The person killed Thursday during an elevator malfunction at a former Colorado gold mine – which left 23 stranded underground – worked as a tour guide at the site, authorities said.

Authorities identified 46-year-old Patrick Weier of Victor, Colorado, as the victim who died. Weier’s survivors include a seven-year-old son, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Weier was preparing to become a volunteer firefighter in his town of about 400, the newspaper reported. “Everybody will be in mourning when they realize who it is,” Victor’s mayor, Barbara Manning, reportedly said.

The local sheriff, Jason Mikesell, said he didn’t know specifically what happened – but he thought Weier “was attempting to make everybody safe,” ABC News reported.

“All I know is that he was a good man, and he loved his job,” Miskesell said at a news briefing.

“This is a county tragedy,” a local government commissioner, Dan Williams, was quoted as saying by the Gazette. “This is a Colorado tragedy.”

Weier’s death unfolded at about 12pm local time at Mollie Kathleen gold mine. The site near Cripple Creek, Colorado, which opened in the 19th century as a mine but closed in the 1960s, now offers tours.

Participants take an elevator 1,000ft down the mine shaft. The trip takes approximately two minutes, with the tour lasting about an hour.

“We know that at 500ft is where the issue occurred,” Mikesell told reporters. “We know that there was some type of an incident with the doors, and at that point, something went wrong.

“Currently we don’t know what happened at 500ft to cause this.”

Authorities said that the lift operator at the top of the shaft noticed there was a problem with the elevator when 11 people were riding it. After they were brought back to the main level, authorities realized that Weier was killed and four other adults injured, the Gazette reported.

Another group of 12 – including 11 visitors and one guide – remained at the bottom after the elevator malfunctioned. Officials told the group that they would be taken back to the main level once they deemed the elevator safe to ride. They were stranded about seven hours.

Technicians repaired the elevator at 500ft so as to rescue those trapped at the bottom of the mine shaft. They inspected the cables, and then tested they the lift by sending it to the bottom as well as bringing it back, ABC News said.

The mine’s owner traveled with inspectors to check that the elevator could travel safely. The owner’s son worked the hoist system to lower the lift, Mikesell reportedy said.

“Without their help, we may not have been able to get people up out of there,” Mikesell remarked, describing them as “heroes”.

When the elevator was deemed safe, authorities brought those stranded back to the surface four at a time, officials said.

Boeing is cutting 17,000 jobs “to align with our financial reality” as the beleaguered aerospace giant grapples with a sweeping strike and the persisting fallout from its latest safety crisis.

The American firm also announced plans to delay the first delivery of its 777X commercial jetliner by a year, and braced investors for “substantial” new losses in its struggling defense business.

Kelly Ortberg, its new chief executive, declared that “tough decisions” and “structural changes” were required. “We need to be clear-eyed about the work we face,” he wrote in a memo to staff on Friday, “and realistic about the time it will take to achieve key milestones on the path to recovery.”

About 33,000 Boeing workers in Washington and Oregon went on strike a month ago, halting production of the company’s 737 Max, 767 and 777 jets amid a standoff over pay. Negotiations remain at an acrimonious stalemate.

It comes amid a dire year for Boeing. January’s cabin panel blowout during a flight of a brand new Max jet sparked a fresh crisis surrounding the safety and quality of its planes.

The high-profile mission of its Starliner spacecraft, which landed back on Earth last month without the two astronauts it carried to the International Space Station, has also raised questions about Boeing’s troubled space business.

Boeing “must … reset our workforce levels to align with our financial reality”, Ortberg told the company’s staff. “Over the coming months, we are planning to reduce the size of our total workforce by roughly 10%,” he said. “These reductions will include executives, managers and employees.”

He promised staff “more tailored information” next week about what this will mean of their department.

Shares in Boeing fell 1.6% during after-hours trading, after the news was disclosed.

“As we move through this process, we will maintain our steadfast focus on safety, quality and delivering for our customers,” said Ortberg.

“We know these decisions will cause difficulty for you, your families and our team, and I sincerely wish we could avoid taking them. However, the state of our business and our future recovery require tough actions.”

Tesla shares fell nearly 9% on Friday, wiping about $60bn (£45bn) from the company’s value, after the long-awaited unveiling of its so-called robotaxi failed to excite investors.

Shares in the electric carmaker tumbled to $217 at market close following an event in Hollywood, where the chief executive, Elon Musk, revealed a much-hyped driverless vehicle. The stock price is down roughly 12% year-to-date.

Musk said the company would start building the fully autonomous “Cybercab” by 2026 at a price of less than $30,000, and showed off a van he claimed was capable of transporting 20 people around town autonomously – which he said would reshape cities by turning car parks into parks.

Before the event, he tweeted: “And all transport will be fully autonomous within 50 years.”

During the showcase, he wrote that car parks would no longer be needed in cities.

However, analysts said the event was short on detail and also expressed disappointment over a lack of specifics about other Tesla projects. Musk has a history of making grand projections about upcoming products and failing to follow through in the timeframe he has set, or at all.

Tom Narayan, an analyst at Royal Bank of Canada, said in a note to investors that the event lacked detail. “Investors we spoke to at the event thought the event was light of real numbers and timelines,” he wrote.

“These typically come at Tesla events. This one seemed focused on branding and marketing Tesla’s vision, rather than giving concrete numbers for us to model out. As such, we would expect shares to trade lower.”

Narayan added that some investors were hoping for a teaser about a lower-priced vehicle, with pedals and steering wheel, that would launch next year. However, none was forthcoming.

Garrett Nelson, an analyst at investment research firm CFRA, said he was disappointed by the Cybercab reveal and a lack of detail about a cheaper vehicle.

He wrote: “The event raised a lot of questions, was surprisingly brief, and was more of a controlled demonstration than a presentation. We were disappointed by the lack of detail regarding [Tesla’s] near-term product roadmap, eg, the more affordable model and Roadster, both of which Musk said would achieve first production in 2025 on its last conference call.”

A Texas man who sued his ex-wife’s friends for allegedly helping her get an abortion dropped his lawsuit on Thursday after the case was settled.

Marcus Silva first sued Jackie Noyola and Amy Carpenter – both friends of his ex-wife – along with Aracely Garcia in 2023, alleging that the three had helped her obtain abortion pills in July 2022, about two months after she filed for divorce. Silva asked a Texas district court to award him more than $1m in damages for their “criminal and murderous actions”.

Abortion bans typically target providers, not patients, and Texas, like the vast majority of states, does not criminalize self-managed abortion. (Silva’s ex-wife was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.) However, abortion rights advocates feared that, even if the first-of-its-kind lawsuit was not legally sound, it would still intimidate people out of helping one another get abortions.

The case had been set to go to trial before Silva dropped the lawsuit. In court filings, Silva did not explain his reason for the decision, but a notice of settlement was submitted to the court. Carpenter told the Washington Post that no money had been exchanged as part of Silva’s abandonment of the lawsuit.

Silva was represented in the lawsuit by Jonathan Mitchell, a lawyer who masterminded the Texas six-week abortion ban that deputized ordinary people to sue one another over suspected illegal abortions.

“While we are grateful that this fraudulent case is finally over, we are angry for ourselves and others who have been terrorized for the simple act of supporting a friend who is facing abuse,” Noyola said in a statement. “No one should ever have to fear punishment, criminalization, or a lengthy court battle for helping someone they care about.”

“This case was about using the legal system to harass us for helping our friend, and scare others out of doing the same,” Carpenter added. “After two years of being entangled in Mitchell and Silva’s campaign of abusive litigation, we were ready to fight this baseless suit in court. But the claims were dropped because they had nothing. We did nothing wrong, and we would do it all again.”

A woman who murdered her parents and lived with their bodies for four years has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years.

Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father, John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication that she crushed and put into his alcoholic drinks, the prosecutor Lisa Wilding KC told Chelmsford crown court. She then murdered her mother, Lois McCullough, 71, the following day.

The barrister said McCullough “beat her mother with a hammer and stabbed her multiple times in the chest with a kitchen knife bought for the purpose”.

Both murders took place in June 2019 at the couple’s home in Great Baddow, Essex, where the defendant continued to live with her parents’ dead bodies for the next four years.

McCullough “built a makeshift tomb” for her father, who had worked as a university lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, Wilding told Chelmsford crown court.

The “rectangular tomb” was found in a room that had been Mr McCullough’s bedroom and study, and was “composed with masonry blocks stacked together”. It was “covered with multiple blankets, and a number of pictures and paintings over the top”, Wilding said.

“She concealed the body of her mother, wrapped in a sleeping bag, within a wardrobe in her mother’s bedroom on the top floor of the property,” the barrister said.

The murders were uncovered after her parents’ GPs raised concerns over missed appointments and police forced entry to the home on 15 September 2023. For years McCullough told lies about their whereabouts, frequently telling doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.

Bodycam footage of the arrest showed police forcing entry to the property before confronting McCullough in a hallway, where she confessed to her crimes.

In reference to the arrest, she told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually. It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”

She added: “Cheer up, at least you caught the bad guy.”

McCullough gave a detailed account, to officers in custody after her arrest, of how she had killed her parents.

When telling officers where the murder weapon was, she said the knife used to stab her mother was underneath the stairs and “will still have blood on it, it’s rusted, but it will still have blood traces on it”.

She also told police she had to “build up gumption” to kill her mother as “I knew I had to get it done”.

Det Supt Rob Kirby, of Essex police, said: “Virginia McCullough murdered her parents in cold blood,” adding she was an “intelligent manipulator” who lied about “almost every aspect of her life”.

Wilding said the defendant “had been thinking about killing her parents since March 2019 and had been planning for it” and that she had not been employed for many years.

Statements were read on behalf of McCullough’s siblings, who have been granted anonymity by the judge.

One said they had been left “devastated and bereft” at the deaths of their parents.

“To me this situation is quite literally a living nightmare from which I will never wake up,” they wrote. “The haunting thoughts of [whether] my parents suffered, if they were taunted.”

Another said they felt “sick to my core” every day.

“We have been cruelly robbed of more loving memories and bonds with our mum and dad for years to come,” they added.

“How dare Virginia rob us of that life? “So many lies have been told to cover the horrific truth that she had murdered our loving mum and dad.”

The prosecutor said the defendant “engaged in online gambling” and spent £21,193 in transactions related to gambling between 1 June 2018 and 14 September 2023.

Wilding said McCullough “made arrangements to ensure that she continued to enjoy the benefit of the pensions” that continued to be paid in her parents’ names after their deaths. The prosecutor said McCullough “benefited from” £59,664.01 from the state pension and £76,334.58 from McCullough’s teacher’s pension between 18 June 2019 and 15 September 2023.

Wilding said money appeared to have been “frittered away and the investigation has not revealed any expenditure on expensive, luxury or extravagant items”.

Richard Butcher, Lois McCullough’s brother, said in a victim impact statement that his niece was “very dangerous” and that the details of what had happened had “undermined my faith in humanity”.

The judge, Mr Justice Johnson, said McCullough’s actions were a “gross violation of the trust that should exist between parents and their children”.

He said he was sure the offences involved a “substantial degree of both pre-meditation and planning” as McCullough had accumulated “a large amount of prescription drugs” and bought a knife in May 2019 as well as “implements to crush and separate tablets”.

“These were considered acts of aggression following months of thought and planning,” the judge said.

Sentencing McCullough, he said: “I’m sure a substantial motive for each of the murders was to stop your parents discovering you had been stealing from them and lying to them and to take money that was intended for them.”

A freshwater lake that attracts more than 30,000 swimmers a year is under threat of closure from an Environment Agency (EA) plan to reduce flooding that will channel in polluted river water, according to campaigners.

Almost 50,000 people have signed a petition calling on the EA and Surrey county council to reroute the flood channel away from the lake, which is a site of nature conservation. But the EA and Surrey council seem likely to press ahead with the 50-metre wide channel, bisecting the lake and feeding river floodwater into its centre.

Ferris Meadow Lake hosts an annual 24-hour charity swim for Level Water, raising money to provide access to swimming for disabled children across the UK. Bathing water quality is regularly tested and is excellent.

Emma Pattinson, whose family have owned the lake since the 1960s, opened it up for swimming in 2010. By 2024 the lake had hosted a quarter of a million swims, as swimming in nature grew in popularity, with research showing how beneficial it is to mental health.

“People love swimming here because they are surrounded by nature, and because the water is healthy and supports wildlife and a varied ecosystem. It is a massive boost to people’s mental health,” said Pattinson. “Our water quality is always excellent. Surfers Against Sewage have tested the water quality in the River Thames next door to the lake and these tests show high levels of enterococci and coliform bacteria.

“If this channel is cut through the middle of our lake it will bring in sewage pollution but also contaminate the water with metals and PFAS chemicals. We are talking about a lake, not a flowing body of water, so the pollution will just sit there.

“I would just not be happy running the lake as a swimming location in that case because I won’t be able to account for the water quality.”

Pattinson said digging into the lake would also disrupt the delicate ecosystems that have built over decades. Her family have owned the lake since it was a gravel pit, and won nature awards for its restoration when it was filled in. The lake is now a site of nature conservation.

Pattinson said she had been consulting with the EA since the plan was first dicussed in 2009 and by 2014 it was clear it wanted to channel flood water into the lake. “They really treated us as insignificant the whole way along,” she said. “They dismissed us. When they saw how many people swim here, they were a bit shocked and then they saw the size of the petition and they agreed to do a second consultation on the chosen route of the channel.

“That has just closed but they are still insisting that the channel has to come through the lake. We believe there are other options which can avoid the lake, but the EA is fixed on this because it has been so long in the planning and they are reluctant to look at this again.”

The River Thames scheme has been designed with two channels to divert flood water and help protect 11,000 homes. It involves digging two new river channels to divert flood water, one of which, the Spelthorne channel, will bisect Ferris Meadow Lake.

The UK has very few inland bathing water areas compared with other European countries.

An EA spokesperson said: “The River Thames scheme represents a landmark opportunity to manage flood risk while enhancing the environment for generations to come. Through integrating green infrastructure, we are committed to creating a sustainable solution that benefits both people and nature.”

Dramatic pictures have emerged of the first floods in the Sahara in half a century.

Two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas of south-eastMorocco and caused a deluge, officials of the country’s meteorology agency said in early October. In Tagounite, a village about 450km(280 miles) south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100mm (3.9 inches) was recorded in a 24-hour period.

Satellite imagery from Nasa showed Lake Iriqui, a lake bed between Zagora and Tata that had been dry for 50 years, being filled up.

“It’s been 30 to 50 years since we’ve had this much rain in such a short space of time,’ Houssine Youabeb, an official of Morocco’s meteorology agency told the Associated Press.

Such rains, which meteorologists call an extratropical storm, may change the weather conditions in the region in the coming months and years. As the air holds more moisture, it promotes evaporation and provokes more storms, Youabeb said.

The flooding in Morocco killed 18 people last month, with the impact stretching to regions that had been affected by an earthquake last year. There were also reports of dammed reservoirs in the south-east region refilling at record rates throughout September.

The Sahara, which measures at 9.4m sq km (3.6m sq miles) is the world’s largest hot desert, stretches across a dozen countries in north, central and west Africa. Recurring drought has been a problem in many of these countries as extreme weather events are on the rise due to global heating. That has led to predictions from scientists that similar storms could happen in the Sahara in the future.

Celeste Saulo, the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, told reporters on Monday that water cycles across the world were changing with increasing frequency.

“As a result of rising temperatures, the hydrological cycle has accelerated. It has also become more erratic and unpredictable, and we are facing growing problems of either too much or too little water,” she said.