Category Archives: headline

headline

Miracle as two planes collide mid-air, no one hurt

Two small planes have collided in the air near the United States city of Denver, leaving one aircraft nearly ripped in half and forcing the other's pilot to deploy a parachute. Remarkably, both planes landed safely and no one was injured, officials said.

Both planes were getting ready to land at a small regional airport in a Denver suburb on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) when they collided, according to the National Transportation Safety Board and South Metro Fire Rescue.

"Every one of these pilots needs to go buy a lottery ticket right now," Arapahoe County sheriff's Deputy John Bartmann said.

READ MORE: Qantas blames 'faulty sensor' for 'priority landing' at Brisbane Airport

"I don't remember anything like this — especially everybody walking away. I mean that's the amazing part of this."

In an audio clip from KDVR TV, the Key Lime Air pilot asked air traffic control for an immediate landing and declares an engine emergency, without realising the plane was almost split in half from the collision.

"Looks like the right engine failed so I'm gonna continue my landing here," the pilot said.

June Cvelbar told the KUSA TV station she saw the collision while walking in a state park.

"I saw a larger green plane, which I thought was a tow plane, along with what I thought was a glider being towed by it," she said.

"I heard a noise but didn't realise that the two planes had collided."

Ms Cvelbar said she saw the green plane fly off and shortly after saw the smaller plane deploy its parachute. She said she initially thought it was a training exercise.

"When I realised that the small plane was going down I ran toward it. The pilot and his passenger were up and about," she said.

Shelly Whitehead told KCNC-TV she was in her kitchen when she heard a loud bang that sounded like a firecracker.

She ran onto her patio and saw the plane that deployed the parachute coming down in the field behind her house.

"I thought, 'Is it somebody just jumping out of a plane?' And then I realised the parachute was attached to a plane," she said.

"I thought for sure they weren't going to make it out of there."

The pilot was the only person aboard a twin-engine Fairchild Metroliner that landed at Centennial Airport despite suffering major damage to its tail section.

The plane is owned by a Colorado-based company, Key Lime Air, that operates cargo aircraft.

A pilot and one passenger were on the other plane, a single-engine Cirrus SR22, which deployed a red-and-white parachute and drifted down to a safe landing in a field near homes in Cherry Creek State Park, Mr Bartmann said.

https://twitter.com/DenverChannel/status/1392560583950561281

Both Key Lime Air, a passenger and cargo charter company, and Independence Aviation, a flight school and aircraft rental firm that owns the Cirrus plane, are based outside Centennial Airport, one of the busiest general aviation airports in Colorado.

Independence Aviation said it rented the 2016 Cirrus SR22 plane on Wednesday and its pilot successfully deployed an airframe parachute system designed by Cirrus Aircraft to slow the craft's descent after a collision.

"At this time, we are allowing the NTSB and FAA to conduct their investigation," said a statement issued by Derek Severns of the Cirrus Platinum Training Center, a pilot training centre.

Authorities did not immediately identify the people who were in the planes.

The National Transportation Safety Board said on Twitter it was sending staff to investigate. Key Lime Air will cooperate with the investigation, the company said in a statement.

https://twitter.com/NTSB_Newsroom/status/1392554755180933121

headline

Judge postpones trial for 3 ex-cops charged in George Floyd's death

The trial of three former Minneapolis police officers charged with aiding and abetting in the death of George Floyd will be pushed back to March 2022, in part to allow the publicity over Derek Chauvin's conviction to cool off, a judge ruled Thursday.

Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao were scheduled to face trial August 23 on charges they aided and abetted both murder and manslaughter. The officers' co-defendant, Chauvin, was convicted of murder and manslaughter counts. All four officers also face federal charges that allege they violated Floyd's civil rights during his May 25 arrest.

Judge Peter Cahill said he moved jury selection in the other officers' trial to March 8, 2022, so the federal case can go forward first. He also said he felt the need to put some distance between the three officers' trial and Chauvin's due to the high-profile nature of the case.

READ MORE: Teen with 'a cell phone and sheer guts' who filmed Derek Chauvin

The news that the trial was being pushed back came during a Thursday hearing on pretrial motions. The former officers waived their right to appear and were not in court, but their defence attorneys all agreed to the postponement. The state, via Assistant Attorney General Matthew Frank, did not support the delay. It wasn't made clear at Thursday's motions hearing who originally sought the change.

Chauvin, who was seen in widely viewed bystander video pressing his knee into Floyd's neck as the Black man said he couldn't breathe, was convicted in April of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. He's to be sentenced June 25.

During Thursday's hearing, attorneys for the defence argued that prosecutors should be sanctioned after media reports that Chauvin had planned to plead guilty a year ago. Frank said the Attorney General's Office was willing to submit affidavits from personnel involved in the case to state that they were not the source of the leak. A prosecutor from the Hennepin County Attorney's Office said they would do the same.

READ MORE: Al Sharpton decries 'stench of racism' in Daunte Wright's death

Thao's attorney, Bob Paule, said in a motion filed in February that he wants an order sanctioning the state for "its role — directly or indirectly — in the leaking of highly prejudicial information related to potential plea agreements of co-defendants."

Cahill said he would hold an evidentiary hearing on the issue in August.

The New York Times reported Feb. 10 that Chauvin was ready to plead guilty to a third-degree murder charge last year but then-Attorney General William Barr rejected the agreement. The Associated Press published a similar report the next day, citing two law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the talks. Paule alleged that the leaks came from the state, and asked that anyone who did so be barred from participating in the trial. Tom Plunkett, Kueng's attorney, echoed his statements.

Attorney General Keith Ellison earlier dismissed Paule's motion as "completely false and an outlandish attempt to disparage the prosecution."

In a separate motion, Earl Gray, Lane's attorney, is asking Cahill to compel the state to disclose all use-of-force reports over the past 30 years — after initially asking for data dating back 50 years — in which a Minneapolis police officer used force and another officer intervened verbally or physically. Gray said it's necessary to show the jury that no such intervention has been made, which would call into question the state's expert testimony about the duty of officers to intervene.

READ MORE: George Floyd's killer seeks new trial to impeach murder verdict

Prosecutors have said that request should be denied; Cahill said he would take it under advisement.

Paule also filed a motion Wednesday asking the court to sanction prosecutors for allegedly failing to disclose information about the alleged coercion of a witness. Paule claimed that he Hennepin County medical examiner, Dr Mark Baker, was coerced to include "neck compression" in his findings — and that prosecutors knew of it.

In a brief letter to Cahill, Frank said "The bizarre allegations offered in support of the motion are false and wrong and we intend to file a complete response." The issue did not come up during Thursday's hearing.

Paule wrote in his court filing that Baker initially said there was no physical evidence that Floyd died of asphyxiation. But after talking twice to Dr Roger Mitchell – a former medical examiner in Washington, DC – he amended his findings to include neck compression as a factor, according to Paule.

Paule said that in one of the conversations, Mitchell called Baker and told him he was going to submit an opinion piece critical of Baker's findings to the Washington Post. When Baker released final autopsy findings June 1, they included neck compression, Paule wrote, and Mitchell never submitted his piece to the newspaper.

Mitchell, now chairman of the Department of Pathology at the Howard University College of Medicine, did not respond to a phone message left at the department Wednesday. A spokeswoman for Baker said they could not comment due to the pending case.

Paule also took aim at Mitchell's criticism of Dr David Fowler, a key defence witness for Chauvin who testified that the former officer was not responsible for Floyd's death. After Mitchell and other doctors sent a letter to Maryland's attorney general, criticising Fowler's conclusions, Maryland officials announced they would review all in-custody death reports during Fowler's tenure. Paule said Mitchell's accusations had a chilling effect on Thao's ability to find medical experts unafraid to testify on his behalf.

headline

Trinidad & Tobago with 615 New COVID Cases

CMC- Trinidad and Tobago reported a record number of 615 positive cases of the coronavirus, as well as joining Jamaica in recording more deaths linked to the pandemic, with a 235 total to date.

The Ministry of Health in its latest bulletin said that the cases reflect a five day period and not for the last 24 hours.

“While the normal reporting timeframe covers samples taken within two to three days, the substantial increase in the positive cases and the resulting number of samples collected and processed at testing sites throughout the country, has affected the reporting timeline in this instance,” it said.

The Ministry said that the 99 cases reported on Monday “may have been as a result of the normal weekend closure of some of the testing sites and some of the health facilities where swabbing takes place”.

“This it should be underscored that the reported positive cases reflect a high percentage of infection within the population. The cases reflected a positivity rate in excess of 40 per cent, which is a cause for significant concern”.

According to the ministry, there are now 4, 588 active cases with 14, 417 positive cases since the first case was detected in March last year.

The authorities reported 11 more deaths pushing the total to 235. There are 439 people in state-sanctioned quarantine, while 3, 548 are in home isolation.

Epidemiologist Dr Avery Hinds told the Ministry of Health’s Covid-19 press conference Wednesday that the increased number of deaths is due to the increased number of cases.

So far this month, a total of 2,978 new cases have been registered for the month of May, with 66 deaths as compared to 27 last month.

“The increased number of deaths is really as a result of the increased number of cases and although we note that we’ve implemented several measures of increasing levels of stringency, we also want to remind the population that the more stringent of these are actually still only very recently implemented,” Hinds told reporters.

“The most stringent (lockdown) measures being less than a week old, those of moderate stringency being around just under or just around the two-week mark and we also have to bear in mind that each time one of these measures was implemented there was a little bit of a kickback, a rush to access whichever facility was being closed off at the time and those too would affect the figures. All of that has to work its way through the system before the numbers start to come down.

“Again this emphasizes the need for adherence to the public health measures, to recommendations we’ve been making to reduce mobility as much as possible, reduce contact as much as possible so that the measures that have been implemented have the braking effect that is desired. At this point, we still do expect that the numbers may get a little higher before they begin to decrease,” the epidemiologist said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley confirmed that the United States has donated two field hospitals to Trinidad and Tobago.

Speaking on the state-owned television station, Rowley said the field hospitals are a response to rising numbers throughout the population, even as he indicated that “.it is not out of control.

“What we are doing is to expand this capacity to respond in the event that we require more beds,” he said, adding that the hospitals would be established in Couva, in central Trinidad and Diego Martin, west of here.

“It is one of the responses if we are getting more people infected and there is a demand for more bed space. A field hospital is what you use to increase your bed space in the short term. It is not out of control, it is a response to what is happening as we experience a higher level of infection,” Rowley said, urging citizens to comply with measures in place to protect the population.

“The pandemic is not a joke,” he said, adding “take it seriously, the things that have to be done, we told that to you over and over and over. Each one of us if we do those things, will not only protect ourselves but we will protect other people because those who are being infected by others.

“It is not a respecter of race, creed, class political suasion geography All over the country is exposed and all people are exposed. Now more than ever we have to be careful because we are seeing more and more young people falling to it,” said Rowley.

In Jamaica, the country recorded 101 new COVID-19 cases and six deaths over the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 46,922, with 23,121 active, and the death toll to 820.

The deaths included a 102-year-old woman and a 98-year-old man.

The new cases range in age from six months to 88 years, including 51 females.

A total of 1,380 tests were conducted. At the same time, there were 119 recoveries, for a total of 22,636.

The authorities said 175 patients are hospitalised, with 14 being critically ill.

In Guyana, there were 128 new COVID19 cases recorded Wednesday with 14 in the COVID19 ICU.

The authorities said there are 1,763 persons in isolation after testing positive for COVID19, with

1,657 isolating at home.

The country has so far recorded 331 since the first case was registered in March last year.No death has been recorded for Wednesday.

The post Trinidad & Tobago with 615 New COVID Cases appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

Arabs and Jews 'lynched' as Israel-Palestine fighting intensifies

As the Israeli military and Palestinian militants in Gaza exchange deadly airstrikes and rocket bombardments, rioting and violent clashes have swept through several Israeli cities between Arab and Jewish citizens.

In Bat Yam, south of Jaffa, graphic video on Wednesday night showed a Jewish right-wing mob trying to lynch an Arab driver.

Police say the man was dragged from his car before the assault began.

READ MORE: Israel steps up Gaza offensive, kills senior Hamas figures

Video shows about 20 people hitting him with metal objects and kicking him in the head repeatedly. He was taken to hospital where his injuries were described by police as moderate.

In Acre, north of Haifa, a lynching attempt by an Arab mob left a Jewish man critically wounded, according to Israeli police.

A police spokesman said the mob attacked police officers with stones before attacking the victim with stones and iron bars.

"We are very, very worried about this deterioration," Israeli lawmaker Aida Touma-Suleiman in Acre told CNN's Hala Gorani in a live interview on late Wednesday evening local time.

"I am locked in my house, it's happening in front of my house, and there is no way to go out," she said.

"The tear gas is filling the houses, and the situation is insecure. There has been attacks on Arab citizens in different cities today

"I'm really, really worried about this city (Acre). The same is happening in Haifa. The same is happening in Lod.

"There are different attacks on different citizens."

The Israeli-Arab lawmaker went on to say: "I'm not sure that the police is able or even willing to control the situation."

READ MORE: UN warns Isreal-Palestine conflict could turn into 'full-scale war'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday slammed the violence in Israeli cities as "unacceptable" and said he had ordered the police to adopt emergency powers, to reinforce with border police units, and to impose curfews where necessary.

"Nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs and nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews," he said in a statement.

"To the citizens of Israel I say that I do not care if your blood is boiling. You cannot take the law into your own hands," Mr Netanyahu said.

"You cannot grab an ordinary Arab citizen and try to lynch him — just as we cannot watch Arab citizens do this to Jewish citizens."

Militants in Gaza have fired more than 1,000 rockets into Israel since the latest flareup began on Monday afternoon, and Israel has responded with devastating airstrikes in Gaza.

Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza had killed at least 83 people, including 17 children and seven women, the Gaza-based Palestinian Health Ministry reported Thursday. At least 487 people had sustained various injuries, the ministry said.

Seven Israelis had been killed and more than 200 been injured since Monday, the Israeli military said on Wednesday.

A six-year-old boy was killed Wednesday when a rocket fired from Gaza struck a residential building in Sderot, according to an emergency responder.

READ MORE: Explained: What led to the recent Israel-Gaza violence

Decades of coexistence 'trampled'

Fuelled by controversy over planned evictions of Palestinian families in Jerusalem, and restrictions at a popular East Jerusalem meeting point as Ramadan began, conflict between Israelis and Palestinians boiled over this week, escalating rapidly into one of the worst rounds of violence between the two sides in the last several years.

"We're escalating towards a full-scale war. Leaders on all sides have to take the responsibility of de-escalation," UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland said on Wednesday.

https://twitter.com/TWennesland/status/1392218044433420291

Fury over the situation has fuelled fierce protests in the central Israeli city of Lod, where Israeli police reported on Wednesday that people were throwing rocks at passing cars and blocking roads into the early hours.

The mayor of Lod, Yair Revivo, said decades of coexistence had been "trampled."

He said Arab-Israeli rioters had been "burning synagogues, Talmud Torah, dozens of vehicles, burning garbage containers, destroying Israeli flags and worse, lowering the Israeli flag and hoisting the Palestinian flag, on a night of riots that injured policemen and residents who found themselves besieged."

An Arab-Israeli resident of Lod, Wael Essawi, told CNN that a mosque was stormed by Israeli police and Jewish residents during prayers on Tuesday night before tear gas was fired and cars were set ablaze.

"We couldn't do anything but we opened the windows so we can breathe… it was very intense," Essawi said.

READ MORE: Israeli PM misses deadline to form coalition

'Terrified screams'

Another resident, Khaled Zabarqah, said that following a Palestinian demonstration on Monday against Israeli policies in Jerusalem, thousands were hit with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets before Israelis started throwing stones and beating the group.

"My 15-year-old daughter was woken up by the sound of stones being thrown at her bedroom window, I was then woken up by her terrified screams," Zabarqah said.

"There was nothing we could do but protect and defend ourselves with any tools we have, it's either we defend ourselves or we get killed."

On Tuesday, a 25-year-old Arab-Israeli man was shot and killed in the city by a 34-year-old Jewish man, who fired on protesters after they targeted him with rocks, according to police.

Police arrested two suspects in connection with another shooting in Lod.

A CNN team driving through the city early Wednesday saw that some of the roads were strewn with rocks.

Burnt-out cars were also visible by the side of the road following a night of unrest in the city.