South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
2 WWII-era planes in mid-air crash at show to honor vets in Dallas
DALLAS — Two historic military planes collided and crashed to the ground Saturday during an air show in Dallas, exploding into a ball of flames and sending plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky.
It was unclear how many people were on board the aircraft or if anyone on the ground was hurt.
Leah Block, a spokesperson for the Commemorative Air Force, which produced the Veterans Day weekend show and owned the crashed aircraft, told ABC News she believed there were five crew members on the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber and one aboard the P-63 Kingcobra fighter plane. The Houston-based aircraft were not giving rides to paying customers at the time, she said.
Emergency crews raced to the crash scene at the Dallas Executive Airport, about 10 miles from the city’s downtown. Live TV news footage from the scene showed people setting up orange cones around the crumpled wreckage of the bomber, which was in a grassy area.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said the National Transportation Safety Board had taken control of the crash scene with local police and fire providing support.
The FAA was also launching an investigation, officials said.
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra collided and crashed around 1:20 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. The collision occurred during the Commemorative Air Force Wings Over Dallas show.
The B-17, an immense four-engine bomber, was a cornerstone of U.S. air power during World War II and is one of the most celebrated warplanes in U.S. history. The Kingcobra, a U.S. fighter plane, was used mostly by Soviet forces during the war. Most B-17s were scrapped at the end of World War II and only a handful remain today, largely featured at museums and air shows, according to Boeing.
Several videos posted on social media showed the fighter plane appearing to fly into the bomber, causing them to quickly crash to the ground and setting off a large ball of fire and smoke.
Biden in Asia: President Joe Biden promised Saturday that the United States would work with a strategically vital coalition of southeast Asian nations, telling leaders that “we’re going to build a better future that we all want to see” in the region where U.S. rival China is also working to expand its influence.
Citing the three Association of Southeast Asian Nations summits he’s participated in as president, Biden said the 10-country bloc is “at the heart of my administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy” and promised to collaborate to build a region that is “free and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure.”
Biden’s efforts at this year’s ASEAN summit are meant to lay the groundwork for his highly anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping — the first face-to-face encounter of Biden’s presidency with a leader whose nation the U.S. now considers its most potent economic and military rival.
Biden and Xi are scheduled to meet on Monday at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia.
Student loan forgiveness: The Biden administration is no longer accepting applications for student loan
Archbishop’s funeral: forgiveness after a second federal court shut down the program.
“Courts have issued orders blocking our student debt relief program,” the Education Department said on its federal student aid website. “As a result, at this time, we are not accepting applications. We are seeking to overturn those orders.”
U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Texas ruled Thursday that Biden had overstepped his authority in creating the debt relief program without congressional approval.
The administration has appealed that ruling.
About 26 million people have applied for the program, and 16 million applications have been approved. However, because of court rulings, none of the relief has actually gone out.
Crypto firm’s collapse: A day after it filed for bankruptcy, collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX said Saturday that it was investigating “unauthorized transactions” flowing from its accounts, as crypto researchers documented suspicious transfers of $515 million that may have been the result of a hack or theft.
John Ray III, the newly instated CEO of FTX, said in a statement that “unauthorized access to certain assets has occurred” and that the company was in touch with law enforcement officials and regulators. As part of the bankruptcy process, the company has been moving its remaining crypto funds to a more secure form of storage.
The suspicious movement of funds marked a new twist in a dramatic series of events that kicked off earlier this past week, when the exchange faced a run on deposits and was unable to meet demand.
On Friday, the company filed for bankruptcy, and Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder and CEO, announced his resignation, with Ray, a corporate turnaround specialist, replacing him.
Alec Baldwin sues: Saying he wants to clear his name, Alec Baldwin on Friday sued people involved in handling and supplying the loaded gun that he was using when it fired, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a 2021 filming accident in New Mexico.
Baldwin filed a cross-complaint in Superior Court in Los Angeles alleging negligence against some of the people sued by a script supervisor, Mamie Mitchell. Among other things, it seeks a share of any damages that Mitchell may win from the people Baldwin names and asks that they pay any damages assessed against him.
In his cross-complaint, Baldwin says that while working on camera angles with Hutchins during rehearsal for a scene, he pointed the gun in her direction and pulled back and released the hammer of the gun, which discharged.
Baldwin has maintained he was told the gun was safe and that he did not pull the
Airport dweller dies: An Iranian man who lived for
18 years Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and whose saga loosely inspired the Steven Spielberg film “The Terminal” died Saturday in the airport that he long called home, officials said.
Mehran Karimi Nasseri died after a heart attack in Terminal 2F, according an official with the Paris airport authority.
Police and a medical team were not able to save him, the official said.
Nasseri lived in the airport’s Terminal 1 from
1988 until 2006, first in legal limbo because he lacked residency papers and later by apparent choice.
He was hospitalized in
2006, and later lived in a Paris shelter. In the weeks before his death, Nasseri had been again living at Charles de Gaulle, the airport official said.