PARIS: Flash floods tore through towns in southwest France, turning waterways into raging torrents that killed at least 13 people, nine of them in just one town, authorities said Monday. People had to be helicoptered to safety from the roofs of their homes as overnight storms dumped the equivalent of several months of rain in just a few hours.
Worst hit was the town of Trebes, east of the medieval walled city of Carcassonne. The rains that swept in from the Mediterranean killed nine people there, Interior Ministry spokesman Frederic de Lanouvelle said.
He told BFMTV that the floods in the Aude region also killed four other people in other locations, left one person missing and seriously injured five others.
In the town of Villegailhenc, witness Ines Siguet said the waters rose so quickly that people were stranded on the roofs of their homes and had to be helicoptered to safety. She posted video of a ripped-up road where a bridge used to be, torn away by a flood torrent that cut the town in half.
“There’s nothing left. There’s just a hole,” the 17-year-old resident told The Associated Press. “It was very violent.”
Other roads also were flooded, leaving the town cut off, she said. Siguet’s school was shut down amid the destruction. Two people were killed in the town, according to the Aude regional government.
Alain Thirion, the prefect of Aude, said some of the dead appeared to have been swept away by floodwaters. In the town of Conques-sur-Orbiel, the river rose by more than six meters (20 feet), he said.
Floodwaters were in some cases too powerful for emergency services to get through, even on boats, he said.
Television images showed waters coursing through towns and villages, with cars stranded in the floods and piled up on top of each other like children’s toys.
The French government rushed hundreds of rescue workers into the flood zone and helicopters buzzed overhead. Schools were closed and authorities were urging people to stay home.
Flash floods kill at least 13 people in southwest France
Flash floods kill at least 13 people in southwest France
- People had to be helicoptered to safety from the roofs of their homes as overnight storms dumped
Trump administration steps up efforts to scrutinize foreign funding of universities
- US colleges and universities disclosed 8,300 transactions totaling $5.2 billion in 2025 — which includes funding from governments as well as private companies and individuals
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration is stepping up work to uncover what it sees as malign foreign influence at US colleges and universities, officials said on Monday as they announced that the State Department would assist the Department of Education in that effort. President Donald Trump has threatened to cut federal funding to universities over issues such as pro-Palestinian protests against US ally Israel’s war in Gaza, transgender policies, climate initiatives and diversity, equity and inclusion programs, raising free speech and academic freedom concerns. Trump in April 2025 issued an executive order calling for enforcement of Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires colleges that receive federal funding to report gifts or contracts worth more than $250,000 from any foreign source, and the Department of Education in December launched a new portal for universities to report that funding.
Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers said the State Department’s new role would “ensure an invigorated compliance assurance effort by the federal government.”
“The Department of State will be applying our national security expertise and our expertise countering foreign malign influence to bolster oversight efforts by the Department of Education,” Rogers told reporters in a briefing at the State Department.
Officials declined to spell out specific examples of how foreign funding had unduly influenced higher education institutions, and said they were primarily seeking to boost compliance by the universities and improve transparency. The US Senate subcommittee on investigations in 2019 issued a report documenting China’s impact on the US education system, sparking renewed enforcement of the disclosure rules. US colleges and universities disclosed 8,300 transactions totaling $5.2 billion in 2025 — which includes funding from governments as well as private companies and individuals, the education department said in a statement. The largest source of funding last year was Qatar ($1.1 billion), followed by Britain ($633 million) and China ($528 million), it said.
