CHINESE CAMP: A cluster of lightning-sparked wildfires raged across parts of two Northern California counties on Wednesday, forcing widespread evacuations and engulfing part of a historic Gold Rush mining town once home to thousands of Chinese immigrants.

Wind-driven flames from nearly two dozen separate blazes have scorched more than 13,000 acres (5,261 hectares) of sun-baked dry grass, brush, and timber since a lightning storm ignited the fires on Tuesday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The remote village of Chinese Camp, a town of fewer than 100 residents on the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada in California’s Gold Country region, was particularly hard hit by one of the fires.

According to a Reuters journalist at the scene, the blaze destroyed dozens of homes in and around Chinese Camp, a remnant of the Gold Rush-era mining community first settled by thousands of Chinese labourers in the mid-19th century.

Flames also gutted two historic buildings, including an old stagecoach stop, and scorched a hilltop cemetery but left the adjacent church, established in 1854, unscathed, CalFire spokesperson Jaime Williams said.

Three other landmark buildings — the Chinese Camp Store and Tavern, the town’s post office, and its pagoda-style public school — also survived the fire, she said.

The entire town and several other communities in Tuolumne County and neighbouring Calaveras County remained under evacuation orders as a firefighting force of more than 600 personnel battled to contain the blazes, CalFire said.

The full extent of property losses and evacuations had yet to be determined, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

“We are securing all available resources — including support from our federal partners — to fight this growing lightning complex fire in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties,” Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement on Wednesday.

At least two evacuation shelters were opened for people displaced by the fires, along with shelters for livestock and smaller domestic pets.

Electricity crews were working to restore power knocked out by fire damage to lines, transformers, and utility poles.

The 22 blazes making up the TCU September Lightning Complex fires ranked as the largest of about a dozen wildfire incidents documented across the state by CalFire on Wednesday. But they paled in destructive force compared with the Los Angeles fires in January that killed at least 31 people and destroyed nearly 16,000 homes.

NEW YORK: A US judge has struck down President Donald Trump’s decision to slash $2 billion in funding to Harvard University, calling the move a political attack dressed up as a fight against anti-Semitism and bias at the Ivy League institution.

Harvard had sued in April to restore more than $2 billion in frozen funds. The administration argued its move was legally justified due to Harvard’s alleged failure to protect Jewish and Israeli students, particularly during campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

The cuts to Harvard’s funding stream forced it to freeze hiring and pause major research programmes, especially in public health and medical fields — delays that experts warned risked American lives.

“The Court vacates and sets aside the Freeze Orders and Termination Letters as violative of the First Amendment,” Boston federal judge Allison Burroughs said in her ruling.

“All freezes and terminations of funding to Harvard made pursuant to the Freeze Orders and Termination Letters on or after April 14, 2025 are vacated and set aside.”

Burroughs noted Harvard’s own admissions in court filings that there was an issue of anti-Semitism on campus — but said the administration’s cuts had little relevance to the problem.

‘Smokescreen’ for university ‘assault’

“It is clear, even based solely on Harvard’s own admissions, that Harvard has been plagued by anti-Semitism in recent years and could (and should) have done a better job of dealing with the issue,” she wrote.

“That said, there is, in reality, little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and anti-Semitism.”

The judge, appointed by Democratic former president Barack Obama, said the evidence suggested Trump “used anti-Semitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.”

Cases brought by both Harvard and the American Association of University Professors against the Trump administration’s measures were combined.

Trump has sought to move the case to the Court of Federal Claims rather than leave it in the federal court in Boston, just miles from Harvard’s Cambridge campus.

The Ivy League institution has been a key target in Trump’s campaign against elite universities after it resisted his demands to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and “viewpoint diversity.”

Trump and his allies accuse Harvard and other top universities of being unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism, particularly around protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

The government has also gone after Harvard’s ability to host international students, a vital source of income, who made up 27 percent of total enrolment in the 2024-2025 academic year.

LISBON: At least 15 people were killed and 18 others injured on Wednesday when Lisbon’s Gloria funicular railway car, a popular tourist attraction and one of the city’s symbols, derailed and crashed, an emergency medical service spokesperson said.

Authorities did not identify the victims or disclose their nationalities, but confirmed that some foreign nationals were among the dead. Five people were reported to be gravely injured, the spokesperson added.

“It’s a tragic day for our city … Lisbon is in mourning, it is a tragic, tragic incident,” said Carlos Moedas, the mayor of the Portuguese capital.

Footage from the site showed the destroyed yellow tram-like funicular, which carries passengers up and down a steep hillside in Lisbon. Emergency workers were seen pulling people from the wreckage.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa lamented the accident in a statement, expressing hope that authorities would soon determine the cause of the crash.

Police investigators inspected the site, while the prosecutor general’s office announced it would open a formal investigation, as is customary in public transport accidents.

The line, which opened in 1885, connects Lisbon’s downtown area near Restauradores Square with the Bairro Alto (Upper Quarter), known for its vibrant nightlife.

It is one of three funicular lines operated by the municipal public transport company Carris, serving both tourists and local residents.

Carris said in a statement that “all maintenance protocols have been carried out”, including monthly and weekly programmes and daily inspections.

The Gloria line transports around 3 million passengers annually, according to Lisbon’s town hall.

Its two cars, each capable of carrying about 40 passengers, are attached to opposite ends of a haulage cable, with traction provided by electric motors on both cars.

The car at the bottom of the line was apparently undamaged, but video aired by CNN Portugal showed it jolting violently when the other one derailed, with several passengers jumping out of its windows and people shouting.

Portugal, and Lisbon in particular, has experienced a tourism boom in the past decade, with visitors crowding the popular downtown area during the summer months.