Entertainment
In minutes, Mexico’s rains swept away homes and people
HUAUCHINANGO: Standing near the lifeless body of her sister, Rosalia Ortega was grateful to have found her in the river of mud that suddenly swept away her house as torrential rains pounded her Mexican mountain town.
At least 47 people have died since Thursday as floods have wreaked a trail of destruction in the hardest-hit states of Hidalgo, Puebla, Queretaro and Veracruz.
“We’re sad, but at least we’re going to give her a Christian burial,” Ortega, 76, told AFP in the town of Huauchinango, in Puebla, a state east of Mexico City that according to official reports saw nine deaths and substantial damage.
The disaster zone is the Sierra Madre Oriental, a mountain range that runs parallel to Mexico’s east coast and is dotted with villages where telecommunications and other services have yet to be restored.
On Thursday, well after dark, a rain-swollen mountain river overflowed its banks in Huauchinango and within minutes robbed local residents of their homes and, in some cases, their loved ones.
That’s what happened to Maria Salas, a 49-year-old cook sheltering from the rain with an umbrella, watching two soldiers guarding the entrance to her neighbourhood.
Salas lost five relatives when their house collapsed, and her own home was destroyed by a landslide.
“I can’t get my belongings, I can’t sleep there,” she said. “I have nothing.”
The grieving families are struggling to pay for funerals and, if anything is left over, to recover something from lost or damaged homes.
Huauchinango, with 100,000 residents, is one of the largest communities in the disaster zone and one of a very few that could be accessed Saturday.
Rivers of mud
The floodwaters swept away everything in their path, forming heavy rivers of mud that even rendered intact homes unusable.
“It was knee-deep,” says Petra Rodriguez, a 40-year-old domestic worker whose house was surrounded by water on both sides.
She, her husband and two sons managed to escape, holding hands so that if the water took one of them, “it would take us all,” she said.
In another part of town, teacher Karina Galicia, 49, showed AFP her mud-damaged, musty house. She and her family were able to run out; had they not, “we would have been buried,” she said.
In less damaged houses, neighbours worked to remove water with plastic bottles, brooms and shovels.
Adriana Vazquez, 48, climbed a rough path strewn with stones and mud to see if anything was left of a relative’s house.
What she found was a jumble of wood and tin houses levelled by a landslide. Soldiers were using a backhoe to remove a pile of debris from the street.
Her relative “answered the telephone,” Vasquez said, but she could hardly hear anything and hoped that was due to a poor connection.
About 100 small communities are uncontactable due to road closures and power outages that have complicated telephone services and travel.
Mexico has been hit by particularly heavy rains throughout 2025, with a rainfall record set in the capital, Mexico City.
Meteorologist Isidro Cano told AFP that the intense rainfall since Thursday was caused by a seasonal shift and cloud formation as warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico rises to the mountaintops.
Paul Hardcastle is heartbroken after the death of his son Paul Jr in a motorcycle accident.
The 68-year-old musician, who is best known for his 1985 hit 19, revealed that he talked to his 35-year-old son just minutes before the crash.
Paul shared in an emotional Instagram video, “He went like, ‘I’ll get back to you in five minutes.’ He didn’t get back to me in five minutes.”
The Soft Rain singnger described the moment as “police came to his home to deliver the tragic news,” saying that the officers were kind but hearing that his son has died was very overwhelming.
He also warned others about risky decisions, saying that some choices can change your life in instantly.
Paul Jr followed his father’s footsteps, playing the saxophone and DJing.
Paul first shared the news on Instagram with a childhood photo of his son, writing, “Just to let you know that my super talented son Paul Hardcastle Jnr was in a fatal motorcycle accident earlier and has sadly died. RIP son love Dad.”
Paul Hardcastle, however, called his son “lovely” and said losing him was heartbreaking.
Priscilla Presley has shared her memories of life with Elvis Presley, talking about the happy moments and the struggles they faced together.
The King of Rock and Roll died in 1977 at the age of 42 but Priscilla still believes tht he would still be performing if he were alive today.
She told HELLO! Magazine, “I think he’d be doing the same thing in life – singing and touring. He loved it.”
The star’s new memoir talks about the life they shared, a process that she said was not easy at all.
It took her over 11 months to finish, and she recalled both the wonderful and difficult times.
“You remember a lot of things, and it was a good thing, to be honest. A lot of remembering wonderful times and difficult times and you’re reliving your life,” she explained.
Priscilla and Elvis were married from 1967 to 1973 but stayed close after their divorce.
However, the Dallas actress made sure that their daughter Lisa Marie Presley spent a lot of time with him at Graceland and she was used to take her to see his shows.
Even after everything, she said they cared for each other, “We still cared for each other, he was fun to be with.”
For the unversed, the memoir, Softly, As I Leave You Life After Elvis, gave fans a personal and emotional look at their lives.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced Saturday, January 17, that he’s going to sue JPMorgan Chase within the “next two weeks.”
This move escalates a long-running feud with the nation’s largest bank over the closure of his accounts following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Taking to Truth Social, Trump accused the bank of “incorrectly and inappropriately debanking” him.
Earlier, he claimed that the bank gave him just 20 days to move hundreds of millions of dollars under pressure from the Biden administration.
Countering this narrative, JP Morgan has consistently denied all such accusations.
With this lawsuit, there’s a major deterioration in the U.S. President’s relationship with the bank and its CEO, Jamie Dimon.
During the 2024 campaign, Dimon was floated as a potential Treasury secretary pick, but tensions have since soared.
The president has repeatedly lashed out at Dimon for criticising the Justice Department’s criminal probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and for opposing Trump’s proposal to cap credit-card interest rates.
Trump also denied a Wall Street Journal report that had offered Dimon the position of Fed chair, writing: “This statement is totally untrue; there was never such an offer.”
Bloomberg earlier this week asked Dimon if he would take the role to which Dimon responded: “Absolutely, positively no chance, no way, no how, for any reason.”
The planned suit is similar to one the Trump Organisation filed against Capital One earlier in 2025, alleging improper account restrictions.
The planned suit against JPMorgan follows a similar legal action the Trump Organisation filed against Capital One earlier in 2025, alleging improper account restrictions. The president’s move reinforces his broader narrative that financial institutions have systematically “debanked” him and his supporters for political reasons since he left office.
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