Four dead at the scene and one dies in hospital after balloon blown into power lines by wind catches fire
Five people died after a hot air balloon hit power lines in New Mexico’s largest city on Saturday, police said.
The crash happened around 7am on Albuquerque’s west side, police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said. No identities were immediately released but fire officials said three males, including the pilot, and two females died.
Continue reading...Rescue crews digging into unstable rubble have been hampered by storms and fires in the mound of debris
Death came swiftly to residents of Champlain Towers South. Grandparents, parents and children were sleeping in their beds when their 12-storey condominium building collapsed into a heap of smouldering rubble.
Survivors described a sound like thunder, followed by complete destruction of dozens of apartments in the oceanside south Florida block. The collapse took barely 10 seconds but was captured on grim security camera footage from a neighboring building that quickly began streaming on news websites across the world.
Continue reading...Aerial footage of the Surfside community near Miami, Florida, shows the extent of damage after a 12-storey oceanfront residential building partly collapsed in the early hours of Thursday. Officials announced on Friday that the death toll had reached four, and said it was likely to climb far higher as rescuers continued to sift through the debris
Continue reading...Vice-president faced with colossal task as migrants live with brutal reality of arduous journey and border restrictions
The sun beat down on the 30ft border fence that separates El Paso, Texas from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, as temperatures headed towards 100F on the southern border that stands as a symbol for so much in American politics.
Related: Kamala Harris says US-Mexico border situation is ‘tough’ but claims progress
Continue reading...Snakes, bears and other animals seeking refuge from the drying landscape are increasingly finding their way into urban environments
Len Ramirez stalked through the dried landscape, scanning the ground ahead searching for movement. Called out to an estate in Napa Valley, the owner of Ramirez Rattlesnake Removal company was finishing up his last job of another busy day wrangling, removing and relocating snakes from homes across northern California. He’d found three in just this yard, including one nestled roughly 1,000 yards from the pool.
Rattlesnakes are everywhere these days, he says – on front porches, in potted plants, and under children’s play equipment. “I am busier than I have ever been. Complaints are coming in from all over the state.”
Continue reading...They were sold as gadgets that meant you would never miss a delivery. But now doorbell cameras – from Amazon’s Ring to Google’s Nest – are recording our every move
I have got a new doorbell. It’s brilliant. It should be; it cost £89. It’s a Ring video doorbell; you’ll have seen them around. There are others available, made by other companies, with other four-letter names such as Nest and Arlo. When someone rings my doorbell, I’m alerted on my smartphone. I can see who is there, and speak to them.
My phone is ringing! C major first inversion chord, arpeggiated, repeated, for the musically trained – you’ll recognise it if you’ve heard it. It’s a delivery. Amazon, as it happens; Amazon acquired Ring in 2018, reportedly for more than $1bn.
Continue reading...The Senate minority leader has filibustered voting rights legislation, halted a pay gap measure and threatened to block a supreme court nominee
It was a glimpse of Washington past. Beneath the vaulted ceiling and stained glass windows of the national cathedral, Joe Biden greeted Mitch McConnell and other senators in the pews, then offered a hymn to bipartisanship.
“Empathy is the fuel of democracy,” the US president told mourners on Wednesday at the funeral of John Warner, a Republican senator he praised for working across the aisle. “The willingness to see each other as opponents, not as enemies. Above all, to see each other as fellow Americans even when we disagree.”
Continue reading...On a visit to Paris, US secretary of state Antony Blinken says deal is at risk if Tehran fails to make concessions
The United States and France have warned Iran that time is running out to return to a nuclear deal, voicing fear that Tehran’s sensitive development program could advance if talks drag on.
On the first high-level visit to Paris by president Joe Biden’s administration, secretary of state Antony Blinken and his French hosts saluted a new spirit of cooperation after four years of turbulence under Donald Trump.
Continue reading...George Floyd's family members asked for the maximum sentence for Derek Chavin, the white former Minneapolis police officer who was later sentenced to 22 years and six months in prison.
Two months ago, Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder for pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds before Floyd died.
'The sudden murder of George has forever traumatized us. You may see us cry, but the full extent of our pain and trauma will never be seen with the naked eye,' said Brandon Williams, Floyd's nephew, to the court
Continue reading...A film shows the moment an apartment block in Miami-Dade in Florida suddenly caved in. Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for after the partial collapse of the beachside building, and four people have already been confirmed dead.
Miami-Dade's mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, noted on Friday that rescue officials were still searching for survivors more than 24 hours after the building collapsed early on Thursday
Continue reading...Four members of the Floyd family, including his seven-year-old daughter Gianna, gave statements before the sentencing
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd, has been sentenced to 22 years and six months for second-degree murder, closing one chapter of a case that thrust the issue of race and American policing back into the global spotlight.
Related: Protests erupt in Minneapolis over man fatally shot by deputies
Continue reading...‘If something’s out there, let’s seek it out, and it is probably a foreign power,’ says chair of Senate foreign relations committee
If the idea that we are being visited by aliens seems too much to contemplate, the thesis that the extraordinary-looking craft are the work of terrestrial adversaries seems only slightly less far-fetched – and at the same time, deeply troubling for US security experts.
In pressing for the Pentagon’s UFO report to be published, congressional leaders briefed on the intelligence have pointed to the urgent security threat implied by the “unexplained aerial phenomena”.
Continue reading...Judge Peter Cahill has sentenced Derek Chauvin, the white former police officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck until he died, to 22 and half years in prison.
The judge acknowledged 'the deep and tremendous pain' felt by the Floyd family and others, but he said the sentence was not based on public opinion
Continue reading...The justice department is suing the state of Georgia over the new voting laws it says violate the Voting Rights Act and suppress Black Americans' right to vote.
Attorney General Merrick Garland made the announcement after the justice department scrutinized a wave of new laws in Republican-controlled states that tighten voting rules.
Under the bill, the legislature gave itself power to remove local election officials deemed to be underperforming and added a voter ID requirement for mail ballots. It will result in fewer ballot drop boxes in metro Atlanta
Continue reading...Family and friends of the more than 100 people still missing after a building collapsed in Miami said they were not 'losing hope' of hearing from their loved ones who remained unaccounted for. Four people are known to have been killed and 11 injuries were reported following the collapse of much of the 12-storey Champlain Towers South building in Miami, on the south Florida coast.
The residential structure pancaked into a pile of concrete and metal more than 30ft high for reasons still unknown
Vice-president Kamala Harris is visiting the Southern border today amid ongoing criticism from Republicans about Harris’s absence from traveling there yet.
VP Kamala Harris boards AF2 to El Paso for her first visit to the border as VP. She was greeted by Sec. Mayorkas, Sen. Durbin and Rep. Escobar, all of whom are joining her on her trip. pic.twitter.com/GFr44Lw62Y
Vice President Kamala Harris will be in El Paso on Friday, where she will tour a Customs and Border Protection processing facility, meeting with advocates and NGOs. She will also be delivering remarks on her visit.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who has been helping with negotiations on immigration legislation on Capitol Hill, and Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, will be accompanying Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on the trip.
Excerpts from a new book about Donald Trump’s presidency includes details about the 45th president’s increasingly violent language in the oval office.
...the book reveals new details about how Trump’s language became increasingly violent during Oval Office meetings as protests in Seattle and Portland began to receive attention from cable new outlets. The President would highlight videos that showed law enforcement getting physical with protesters and tell his administration he wanted to see more of that behavior, the excerpts show.
“That’s how you’re supposed to handle these people,” Trump told his top law enforcement and military officials, according to Bender. “Crack their skulls!”
Continue reading...The death toll in a Miami building collapse rose to four on Friday morning a day and 159 were unaccounted for after a 12-storey condominium slumped into rubble on the south Florida Atlantic coast.
Related: ‘There’s just too much at risk’: Arizona closes parks to prevent extreme wildfires
Continue reading...Kamala Harris faces the most politically challenging moment of her vice-presidency on Friday when she visits Texas as part of her role leading the Biden administration’s response to recent increases in families and unaccompanied children migrating across the US-Mexico border.
While in El Paso, Texas, she will tour a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processing center near the international bridge that connects the western city with its twin city, Juárez, across the Rio Grande in Mexico.
Continue reading...Televised congressional investigation looks at political decisions that lead to crisis that has killed half a million
A congressional inquiry into Brazil’s disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic has found mounting evidence that Jair Bolsonaro’s administration committed “crimes against life”, according to the senior politician leading the investigation.
Launched in April to scrutinize the government’s handling of a crisis that has killed half a million citizens, the nationally televised investigation is digging into the political decisions that led up to one of the cruelest moments in the country’s history.
Continue reading...A water quality crisis has been hiding in the ritzy Hamptons, but the pandemic pushed it over the edge. Will clean-up efforts be too little too late?
Growing up in Southampton, Bryan McGowin spent his summers swimming in a beautiful local pond. Now in his 40s, McGowin won’t let his kids into the water.
“If you drink that now, you will get sick,” said McGowin. Across the New York coastal community better known as the Hamptons, residents face perilously declining water quality, which has shut down recreation in many freshwater ponds.
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