August 16, 2026
August 16, 2026
Moscow region, Russia - A large fire engulfed Russia's biggest Wildberries logistics hub in the village of Koledino, roughly 40 kilometers south of the Kremlin, early on August 16, 2026, following a reported Ukrainian drone strike, according to open-source intelligence monitors and Ukrainian media. Videos and photographs circulating online showed intense flames and thick columns of black smoke rising from the sprawling complex, which spans more than 200,000 square meters and...
PORTLAND, Ore. - (8.14.26) Commuters in the Pacific Northwest got an unexpected pair of fellow passengers this week when two loose pygmy goats decided to try public transit. Security camera footage from a TriMet bus stop at Southeast 162nd Avenue and Division Street shows the white goats calmly trotting up to an FX2-Division bus during the Tuesday morning rush hour around 7:40 a.m. The animals followed human riders onto the green articulated bus, briefly joining the morning...
SANTA MONICA - A rare hammerhead shark was filmed swimming near Malibu Pier on Thursday afternoon, August 13, 2026, just a short drive up the coast from Santa Monica, drawing attention from local anglers and marine experts. Video captured by a Los Angeles County fisherman and posted under the account @PIERMACKEREL shows the shark swimming roughly a football field from shore at Surfrider Beach. In the footage, the angler briefly hooks the animal before it spits the bait and...
Santa Monica police and fire personnel responded Friday, August 14, 2026, to a death investigation in the 1100 block of 7th Street, where an adult was pronounced dead at the scene following an apparent suicide. The individual, described by authorities as an elderly man, was found on a sixth-floor construction balcony at Westminster Tower, a 17-story residential building. Preliminary information from the Santa Monica Police Department indicated the death was not related to...
SANTA MONICA - The field of candidates for Santa Monica's November 3, 2026, general municipal election is now largely set after the nomination filing deadline passed this week, producing contested races for every local office on the ballot. According to city candidate filing records dated August 12, 2026, hopefuls who pulled nomination papers in the weeks leading up to the deadline have either submitted their paperwork, withdrawn, or chosen not to file. Some applications...
Santa Monica is moving full steam ahead with a radical scheme to master-lease entire apartment buildings, motel blocks, and individual units across the city and beyond - then fill them with the homeless. City officials announced this week they are actively hunting landlords willing to hand over vacant properties under a new Master Leasing Program. The city or a nonprofit partner would become the "master tenant," pay the rent, handle security and "supportive services," and...
**LEÓN, Spain** - Crowds gathered across northern Spain on Wednesday evening as a total solar eclipse swept over León, briefly turning day into twilight and revealing the sun's shimmering corona just before sunset. The moon's shadow reached the city around 8:28 p.m. local time (CEST), with totality lasting approximately 1 minute and 45 seconds. Partial phases began near 7:32 p.m., peaked at maximum eclipse around 8:29 p.m., and concluded about 9:22 p.m. At the height of...
CEUTA, Spain — Are Ceuta residents fed up over African migrants or over right wing politicians? It depends on whether you believe the NY Post or the NY Times. In the days after tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in late July 2026, two major American outlets offered sharply different accounts of what unfolded next. The New York Post highlighted local anger over migrants occupying a beach with makeshift huts, portable toilets,...
It's obvious now that California's roughly 18-year-old High-Speed Rail Project (authorized by voters in 2008), which has spent on the order of $15–18 billion and still has not laid a single mile of actual high-speed track on the main alignment, is a train to nowhere. Practically speaking, how can Californians derail it permanently? The project has produced substantial civil work-about 80 miles of guideway and dozens of structures in the Central Valley-but no operational...
Luigi Mangione is expected to enter a guilty plea on Friday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to one or both of the remaining federal stalking charges arising from the December 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The anticipated plea, if accepted by Judge Margaret Garnett, would resolve the federal case short of trial and position the defense to invoke New York's expansive statutory double jeopardy protections against...
LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles County grand jury has indicted Nick Reiner on murder charges in the December 2025 stabbing deaths of his parents, acclaimed actor-director Rob Reiner and photographer-producer Michele Singer Reiner, at their Brentwood home. The indictment, returned July 20 and unsealed today, charges the 32-year-old with two counts of murder. Prosecutors added special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and murder by means of lying in wait, along with a...
