AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST
By AP
Plane burst into flames after skidding off runway at an airport in South Korea, killing at least 62
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A passenger plane burst into flames Sunday after it skid off a runway at a South Korean airport and slammed into a concrete fence when its front landing gear apparently failed to deploy, killing at least 62 people, officials said, in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.
The National Fire Agency said the fire was almost put out but officials were still trying to pull people from the Jeju Air passenger plane carrying 181 people at the airport in the town of Muan, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Seoul.
At least 62 people — 37 women and 25 men — had died in the fire, the agency said. Emergency workers pulled out two people — one passenger and one crew member. It said it deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to contain the fire.
Footage of the crash aired by YTN television showed the Jeju Air plane skidding across the airstrip, apparently with its landing gear still closed, and colliding head-on with a concrete wall on the outskirts of the facility. The transport ministry said the incident happened at 9:03 a.m. local time.
Local TV stations aired footage showing thick pillows of black smoke billowing from the plane engulfed with flame.
Trump appears to side with Musk, tech allies in debate over foreign workers roiling his supporters
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump appears to be siding with Elon Musk and his other backers in the tech industry as a dispute over immigration visas has divided his supporters.
Trump, in an interview with the New York Post on Saturday, praised the use of visas to bring skilled foreign workers to the U.S. The topic has become a flashpoint within his conservative base.
“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump said.
In fact, Trump has in the past criticized the H-1B visas, calling them “very bad” and “unfair” for U.S. workers. During his first term as president, he unveiled a “Hire American” policy that directed changes to the program to try to ensure the visas were awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants.
Despite his criticism of them and attempts to curb their use, he has also used the visas at his businesses in the past, something he acknowledged in his interview Saturday.
Tornadoes touch down in Texas and Mississippi, killing 2 and injuring 6 others
HOUSTON (AP) — At least two people were killed and six more injured as several tornadoes touched down in Texas and Mississippi on Saturday, damaging homes and flipping vehicles.
One person died in the Liverpool area, located south of Houston, and four people suffered injuries that weren’t considered critical, said Madison Polston, spokesperson for the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office.
Polston said there were “multiple touchdown points” in the county between Liverpool and Hillcrest Village and Alvin. She said that so far officials knew of around 10 damaged homes but were still working to determine the extent of the damage.
In Mississippi, one person died in Adams County and two people were injured in Franklin County, according to a spokesperson for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. The National Weather Service said two tornadoes hit around Bude and the city of Brandon, ripping the roofs from several buildings.
“These storms are probably going to get a lot worse this evening and overnight the further east you go,” said Josh Lichter, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Putin apologizes for ‘tragic incident’ but stops short of saying Azerbaijani plane was shot down
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologized to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he called a “tragic incident” following the crash of an Azerbaijani airliner in Kazakhstan that killed 38 people, but stopped short of acknowledging that Moscow was responsible.
Putin’s apology came as allegations mounted that the plane had been shot down by Russian air defenses attempting to deflect a Ukrainian drone strike near Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.
An official Kremlin statement issued Saturday said that air defense systems were firing near Grozny airport as the airliner “repeatedly” attempted to land there on Wednesday. It did not explicitly say one of these hit the plane.
The statement said Putin apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace.”
The readout said Russia has launched a criminal probe into the incident, and Azerbaijani state prosecutors have arrived in Grozny to participate. The Kremlin also said that “relevant services” from Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are jointly investigating the crash site near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.
Syria’s embassy in Lebanon suspends services as Lebanon hands over former Syrian army officers
BEIRUT (AP) — Syria’s embassy in Lebanon suspended consular services Saturday, a day after two relatives of deposed Syrian President Bashar Assad were arrested at the Beirut airport with allegedly forged passports.
Also on Saturday, Lebanese authorities handed over dozens of Syrians — including former officers in the Syrian army under Assad — to the new Syrian authorities after they were caught illegally entering Lebanon, a war monitor and Lebanese officials said.
The embassy announced on its Facebook page that consular work was suspended “until further notice” at the order of the Syrian foreign ministry. The announcement did not give a reason for the suspension.
Two Lebanese security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the suspension was ordered because the passports belonging to Assad’s relatives — the wife and daughter of one of his cousins — were believed to have been forged at the embassy.
Assad’s uncle, Rifaat Assad — who has been indicted in Switzerland on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity — had flown out the day before on his real passport and was not stopped, the officials said.
Abortions are up in the US. It’s a complicated picture as women turn to pills, travel
Abortion has become slightly more common despite bans or deep restrictions in most Republican-controlled states, and the legal and political fights over its future are not over yet.
It’s now been two and a half years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door for states to implement bans.
The policies and their impact have been in flux ever since the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Here’s a look at data on where things stand:
Overturning Roe and enforcing abortion bans has changed how woman obtain abortions in the U.S.
15 hurt in Florida when train hits fire truck that drove onto tracks after another train passed
Three firefighters and a dozen passengers were injured in Florida on Saturday when a fire truck with its lights flashing drove around rail crossing arms and into the path of a high-speed passenger train after waiting for another train to pass, according to video of the incident and a person briefed on what happened.
The crash happened at 10:45 a.m. in crowded downtown Delray Beach. In the aftermath the Brightline train was stopped on the tracks, its front destroyed, about a block away from the Delray Beach Fire Rescue truck. Its ladder was ripped off and in the grass several yards away, The Sun-Sentinel reported.
The Delray Beach Fire Rescue said in a social media post that three Delray Beach firefighters were in stable condition at a hospital. Palm Beach County Fire Rescue took 12 people from the train to the hospital with minor injuries.
The person familiar with the details of the crash, who was not authorized to disclose what happened because of the ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the fire truck stopped at the crossing and waited for a freight train to go by before maneuvering around the lowered crossing arms.
Video of the collision shows the fire truck driving around cars stopped at the crossing with its lights flashing to cross the double tracks.
Nasty norovirus is back in full force with US cases of the stomach virus surging
Cases of a wretched stomach bug are surging in parts of the United States this winter, according to government data.
The most recent numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show there were 91 outbreaks of norovirus reported during the week of Dec. 5, up from 69 outbreaks the last week of November.
Numbers from the past few years show a maximum of 65 outbreaks reported during that first week of December.
A norovirus infection is characterized by sudden vomiting and diarrhea. Outbreaks are often seen on cruise ships, in congregate living situations like nursing homes and jails, as well as schools and places where people are close together.
Here are a few things to know about the virus.
Bloodied Ukrainian troops risk losing more hard-won land in Kursk to Russia
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Five months after their shock offensive into Russia, Ukrainian troops are bloodied and demoralized by the rising risk of defeat in Kursk, a region some want to hold at all costs while others question the value of having gone in at all.
Battles are so intense that some Ukrainian commanders can’t evacuate the dead. Communication lags and poorly timed tactics have cost lives, and troops have little way to counterattack, seven front-line soldiers and commanders told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity so they could discuss sensitive operations.
Since being caught unaware by the lightning Ukrainian incursion, Russia has amassed more than 50,000 troops in the region, including some from its ally North Korea. Precise numbers are hard to obtain, but Moscow’s counterattack has killed and wounded thousands and the overstretched Ukrainians have lost more than 40% of the 984 square kilometers (380 square miles) of Kursk they seized in August.
Its full-scale invasion three years ago left Russia holding a fifth of Ukraine, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has hinted that he hopes controlling Kursk will help force Moscow to negotiate an end to the war. But five Ukrainian and Western officials in Kyiv who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss sensitive military matters said they fear gambling on Kursk will weaken the whole 1000-kilometer (621-mile) front line, and Ukraine is losing precious ground in the east.
“We have, as they say, hit a hornet’s nest. We have stirred up another hot spot,” said Stepan Lutsiv, a major in the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade.
Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen quits a tournament in a dispute over jeans
NEW YORK (AP) — Top ranked chess player Magnus Carlsen has left the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships after refusing to change out of the jeans he wore to the competition, the International Chess Federation said.
The federation said in a Friday statement that its regulations include a dress code that bars participants from wearing jeans at the event.
“The Chief Arbiter informed Mr. Carlsen of the breach, issued a $200 fine, and requested that he change his attire,” the federation said in the statement posted to its website. “Unfortunately, Mr. Carlsen declined, and as a result, he was not paired for round nine. This decision was made impartially and applies equally to all players.”
The 34-year-old Norwegian chess grandmaster said in a video from his Take Take Take chess app that he posted on the social platform X that he accepted a $200 fine. But he refused to change his pants before quitting the competition in New York.
“I said, ‘I’ll change tomorrow if that’s OK,” Carlsen said in the video. “But they said, ‘Well, you have to change now.’ At that point it became a bit of a matter of principle for me.”
