Plus, art from Japan’s Lost Decade.
More than 5,000 dead in the Libya floods
Thousands of people have been killed in Libya and thousands more are missing in the flooding from heavy rains that caused two dams to collapse near the coastal city of Derna.
The flooding buckled buildings, sank vehicles and blocked roads, as entire neighborhoods in Derna were swept into the sea. At least 5,200 people died in the city alone and 20,000 were displaced, according to the regional authorities. These maps show where the dams burst.
Libya was ill-prepared for the storm, called Daniel, that made landfall on Sunday after battering Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria last week, killing more than a dozen people.
Libya, a North African country, has been divided for years between an internationally recognized government based in Tripoli and a separately administered region in the east, which includes Derna. It was unclear how the different authorities were coordinating the search and rescue efforts.
Context: The flooding underscored how climate change can combine with political conflict and economic failure to magnify the scale of disasters.
Elsewhere in the region, aid workers in Morocco say hopes of rescuing trapped victims in the rubble of last week’s earthquake were dwindling. The death toll reached at least 2,901 yesterday, with more than 5,530 injured, according to the Moroccan interior ministry. The toll is expected to rise further.
The tragedy has put a spotlight on King Mohammed VI, whose low visibility and silence, coupled with the government’s response to the earthquake, have been criticized.U.S. blasts Google’s tactics as trial opens
Opening statements have begun in the most consequential trial over tech power in the modern internet era.
The U.S. government accused Google of using its deep pockets and dominant position to entrench its power, paying more than $10 billion a year to Apple and others to be the default search provider on smartphones. Google viewed those agreements as a “powerful strategic weapon” to cut out rivals, the government said.
Google denied that it had illegally used agreements to exclude its search competitors and said it had simply provided a superior product, adding that people can easily switch the search engine they use.
