At least some passengers aboard a deadly Southwest Airlines flight have
Queen Elizabeth II, the Head of the Commonwealth, opened the Commonwealth summit for what may be the last time on Thursday voicing hope that her son would be allowed to carry on her role. Queen Elizabeth, who turns 92 on Saturday, welcomed leaders from the 53 Commonwealth nations -- mostly former colonies -- to Buckingham Palace for two days of talks that will include discussions on trade, marine protection and tackling cyber crime. In her opening speech, Queen Elizabeth spoke of her own "extraordinary journey" as head of the Commonwealth, which started under her father King George VI with the London Declaration of 1949.
South Sudan's army chief General James Ajongo died in Cairo on Friday following a short illness, government spokesman Michael Makuei Lueth said. "It is with a heavy heart that I announce the untimely death of Gen. James Ajongo Mawut, SPLA army's chief of defense force," Lueth said. Ajongo joined the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the formal name of the South Sudanese military, in 1983, when the SPLA was still a rebel group fighting for independence from Sudan.
Walter Moody was put to death by lethal injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore and gave no final statement, prison officials said. It was the eighth execution this year in the United States. Moody replaced John Nixon, who was 77 when put to death in December 2005 in Mississippi, as the oldest person executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors U.S. capital punishment.
A volcano in southern Japan erupted for the first time in 250 years on Thursday, spewing steam and ash hundreds of metres into the air, as authorities warned locals not to approach the mountain. "There is a possibility that (Mount Io) will become more active," said Makoto Saito, an official from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), confirming the eruption. In a televised press conference, he warned residents in the area to stay away from the mountain, part of the Mount Kirishima group of volcanoes, as major ash deposits spread from the crater.
U.S. airline regulators have ordered inspections on engine fan blades like the one that snapped off a Southwest Airlines plane, leading to the death of a woman who was partially blown out a window. The Federal Aviation Administration’s announcement late Wednesday comes nearly a year after the engine’s manufacturer recommended the additional inspections, and a month after European regulators ordered their airlines to do the work. Pressure for the FAA to act grew after an engine on a Southwest plane blew apart on Tuesday, showering the aircraft with debris and shattering a window.
By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe sent emails to then-Director James Comey alerting him he planned to push back against negative news coverage related to his oversight of probes into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a lawyer for McCabe said on Friday. In an interview with reporters, Michael Bromwich said the emails could help clear McCabe of allegations by the Justice Department's internal watchdog that McCabe "lacked candor" with Comey by misleading him into thinking McCabe did not authorize disclosures to a newspaper to combat articles about his wife's political campaign and his role in overseeing an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
A group of amorous couples and accused sex workers were publicly whipped for breaking Islamic law in Indonesia's Aceh Friday, just a week after the province pledged to move the widely condemned practice indoors. More than a thousand people, including dozens of tourists from neighbouring Malaysia, jeered and screamed abuse at the group of three men and five women as they were flogged on a stage outside a mosque in the capital Banda Aceh. Aceh is the only province in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country that imposes Islamic law.
A St. Louis judge on Thursday dealt Missouri Governor Eric Greitens another legal setback in the sex scandal embroiling his office, refusing to dismiss a criminal invasion of privacy charge stemming from an admitted extramarital affair. The decision by Judge Rex Burlison paved the way for the single-count felony case against Greitens, a Republican under mounting pressure from both parties to resign, to proceed to trial even as he comes under scrutiny for unrelated accusations of computer tampering. Greitens' lawyers last week sought to throw out the privacy case on grounds of prosecutor misconduct, saying St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, a Democrat, had tried to conceal video evidence supporting the governor and his assertions that the affair was entirely consensual.
U.S. airline regulators have ordered inspections on engine fan blades like the one that snapped off a Southwest Airlines plane, leading to the death of a woman who was partially blown out a window. The Federal Aviation Administration’s announcement late Wednesday comes nearly a year after the engine’s manufacturer recommended the additional inspections, and a month after European regulators ordered their airlines to do the work. Pressure for the FAA to act grew after an engine on a Southwest plane blew apart on Tuesday, showering the aircraft with debris and shattering a window.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that "at least half a dozen" countries were considering moving their embassies to Jerusalem following the U.S. decision to do so. U.S. President Donald Trump announced in December that the United States recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, infuriating even Washington’s Arab allies and dismaying Palestinians who want the eastern part of the city as their capital. The U.S. Embassy is due to relocate to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv on May 14, the date on which Israel declared its independence in 1948.
Three US Air National Guard members have been disciplined, and one of them fired, for an incident involving a children’s dinosaur puppet. Master Sergeant Robin Brown, a senior non-commissioned officer (NCO) with the Air National Guard, was removed from her position at the Tennessee Joint Public Affairs Office after video circulated of her taking her enlistment oath with a tyrannosaurus rex puppet in hand. Ms Brown repeats each line of the oath back, moving the sock puppet’s mouth along as she speaks.