Five people onboard survived small plane crash near Lancaster but officials say no details of their condition
A small airplane with five people onboard crashed in a parking lot near Lancaster airport in Manheim Township, Pennsylvania, on Sunday afternoon, authorities said.
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the single-engine plane was a Beechcraft Bonanza, and the incident happened around 3pm in Lancaster county.
Continue reading...The actor was likely alone in his house for days, disoriented and too frail to seek help, after death of wife Betsy Arakawa
The actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, who were found dead last month in Santa Fe, New Mexico, were rarely apart from each other, and it’s that closeness that may have led to the circumstances of their deaths.
Arakawa had become Hackman’s caregiver in his later years when he developed Alzheimer’s disease and became incapable of carrying out even the simplest of tasks. She ran the household errands, made sure he remained active and protected him from illnesses.
Continue reading...Homeland security secretary pledges lie detector tests for employees she suspects are passing information to press
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday announced new leadership at the agency tasked with immigration enforcement as she also pledged to step up lie detector tests on employees to identify those who may be leaking information about operations to the media.
Noem confirmed, in addition, that the government will expand immigration detention operations further into the military sphere, following reports of the intention to use the huge Fort Bliss army base close to the US-Mexico border in Texas for that purpose.
Continue reading...President downplays recent stock market volatility that followed his ducking and weaving over tariff policy
Donald Trump on Sunday refused to rule out the possibility that the US economy will head into recession this year and that inflation will rise, as his chaotic trade tariffs policy cause uncertainty and market turbulence.
The US president predicted that his economic goals would take time and a period of transition to bear fruit. But when asked in an interview with the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures “are you expecting a recession this year?” he demurred.
Reuters contributed reporting
Continue reading...Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest comes as Trump vows to deport foreign students involved in protests against Israel’s war
A prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s student encampment movement was arrested on Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who claimed they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card, according to his attorney.
Mahmoud Khalil was at his university-owned apartment, blocks from the private Ivy League university’s main campus in New York when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents entered the building and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press.
Continue reading...Three of the fires are contained, while one is still burning in Westhampton, officials say
Firefighters in New York were continuing to battle at least one brush fire in a wooded stretch of Long Island on Sunday with the wealthy coastal enclave of the Hamptons vulnerable and officials warning that high wind gusts threatened to ignite further blazes.
The state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, declared a state of emergency on Saturday after four separate fires broke out. The flames were spreading across large swaths of the narrow strip of barrier land that stretches for more than 100 miles east from New York City out towards the Atlantic Ocean.
Continue reading...Since becoming president, Trump has upended the US approach to Ukraine and treated Moscow more as an ally
In just seven weeks since returning to the White House for a second term, Donald Trump has upended the US approach to the invasion of Ukraine and treated Russia increasingly not as an adversary, but an ally.
After tossing aside decades of alignment with Europe against Russian aggression, the US president suspended military assistance and intelligence to Kyiv and said on Friday he finds it “easier” to work with Russia than Ukraine.
Continue reading...Diplomats gasp as Keith Kellogg claims Zelenskyy to blame for soured relations with America
“There was an audible gasp in the room at the Council on Foreign Relations as Keith Kellogg, the White House’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, characterised the US decision to cut off intelligence sharing and military aid to Kyiv as like beating a farm animal with a piece of wood.
“Very candidly, they brought it on themselves, the Ukrainians,” Kellogg said as the veteran diplomats, academics, and journalists in the room recoiled in surprise. Several held their hands in their faces. “I think the best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose,” he continued. “You got their attention, and it’s very significant, obviously, because of the support that we give.”
Continue reading...With internal politics at their most unstable for years, the risk of escalation is rising
The letter the US president, Donald Trump, says he sent to Iran’s leadership offering to reopen talks on the country’s nuclear programme comes at a point when Iranian domestic politics is at its most unstable for years.
In the past month, the conservative-dominated parliament has asserted its power over the broadly reformist president elected last June by impeaching and sacking the experienced economy minister, Abdolnaser Hemmati, while Mohammad Javad Zarif, the vice-president and most prominent reformist, has also been forced out.
Continue reading...Free training classes for firefighters and other first responders are provided through Fema at the Maryland site
The country’s pre-eminent federal fire training academy canceled classes, effective immediately, on Saturday amid the ongoing flurry of funding freezes and staffing cuts by Donald Trump’s administration.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that National Fire Academy (NFA) courses had been canceled amid a “process of evaluating agency programs and spending to ensure alignment with Administration priorities”, according to a notice sent to instructors, students and fire departments. Instructors were told to cancel all future travel until further notice.
Continue reading...State agencies responding around Pine Barrens, where homes, chemical factory and Amazon warehouse are at risk
Quick-moving brush fires burned through a large swath of land on New York’s Long Island on Saturday, fanned by high winds that spewed thick grey smoke into the sky and prompted the evacuation of a military base and the closure of a major highway.
Kathy Hochul, the state governor, declared a state of emergency and said state agencies were responding to the fires around the Pine Barrens, a wooded area that is home to commuter towns east of New York City.
Continue reading...US pushes to remove references to sanctions and Russia’s war in Ukraine from a Canadian draft statement
The US has rejected a Canadian proposal to establish a task force that would tackle Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers, according to reports last night.
Canada, which has the current Group of Seven presidency, proposed the measure ahead of a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Quebec later this week.
Continue reading...Jeffrey Collins of the Associated Press recalls experience of watching Brad Sigmon die for 2001 murders
A reporter for the Associated Press who watched as South Carolina executed a convicted murderer by firing squad has described the experience, saying that the killing was now “etched” in his mind.
Jeffrey Collins, who has witnessed executions in South Carolina for the news agency for 21 years and has seen 11 people killed using three methods, wrote a short essay about the experience.
Continue reading...Nominee for undersecretary for defense policy says Aukus deal to deliver Virginia class submarines could leave US sailors ‘vulnerable’
One of Donald Trump’s top picks for the Pentagon says selling submarines to Australia under the Aukus agreement poses a “very difficult problem” for the US and could endanger its own sailors.
Elbridge Colby, Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy – the number three post at the US Department of Defense – has previously admitted he is “skeptical” about Aukus and said this week he is worried selling submarines to Australia could leave US sailors “vulnerable” because the vessels won’t be “in the right place in the right time”.
Continue reading...Ayatollah Khamenei says US demand to reopen talks on Iran’s nuclear programme is aimed at domination
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has criticised what he described as bullying tactics a day after Donald Trump threatened military action against Iran.
“Some bully governments – I really don’t know of any more appropriate term for some foreign figures and leaders than the word bullying – insist on negotiations,” Khamenei told officials after Trump threatened military action if Iran refused to engage in talks over its nuclear programme.
Continue reading...‘Coercive’ tariffs and federal funding cuts could worsen flow of illicit drugs into US, ex-government officials warn
Donald Trump’s policies could leave the US more vulnerable to dangerous synthetic drug trafficking from abroad, even as the administration has vowed to stop fentanyl from entering the country, former government officials say.
This week, Trump imposed tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, ostensibly as a tactic to stem the flow of illicit drugs into the US.
Continue reading...Supreme court justice who frequently votes alongside conservative colleagues branded ‘DEI judge’
Amy Coney Barrett, the Donald Trump-appointed conservative supreme court justice, has been branded a “DEI judge” by furious rightwing figures, after she voted to reject Trump’s attempt to freeze nearly $2bn in foreign aid.
Coney Barrett, part of the court’s rightwing majority, split with her fellow conservative justices this week. She and John Roberts, the chief justice, voted to leave in place a ruling from a US district judge that ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze the nearly $2bn in aid for foreign aid work that had already been performed, and that had been approved by Congress.
Continue reading...Look-back window results in nearly 100 allegations against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) in the US has been rocked by a slew of sexual abuse allegations launched against it in California in the latest scandal to hit the organization that is better known as the Mormon church.
A three-year look-back legal window that allows adult survivors of sexual assault to file claims in California has produced almost 100 allegations of childhood sexual abuse by Mormon leaders.
Continue reading...Study found that 7% of Americans have been present at a scene of a mass shooting and 2% had been injured in one
One in 15 Americans has witnessed a mass shooting, a new study shows, revealing the depth and impact of the epidemic of gun violence that has washed over the US in recent decades.
The study found that about 7% of US adults have been present at the scene of a mass shooting in their lifetime, and more than 2% have been injured during one, according to new a report from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Continue reading...Latest attacks came hours after Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin was ‘doing what anybody would do’
Russia launched a devastating attack on Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens more, hours after Donald Trump defended Vladimir Putin and said the Kremlin leader was “doing what anybody would do”.
Two ballistic missiles hit the centre of Dobropillia in the eastern Donetsk region. Fire engulfed a five-storey apartment building. As emergency services arrived, Russia launched another strike on the same area. Eleven civilians were killed, with five children among the 30 injured.
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