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Goodwin Fire burning in the Bradshaw Mountains

The Goodwin Fire was a wildfire that burned 28,516 acres (115.40 km²) in the U.S. state of Arizona from June 24 to July 10, 2017. The fire destroyed 17 homes and damaged another 19 structures, but no one was killed. The fire was first detected on June 24 by a two-man fire patrol that spotted smoke in the Bradshaw Mountains near Prescott, Arizona. Fed by high winds and undisturbed growths of chaparral, and with fire crews impaired by difficult terrain, the fire grew from 150 acres (61 ha) on June 24 to 25,000 acres (10,000 ha) on June 29. Several communities in Yavapai County were evacuated, and Arizona State Route 69 was closed. Firefighting aircraft were grounded twice by civilian drones operating illegally in the burn area, but firefighters made rapid progress containing the fire's spread after June 28, and it was fully contained on July 10. Investigators did not determine any particular cause for the fire. (Full article...)

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In the news

Yevgeny Prigozhin

In Russia, the Wagner mercenary group (leader Yevgeny Prigozhin pictured) rebels against the government.
In China, an explosion at a restaurant in Yinchuan kills 31 people.
A women's prison riot near Tegucigalpa, Honduras, leaves at least 46 inmates dead.
In golf, Wyndham Clark wins the U.S. Open.
Five people die in the implosion of a submersible in the North Atlantic near the wreck of the Titanic.

On this day

June 24

Jiang Zemin

1374 – An outbreak of dancing mania, in which crowds of people danced themselves to exhaustion, began in Aachen (in present-day Germany) before spreading to other parts of Europe.
1939 – The first of the Thai cultural mandates was issued, officially changing the country's name from Siam to Thailand.
1943 – Amid racial tensions, U.S. Army military police shot and killed a black serviceman after a confrontation at a pub in Bamber Bridge, England.
1989 – Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre the 13th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party appointed Jiang Zemin (pictured) as general secretary in place of Zhao Ziyang.
2010 – John Isner defeated Nicolas Mahut at the Wimbledon Championships, concluding the longest match in tennis history, which lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes over three days.

Jean-Baptiste de Boyer (b. 1704)
Kapiʻolani (d. 1899)
Lisa (b. 1987)
Mick Aston (d. 2013)

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Today's featured picture

Södermanland Runic Inscription 113 is a 10th-century runic inscription engraved on a 0.9 m by 0.5 m (35 in by 20 in) granite runestone in Södermanland, Sweden. The runestone was found in 1856 on a hill believed to have once had many other graves and monuments, and is thought to have originally stood atop a burial mound before falling over and being buried. The inscription is written in Old Norse using the Younger Futhark alphabet, and reads (transliterated into the Latin script): Þaiʀ situ stin, suniʀ Þurkitils auk Fulku, hiar faþur auk muþur iftiʀ. Kiarþu trikila, meaning: 'They placed the stone here, the sons of Þorketill and Folka, in memory of their father and mother. Made valiantly.' This photograph of the inscription was taken by Otto von Friesen, who owned the runestone in the early 20th century.

Photograph credit: Otto von Friesen, restored by Adam Cuerden

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