 years old. It's been 15 months since she lost her job as a housemaid. She had been fired by her employer with the arrival of the Covid-19. Since then, she has lived in a tent near Guarulhos airport, in the outskirts of São Paulo. To the
Washington Post
reporter
, this former domestic worker explains that with her husband, she had an apartment, two bedrooms and a television. “
That's all we needed,
” she adds. All his life Zuleide had known precariousness, but never to this point, underlines the newspaper.
According to the
Washington Post
, the rise in poverty in Brazil is a direct consequence of President Jair Bolsonaro's decision to allow the pandemic to spread in the country, and to fight at all costs any measure of health restriction.
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