No survivors found after plane that flew over DC and led to fighter jet scramble crashes in Virginia
WASHINGTON (AP) — A wayward and unresponsive business plane that flew over the nation’s capital Sunday afternoon caused the military to scramble a fighter jet before the plane crashed in Virginia, officials said. The fighter jet caused a loud sonic boom that was heard across the capital region.
Hours later, police said rescuers had reached the site of the plane crash in a rural part of the Shenandoah Valley and that no survivors were found.
The Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna Citation took off from Elizabethtown, Tennessee, on Sunday and was headed for Long Island’s MacArthur Airport. Inexplicably, the plane turned around over New York’s Long Island and flew a straight path down over D.C. before it crashed over mountainous terrain near Montebello, Virginia, around 3:30 p.m.
It was not immediately clear why the plane was nonresponsive, why it crashed or how many people were on board. The plane flew directly over the nation’s capital, though it was technically flying above some of the most heavily restricted airspace in the nation.
A U.S. official confirmed to The Associated Press that the military jet had scrambled to respond to the small plane, which wasn’t responding to radio transmissions and later crashed. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the military operation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
US releases video showing close-call in Taiwan Strait with Chinese destroyer
BANGKOK (AP) — The United States military released video Monday of what it called an “unsafe” Chinese maneuver in the Taiwan Strait on the weekend, in which a Chinese navy ship cut sharply across the path of an American destroyer, forcing the U.S. vessel to slow to avoid a collision.
The incident occurred Saturday as the American destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal were conducting a so-called “freedom of navigation” transit of the strait between Taiwan and mainland China.
China claims the democratic self-governing island of Taiwan as part of its own territory, and maintains the strait is part of its exclusive economic zone, while the U.S. and its allies regularly sail through and fly over the passage to emphasize their contention that the waters are international.
During the Saturday transit, the Chinese guided-missile destroyer overtook the Chung-Hoon on its port side, then veered across its bow at a distance of some 150 yards (137 meters), according to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. The American destroyer held its course, but reduced speed to 10 knots “to avoid a collision,” the military said.
The video released Monday shows the Chinese ship cutting across the course of the American one, then straightening out to start sailing in a parallel direction.
Russia claims it thwarted Ukrainian attacks in provinces annexed by Moscow
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian officials said their forces thwarted large Ukrainian attacks in two provinces of Ukraine illegally annexed by Moscow. The Ukrainian military suggested the Russian reports were part of a misinformation campaign as Kyiv prepares for an anticipated counteroffensive.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a rare early morning video released Monday that its forces pushed back a “large scale” assault Sunday at five points in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province, one of four regions that President Vladimir Putin claimed as Russian territory last fall but is only partially controlled by Moscow.
“The enemy’s goal was to break through our defenses in the most vulnerable, in its opinion, sector of the front,” Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said. “The enemy did not achieve its tasks. It had no success.”
Konashenkov said 250 Ukrainian personnel were killed, and 16 Ukrainian tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armored combat vehicles were destroyed.
Vladimir Rogov, a Moscow-installed official in southeast Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia province. said Sunday that Kyiv’s forces also attempted to breach Russian defenses there but were repelled after advancing 400 meters (less than a quarter-mile) into Russian-occupied territory.
‘I am haunted by it’: Survivors of deadly train crash in India recount trauma
BALASORE, India (AP) — Gura Pallay was watching another train pass by the one he was sitting in when he heard sudden, loud screeching. Before he could make sense of what was happening, he was thrown out of the train.
Pallay, 24, landed next to the tracks along with metal wreckage of the train he’d been riding in, and instantly lost consciousness. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the twisted remains of train on the tracks.
His train had derailed after colliding with a stopped freight train shortly after leaving Balasore, a coastal city about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the state capital. Another passenger train, the one he had seen pass by moments earlier, then hit the derailed carriages.
“I saw it with my own eyes, but I still can’t describe what I saw. I am haunted by it,” he said Sunday at a hospital, where he lay on a stretcher with a broken leg and dark wounds on his face and arms.
Pallay is a laborer, like most of the people onboard the two passenger trains that crashed Friday in the eastern state of Odisha, killing 275 people and injuring hundreds. He was traveling to Chennai city in southern India to take up a job in a paper mill factory when the Coromandel Express crashed with a goods freight train, knocking it off track, and was then hit by a second train coming from the opposite direction on a parallel track.
Sharing the sentence: Separation takes toll on incarcerated moms and their kids
LINCOLN, Ill. (AP) — Dressed in her Sunday best — pink ruffled sleeves and a rainbow tulle tutu — Crystal Martinez’s 4-year-old daughter proudly presented her with a multicolored bouquet of carefully crafted tissue paper flowers. With her 5-year-old son nestled on her lap, laughing in delight, Martinez held out her arms and pulled the girl into a hug so tight that her glasses were knocked askew.
“I want you! I don’t want the flowers,” Martinez said, smiling and holding her children close.
Martinez’ five children, including the three aged 13, 10 and 6, last month traveled for three hours from Chicago to visit her in Logan Correctional, Illinois’ largest state prison for women and transgender people, on the Reunification Ride. The donation-dependent initiative buses prisoners’ family members 180 miles (290 km) from the city to Logan every month so they can spend time with their mothers and grandmothers.
The number of incarcerated women in the United States dropped by tens of thousands because of COVID-19. But as the criminal justice system returns to business as usual and prison populations creep back to pre-pandemic norms, more children are being separated from their mothers, putting them at greater risk of health and behavioral problems and making them vulnerable to abuse and displacement.
Black and Hispanic women are more likely to be imprisoned than white women and are affected disproportionately by family separation due to incarceration.
Transgender adults in Florida `blindsided’ that new law also limits their access to health care
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Debate surrounding Florida’s new restrictions on gender-affirming care focused largely on transgender children. But a new law that Republican presidential candidate and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last month also made it difficult – even impossible – for many transgender adults to get treatment.
Eli and Lucas, trans men who are a couple, followed the discussions in the Legislature, where Democrats warned that trans children would be more prone to suicide under a ban on gender-affirming care for minors and Republicans responded with misplaced tales of mutilated kids. Eli said he and his partner felt “blindsided” when they discovered the bill contained language that would also disrupt their lives.
“There was no communication. … Nobody was really talking about it in our circles,” said Eli, 29.
Like many transgender adults in Florida, he and Lucas are now facing tough choices, including whether to uproot their lives so that they can continue to access gender-confirming care. Clinics are also trying to figure out how to operate under regulations that have made Florida a test case for restrictions on adults.
Lucas, 26, lost his access to treatment when the Orlando clinic that prescribed him hormone replacement therapy stopped providing gender-affirming care altogether. The couple also worries about staying in a state that this year enacted several other bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
‘It was tough’: WWII veterans return to Utah Beach to commemorate D-Day
ON UTAH BEACH, France (AP) — Looking at the vastness of Utah Beach, its sand blowing in strong wind and bright sunshine, made Robert Gibson’s memory of D-Day even more vivid.
“It was tough,” the 99-year-old veteran said of the moment when he landed there on June 6, 1944 alongside more than 150,000 other Allied troops.
Gibson was among dozens of World War II veterans, mostly Americans and British, who traveled to Normandy this week to mark the 79th anniversary of D-Day, commemorating the decisive assault that led to the liberation of France and Western Europe from Nazi control.
He remembered “lots of casualties. We had almost run over bodies to get in the beach. Never forget we were only 18, 19 years old. … I’m glad I made it.”
Gibson landed on Utah Beach on D-Day in the second wave, after the assault troops. He survived to continue fighting in Normandy and eventually into Germany.
Racist abuse of Vinícius Júnior highlights entrenched problem in soccer
MADRID (AP) — Hanging from a highway bridge in Madrid, an effigy of one of the world’s most famous Black soccer players stands as a graphic reminder of the racism that sweeps through European soccer.
In truth, the signs are everywhere.
In Italy, where monkey chants swirled around the stadium in April as a Black player celebrated a goal. In England, where a banana peel thrown from a hostile crowd during a game in north London landed at the feet of a Black player after he scored a penalty. In France, where Black players from the men’s national team were targeted with horrific racial abuse online after they lost in last year’s World Cup final.
Go outside Europe and you’ll find them, too.
In Australia, where there were monkey noises and fascist chanting during last year’s Australia Cup final. In South America, where matches in the continent’s biggest competition, the Copa Libertadores, have been blighted by monkey chants. In North Africa, where Black players from visiting teams from sub-Saharan Africa have complained of being targets of racist chants by Arab fans.
Series tied: Heat roar back in the 4th quarter, beat Nuggets 111-108 in Game 2 of NBA Finals
DENVER (AP) — Staring down a 2-0 deficit in the NBA Finals, as the visitors in a hostile arena where no road team had prevailed in more than two months, the Miami Heat decided to do what they’ve done throughout the postseason.
They found a way. Against all odds. Again.
The Heat tied the NBA Finals and had to overcome a monster 41-point effort from Nikola Jokic to do it. Gabe Vincent scored 23 points, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo each had 21 and Heat beat the Denver Nuggets 111-108 in Game 2 on Sunday night.
“Our guys are competitors,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “They love these kind of moments.”
Evidently.
France’s spectacular abbey Mont-Saint-Michel celebrates 1,000th birthday
PARIS (AP) — France’s beloved abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel has reached a ripe old age. It’s been 1,000 years since the laying of its first stone.
The millennial of the UNESCO World Heritage site and key Normandy tourism magnet is being celebrated until November with exhibits, dance shows and concerts. French President Emmanuel Macron is heading there on Monday.
Macron plans to deliver a speech and to see a new exhibit tracing the Romanesque abbey’s history via 30 objects and pieces, including a restored statue of Saint Michael. Legend has it that the archangel Michael appeared in 708, duly instructing the bishop of nearby Avranches to build him a church on the rocky outcrop.
The exhibit, two years in the making, opened last month. It covers the complex process of building what is considered an architectural jewel on a rocky island linked to the mainland only by a narrow causeway at high tide.
Four crypts were constructed on the granite tip along with a church on top. The exhibit explains how the original structure, built in 966, became too small for pilgrims, spurring on the builders to create the 11th century abbey that stands to this day.