Chile wildfires kill seven people and displace thousands

A statue of General Baquedano in Chile, which was painted and repainted red during demonstrations, has become a symbol of sometimes violent protests in the country. But first: the beheaded teacher in France was the "victim of an angry social media campaign", according to Reuters. In other news, a cat geoglyph that dates back to 200-100 BC has been found in Peru's Nazca hills. The geoglyph emerged during maintenance work at the UNESCO World Heritage site.

Voters deciding on who will draft Chile's new constitution have widely rejected the country's ruling coalition in favor of independent and leftist candidates. A new constitution was a key demand of the 2019 protests.

Families visit deceased loved ones in the Santiago General Cemetery, Chile's oldest and one of the largest in Latin America with an estimated two million graves over 85 hectares. Chile has surpassed a total of 30,000 coronavirus deaths and announced the extension of border closures until the end of June.

Chile inaugurates Latin America's first-ever thermosolar energy plant, a vast complex dubbed Cerro Dominador in the Atacama desert that gives a boost to the country's quest for carbon-neutrality by 2050.

Watching on from a bar in Buenos Aires, Argentina fans react after their side was held to a 1-1 draw by Chile in their opening Copa America Group A match. Superstar Lionel Messi scored a stunning free-kick but Eduardo Vargas equalised in the second half.

Over 90% of the small town town in British Columbia was destroyed, prompting the evacuation of over 1,000 people. Prior to the fire, Lytton had seen three consecutive days of record high temperatures.

"I was out there. I saw the flames creeping up the side of the bluff," recalls Frank Lee Smith, a resident of Klamath County in southern Oregon, who had to evacuate due to the Bootleg Fire, which continues to grow. "It's slowly sinking in that I got no place to go to and now I gotta figure things out." Whipped up by dry conditions and strengthening winds, the Bootleg Fire has already devoured more than 212,758 acres (86,000 hectares) - the equivalent of 120,000 soccer fields.

The massive fire raging in southern Oregon for the past 10 days is likely to continue due to unstable weather. A 'fire cloud' collapsed threatening firefighters with strong downdrafts and flying embers.

Fernando Karadima was a key figure in a sexual abuse case that sent shockwaves through the Catholic Church. Aged 90, he died of bronchopneumonia and kidney failure in a nursing home.

Workers at the world's biggest copper mine, Chile's Escondida, have approved a strike after rejecting the final contract offer proposed by multinational owners BHP. The workers are asking for a one-time bonus to recognize their work during the Covid-19 pandemic as well as education benefits for their children. Escondida workers staged a 44-day strike in 2017, the longest in the history of Chilean mining. The strike caused $740 million in losses for the company.

A wildfire rages through the village of Afidnes, north of Athens - a blaze that firefighters had hoped to control but which regained strength after already destroying large areas of pine forest. Dozens of blazes have torn through Greece this week in the country's worst heatwave for over three decades.

At a children's hospital in Santiago, Chile there is a flurry of excitement over a delegation of special visitors: a four-legged quartet has arrived to offer some reprieve from sickness and pain with their wagging tails and soulful eyes.