Mississippi Senate incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) didn't use the opportunity
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2raXI53
The Indonesian authorities have concluded that the Lion Air plane that crashed last month killing 189 people was not fit to fly and should have been grounded after recurring technical problems. The Boeing 737 MAX vanished from radar about 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, on October 29, slamming into the Java Sea at 450 miles per hour moments after the pilot had asked to return to the airport. Data from the jetliner, presented in preliminary findings by accident investigators on Wednesday, showed the pilots fought to prevent the crash from the moment the plane took off as the 737’s nose was repeatedly forced down, apparently by an automatic system receiving incorrect sensor readings. The information from the flight data recorder reveals that the crews successfully battled to raise the nose over two dozen times before finally losing control. The National Transport Safety Committee (KNKT) did not pinpoint a definitive cause of the accident, with a final crash report not likely to be filed until next year. However, it admonished Lion Air, the nation’s largest budget carrier, for repeatedly putting the plane back into service despite failing to fix a problem with the airspeed indicator in the days leading up to the fatal flight. Jakarta plane crash: Flight Lion Air JT610 Its previous flight, on the eve of the crash, was from Denpasar in Bali to Jakarta. The pilots had reported the same problem but had de-activated the anti-stall system and continued to fly manually. “During [that] flight, the plane was experiencing a technical problem but the pilot decided to continue,” Nurcahyo Utomo, aviation head of the KNKT told reporters. The report outlines the maintenance procedures that were carried out in response. “In our opinion, the plane was no longer airworthy and should not have continued,” he said, according to the BBC. The report itself does not explicitly spell out that conclusion. Instead it urges the airline to improve its safety culture, including to increase pilots’ knowledge of emergency procedures, and to better document repair work on its planes. The initial findings will also heighten concerns there were problems with key systems in one of the world's newest and most advanced commercial passenger planes. Investigators have previously said the doomed aircraft had problems with its airspeed indicator and angle of attack (AOA) sensors, prompting Boeing to issue a special bulletin telling operators what to do when they face the same situation. An AOA sensor provides data about the angle at which air is passing over the wings and tells pilots how much lift a plane is getting. The information can be critical in preventing an aircraft from stalling. Boeing 737 MAX | Who has ordered the plane? The KNKT has retrieved one of the plane's black boxes - the flight data recorder - but is yet to locate the cockpit voice recorder, which will give more details of how the pilots acted to tackle the problem. Indonesia's aviation safety record has improved since its airlines, including national carrier Garuda, were subject to years-long bans from US and European airspace for safety violations, although the country has still recorded 40 fatal accidents over the past 15 years. Lion Air’s parent group, which also operates Batik Air and Wings Air, has captured half the domestic market in less than 20 years of operation to become Southeast Asia's biggest airline, but it has been dogged by a dubious safety record and an avalanche of complaints over shoddy service. Last week a searing investigation by the New York Times, based on interviews with dozens of Lion Air’s management personnel and flight and ground crew members, as well as investigators and aviation analysts, painted a picture of a carrier that allegedly prioritised growth over safety. Fifteen major safety lapses have been documented in recent years, including a crash that killed 25 people. Government safety investigators alleged that the company’s political ties have allowed it to circumvent their recommendations and play down safety fears. BREAKING: Indonesian national transport safety committee says no engineer briefed the pilot of crashed Lion Air flight JT610 of the multiple serious flight problems experienced on previous flights. The onus was on him to read the maintenance log— amanda hodge (@hodgeamanda) November 28, 2018 In one incident described by the Times, a government inspector had grounded a plane in the city of Makassar, eastern Indonesia, over problems with its hydraulic system. The airline went over his head to gain permission to fly from officials in Jakarta and the flight took off anyway. But Boeing has also come under fire for possible glitches on the 737 MAX - which entered service just last year. Several relatives of the crash victims have already filed lawsuits against Boeing, including the family of a young doctor who was to have married his high school sweetheart this month. Authorities have called off the grim task of identifying victims of the crash, with 125 passengers officially recognised after testing on human remains that filled some 200 body bags.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2E2V8H2
President Vladimir Putin has insisted that Russian forces were in the right to seize three Ukrainian ships last weekend, but President Donald Trump expressed "deep concern" at Moscow's actions against a US ally. In his first extensive remarks since the confrontation at sea on Sunday, Putin said it had been orchestrated by Kiev as a "provocation". "What were they (Russian forces) supposed to do?" Putin said on Wednesday, when asked about the incident at an international investment forum in Moscow.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2DOaoq9
China's science ministry has ordered that people involved in the controversial baby gene-editing experiment halt their activities, a government official told state media Thursday. The ministry "firmly opposes the baby gene-editing incident and has already demanded that the relevant organisation suspend the scientific activities of relevant personnel," a ministry official said, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The National Health Commission is investigating the claims.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2E4SfoS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Robert Mueller's team believes a conservative author and conspiracy theorist tipped off Donald Trump's confidant Roger Stone months before WikiLeaks released thousands of emails stolen from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, according to a document newly made public.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2SigAuy
Videgaray, who leaves office at the weekend, said the incoming Mexican government was also not planning to accept U.S. demands that it give asylum to the migrants, thousands of whom have arrived at the U.S.-Mexican border in caravans in recent weeks. Videgaray said the migrants were welcome to stay in Mexico while they waited to file asylum claims in the United States.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2TVF8vc
California attorney general Xavier Becerra said Wednesday that his office is “monitoring” the use of force against a caravan of migrants and the possible closure of the southern border and considering filing a legal challenge. “We have been approached by folks who have expressed complaints,” Becerra told Reuters in an interview. Becerra, a Democrat and former member of Congress, suggested that president Trump’s threat to close the border in response to the influx of central American migrants arriving in caravans might provide a legal avenue to challenge the administration, provided the border closure affects a California resident.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2FJcA4O
Miguel Angel "El Gordo" Martinez was extradited to the United States in 2001 and was subpoenaed to testify at Guzman's federal trial in Brooklyn. The terms of his witness protection program affording him a new identity in the United States require him to cooperate with the government. "I never mentioned Mr Guzman, I never failed him, I never stole from him, I never betrayed him, I took care of all his family and the only thing I got from him is four attacks against me," he told jurors.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2FNIkWG
(This version of the story fixes section on death toll from Ukraine conflict) BERLIN (Reuters) - Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko accused Russia's Vladimir Putin of seeking to annex his entire country and called in interviews with German media for Chancellor Angela Merkel to come to Kiev's aid in the crisis. Russia seized three Ukrainian navy ships and their crews on Sunday near the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, over what it said was their illegal entry into Russian waters - a charge Ukraine strongly rejects.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2E1JEUd
China's science ministry has ordered that people involved in the controversial baby gene-editing experiment halt their activities, a government official told state media Thursday. The ministry "firmly opposes the baby gene-editing incident and has already demanded that the relevant organisation suspend the scientific activities of relevant personnel," a ministry official said, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The National Health Commission is investigating the claims.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2E4SfoS
The Airbus A340 experienced difficulties southwest of Amsterdam on Thursday, less than an hour into the flight from Berlin. A routine inspection suggests a technical malfunction of the plane’s air-to-ground communications systems, a German Air Force spokesman in Berlin said by phone. News portal Spiegel Online reported the plane suffered a complete failure of its communication system that left the crew without contact with ground control.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2AE3Rej
NEW YORK (AP) — A former Colombian drug lord known for an extreme plastic-surgery makeover meant to hide his identity testified Thursday at a U.S. trial about his lucrative drug-trafficking alliance with notorious Mexican counterpart Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Sj1KnK
Indonesia is one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets, but it has come under fresh scrutiny since a fatal Lion Air crash last month as the sector struggles to keep up with its breakneck expansion, putting safety at risk, analysts warn. On Wednesday, investigators issued a preliminary report that said the doomed Lion Air jet had technical problems that the airline failed to fix before its final flight. While officials did not lay blame or pinpoint a definitive cause of the October 29 accident, they said the budget carrier must take steps "to improve (its) safety culture".
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2RnsfYV
The US Justice Department charged two Iranian hackers Wednesday with extorting at least $6 million from hospitals, city governments and public institutions in the US and Canada by remotely locking down their computer systems. The DOJ said Faramarz Shahi Savandi and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri deployed the SamSam Ransomware into the systems of more than 200 institutions, encrypting their operations to make them inaccessible until the owners paid ransoms by bitcoin. Victims included the city governments of Atlanta, Georgia and Newark, New Jersey, the University of Calgary in Canada, major US hospitals in Los Angeles and Kansas City, and Laboratory Corporation of America, or LabCorp, one of the world's largest medical testing businesses.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2P8fqzV
The Indonesian authorities have concluded that the Lion Air plane that crashed last month killing 189 people was not fit to fly and should have been grounded after recurring technical problems. The Boeing 737 MAX vanished from radar about 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, on October 29, slamming into the Java Sea at 450 miles per hour moments after the pilot had asked to return to the airport. Data from the jetliner, presented in preliminary findings by accident investigators on Wednesday, showed the pilots fought to prevent the crash from the moment the plane took off as the 737’s nose was repeatedly forced down, apparently by an automatic system receiving incorrect sensor readings. The information from the flight data recorder reveals that the crews successfully battled to raise the nose over two dozen times before finally losing control. The National Transport Safety Committee (KNKT) did not pinpoint a definitive cause of the accident, with a final crash report not likely to be filed until next year. However, it admonished Lion Air, the nation’s largest budget carrier, for repeatedly putting the plane back into service despite failing to fix a problem with the airspeed indicator in the days leading up to the fatal flight. Jakarta plane crash: Flight Lion Air JT610 Its previous flight, on the eve of the crash, was from Denpasar in Bali to Jakarta. The pilots had reported the same problem but had de-activated the anti-stall system and continued to fly manually. “During [that] flight, the plane was experiencing a technical problem but the pilot decided to continue,” Nurcahyo Utomo, aviation head of the KNKT told reporters. The report outlines the maintenance procedures that were carried out in response. “In our opinion, the plane was no longer airworthy and should not have continued,” he said, according to the BBC. The report itself does not explicitly spell out that conclusion. Instead it urges the airline to improve its safety culture, including to increase pilots’ knowledge of emergency procedures, and to better document repair work on its planes. The initial findings will also heighten concerns there were problems with key systems in one of the world's newest and most advanced commercial passenger planes. Investigators have previously said the doomed aircraft had problems with its airspeed indicator and angle of attack (AOA) sensors, prompting Boeing to issue a special bulletin telling operators what to do when they face the same situation. An AOA sensor provides data about the angle at which air is passing over the wings and tells pilots how much lift a plane is getting. The information can be critical in preventing an aircraft from stalling. Boeing 737 MAX | Who has ordered the plane? The KNKT has retrieved one of the plane's black boxes - the flight data recorder - but is yet to locate the cockpit voice recorder, which will give more details of how the pilots acted to tackle the problem. Indonesia's aviation safety record has improved since its airlines, including national carrier Garuda, were subject to years-long bans from US and European airspace for safety violations, although the country has still recorded 40 fatal accidents over the past 15 years. Lion Air’s parent group, which also operates Batik Air and Wings Air, has captured half the domestic market in less than 20 years of operation to become Southeast Asia's biggest airline, but it has been dogged by a dubious safety record and an avalanche of complaints over shoddy service. Last week a searing investigation by the New York Times, based on interviews with dozens of Lion Air’s management personnel and flight and ground crew members, as well as investigators and aviation analysts, painted a picture of a carrier that allegedly prioritised growth over safety. Fifteen major safety lapses have been documented in recent years, including a crash that killed 25 people. Government safety investigators alleged that the company’s political ties have allowed it to circumvent their recommendations and play down safety fears. BREAKING: Indonesian national transport safety committee says no engineer briefed the pilot of crashed Lion Air flight JT610 of the multiple serious flight problems experienced on previous flights. The onus was on him to read the maintenance log— amanda hodge (@hodgeamanda) November 28, 2018 In one incident described by the Times, a government inspector had grounded a plane in the city of Makassar, eastern Indonesia, over problems with its hydraulic system. The airline went over his head to gain permission to fly from officials in Jakarta and the flight took off anyway. But Boeing has also come under fire for possible glitches on the 737 MAX - which entered service just last year. Several relatives of the crash victims have already filed lawsuits against Boeing, including the family of a young doctor who was to have married his high school sweetheart this month. Authorities have called off the grim task of identifying victims of the crash, with 125 passengers officially recognised after testing on human remains that filled some 200 body bags.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2E2V8H2
WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Robert Mueller's team believes a conservative author and conspiracy theorist tipped off Donald Trump's confidant Roger Stone months before WikiLeaks released thousands of emails stolen from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, according to a document newly made public.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2SigAuy
No criminal charges will be filed against the 42 migrants who were arrested after they clashed with Border Patrol agents at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, Calif. on Sunday. The only two individuals Customs and Border Protection referred for prosecution ended up not being charged because they had medical problems and could not be held at the San Diego detention center, according to reports. “Depending on their country of citizenship and their case’s final disposition, the Border Patrol may turn those people over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ralph DeSio.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2rcjQvX
Donald Trump has said he does not believe in manmade climate change because America’s water and air is “right now at a record clean”. Asked why he was sceptical of a global warming report published by his own government, the US president gave a rambling response, much of it not backed by evidence, in which he blamed forest management, “small” oceans and China over the issue. “One of the problems that a lot of people like myself - we have very high levels of intelligence, but we’re not necessarily such believers,” Mr Trump told The Washington Post.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2QvRRpc
Russia seized the Ukrainian vessels and their crews on Sunday near Crimea, the Ukrainian region which Moscow annexed in 2014, over what it said was their illegal entry into Russian waters, which Ukraine denies. Some of Ukraine's Western allies have also raised the possibility of imposing new sanctions on Russia over the episode, which could deliver a blow to the Russian economy. Putin said he also still hoped to meet Trump at the G20, while the Kremlin said the meeting was still being prepared and Washington had not informed Moscow it was off.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2FNccCq
A bipartisan group of senators emerged frustrated from a briefing with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saudi Arabia policy Wednesday, with some even saying the classified meeting convinced them to buck the administration by publicly opposing the longtime U.S. ally. The Senate is considering a vote on a resolution that would end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s proxy war with Iran in Yemen. The contentious issue of the Yemen war was further complicated by the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month.
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2E19UOv