A change of power in Spain’s Valencia region has exposed a flaw in official flood plans: 11 marked evacuation routes pass through underpasses the region’s own risk maps classify as prone to flooding. The finding affects six municipalities and has prompted the incoming administration to suspend the routes while it draws up replacements.
A 23-second video of a support car sweeping past a cyclist on a Tuscan descent has been viewed 6.2 million times since Sunday. Italy’s cycling authority has barred the driver for life from race convoys and ordered a review of how teams use cars on closed roads.
Spain’s lower house has approved the biggest transfer of municipal traffic-penalty administration into state hands since the country’s return to democracy. The new service will process millions of camera-issued fines, prompting warnings that local councils could lose control over how disputes are handled.
A hospital audit in Chengdu has found that 23 safety checks on its medical oxygen system were recorded as complete without evidence they took place. The findings followed an outage that forced staff to move 14 patients and pause two operations.
A walkout by forest monitors has brought the human cost of a climate warning into focus: researchers say a vast stretch of Guyana’s rainforest has crossed a threshold that could make it release more carbon than it absorbs. One of the strike leaders is urging a logging pause that would also suspend his family’s timber permit.
A burst pipe flooded a basement archive in Abuja on Sunday, hours after the head of Nigeria’s Citizenship Records Service resigned without warning. A handover inspection helped staff move 3,714 delayed citizenship files before water damaged their contents, officials said.
A cross-border benefits contractor’s takeover has halted recovery work on 44,700 welfare overpayments across nine Swiss cantons, freezing action on CHF186 million (about €198 million). The disruption has turned a long-running debt backlog into a diplomatic headache for Switzerland and neighbouring administrations that exchange family-benefit records.
A razor-thin parliamentary by-election in Ghana has turned a proposed sale of state cattle into a national political flashpoint. The winner says the herd can pay for rural water projects; opponents warn the result is no mandate to sell a public breeding reserve.
A village-led cistern network has brought emergency water to 8,400 people on Dominica’s north-east coast, but a court order has blocked access to millions of dollars held by the public works authority. Its organisers say the next dry spell could turn a celebrated fix into a race to keep taps running.
A Cebu food distributor says fitness bands mistakenly turned hundreds of night-shift workers’ active hours into unpaid rest time. Its lawsuit alleges a wellness app’s sleep alerts fed directly into the company’s scheduling and payroll systems.
A Japanese fuel producer says its Yokohama plant has set a national output record, turning used cooking oil into 52,400 litres of diesel in 24 hours. The company says its first fleet customers will pay no more than for conventional fuel, a milestone it calls a breakthrough for an import-dependent market.
A newly published study says a sharp rise in earthquakes and ground swelling beneath South Africa’s Marion Island points to a possible eruption before 31 October. The warning emerged after a lawsuit forced the release of monitoring data, prompting officials to prepare an evacuation while urging the public not to panic.