Two suicide bombings breached a wall at a military base in northwestern Pakistan before other attackers stormed the compound and were repelled in violence that killed at least 12 people and wounded 30 others, according to officials and a local hospital.

A group affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in Bannu, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and said that dozens of members of Pakistani security forces were killed. The military didn’t immediately confirm any casualties, but Bannu District Hospital said that at least a dozen people were dead.

The two suicide bombers blew themselves up near the wall of the sprawling military area, a security official said on condition of anonymity, because he wasn’t authorized to speak with reporters.

“After a breach in the wall, five to six more attackers attempted to enter the cantonment, but were eliminated,” the security official said.

The attack happened after sunset, when people would have been breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Jaish Al-Fursan claimed responsibility for the attack, the third militant assault in Pakistan since Ramadan started Sunday. In a statement, the group said the source of the blasts were explosive-laden vehicles.

Plumes of gray smoke rose into the air and gunshots continued after the two explosions, police officer Zahid Khan said. Four of those killed were children, hospital officials said. The victims lived close to the scene of the blasts.

A spokesman for Bannu District Hospital, Muhammad Noman, said that the evening blasts badly damaged homes and other buildings.

“The roofs and walls collapsed and that’s why we are receiving casualties,” he said.

Hospital director Dr. Ahmed Faraz Khan said: “So far we have received 42 victims, 12 dead and 30 injured. A few of them are critical, but most are stable. All doctors, particularly surgeons and paramedical staff, have been called for duty as a medical emergency has been imposed.”

The blasts caused the roof of a nearby mosque to collapse while a number of worshippers were inside, rescue workers and provincial government spokesman Muhammad Ali Saif said.

Rescue workers trying to free people from underneath the rubble said that they had retrieved the body of the mosque’s imam.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack and expressed his grief over the loss of life. The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ali Amin Gandapur, ordered an inquiry.

Militants have targeted Bannu several times. Last November, a suicide car bomb killed 12 troops and wounded several others at a security post.

In July, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle and other militants opened fire near the outer wall of the military facility.

A German tattoo artist who tried to enter the United States from Mexico through the San Diego border has been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention for over a month, according to a friend who witnessed her being detained.

Jessica Brösche, a Berlin-based tattoo artist, had been vacationing in Mexico when she decided to travel to the US from Tijuana with an American friend, Nikita Lofving. But at the San Ysidro port of entry immigration authorities took Brösche into custody.

The call was on January 25. Brösche has been in detention ever since, half a month past when she originally hoped to leave the US on February 15, Lofving says.

In a statement to KGTV, an ICE spokesperson wrote that Brösche is in detention due “to the violation of the terms and conditions of her admission.”

“I mean, she was coming to work, but not really for money,” Lofving said. “We have an agreement between artists. She’s one of my best friends. We’ve been working on this tattoo project on my body for the last five or six years, and in exchange, I make clothes for her.”

In a phone interview with KGTV last month, Brösche said that she had been kept in “horrible” solitary confinement for eight days when she entered US custody.

“I just want to get home, you know? I’m really desperate,” Brösche told KGTV from Otay Mesa. “I don’t really understand why it’s taking so long to get back to Germany.”

Lofving said that Brösche’s friends and family are hoping that she’ll be out of detention and on a flight back to Germany on March 11, and that her mother bought her a plane ticket home. They aren’t sure whether ICE will let her out by then, however.

“We sent (Brösche) back the information for the tickets, and she told her ICE agent,” Lofving continued, saying the ICE agent had said, “No, you have to get the ticket approved before you buy it.”

‘Extremely concerning’

“Our responsibility is to care for each person respectfully and humanely while they receive the legal due process that they are entitled to,” said spokesperson Ryan Gustin.

By entering on the waiver program, a tourist waives their right to any kind of litigation, Joseph explained.

But normally, a tourist denied entry to the US would be allowed to withdraw their application for admission. “Instead of being subjected to deportation proceedings, they’re allowed to kind of get back on the airplane and turn around and go home, and that does not appear to have happened in this case,” Joseph continued.

In any case, Joseph said that Brösche’s extended stay in Otay Mesa is “extremely concerning.”

Millions of residents along Australia’s eastern coast are preparing for the impact of the most southerly cyclone to threaten the region in more than five decades.

Tropical Cyclone Alfred, with strength the equivalent of a category 1 Atlantic hurricane, is expected to cross the coast just south of the Queensland capital of Brisbane, home to 2.5 million people, in the early hours of Friday, potentially at high tide, complicating the days ahead for emergency services.

“This is a rare event – to have a tropical cyclone in an area that is not classified as part of the tropics, here in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales (NSW),” said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Brisbane on Wednesday.

The last cyclone to cross near Brisbane of a similar strength was Cyclone Zoe back in 1974, which caused major flooding in the city and NSW’s Northern Rivers region.

Brisbane’s population has more than doubled since then, but experts say the worst of Cyclone Alfred could be felt south of the storm’s eye, along popular tourist beaches from the Gold Coast to northern NSW.

“We haven’t seen anything quite like this for a good 50 years,” said Darrell Strauss, coastal management researcher at Griffith University.

“There are areas where storm surge is the biggest problem, and then there’s areas where high waves and coastal erosion and inundation from the sea directly due to the waves are a big problem. So, we’ve got a combination of all of that from Brisbane to the Northern Rivers (of NSW),” Strauss said.

As of Wednesday, Cyclone Alfred was just over 400 kilometers (250 miles) off the coast, moving west with destructive winds of up to 120 kilometers per hour (75 miles per hour), according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).

Creeks and rivers in northern NSW were expected to flood, threatening an unwelcome return to scenes of 2022 when heavy rain saw several rivers burst their banks.

Three years on, some flooded homes are still uninhabitable and delays in rebuilding forced residents to live in temporary housing and tents for far longer than many hoped.

“The Northern Rivers has gone through hell over the last few years. We’re particularly concerned about some of those communities,” NSW Premier Chris Minns said Tuesday.

In Brisbane, residents were busy sandbagging their homes and stripping supermarket shelves of food and bottled water as authorities issued warnings about potential flooding.

Modeling showed 20,000 properties across Brisbane could be impacted by storm surge or flash flooding, according to the Lord Mayor’s office.

Beaches in northern NSW and along the Queensland coast were closed, as authorities warned of hazardous surf with waves of more than 5 meters (16 feet). Storm surges could go even higher, up to 10 meters (32 feet), according to the NSW State Emergency Services.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli urged residents near vulnerable coastal areas to follow evacuation orders.

“If it was the case that this system, which has strengthened, was to cross on high tide in the middle of the night, and you’re in that storm surge, the last place you want to be is in your home. So, now’s the time,” he said.

Major sporting events were canceled, and schools will close in the affected areas Thursday and Friday.

Strong winds were also a concern in areas where residents are accustomed to heavy rain, but not necessarily cyclone-strength gales. They were urged to tie down anything that could take flight.

Americans applied for British citizenship in record numbers last year, with a historically high volume of applications submitted in the last quarter of 2024 – a period coinciding with US President Donald Trump’s re-election.

More than 6,100 US citizens applied for UK citizenship last year, the most since records began in 2004, when fewer than 3,000 Americans submitted an application, according to data from the UK’s Home Office.

Last year’s numbers also saw a marked uptick from 2023, a year with fewer than 5,000 applications by US citizens.

Applications by Americans soared in the last three months of 2024, when more than 1,700 people applied – the most in any quarter in the past two decades.

The surge is reminiscent of an upswing recorded in the first six months of 2020, when more than 5,800 Americans gave up their citizenship, nearly tripling the number from all of 2019.

That uptick came in the wake of Trump’s first presidency and changes in tax policy, analysts argued then, and were mostly Americans who had already been living in Britain for some time.

Trump himself could apply for British citizenship, through his late mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, who was born and raised in Scotland before leaving as a 17-year-old for the United States to work as a domestic servant in 1930.

European escape

As more Americans scramble for UK passports, some British citizens have recently sought their own backups.

In the years following the UK’s vote to leave the European Union (EU) in 2016, the number of Britons applying for Irish passports – giving them the right to freely work, live and travel across Europe – almost doubled.

And with Trump’s re-election in November last year leaving Americans around the world worried about what the next four years may bring, some communities have sniffed an opportunity.

An Italian village launched a website aimed at would-be American expats, offering up more cheap homes in the hope that those upset by the election’s outcome will rush to snap up one of its empty properties – and revive its fortunes after decades of depopulation.

“Are you worned (sic) out by global politics? Looking to embrace a more balanced lifestyle while securing new opportunities?” the website asks. “It’s time to start building your European escape in the stunning paradise of Sardinia.”

Japan is fighting a forest fire that has damaged dozens of homes and forced hundreds of residents to evacuate in a northeastern coastal city.

The fire has burned about 2,100 hectares (5,190 acres) of forest in Ofunato since it started Wednesday, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

The agency said at least 84 homes have been damaged, and over 1,200 people evacuated. The fire has subsided in some areas. More than 2,000 troops and and firefighters have been deployed from across the country.

A man was found dead on a road Thursday, and authorities are examining if the death was linked to the fire, the agency said.

The northeastern regions, including Ofunato, have had their driest winter since 1946, when the Japan Meteorological Agency started collecting data.