Emergency workers in southern Italy are still hunting for six people missing after a tornado sank a luxury yacht early Monday – prompting an air and naval operation off the coast of Sicily.

Fifteen people were rescued from the wreckage on Monday, according to Italy’s Coast Guard. One body was later recovered from the hull of the stricken vessel.

Two Americans and four Britons are among those missing – including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and Chris Morvillo, a prominent lawyer.

Here’s what we know.

What happened?

A small waterspout – a type of tornado – spun over the Mediterranean island early Monday, likely capsizing the sailing boat amid lashings of rain and strong thunderstorms.

Eyewitnesses described furious gales and hurricane-like winds that left an avalanche of debris near the pier.

More than a dozen survivors were spotted in the area hanging onto life rafts, according to the captain of a nearby boat, who steadied his ship to avoid colliding with the Bayesian.

“We got this strong hurricane gust and we had to start the engine to keep the ship in an angled position,” Karsten Bower told reporters in Palermo on Monday. “After the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone.”

Bower and his crew rescued four injured people, he said, before calling Italy’s Coast Guard – who later rescued the remaining survivors.

One of those rescued – a child – was airlifted to the children’s hospital in Palermo. Eight people were hospitalized in total, according to the mayor’s office.

The girl’s mother, Charlotte, described how she battled to hold onto Sofia, her 1-year-old daughter, as reported by Italian news agency ANSA.

“In two seconds I lost the baby in the sea, then I immediately hugged her again amidst the fury of the waves. I held her tightly, close to me, while the sea was stormy,” she told journalists. “Many were screaming.”

The mother and daughter were later reunited with the father, James, according to a doctor at the local children’s hospital in Palermo.

“The survivors are very tired and are constantly asking about the missing people,” the doctor, Domenico Cipolla, said Monday. “They are talking and crying all the time because they have realized that there is little hope of finding their friends alive.”

Italy’s fire brigade dispatched helicopters to aid in the search, officials said Monday. The brigade also said they would send divers to try and enter the sunken ship Tuesday, after an unsuccessful attempt on Monday.

The depth of the wreck means divers can only work there for limited periods of time, according to Marco Tilotta, an inspector for the diving unit of Palermo’s local fire brigade. The Italian fire brigade said Monday its divers had reached the yacht’s hull 49 meters (160 feet) below sea level.

Who was on board?

A troupe of high-profile guests are among those missing, including Lynch, the 59-year-old British tech investor who fought a fraud case earlier this year in the United States – which spiraled from the disastrous $11 billion sale of his company to tech firm Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.

His 18-year-old daughter was also named missing. Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, survived the accident. Bacares told Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica that she woke up at 4 a.m. local time, as the boat tilted. She and her husband were not initially concerned, she said, but became worried when the windows of the yacht shattered and chaos erupted.

Bacares spoke to the newspaper while sitting in a wheelchair, at a hospital in the Sicilian town of Termini Imerese. She had abrasions on her feet and bandages on other parts of her body, it reported.

Bloomer, the finance tycoon, and Morvillo, a prominent lawyer – and both their wives – are also among the missing, according to Salvatore Cocina, head of Sicily’s Civil Protection.

Morvillo, an American partner at Clifford Chance, was involved in successfully defeating the US fraud case against Lynch in June. Another employee of the firm, Ayla Ronald, and her partner, survived the incident, according to a spokesperson for Clifford Chance.

What do we know about the boat?

Built in 2008, the 56-meter (184-foot) yacht was manufactured by Italian company Perini Navi, Reuters reported. According to the Associated Press, the boat has been available for charter for $215,000 (€195,000) per week.

Lynch’s wife is linked to the yacht. The Bayesian is held by the company Revtom Limited, according to records from the maritime information service Equasis. The company’s latest annual return from April lists Bacares as the proprietor.

“Bayesian,” the name given to the vessel, is linked to the statistical theory on which Lynch built his fortune, according to Reuters.

The yacht’s mast stood 72.27 meters (237 feet) high above the designated water line, just short of the world’s tallest mast which is 75.2 meters, according to Guinness World Records. It was the tallest aluminium mast in the world, the Perini Navi website said.

Perini Navi is known for making “good quality boats,” according to Caroline White, deputy editor of BOAT International, a media group serving the superyacht industry.

Dangerous weather conditions

Strong storms across Sicily brought torrential rainfall late Sunday. Initial reports suggest a small waterspout, which developed over the area Monday morning, could have been behind the yacht’s sinking.

Waterspouts – one of several types of tornadoes – are spinning columns of air that form over water, or move from land out to water. They are often accompanied by high winds, high seas, hail and dangerous lightning. While they are most common over tropical oceans, they can form almost anywhere.

Waterspouts rely on warm waters to gain energy and the Mediterranean Sea has been very hot, reaching a record daily median of 28.9 degrees Celsius (84 Fahrenheit) last week, according to preliminary data from researchers at the Institute of Marine Sciences in Spain.

“Warmer oceans have more energy and more humidity to transfer to the atmosphere, the most important fuels for storms,” he said.

The world’s oldest person, US-born Maria Branyas Morera, has died at the age of 117, her family announced on social media.

Guinness World Records (GWR) also released a statement confirming her death at the age of 117 years 168 days, making her the eighth-oldest person with a verifiable age in history.

“Maria passed away peacefully at the nursing home in Catalonia, Spain, where she resided for the past two decades,” read the GWR statement, which added that she died on Monday.

On Tuesday, Morera’s family published a post on her X account announcing her death.

“She has gone the way she wanted: in her sleep, at peace, and without pain,” reads the post.

Her family added that Morera told them shortly before her death: “I don’t know when, but very soon this long journey will come to an end. Death will find me worn down from having lived so much, but I want it to find me smiling, free, and satisfied.”

Morera was named the world’s oldest living person by GWR in January 2023 after the death of French nun Sister André at the age of 118.

She told GWR that she had lived such a long life thanks to “order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity, and staying away from toxic people.”

“I think longevity is also about being lucky. Luck and good genetics,” she added.

Her birth on March 4, 1907 came less than four years after the Wright Brothers launched the first ever power driven flight and two years before construction had even begun on the ill-fated Titanic.

Morera was born a year after her parents emigrated to the US from Spain. Eight years later, the family moved back, arriving in Barcelona during World War I. Morera’s life has also spanned the Spanish Civil War and World War II.

She spent the last decades of her life in a nursing home in Catalonia, where, despite her advancing years, Morera used X – with a little help from her daughter – to communicate with her thousands of followers.

“I am old, very old, but not an idiot,” her bio reads on the social media platform.

Morera is believed to be among the oldest people to have recovered from Covid-19, having tested positive for the virus in May 2020.

According to the Gerontology Research Group, a scientific non-profit which validates the ages of people aged at least 110, the oldest living person is now a 116-year-old Japanese woman named Tomiko Itooka.

The title of the oldest person ever recorded belongs to Jeanne Louise Calment. Born on February 21, 1875, her life spanned 122 years and 164 days, according to GWR.

A Russian soldier has defected to Ukraine, according to the Freedom for Russia Legion, the “I Want to Live Project,” and the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine.

The defected soldier – with the call sign “Silver” – was an active serviceman for the unit “Storm” before volunteering for the Freedom for Russia Legion during the “winter of 2024,” the legion, a group of Russian dissidents fighting for Ukraine, said.

Silver, a 24-year-old from Siberia who joined the Russian army in 2021, gave his reasons for defecting in an interview posted on YouTube by the “I Want to Live” project – a Ukrainian government initiative which receives appeals from Russian servicemen in Ukraine wishing to surrender.

“I wanted to serve in the army, I gave an oath to protect my motherland. My motherland is there [in Russia] and no-one attacked it. I didn’t want to serve for Russia during the war and didn’t want to die for Putin,” he said.

Silver took part in the fighting in Ukraine’s eastern Avdiivka area from the Russian side of the border as a drone operator, he explained in the interview. He had also previously served on China’s border with Russia.

“Silver was a member of the resistance for several months and transmitted important operational information to us (the location of forces and equipment, plans, tasks in a specific section of the front, etc.),” the Freedom for Russia Legion said.

Escaping the Storm unit, Silver “activated explosive devices” in the unit’s headquarters, seriously injuring the commander and several senior officers, according to the legion.

The legion posted a video to its YouTube channel taken from a hidden camera claiming to show the operation. Several men are seen in the video in army uniforms before an explosion erupts, causing a fire.

“During the retreat, Silver mined the path and went along the agreed route. The legion command, together with the ‘I Want to Live’ team, organized Silver’s exit from the combat line. Now he is undergoing a basic training course as a legion recruit,” the Legion said.

Ukraine’s intelligence department said the operation to get Silver out was named “Ocheret.”

“The Russian was motivated to cooperate with Ukraine by the systematic war crimes and other crimes of the command, including extrajudicial executions, beatings, and robberies in the occupation unit,” the Defense Intelligence said on Telegram on Tuesday.

Silver claimed in the interview that he had seen some Russian soldiers killed by their own commander.

The Defense Intelligence said Ukraine was able to obtain valuable intelligence on the location, number, and intentions of Russian forces “in a particular frontline area” because of the interaction with Silver.

Panama on Tuesday carried out its first migrant deportation flight funded by the United States, part of a widening effort to reduce the number of migrants traveling north through the region.

Twenty-nine Colombians were deported from Panama City to Medellín, Colombia, according to Panama’s Deputy Security Minister Luis Felipe Icaza.

The deportees boarded the plane early in the morning with cuffs around their hands and ankles, escorted by authorities from Panama’s migration agency. One of the people on board the flight was a member of the Clan del Golfo criminal organization, Icaza alleged.

The deportation flight was carried out after the US and Panama signed a memorandum of cooperation on July 1 to reduce the number of migrants crossing Panama without permission, on their way to the US.

Last month, Panama placed barbed wire across several routes in the Darién jungle, a treacherous passage between Panama and Colombia, in a bid to block the northward route.

So far this year, more than 230,000 people have entered Panama through the Darién jungle from Colombia. And so far in August, more than 8,000 have passed through. These figures would represent a decrease of 30% compared to the same period from January to August 2023, according to Roger Mojica, director of Panama’s migration agency.

For now, Panama is only carrying out deportation flights to Colombia, Mojica said.

He added that Panama is working on coordinating flights to other countries such as Ecuador and India, but not to Venezuela – where economic devastation and an authoritarian government have driven out more people than anywhere else in the region.

Health authorities in Argentina say they will inspect and quarantine a cargo ship in its waters after a crew member showed symptoms of mpox.

Once the ship arrives, medical personnel will board it and inspect whether the crew member’s symptoms are compatible with mpox. If they are, they will take samples for study. The entire crew will be quarantined until the results of the studies are available.

So far, the ministry has not said how many people are on board the Liberia-flagged ship named Ina-Lotte.

On Friday, the ministry called for strengthening border health control measures in Argentina, two days after the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern due to an outbreak of mpox in parts of Africa.

Other Latin American countries, such as Colombia, El Salvador, Venezuela and Mexico have announced similar surveillance measures.

A deadlier strain of the virus, clade Ib, is spreading quickly in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has reached at least four previously unaffected countries in Africa.

This is a breaking story. More to come.

Officials in Trinidad and Tobago are redrawing the island’s coat of arms for the first time since its creation in 1962 to remove references to European colonization in a move that many are celebrating.

Christopher Columbus’ three ships – the Pinta, the Niña and the Santa María – will be replaced with the steelpan, a popular percussion instrument that originated in the eastern Caribbean island.

Prime Minister Keith Rowley made the announcement on Sunday to a standing ovation, saying the coat of arms would be reconfigured before late September.

“That should signal that we are on our way to removing the colonial vestiges that we have in our constitution,” he said.

The current coat of arms also features hummingbirds, a palm tree and a scarlet ibis, Trinidad’s national bird.

Rowley’s announcement comes roughly a week before Trinidad and Tobago is scheduled to hold a public hearing on whether certain statues, signs and monuments should be removed.

The upcoming change is part of a worldwide movement that aims to eradicate symbols of the colonial era, with statues of Columbus removed or toppled across the US in recent years.

Columbus arrived in Trinidad and Tobago in 1498.

Ukraine launched one of the largest ever drone attacks on Moscow on Wednesday, the city’s mayor said, with Russian air defense units destroying at least 10 drones flying towards the capital.

Some of the drones were destroyed over the city of Podolsk, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. The city in the Moscow region is some 38 kilometers (24 miles) south of the Kremlin.

“The air defense systems of the defense ministry continue to repel enemy UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) attacks,” Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app at 4:43 a.m.

“This is one of the largest attempts to attack Moscow using drones ever. We continue to monitor the situation.”

He said that according to preliminary information, there were no injuries or damage in the aftermath of the attacks.

Ukraine has often launched one or two drones targeting Moscow in recent months, causing no substantial damage.

Kyiv has stepped up its air attacks on Russian territory over the past few months, saying its aim is to destroy infrastructure key to Moscow’s war efforts. It says that its attacks are in response to Russia’s continued strikes on Ukrainian territory.

The Wednesday attack seems larger than a May 2023 attack, when at least eight drones were destroyed over the capital in an action President Vladimir Putin said was Kyiv’s attempt to scare and provoke Russia.

Russian officials rarely disclose the full size of the attacks, reporting only drones that its air defense units destroy.

Both Ukraine and Russia also rarely disclose the full extent of the damage their attacks inflict, unless residential or civilian infrastructure is damaged, or civilians die.

The Wednesday attack on Moscow was part of a broader Ukraine drone attack on Russia with air defense systems also destroying 18 drones over the border Bryansk region and separate drones and missiles over other regions, Russian officials said.

There were no casualties or damage reported in the aftermath of the attack on the border Bryansk region in Russia’s southwest, Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of the region wrote on Telegram.

Russia’s state news agency RIA also reported that two drones were destroyed over the Tula region, which borders the Moscow region.

Separately, Vasily Golubev, governor of the Rostov region in Russia’s southwest, said air defense forces destroyed a Ukraine-launched missile over the region, with no injuries reported.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

In recent months, Kyiv has stepped up its air attacks on Russian territory, saying its aim is to destroy infrastructure key to Moscow’s war efforts. It says that its attacks are in response to Russia’s continued strikes on Ukrainian territory.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang is set to meet with Russian leaders in Moscow Wednesday during a four-day trip to Russia and its ally Belarus as Beijing shrugs off Western criticism of its robust Kremlin ties amid the war in Ukraine.

Li, China’s No. 2 official under leader Xi Jinping, will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and hold talks on China-Russia cooperation and strategic ties with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Russian state-run news agency Tass reported Wednesday.

Li hailed the two countries’ relations after his arrival at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport Tuesday, where he was greeted by Russian officials and an honor guard.

“China-Russia relations in the new era have shown new vigor and vitality, with stronger mutual political trust, fruitful cooperation in various fields, deeply rooted friendship, and close and effective international coordination,” Li said in a statement released upon his arrival, adding the visit was aimed at “deepening mutually beneficial cooperation.”

The premier’s visit – for a longstanding annual meeting with the Russian prime minister – is the first to Russia by a high-level Chinese official since a surprise military incursion by Ukrainian forces into the Russian border region of Kursk two weeks ago.

Russia has been scrambling to repel that assault, which marks the first time foreign troops entered Russian territory since World War II and comes amid mounting pressure for a conclusion to the war in Ukraine, which began in 2022 with Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

Last week, in response to a media inquiry on the situation, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry called on “all parties” not to expand the battlefield, escalate fighting and “fuel the flame,” saying China would continue to work for a “political settlement of the crisis.”

Beijing has faced mounting scrutiny and pressure from the West to curtail the export of dual-use goods such as aerospace, manufacturing and technology equipment to Russia, which Western leaders and Kyiv have alleged are propping up the Russian war effort.

Chinese officials have sought to present the country as a neutral, aspiring peace broker in the war, but have had limited high-level contact with Kyiv while continuing to deepen relations with Moscow across trade, diplomacy and security.

China last month hosted a top Ukrainian official for the first time since Russia’s invasion of the country nearly two and half years ago.

Wednesday’s meeting between Li and Mishustin is part of annual talks held since 1996, which are seen as a means to implement practical cooperation in the direction set by Xi and Putin. The two officials are expected to discuss the countries’ “comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction,” including in trade and economy, according to Tass.

Trade between China and Russia hit record highs last year, surpassing a target of $240 billion ahead of schedule. Russia has grown hugely reliant on China’s market, goods and investment since it was slapped with broad international sanctions following its Ukraine invasion.

Bilateral trade increased by more than a quarter year-on-year in 2023 from 2022, but has only grown about 1.6% between January and July this year over the same period last year, according to China’s customs data.

Li is expected to end his four-day trip in Belarus, where he will meet Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko for an “in-depth exchange of views on bilateral relations and cooperation in various fields,” China’s Foreign Ministry said Monday.