(RIO DE JANEIRO) — Fires in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands have ripped through the biodiverse region, consuming an area the size of London in just the past 10 days, burning some animals alive and sending others fleeing.

The inferno in the world’s largest tropical wetlands is the latest environmental disaster facing Brazil, coming after a mysterious oil spill that is afflicting beaches in the northeast and August fires that raged in the Amazon region.

The Pantanal, which sprawls over parts of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, is a popular ecotourism destination considered one of the best places to see wildlife in South America. During the wet season, rivers overflow their banks and make most of the region accessible only by boat and plane. In the dry season, wildlife enthusiasts flock to see jaguars lounging on riverbanks, as well as macaws, giant river otters and caiman.

But this year’s dry season has extended much longer than usual.

“Any spark in this area these days of high temperatures ..

SAN FRANCISCO — The Saudi government recruited two Twitter employees to get personal account information of their critics, prosecutors said Wednesday.

A complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco detailed a coordinated effort by Saudi government officials to recruit employees at the social media giant to look up the private data of thousands of Twitter accounts.

The accounts included those of a popular journalist with more than 1 million followers and other prominent government critics.

It also alleged that the employees — whose jobs did not require access to Twitter users’ private information — were rewarded with a designer watch and tens of thousands of dollars funneled into secret bank accounts. They were charged with acting as agents of Saudi Arabia without registering with the U.S. government.

Ahmad Abouammo, who left his job as the media partnership manager responsible for Twitter’s Middle East region in 2015, was also charged with falsifying documents and mak..

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Gunmen attacked a convoy near a Canadian mining site in Burkina Faso, killing at least 37 people and wounding 60 others, the regional governor said late Wednesday.

Montreal-based Semafo said the bloodshed happened about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from its Boungou mine in Burkina Faso’s Eastern region and involved five buses of employees who were being accompanied by a military escort.

Col. Saidou Sanou, the region’s governor, gave the provisional casualty toll in a statement. The mining company said only that it was aware of “several fatalities and injuries.”

“Boungou mine site remains secured and our operations are not affected,” Semafo said in its statement. “We are actively working with all levels of authorities to ensure the ongoing safety and security of our employees, contractors and suppliers.”

The area has become increasingly precarious for Semafo, which operates two gold mines in Burkina Faso. Last year, an employee and subcontractor were kil..

(LONDON) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson told British voters Wednesday that they have to back his Conservatives if they want an end to Brexit delays, as he tried to shake off a rocky start to the governing party’s election campaign.

Speaking outside his No. 10 Downing St. office on the first official day of Britain’s five-week campaign, Johnson said the political impasse over Britain’s departure from the European Union made him want to “chew my own tie in frustration.”

“I don’t want an early election, and no one much wants to have an election in December, but we have got to the stage where we have no choice,” he said.

Johnson, trying to set the stage for a people-versus-Parliament campaign, said lawmakers were “refusing time and again to deliver Brexit and honor the result of the referendum.”

In fact, lawmakers approved Johnson’s EU divorce deal in principle last month, but asked for more time to scrutinize it. Johnson then withdrew the bill and pushed for an early election instead…