Morning Brief: Deadly fire at Canada's Wainwright army base; France counts 1,800 riot arrests; Ukraine sends 1,000 drones at Russia
Also: Europe's Parliament targets the Muslim Brotherhood; tugboat hit off the UAE; Champi leaves Guam behind; Vance on 2028 and gas prices; Rubio on an American journalist beaten in the West Bank; the ABA's accreditation fight; Supreme Court orders Monday.
6 AM CT video brief · 1:53Presenter voice and image generated with AI tools.Read transcript
I'm Nora Vale with your 6 AM World Brief for Sunday, October 18. Deadly fire at CFB Wainwright in Alberta; deaths and injuries confirmed, cause unknown. France arrests about 1,800 as riots follow fuel-price marches; Limoges town hall burns. Ukrainian drones set St. Petersburg oil terminal ablaze; Russia claims 1,015 downed. Vance will decide on 2028 after the midterms; says gas prices are too high. Supreme Court orders due Monday 9:30 a.m. ET; November sitting opens Nov. 2. In national weather, from the National Weather Service: Nor'easter develops along the Carolina coast this weekend, bringing potential coastal flooding and beach erosion along portions of the Mid-Atlantic coast into early next week. Flash flooding risk for portions of South Florida for Sunday. Our opinion. Prosecute rioters, rebuild American refining, give Wainwright families answers. Full stories and sources are at WorldBriefNow.com. I'm Nora Vale. Thanks for watching.
A serious incident set off a major fire Saturday at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in Alberta, one of Canada's busiest army training bases, and Defence Minister David McGuinty confirmed both deaths and injuries but gave no numbers, the BBC and Fox News reported. Global News, citing unnamed military sources, reported at least seven killed and dozens injured after a gas line or gas well was hit during a live-fire exercise; officials have not confirmed a cause, and Edmonton's Royal Alexandra Hospital declared a code orange for mass casualties, the BBC said. Wind-driven flames spread beyond the base fences before crews contained the blaze, local officials said, and NATO's top military officer said Sunday that all 32 allied defence chiefs stand with Canada, CBC reported.
Police arrested about 1,800 people Saturday as some 550,000 people marched across France against fuel prices and the cost of living, and while most protests were peaceful, masked rioters torched cars and looted shops in Paris, Marseille and Lille, the BBC reported. More than 500 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters were injured, the interior ministry said, and the retail federation counted about 1,500 shops damaged. In Limoges, the 1883 town hall, a protected landmark, was 'largely lost' to a fire the local prefect called a deliberate act, Fox News reported, as President Emmanuel Macron vowed rioters would be prosecuted and punished.
Ukrainian drone strikes set fires Sunday at the Petersburg Oil Terminal and the city's Ruchi oil depot, killing one person and wounding five, St. Petersburg Gov. Alexander Beglov said, the Associated Press reported via CBC. Russia's Defense Ministry said it destroyed 1,015 Ukrainian drones over 15 Russian regions, Crimea and the Black Sea, one of the largest aerial attacks of the war. The strikes come as President Trump has criticized Kyiv for hitting Russian oil sites, and a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia on Saturday killed a woman and wounded at least two others, including a 6-year-old girl, local officials said.
An overwhelming majority of the European Parliament voted for a resolution condemning the Muslim Brotherhood network and calling for an EU strategy against 'Islamist entryism,' Fox News reported, following the Trump administration's sanctions on foreign Muslim Brotherhood groups. The text, led by the center-right European People's Party and sponsored by French member Celine Imart, says Europe can 'no longer fund, consult or legitimize networks' that work to weaken its values from within, while stressing Muslim citizens must be protected from discrimination, according to the Parliament's release cited by Fox. The pan-European anti-racism network ENAR condemned the resolution as Islamophobic.
A southbound tugboat was struck by two unknown projectiles northeast of Khor Fakkan in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, leaving one person with minor injuries, the UK Maritime Trade Operations center said, according to Anadolu Agency. UKMTO said the vessel was damaged but able to continue on its route, and gave no further details on the injured person or who fired. The attack comes as shipping around the Strait of Hormuz remains under threat during the U.S.-Iran conflict.
Super Typhoon Champi was about 200 miles west of Guam Sunday evening local time (early Sunday CT), moving west at 14 mph with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, and no watches or warnings remained in effect for the Marianas, the National Weather Service in Guam said. Forecasters expect Champi to weaken through Monday but remain a major typhoon as it turns slightly west-northwest. Typhoon-force winds extend up to 60 miles from the center.
At a CBS News town hall in Michigan released Saturday night, Vice President JD Vance said 'of course there's a chance' he won't run for president in 2028, citing his four young children, and said he will make a decision after the midterm elections, the Washington Examiner reported. Vance said 'gas prices are too high,' blaming Iran's attacks on shipping and refining capacity lost under the Biden administration, and said the administration is using the Defense Production Act to restore refining, Fox News reported. Pressed on corruption allegations, Vance said he sees no evidence of corruption from the president or the administration.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday the United States was 'very disturbed' by reports that American photojournalist Heidi Levine was beaten during an attack by groups of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and said Washington has asked Israel 'to crack down on that stuff,' Anadolu Agency reported. Rubio said President Trump 'has been very clear' he does not want 'friction' or a new crisis in the West Bank, and that lifting sanctions on settlers last year did not mean the president supports such attacks. He said the U.S. embassy was gathering more information.
The Education Department is expected to decide by late December whether the American Bar Association's law school accrediting arm keeps the federal recognition it has held since 1952, Fox News reported. Department staff have recommended denying renewal after the federal advisory panel on accreditation deadlocked in September, leaving the call to Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent. Losing recognition would not automatically end ABA accreditation or change state bar rules, but experts told Fox it could speed state efforts, such as one taking shape in Texas, to approve cheaper, shorter paths to becoming a lawyer.
The justices met in private conference Friday to vote on petitions, and orders from that conference are expected Monday at 9:30 a.m. EDT, SCOTUSblog reported. After that, the Court is expected to be quieter until its November argument sitting begins Nov. 2, following an October sitting in which the justices heard arguments and added three cases to the docket in its final week. There were no new opinions or orders over the weekend.
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