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India’s northeast floods have killed close to 100 people, according to an official toll update on Friday, with villages buried in mud after one of Assam state’s worst deluges in years.

No fewer than 97 people have died in the floods in Assam that have affected nearly 170,000, including thousands who have been forced into temporary shelters as swollen rivers inundate homes and farmland.

Floodwaters have submerged more than 14,000 hectares of cropland, an area almost one-and-a-half times the size of Paris.

AFP confirmed sighting half-submerged houses, uprooted trees and vehicles buried under mud across the worst-hit district of Sivasagar.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma posted a video on Friday of him consoling the parents of a 13-year-old boy who died while trying to rescue his pet dog from floodwaters.

“No parent should ever have to bid farewell to their child,” he wrote.

India’s Health Minister J.P. Nadda, who visited the flood-hit region on Thursday, said the scale of the devastation was “so huge that it will take time” for normality to be restored.

“Village after village has been submerged,” he told reporters.

Like most of the subcontinent, flooding is common in Assam during the June-September monsoon as the Brahmaputra — India’s biggest river — and its many tributaries overflow.

However, experts say climate change, coupled with poorly planned development, is increasing the frequency, severity and impact of the disasters.

Residents and officials have blamed illegal coal mining in the neighbouring state of Nagaland for worsening the flooding, saying it has affected areas not historically prone to inundation.

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A teenage suspect killed his grandparents before shooting dead at least six more people at a school near Bangkok Friday, police said.

First, he shot dead his grandparents, using his grandfather’s handgun, then went to a secondary school north of Bangkok and killed three teachers and three students, national police said in a statement.

Dozens of police and emergency responders gathered outside the Debsirin Nonthaburi School in Nonthaburi province on Friday, while parents raced to pick up their children and tearful students and staff comforted each other outside.

“I was afraid that I would die, and I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to pursue my dreams,” said Pawarisa Maylissa, a grade 12 student who hopes to attend medical school.

“I heard many gunshots very loudly because it seemed the suspect was on the floor directly above us. I could even hear bullets hitting the floor.”

Fifteen injured students were not struck by gunfire but hurt as they were trying to flee, deputy interior minister Polapee Suwunchwee told local broadcaster Thai PBS.

The shooter was identified as a teenage student of the school and also reported dead, according to local media reports citing authorities.

Some reports said police officers had shot and killed the suspect, while others said he had died by suicide.

“It’s such a terrible incident. It should never have happened. How could this happen in our country?” Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters at Bangkok’s Government House.

Photos published by local media show the suspect wearing a purple school uniform and carrying a black cross-body bag, with several bullet casings visible on the ground.

An AFP journalist saw a dozen mental health workers arrive at the school, where traffic was nearly at a standstill.

Thailand has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the region, with around 10 million firearms estimated to be in circulation — one for every seven inhabitants.

Past promises of tightening gun laws have not prevented repeated shootings.

Thai police shot and arrested a teenager who opened fire at a school in the south of the country in February, killing the principal and wounding two students.

The teen had used a police officer’s weapon in the shooting.

A local police chief said at the time that the suspect was hospitalised for psychiatric treatment in December and had been discharged.

The teen stabbed a police officer with a knife and stole his weapon — a 9mm pistol — just before the incident, and then used it to carry out the attack.

In 2022, an ex-policeman armed with a gun and a knife stormed into a nursery in the country’s north and murdered 24 children and 12 adults, one of Thailand’s deadliest massacres.

AFP

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President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Todd Blanche took a key step on Tuesday towards becoming the top US law enforcement officer after a Senate panel approved his nomination to head the Justice Department.

The 12-10 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee was along party lines and came after two Republican senators dropped their opposition to Blanche’s nomination.

Blanche’s Senate confirmation had been held up by concerns from senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis over a $1.8 billion fund for alleged victims of politically motivated prosecution and a tax audit immunity deal with the Republican president.

Blanche issued a written order over the weekend scrapping the so-called “anti-weaponization fund” and said the audit immunity agreement with Trump, his two eldest sons and the Trump Organization would only apply “retroactively” to past tax years and not future filings.

The full Senate, where Republicans hold a majority, is expected to vote later this week to confirm Blanche as attorney general. He has been serving as acting attorney general since Trump fired Pam Bondi in April.

Senate Democrats have been united in their opposition to Blanche amid concerns he has treated the Department of Justice as an extension of the Republican president’s legal team.

“Todd Blanche has no business serving as our nation’s chief law enforcement officer,” Senator Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said before Tuesday’s vote.

“The attorney general is supposed to be the people’s lawyer,” Durbin said. “Mr Blanche continues to operate as the president’s personal lawyer, treating the Justice Department like a law firm serving one client — the president.”

– ‘Retribution’ campaign –

Vice President JD Vance, in a post on X following the committee vote, said Blanche “will continue to serve the American people and the Trump Administration loyally, and he will make a great Attorney General.”

Blanche has been closely tied to what Democrats have dubbed a “retribution” campaign by the president against his perceived political enemies and he helped negotiate the extraordinary legal settlement between Trump and the government he controls.

The out-of-court settlement stems from Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the illegal disclosure of his tax records by an agency contractor.

It proposed immunity from audits for past tax years and a $1.776 billion fund for people who say they were unfairly targeted by the Department of Justice, potentially including Trump supporters convicted over the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Federal judges have separately blocked the fund and condemned the tax settlement, which according to US press reports could help the president avoid past liabilities of up to $100 million.

Blanche has also come in for criticism from victims of Jeffrey Epstein over his handling of the release of investigative files about the convicted sex offender, a one-time close friend of Trump.

Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Blanche represented Trump in his New York trial over alleged “hush money” paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.

He was also on the legal defense team in two federal cases brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith — for allegedly mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House and for seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Both cases were dropped after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.

AFP