Eilat Shalev talks about the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, at the Nova music festival during an interview at her house in a village near Afula, Israel, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. Shalev went to the festival with her husband, Shai Shalev. Eilat was able to escape and hide in an orchard, while Shai was killed. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this January 2019 photo provided by Sue Womack, James Holden sifts through the remains of his family’s homestead, which burned to the ground in a 2018 wildfire, in Paradise, Calif. (Sue Womack via AP)In this January 2019 photo provided by Sue Womack, James Holden sifts through the remains of his family’s homestead, which burned to the ground in a 2018 wildfire, in Paradise, Calif. (Sue Womack via AP)
The Holdens lost everything in the Paradise fire, joining thousands who never returned. Thein the Sierra Nevada foothills destroyed 19,000 structures and killed 85 people. Only several thousand of the 27,000 residents chose to remain and rebuild.After the family barely escaped the flames in cars, they lived in their trailer on a friend’s property, then in their church parking lot. When they returned to their home five months later, all that remained was a “pile of ash and the chimney,” James Holden said.
“Every landmark that you know is gone. That was the thing that was strange,” he said. “Coming into town, that is when you realize the devastation ... Ninety-five percent of the town burned. Every store ... The used car dealer. It was a lot full of burned hulks now.”The few things the Holdens recovered are now boxed in the dairy barn — a burnt trombone, plant hanger, piano brackets, a jewelry box, a ladle, wedding silverware.
“As we are going through the ash and we are finding these things, it makes it more beautiful because you’ve just lost everything that was your old life,” Ellie Holden said. “It’s this piece of evidence that we had this life. We had a house. We had these things. We were happy.”
Jack Holden waters flower plants with his mother Ellie, at their home, Thursday, May 12, 2022, in Proctor, Vt. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)A pilgrim rests next to a replica of the Black Christ sitting on a car hood in Portobelo, Panama, before dawn Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, during a festival celebrating the iconic statue that was found on the shore in 1658. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A pilgrim rests next to a replica of the Black Christ sitting on a car hood in Portobelo, Panama, before dawn Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, during a festival celebrating the iconic statue that was found on the shore in 1658. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A
parade in Rio de Janeiro will present the story of a trans woman nearly burned at the stake in the 16th century, highlighting the ongoing violence against transgender people in, which has the world’s highest reported trans homicide rate.