Dozens of sunken WWII German ships resurface along Danube River as water levels hit record low
CBSN
As Europe continues to experience a record heat wave that one top scientist said could signal its worst drought in 500 years, receding water levels along the continent's massive Danube River have exposed around two dozen sunken ships that belonged to the German army during World War II, according to Reuters.
The Danube, which is Europe's second-longest river, stretches from the Black Forest in southwestern Germany to the Black Sea in eastern Romania. Its water levels reached one of their lowest points in almost a century this year, and recently fell five feet in three weeks' time at a stretch near Budapest, the Associated Press reported. The area's leading water company warned that the sudden drop could threaten its supply of drinking water, according to the AP.
About 380 miles south of Hungary's capital city, receding water along the Danube near Prahovo, Servia, revealed the hulks of more than 20 vessels once operated by Nazi Germany's Black Sea fleet, which traveled through the waterway while retreating from Soviet forces toward the end of the war. Hundreds of sunken German warships are scattered across the Danube River, and they can pose dangers to current river traffic and shipping when water levels fall too low, according to Reuters.
Collville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France — The word "hero" is overused. But if not for the courage of the few remaining D-Day survivors and their friends who fell as they launched the fight to oust Adolf Hitler's Nazi German forces from France 80 years ago, there would have been no celebrations this week in Normandy.
France's domestic intelligence agency has detained a 26-year-old Russian-Ukrainian man on suspicion of planning a violent act after he injured himself in an explosion, prosecutors said on Wednesday. The news came hours before world leaders gathered in the nation to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy.
A British-Mexican man who says he was targeted for being gay and arrested on false drug charges in Qatar has been given a suspended six-month jail sentence, a fine amounting to about $2,700, and a deportation order by a court in the Arab nation, which is a vital U.S. ally in the Middle East, according to his family and Mexican officials.
An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed more than 30 people, including 23 women and children, according to local health officials in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory. The hospital treating victims said it had received the bodies of at least "37 martyrs" from the strike, according to Agence France-Presse. But a U.N. official tells the Reuters news agency the death toll is between 35 and 45, though it still can't confirm any numbers.
Jerusalem — Thousands of Israeli nationalists marched Wednesday through east Jerusalem as authorities deployed police with tensions sky-high nearly eight months into the Gaza war. That war appeared to be intensifying in Gaza and the far-right nationalists staged their annual march – long deemed a provocation by Palestinians – in Jerusalem.
The world has now marked one full year of back-to-back monthly heat records, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service announced on Wednesday. It said last month was the hottest May in recorded history — the 12th consecutive month in which the monthly high temperature record was broken.