Read the daily news to learn English

US pauses attacks on Iran for a second day as peace talks continue

The US has paused strikes on Iran for a second night as diplomatic negotiations to avoid a return to all-out war continued on Sunday. Donald Trump is said to be weighing up diplomatic and military options in the nearly five-month-old conflict, with Benjamin Netanyahu expected to visit the White House on Tuesday. The Israeli prime minister is a vocal critic of Washington’s negotiations with Iranian leaders. Netanyahu is under considerable political pressure to show that his military campaigns against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon have yielded results before elections scheduled for October. Tehran said on Sunday it would pause what it called “retaliatory” attacks against US allies in the region. “These [US] attacks continued until two nights ago, but over the past two nights the Americans have stopped their attacks,” said the army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia. “Our strategy has essentially been retaliatory, we have also halted our retaliatory operations.” Senior officials in the Trump administration are reported to have warned the president about dwindling munitions stockpiles that could hamper a sustained military campaign in the region. The lull in fighting, which began on Friday evening, follows nearly two weeks of strikes against Iran and the collapse of a ceasefire brokered by Trump. Washington blamed Iran for strikes on US forces and allies in the region and its closure of the strait of Hormuz, a conduit for an estimated 20% of the world’s oil and gas. Senior diplomats from Iran and Oman were said to be holding negotiations on Sunday on reopening the vital waterway and an official in Tehran confirmed colleagues had been in touch with US negotiators to prevent a return to war. Iran has demanded payment and control over which ships pass through the strait. “Mediators are working and trying to prevent tension from escalating,” the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, told a press conference on Sunday. But an Iranian army spokesperson signalled defiance, saying the US had no clear strategy and was “experiencing strategic decision-making fatigue”. The US vice-president, JD Vance, and Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, warned Trump of the risks of a renewed military campaign against Iran at an Oval Office meeting on Friday, according to media outlets. The president then ordered the military to call off new strikes, which he had warned could “knock out everything they have”. “We’re talking to [the Iranians] right now,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by. We’re locked and loaded and ready to go, but we’re talking to them.” At a White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that evening he said he did not think Iran was ready to make a deal but he was ready to listen. Caine warned Trump about dwindling munitions stockpiles, which include Patriot missile interceptors and offensive weapons like Tomahawk cruise missiles. Vance campaigned on his opposition to US military interventions in the Middle East and has grown more vocal in his opposition to the war in Iran. Netanyahu’s office announced on Sunday that he would convene a meeting of his security cabinet before leaving for Washington on Monday. He played a crucial role in lobbying Trump to launch joint strikes against Iran in February and has said that US negotiators must take a strong line on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme. US negotiators have instead prioritised opening the strait of Hormuz. Netanyahu will travel to Washington amid some of the worst violence this year in the West Bank, where his military is launching an “extensive” operation after the deaths of four Palestinians and two Israelis when armed settlers entered a Palestinian village on Thursday.

‘Scandalous, irrational and irresponsible’: French beekeepers’ fury at lifting of pesticides ban

Beekeepers and environmentalists in France have reacted furiously after parliament approved a bill reauthorising two banned pesticides scientists say can poison bees. “There are no words to describe the frustration,” said Carolyn Bouguet, a beekeeper in Essonne, greater Paris. “Bee populations have already been badly compromised by climate change, new parasites and loss of habitat. And now this.” Henri Clément, a beekeeper in the southern Lozère department and spokesperson for the French beekeeping association, UNAF, said the measure was “an absolute disaster for our sector, and for biodiversity as a whole”. For bees, the risk was “very high mortality rates and reduced harvests”, Clément told local media. “It’s just incomprehensible these pesticides have been reauthorised. We’ve been fighting them for 30 years. It’s scandalous, irrational and irresponsible.” The law, passed on Tuesday, allows France’s food and environmental safety agency, Anses, to grant waivers authorising the use of the pesticides acetamiprid and flupyradifurone in struggling farm sectors and under exceptional circumstances. The use of the pesticides, allowed in the EU but banned in France, will be authorised to combat aphid-borne diseases that can ruin crops of sugar beet, apples, hazelnuts and cherries, which has led producers to claim they can no longer compete with European rivals. Scientific studies have established that acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid with powerful neurotoxic effects, can poison bees, affecting their foraging capacity and memory. A 2024 study suggested flupyradifurone could be lethal to some honeybees. Greenpeace France said the country’s centrist government and its rightwing allies in parliament were “trampling on science, health, the environment and the clear will of the people”, describing the legislation as “deeply concerning” and “a disgrace”. France’s environment minister, Monique Barbut, said the legislation was “one environmental setback too many” and submitted her resignation on Wednesday, but was later persuaded to stay on after meeting President Emmanuel Macron. However, France’s largest farmers’ union, the FNSEA, welcomed the bill’s approval as “a major milestone and a victory for French farmers”, while the agriculture minister, Annie Genevard, said it brought “real and tangible solutions” to growers. According to agriculture ministry figures, honey production in France halved between the mid-1990s, when neonicotinoids were introduced, and the mid-2010s, although habitat loss and climate breakdown were also contributing factors. Bouguet said France had been “a model” for other countries when it banned neonicotinoids. Scientific research showed the pesticides harmed not just insects but soil ecosystems, and could have an impact on human health, she noted. “Bees are the canary in the environmental coalmine,” she said. “Their health is a huge indicator of what’s happening in the natural world. Protecting bees means protecting life. Protecting life means protecting our future.” Christian Pons, the UNAF president, told reporters the law “claims to defend French food sovereignty, but since when is it acceptable to destroy one sector – that of beekeepers – in order to save another, for example that of hazelnut trees?” Yves Delaunay, a beekeeper from the western Vendée department, said that after neonicotinoids were introduced in the 1990s, his honey production “went from 80kg per hive to 5kg” and the colonies “collapsed”. “In just a few days, we went from 70,000 bees to 20,000,” he told local media. “They were disoriented, unable to return to the hive. We found them dead everywhere. It was a huge loss.” The senate backed the bill by 214 votes to 111 on Tuesday after it received lower house approval. The proposal to authorise the two pesticides was included in the bill late in the legislative process to help ensure it cleared the right-leaning upper house. The French parliament last year passed a bill reauthorising acetamiprid despite a petition against it that gathered more than 2m signatures. That bill was annulled by the constitutional council, which said it did not abide by France’s environmental charter. Barbut, who previously headed the conservation charity WWF France, said after the vote that she had sought to defend “the silence of our forests, the quality of our water, the purity of our air, the richness of our soils and the diversity of life”. She said she was resigning because “the forces opposing these goals have become so powerful that I can no longer carry this ambition through”, but reversed her decision after Macron gave her “guarantees” on climate action goals. Genevard, the agriculture minister, has said the health agency would only allow the pesticides’ use in certain areas for limited periods and when there was “no impact on human health or the environment, an emergency situation … and no alternative”. The beekeeping union , environmental groups and left-leaning members of parliament have said they will refer the new law to the constitutional council on the grounds that its fails to provide adequate safeguards for human health and the environment.

Gold dresses, flower markets and sitars: Pirelli’s 2027 calendar features all-Indian cast

Against the ancient, weathered walls of Jaigarh fort, high on the hills above Jaipur, Bhavitha Mandava stood barefoot and draped in gold. Just a few months earlier, the Indian model had been catapulted from a life of obscurity as a student at New York University to become one of the most recognisable and celebrated new faces of fashion. This year, she became the first Indian woman to open the Chanel catwalk at their Métiers d’Art show and her divisive Chanel outfit for the Met Gala, fashion’s most exclusive event, became an international talking point. Now Mandava, who grew up in the south Indian city of Hyderabad, is among the all-Indian cast of women who will feature in the first Pirelli calendar to be shot entirely in India. Launched in the 1960s as a marketing giveaway for the Italian tyre company, the Pirelli calendar is now seen as one of the most influential publications for fashion photography, and has featured almost every famous supermodel of the past six decades. Yet for decades it faced criticism for its lack of diversity, showcasing primarily thin, white models, and for its sexual objectification of women. The 1987 calendar included a topless 16-year-old Naomi Campbell among an all-black lineup. By 2016, fashion’s most famous photographer, Annie Leibovitz, shot a calendar celebrating a diverse roster of influential women, from Serena Williams to Yoko Ono. In 2018, Tim Walker returned to a cast of only black models with his Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland themed calendar. However, a return in 2025 to a focus on sensual and nude images, both female and male, drew criticism in the post-#MeToo era. The decision to shoot the Pirelli calendar in India this year comes amid a shifting landscape for south Asian representation in fashion, both in terms of talent but also in recognition and acknowledgment of the crucial role of Indian craft. While Indian craft, fabrics and embroidery have long influenced the designs of the top fashion houses, their contribution has rarely been acknowledged. In March 2023, Dior staged a show at Mumbai’s Gateway of India monument, the first major European luxury house to present a full runway show in India, with Indian embroidery workshops and artisans at the forefront. Less than two years later, Prada found itself engulfed in controversy after its runway show in June 2025 showcased models wearing leather sandals that were strikingly similar to traditional Kolhapuri chappals, a sandal originating in western India dating back centuries. After a backlash, the fashion house was forced to admit their Indian origins and sent a delegation to meet the artisans. Mandava, 26, said she initially had some hesitations prompted by the history of the Pirelli calendar and how it would work in India’s more modest culture. “I’ll be honest I wasn’t very enthusiastic about the past eroticism of the Pirelli calendar and those associations,” she said. “But I’m so glad, they have actively made an effort for me to feel like I belong.” She celebrated the decision by Pirelli to champion India’s “beauty and diversity”. But while she acknowledged a shift in the portrayal of Indian beauty in the west, she also cautioned against trying to make women such as herself “representations” of an entire country or race. “I like to think my race isn’t the most interesting thing about me,” said Mandava. “I’m happy that whatever I’m doing is providing representation but I also don’t think about how I’m representing India. That would just be too daunting.” The project had initially been envisioned as a collaboration of two photographers, one of India’s most famous, Raghu Rai, and the Norwegian photographer Sølve Sundsbø. Rai was seen as the pioneer of photojournalism in India and his photographs remain some of the most vivid representations of the country. But after Rai’s death in April, his photographer daughter Avani Rai agreed to take on his part of the project. It was, she admitted, a difficult project to take on and follow in her father’s footsteps. “My father was always my audience,” said Rai. “And initially I thought: if he’s not going to see these photos, then why should I shoot? But then I started talking to him in my head and he started showing up in divine spaces.” Representing all of India’s vastness and diversity was impossible, said Rai, and instead she focused on capturing an essence, the contradictions and “multiple coexisting universes”. In homage to him, she decided to take the Pirelli calendar project back on to the streets, shooting scenes on the streets of Delhi’s crumbling old city, its flower market, gullies and old cinemas. For Anoushka Shankar, whose genre-bending music has revolutionised how the traditional Indian sitar is perceived – and was featured in Gorillaz’ latest album – India has “always been about beauty and grace and sensuality, but outside of the country, there was often a deeply ignorant understanding of the culture”. She will appear on the pages of Pirelli calendar with her sitar, something she said would have once felt unthinkable. “If I think of how it felt for me as a teenager growing up in the UK or in the States, as a south Asian, we weren’t thought of as the beautiful people,” she said, “I would feel a little bit self-conscious about being Indian when I walked into certain rooms. But watching the last decade or so, south Asian presence in mainstream global culture has really changed that.” For Padma Lakshmi, the model and chef who was born in Tamil Nadu, returning to shoot the calendar in India – her second time featuring in it – felt particularly poignant. “Coming back to India to shoot this makes it feel, in a way, a lot more feminine,” she said. “I was raised in a house of Indian women, and I associate my earliest talisman of femininity with those women.” At 55, she is among the oldest women who will feature in this year’s calendar, and she celebrated the recognition that “the world is a very big place with lots of beauty”. “For so long we saw only one kind of Indian beauty, manufactured to certain tastes or certain narrow stereotypes,” said Lakshmi. “But this shows the many faces of what it means to be an Indian woman globally.”

Beaten, robbed and driven out: violent demonstrations target immigrants in South Africa

In Thembelihle, an informal settlement south of Johannesburg where thousands of breeze-block houses and metal shacks line dirt streets flooded with filthy water, Malawians had lived for years alongside South Africans without any problems. But in the last few weeks, a series of armed robberies has shaken the community. On 29 June, several men broke into the compound of Eibraheem Hussein, a 60-year-old Malawian who has lived in South Africa since 2000. They beat him and stole valuable items. On the night of 16 July, a gang robbed at least four Malawian households in Thembelihle. The five men told the terrified Malawians to go home in Zulu. Since March, South Africa has been roiled by often violent demonstrations against illegal immigration. More than 160,000 people from countries including Mozambique, Nigeria and Zimbabwe have left South Africa, according to an AFP tally of official figures, at least 54,000 of whom were deported. At least four people have been killed. While South Africa has imported labour for generations, immigration rose after Nelson Mandela welcomed people from across Africa when he became the first black and democratically elected president in 1994. Poverty and political repression in some neighbouring countries also pushed many people south. South Africa’s foreign-born population almost trebled to 2.4 million between 1996 and 2022, according to the census, which aimed to include undocumented people. That represented 3.9% of the 62 million population, up from 2% in 1996. South Africa’s government has said it is working to improve immigration data. As frustration has grown at South Africa’s high levels of unemployment and inequality, so too has the scapegoating of other Africans. This tension has periodically erupted into often fatal violence. The current wave of protests about immigration peaked on 30 June, which was an unofficial deadline given by campaign groups for illegal immigrants to leave the country. But the attacks and displacement have continued, leading to thousands more fleeing South Africa this month. At marches, which are still taking place regularly, people have been thrown out of their homes as police look on. Meanwhile, criminals are taking advantage of the chaos, further terrorising immigrants. At about 9pm on 16 July, five men kicked down Moosa Addi Kunje’s door, beating him when he said he had no money. His eyes filled with tears as he recounted how the gang took his fridge, TV and mobile phone. “You can see the blood was flying all over here,” he said, gesturing around him. There was blood all over the floor, splattered on the white curtain dividing the room and smeared on the wall. When Kunje returned from a nearby clinic, he had stitches where he had been hit on the head with a pistol. His grey tracksuit was covered with dried blood. Aisha Muhammed, one of Kunje’s neighbours, said they took 4,000 rand (£180) she had been saving for returning to Malawi. “They said: ’You are foreigners. You want to go, you must go,’” she said. Two other households reported being robbed later that night by five men. All said that they wanted to go back to Malawi, but now couldn’t afford to. Last week, thousands of Malawians slept without shelter outside their consulate, in an affluent area of north Johannesburg, as temperatures dropped below 10C (50F). Among those waiting to board buses back to Malawi were dozens of women with young children. One, who did not want to give her name, had been fired by the family she was cleaning for, which had pushed her to leave South Africa with her eight-year-old son. She left behind her husband, who said he was also fired from his job after 17 years. He was staying to save money to transport their possessions back to Malawi, but already missed his family. “My son, I want to talk to him every time,” he said. There have been numerous cases of migrants unable to access healthcare, said Claire Waterhouse, who was managing a Médecins Sans Frontières pop-up clinic outside the consulate. These included two cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis at a temporary displacement camp in Musina, near the Zimbabwe border, and a woman who had severe hallucinations after she was blocked from entering a government clinic to get her psychiatric medication, Waterhouse said. “There is no humanitarian crisis,” the justice minister, Mmamoloko Kubayi, told a media briefing, when asked about conditions at the Malawian consulate and Musina. The government is only obliged to provide emergency care for illegal immigrants, she said. The law guarantees everyone in South Africa access to primary healthcare, regardless of their immigration status, said Sasha Stevenson, the executive director of Section27, a human rights NGO. Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, the leader of March and March, one of the groups that imposed the deadline for illegal immigrants to leave South Africa, said on 30 June that they would continue demonstrating every Thursday for six months until all had left. Critics of the marches have accused the organisers of deflecting blame for South Africa’s issues from the government on to migrants. “With South Africa, we have made a call to say can we have illegal immigrants vacate the country first, so that we can deal with the problems of the country,” Sandile Dube, March and March’s spokesperson, said. Some government ministers have questioned why the marches were continuing, noting the timing before highly contested local elections in November. The opposition party uMkhonto we Sizwe, led by the former president Jacob Zuma (who Ngobese-Zuma has said is not a direct relation of her husband), has expressed support for the marches. Smaller parties, including ActionSA and the Inkatha Freedom party, which is in the national coalition government, have also backed the demonstrations. On 16 July, about 50 people, carrying sticks, clubs and a hacksaw, marched through the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, chanting and singing in Zulu. March leaders initially encouraged protesters to remain peaceful. But by the afternoon, dozens began breaking down doors as police stood by. They appeared to be indiscriminate in their targeting, with South Africans affected as well as migrants. Karel Shirilda, a South African, said it was the second week that his door had been broken. Ketibone Lamola, another South African, said her children were terrified. “When you come in here and start fighting, you traumatise my kids,” she said. Two men, who marchers claimed were illegal immigrants from Malawi, were dragged out of a garage and taken away by police. Two women, one hyperventilating, the other holding a baby, were also driven away in a police vehicle, an officer claiming it was for their “safety”. In at least one instance, marchers demanded to see someone’s immigration documents. The Alexandra march was not a March and March event, the spokesperson said, adding the group disavowed responsibility for any violence or other illegal activities at marches. “We don’t stand for that,” he said. “We absolutely reject it with the contempt it deserves, any touching of any person, because we are law-abiding.” “No one is allowed to go door to door demanding identification as that is tantamount to impersonating a law enforcement officer, which is a criminal offence,” said Brenda Muridili, a police spokesperson. Asked about the Thembelihle incidents, police not intervening in Alexandra and whether those taken away at that march were arrested for breaching immigration law, she said: “I can only report on what has been recorded by the SAPS [South African police service].”

Evacuated villagers in Cairngorms allowed home after wildfire threat lifts

Residents of Nethy Bridge have been told they can return to their homes after a large fire broke out in the Cairngorms national park. Supt Judy Hill of Police Scotland said: “Thanks to the efforts of fire crews, gamekeepers, contractors, partners and many others over the past 24 hours, there is no longer the immediate threat which prompted the evacuation of properties in Nethy Bridge. “We are grateful to the community for their support and understanding in what has been a period of concern and disruption.” Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney, welcomed the news, saying: “Efforts to tackle the wildfire in the Cairngorms are in their 10th day, and changeable weather conditions have presented a range of challenges for those on the ground. I praise their resilience and tireless efforts to bring it under control. “With residents in Nethy Bridge now able to return to their homes, Police Scotland have lifted the major incident declaration. “I want to stress, however, that the Scottish government, the emergency services and all relevant authorities will continue to treat this wildfire, as has been the case since its onset, with the utmost seriousness and necessary resources until the last flames are out.” Earlier in the day Swinney had asked for military aid from the UK government as more than 500 firefighters alongside specialist wildfire appliances, all-terrain vehicles, helicopter water-bombing operations and partner agencies tackled the fire that had raged in the Cairngorms national park for the past 10 days and forced the evacuation of homes in the remote region. Residents of Nethy Bridge were taken to a dedicated respite centre at the Macdonald Aviemore hotel. Access roads were closed amid fears the fire was heading for the village. Just before 11pm on Saturday residents were told they could return home. Swinney had said earlier in the day that changing wind conditions had “intensified the pace of spread of the wildfire, adding that the Scottish fire and rescue service (SFRS) was focusing its resources on creating a firebreak. The wildfire, which broke out near the village of Glenmore on 15 July, led to residents and campsites being evacuated. It covered an area of about 6 sq km (2.3 sq miles) of heather and small trees at its height and its smoke drifted as far as Aberdeen, about 60 miles (97km) from where the fire started. Claire Montague, 65, a retired GP, and her family were evacuated from their home on Friday. She said: “We could see the smoke rising and when the wind changed direction we could see the flames – it was pretty scary and felt pretty close although it was still a few kilometres away. “We could see lots of smoke today when we popped back home, masses coming from a very large area. It is not contained by any means. “It was absolutely terrifying, nothing like I’ve felt before. The Dava Moor fire last summer was farther away from us. “Thankfully they have managed to put in a firebreak.” Montague added: “Where the fire started is the original area of the Caledonian forest, a desperately important ecosystem, which they were trying very hard to preserve and expand. “The whole land had to be bulldozed for the firebreak, which is desperately sad.” Senior emergency service officials said that firefighters “continue to work across a vast and challenging landscape alongside Forestry and Land Scotland, the Cairngorms national park authority, landowners, estate gamekeepers and emergency service partners. Their expertise, local knowledge and support have been instrumental in helping crews respond to this complex and dynamic incident.” On Saturday, the SFRA warned residents in Tomintoul – about 10 miles (16km) to the east of Nethy Bridge – to keep windows and doors closed because of the smoke from the wildfire.

France and Spain race to control wildfires as more than 250,000 evacuated – as it happened

Firefighters across France and Spain continue to battle wildfires that have displaced almost 270,000 people. A ‌man has died in a ‌wildfire near the Spanish city of Valencia, the country’s ⁠interior ⁠ministry said. The victim was ‌found in a car ⁠in a ravine in the town of Manises, west of the city. In France, 197,000 people have been evacuated near Bordeaux, including in the suburbs of the city. The French armed forces significantly expanded its military response to the major wildfires in the south-west, deploying 1,500 soldiers to support firefighters, assist with evacuations and provide medical care, transport, accommodation, and logistical support. The armed forces are also supplying specialist equipment, including bulldozers, helicopters, drones, and A400M military aircraft equipped for aerial firefighting, to help contain the fires and support the wider emergency response. The French prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, convened new government crisis meeting later on the wildfires in south-west France, his office announced. The Spanish interior ministry said a total of 70,000 people have been evacuated from villages west of Madrid. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the wildfire situation near Madrid remained “complex” as he visited affected areas. “We don’t know how the wind will develop, even though temperatures have dropped,” he said. The first minister of Scotland has asked for military aid from the UK government as more than 500 firefighters continue to tackle a firewhich has raged in the Cairngorms national park for the past 11 days and forced the evacuation of homes in the remote region.

‘It felt like the end of the world’: Spanish wildfire evacuees tell of their narrow escapes

When David Olivares went to bed on Thursday night, tired from a four-hour motorbike ride, the fire creeping towards his home town of Robledo de Chavela seemed a distant menace. He woke up the next day, saw the white smoke behind the mountains and decided the threat to Robledo, which lies 30 miles (50km) west of Madrid, had probably receded. The feeling of idle security would not last long. A second look at the horizon revealed the white smoke was beginning to give way to black. “Then I saw the fire at the top of the mountain,” said the 27-year-old as he ate a sandwich in the leisure centre to which he had been evacuated in Las Rozas, a municipality on the north-western outskirts of the Spanish capital. “It started to spread down the mountain and then I got the emergency alert on my phone at about 5.30pm, telling us we had to leave.” Even so, he wasn’t unduly panicked. “I thought to myself, come on, it’s 2026 – the firefighters will get it under control with all their drones and planes,” he said. “But that wasn’t the case.” Just as his mother told him they needed to leave, Olivares looked up at the sky, which had also begun to change. “It turned orange and looked very apocalyptic,” he said. “Then there was black smoke in Robledo and you could see the fire. People were shouting – a kid was screaming to his dad: ‘Let’s go now’ – and there were cars and people everywhere. It felt like the end of the world. We grabbed our three cats, got in the car and left.” María Rosa Marín, a fellow evacuee from the nearby town of Valdemaqueda, nodded along at the recollection. “The sun was so strange; you could hardly see it. It looked like something from the Bible,” she said. On a cushion next to her lay her dog, Jeffery, who dozed on, blissfully unconcerned at finding himself so far from home and under such dramatic circumstances. Marín, Olivares and 300 or so other people who were evacuated from Robleda and the surrounding towns had spent the night in the sports centre in Las Rozas, where council workers were preparing stacks of ham sandwiches and local police officers were lugging in huge bottles of water. They are just a few of the 87,000 people who have been evacuated or ordered to lock down as central Spain battles huge wildfires that scientists say are being fuelled by climate breakdown and plentiful dry vegetation on a continent that is heating at about twice the global average rate. David Santos, Las Rozas’s councillor for safety and emergencies, said people had been arriving at the centre since 1pm on Friday. “They’re pretty worried and pretty anxious,” he said. “We’re talking about people who’ve been evacuated from their homes and their home towns and don’t know when they’ll be able to return. On top of that, they don’t know whether their homes will be intact, so they’re living in a state of uncertainty.” Santos said three emergency psychologists were on hand at the centre to help people, as well as paramedics and a doctor. For the young, games and books were available on the top floor of the sports centre and there were plans to screen a film on Sunday. The councillor, who has overseen the town’s response to everything from the heavy snowfall of Storm Filomena five years ago to the Covid pandemic and the hosting of an large influx of Ukrainian refugees, said nothing quite compared with the blaze that Madrid’s regional president has described as “the worst wildfire in our region’s history”. José Celaya, another evacuee from Robledo, sat at a nearby communal table, working his way through another of the many ham sandwiches. The 61-year-old, who had arrived at the sports centre late on Friday night with his wife, two children, sister-in-law and mother-in-law, shook his head at the suggestion that Spain’s wildfires were becoming more frequent because of climate breakdown. He laid the blame squarely at the door of successive governments, which had turned their backs on the huge rural and semi-rural swathes of the country. “I think it’s complete negligence, a totally misguided policy by the governments – and I don’t care which government is in power,” he said. “Their policies have nothing to do with how we used to look after the hills: there’s no livestock to graze them now and no one to clear all the vegetation. They don’t let people gather firewood, which, after all, is flammable material.” Still, he said, indignation and frustration would serve no purpose at the moment. And besides, he added, all the staff and volunteers at the sports centre had been amazing. “There’s no point getting wound up, because getting angry isn’t going to solve anything,” said Celaya. “Everyone just has to cope as best they can. Everything depends on the weather now – on how windy it is and on which way the wind blows.”