HELSINKI (AP) — Official in Latvia say eight people have died in a fire at a building that housed an illegal hostel. The Latvian State Fire and Rescue Service said it was alerted about the fire in the center of Latvia’s capital at about 5 a.m. Wednesday. When firefighters arrived, the building’s sixth floor and roof were on fire. It wasn’t immediately clear how or where the fire started. Latvian authorities and the mayor of Riga said the state-owned building housed an illegal hostel where the operators recently had carried out unauthorized renovation work. The mayor said on Twitter that information from police indicated “the burned building was dominated by foreigners, most likely foreign students.”
