Four dead and several injured after two helicopters collide on Australia's Gold Coast



CNN
 — 

A midair collision between two helicopters in Australia has left four people dead and three others in critical condition, authorities said Monday.

The collision happened around 2 p.m. local time near the popular tourist strip of Main Beach on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane.

“Those two aircraft, when collided, have crash landed on the sand bank just out from Sea World Resort,” Queensland Police Inspector Gary Worrell, a regional duty officer for the southeastern region, told reporters.

He added it had been difficult for emergency services to access the sand bank, located not far from the coast.

Thirteen people were on the two helicopters, according to Jayney Shearman, from the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS). Of those, four people died, three suffered serious injuries and six had minor injuries, including cuts from shattered glass.

An aerial view of the site where two helicopters collided midair in the Gold Coast on January 2.

All the injured had been taken to hospital, she said.

Photos from the site show debris lying on a strip of sand, with personnel gathered on land and numerous vessels in the surrounding waters.

Worrell said that though it’s too early to determine the exact cause of the accident, initial inquiries suggests one helicopter had been taking off and the other landing when they collided.

One helicopter “has its windscreen removed, and it’s landed safely on the island. The other (helicopter) has crashed, and it was upside down,” he said.

He added that after the crash, nearby police and members of the public rushed to the site, trying to remove and perform first aid on those inside the helicopter.

Debris of a helicopter that crashed near the Main Beach in Gold Coast, Australia, on January 2.

Angus Mitchell, Chief Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), said in a statement that an investigation had been launched into the collision.

Investigators from the ATSB’s offices in Brisbane and Canberra will be deployed to the scene to gather evidence, examine the wreckage and map the site, as well as interview witnesses and involved parties, Mitchell added.

He asked people who witnessed the collision or saw the helicopters in flight to contact investigators. A preliminary report will come in the next six to eight weeks, with a final report after the investigation is complete, he said.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk expressed her “deepest sympathies” for the victims’ families and everybody affected. “What has happened on the Gold Coast today is an unthinkable tragedy,” she said.

Police say Sea World Drive has been closed to traffic and urged motorists and pedestrians to avoid the area.

Sea World Drive is the main access point for the marine park that’s popular with tourists on the heart of the Gold Coast. It’s peak tourist season in the region right now, with schools closed for the long summer break.

CNN has reached out to Sea World for comment.

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America’s new B-21 Raider has 4 big secrets China wants to steal

Latest & Breaking News on Fox News 

The Air Force’s new B-21 Raider stealth bomber that debuted Dec. 2 is safely back in its hangar in California, but you can bet China’s keyboard warriors are furiously clicking away trying to unravel its secrets via cyber-espionage. 

You, me and military officers in China and other bad guy countries all want to know four big secrets about the B-21. 

First, can the B-21 fly without pilots? Original acquisition documents called for the B-21 bomber to be “capable of manned and unmanned operations.” Military drones take the man or woman out to save weight and increase endurance flight time. No one doubts the Air Force pilots can stick it out for long missions. Back in 2001, two B-2 bomber pilots logged a 44-hour mission from Missouri to Afghanistan and back. Bomber pilots train in simulators for 72-hour missions (and you thought the center seat on Southwest Airlines was tough.)

CHINESE PILOT FLIES 10-FEET FROM U.S. AIRFORCE PLANE

However, it’s not hard to picture a B-21 in the future on an unmanned mission, high above enemy missile fields, deterring attack by spotting missiles as they come out of hiding. One day the B-21 may be the first warplane fully certified to operate with or without a crew.

Second, how do the hidden engines work? Notice you cannot even see the B-21’s engines. Experts think the B-21 flies with two highly advanced engines, but the glimpse of Raider on Dec. 2 revealed nothing. The technology to embed engines and muffle their heat flow is one of the most-prized secrets of the B-21 Raider. “This is a very, very different design as far as airflow, and there have been some design challenges there,” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., told Defense News back in March 2018. Trust engine supplier Pratt & Whitney of Connecticut to have that all worked out, and keep it more closely guarded than the recipe for Coca-Cola.

Third, the Chinese, Russians and others are wondering about what type of missions the B-21 can carry out. Upholding the nuclear deterrence triad by training for nuclear weapons delivery will be one vital task. However, the B-21 with its advanced networking is also primed for a range of conventional missions.

 CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER

Let me illustrate by way of the movie “Top Gun: Maverick” which, if you are reading this piece, you probably saw. Tom Cruise as Maverick trained Miles Teller’s character Rooster and the other Navy pilots to hit an undeclared nuclear site that was violating all sorts of treaties. (Might be you, Iran!) In the movie, the Navy jets reached their target by flying in low. Then they were jumped by enemy fighters from a nearby base. Gallantry ensued.

CHINESE PILOT FLIES 10-FEET FROM U.S. AIRFORCE PLANE

But in my opinion, that was actually a classic stealth bomber target set. A system like the B-21 can approach the target area at high altitude, avoiding detection, then use lots of precision direct attack and/or stand-off weapons, from a better release altitude, to destroy the nuclear site, the runway and any other hardened and buried aim points. Consider the B-21 for “Top Gun III – Maverick vs Xi Jinping,” if you ever produce it, Mr. Cruise.

So, can China crack the secrets of the B-21? We know China will try. At Plant 42 in California, the Air Force says people are found “walking their dogs” along the concertina wire fence at 4 a.m. and little drones “accidentally” crash in the compound. To be sure, the B-21 program is also a major stress test for cybersecurity since many companies supply the program. Still, I’m not worried. The immense secrecy surrounding the B-21 was baked into the program from the start.

Here’s the fourth item: the B-21 is not the only secret airplane out there. The Air Force flew a prototype of a new stealth fighter in 2020. No official pictures have been revealed, but concept art from the Air Force Research Lab showed an almost alien-looking design for the fighter emphasizing both stealth and high speed. Just as the P-51 Mustang pursuit planes paired with B-17s and B-24s in World War II, the Air Force will have both unmanned wingman drones and a new fighter to go to war with the B-21.

The new B-21 Raider may have enemies on the watch – but it also has friends.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM REBECCA GRANT

 

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One third of world economy expected to be in recession in 2023, says IMF chief


New Delhi
CNN
 — 

This year is going to be tougher on the global economy than the one we have left behind, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva has warned.

“Why? Because the three big economies, US, EU, China, are all slowing down simultaneously,” she said in an interview that aired on CBS Sunday.

“We expect one third of the world economy to be in recession,” she said, adding that even for countries that are not in recession: “It would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people.”

While the US may end up avoiding a recession, the situation looks more bleak in Europe, which has been hit hard by the war in Ukraine, she said. “Half of the European Union will be in recession,” Georgieva added.

The IMF currently projects global growth to be at 2.7% this year, slowing from 3.2% in 2022.

The deceleration in China will have a dire impact globally. The world’s second largest economy weakened dramatically in 2022 because of its rigid zero-Covid policy, which left China out of sync with the rest of the world, disrupting supply chains and damaging the flow of trade and investment.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping said this weekend that he expected China’s economy to have expanded by at least 4.4% last year, a figure much stronger than many economists had predicted but much lower than the 8.4% growth rate seen in 2021.

“For the first time in 40 years China’s growth in 2022 is likely to be at or below global growth,” Georgieva said. “Before Covid, China would deliver 34, 35, 40% of global growth. It is not doing it anymore,” she said, adding that it is “quite a stressful” period for Asian economies.

“When I talk to Asian leaders, all of them start with this question, ‘What is going to happen with China? Is China going to return to a higher level of growth?’ ” she said.

Beijing abandoned Covid restrictions in early December, and while its reopening may provide some much-needed relief to the global economy, the recovery is going to be erratic and painful.

China’s haphazard reopening has unleashed a wave of Covid cases that have overwhelmed the health care system, dampening consumption and production in the process.

The next couple of months will “be tough for China, and the impact on Chinese growth would be negative,” Georgieva said, adding that she expects the country to move gradually to a “higher level of economic performance, and finish the year better off than it is going to start the year.”

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How Josh Shapiro rode his record as Pennsylvania attorney general to the governor's mansion



CNN
 — 

Josh Shapiro had a massive spending advantage and a weak Republican opponent, but the incoming Pennsylvania governor thinks Democrats should still take note of how he made voters see his fight-for-the-little-guy speeches as more than just talk – and racked up the party’s biggest margin in any swing-state race of 2022.

“My sense is people don’t think government will have the courage to take on the powerful and then be able to deliver,” Shapiro said in an interview with CNN. “So I think some people are like, ‘This guy really did take on the big guy, and he really did deliver something.’”

What he’s talking about is a wide record of six years as Pennsylvania attorney general. He didn’t just bemoan the opioid crisis but secured $3.25 billion for treatment and other services in the state. And he wasn’t just complaining about corruption but overseeing the arrests of more than 100 corrupt officials from both parties.

In a midterm year in which Democrats lost the House but still did better than expected, Shapiro – who will be sworn in January 17 – dominated every day of his race in a state that was key to both Donald Trump’s and Joe Biden’s presidential wins.

Former President Barack Obama told Shapiro directly that he’s among the 2022 generation of Democrats who need to have a voice in the future of the party, according to people familiar with the conversation. Famed consultant James Carville called Shapiro’s campaign the best of 2022. He’s already being chattered about by many Democrats as perhaps the future first Jewish president.

As Democrats start planning for what’s next – what they stand for, instead of just what they stand against with Trumpism – even White House aides who now rave about Biden’s accomplishments being on par with Lyndon Johnson’s acknowledge that they’re still struggling to make many voters see the direct impact on their lives. Happy as they are about how well Democrats did in the midterms, they see most of that as a rejection of Republicans and Trumpism, with top Democrats telling CNN they know they have a different task in front of them as they head into preparations for an expected Biden reelection campaign and efforts to hold the Senate and win back the House in 2024.

Pollsters John Anzalone and Matt Hogan said in memo last month that while the party should be “understandably encouraged,” Democrats “should be careful not to interpret the results as evidence that voters liked the party more than pre-election polls suggested.”

From MAGA crowds to Bernie Sanders rallies in Pennsylvania and beyond, voters in interviews often express a common feeling that a small group is getting away with what regular Americans never could, and a cynicism that any politician is even trying to do anything to stop them.

Put Shapiro’s tight-rimmed glasses and studied Obama-style speaking rhythms next to Democrat John Fetterman’s Carhartt shorts, tattoos and bouncer chin beard and few would see the incoming governor rather than the already iconic Pennsylvania senator-elect as the one with populist appeal. Yet it was Shapiro, who grew up the son of a pediatrician in the Philadelphia suburbs and has been measuring each step on his path to Harrisburg since law school – and some around him say grade school – who got more votes in November.

Shapiro greets supporters following a get-out-the-vote rally in Philadelphia on November 7, 2022.

Focus groups conducted by Shapiro’s campaign as he was preparing to launch last year had people saying he was “polished,” according to people familiar with the findings. Worried that could slip to “boring,” or just being written off as a career politician, aides packed his stump speeches full of more references to cases or parts of the $328 million in relief, restitution, penalties and other payments his office says he obtained over six years on the job.

When Shapiro talked about climate change, he talked about getting to affordable energy costs and about the fracking companies he sued as attorney general because the pollution was endangering Pennsylvanians’ health. When he talked about student loans, he talked about the $200 million in debt he got canceled by suing a big lender. He was just as likely to bring up the massive investigation his office did into decades of sexual abuse in Catholic dioceses across the state as he was a local construction company from which he recovered $21 million in stolen wages, knowing that either effort would give him credibility and appeal to voters who don’t think much about politics, or rarely think about voting for Democrats.

“They don’t want to hear you talk,” said a top Shapiro aide. “They want to see what you can do.”

He had a running start heading into his gubernatorial campaign: Since his election as attorney general in 2016, Shapiro and his team had made publicizing the work he was doing a central part of the strategy, from pressuring a huge state insurance company by having news conferences with women who’d been through breast cancer treatment, to mounting campaigns to have supporters write open letter op-eds to CEOs they were after, to setting up a hotline for church abuse victims to call in with their stories.

With Republicans all over the country stoking crime fears throughout the midterms, Shapiro would talk about the 8,200 drug dealers he’d locked up in his six years on the job. He’d then immediately follow up, saying that the opiates many of them were selling were part of a crisis “manufactured by greed” and how he’d also gone after those companies with the power of his office.

“Look at his model,” said Rep. Dwight Evans, a Democrat who represents much of Philadelphia. “What he says is, people deserve to be safe and feel safe. You got to have a way of showing outcomes. And he does that.”

Shapiro’s Republican opponent, Doug Mastriano, raised only $7 million, had an account full of QAnon-friendly tweets, was seen in a picture dressed up in a Confederate uniform, held events where men claiming to be security blocked reporters from entering and paid consulting fees to the antisemitic website Gab. But in a swing state that Biden only narrowly won in 2020 – and had gone to Trump four years earlier – Shapiro’s eventual victory was far from a guarantee.

In reflective moments during the campaign, Shapiro would talk about the “heaviness” he felt while campaigning and about the way his wife would poke him in the chest or voters would grab him by the arm and tell him, “You have to win.” An observant Jew, whose campaign debated whether to feature a shot of a challah bread in an opening video in which he spoke about getting home every Friday night for dinner with his family (it ultimately did) and who often cited an old Jewish teaching that “no one is required to complete the task, nor are we allowed to refrain from it,” he said he felt the weight both politically and personally.

Voters ended up rejecting election-denying Republicans in nearly every competitive midterm race around the country. Shapiro, though, didn’t wax on about the abstract wonders of democracy or voting rights, but detailed the 43 challenges to the 2020 vote count that he defeated in court.

He went on offense, mocking Mastriano for talking a “good game” about freedom, then saying “real freedom” is about freedom of choice in abortion rights, freedom to not have banned books, freedom to not feel targeted by guns on the streets and freedom to have job opportunities.

He talked about the events of January 6, 2021, but only to say that Mastriano’s presence in the crowd outside the US Capitol ahead of rioters storming the building showed that he didn’t “respect” Pennsylvanians enough to care what they thought.

He never went more than a few words without drawing a direct line back to what he’d already accomplished.

Rallygoers cheer for Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman during an event with Shapiro in Newtown, Pennsylvania, on November 6, 2022.

Part of Shapiro’s standard routine is always insisting he doesn’t pay attention to national politics and doesn’t think much about what other Democrats beyond Pennsylvania are doing or saying. One of his favorite lines during the campaign was how his focus was on Washington County, just southwest of Pittsburgh, and not Washington, DC.

So when asked about other Democrats being wary of going after corporations over fears they’d be tagged as socialists, or about Biden’s only sporadic attacks on oil companies for profiting as gas prices were high, Shapiro pleaded ignorance – pointedly.

“I don’t have a frame of reference,” he said, “but I guess I am surprised they wouldn’t talk about it as well.”

The result for Shapiro: He set a record of winning the most votes ever for a Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate. As his campaign has proudly pointed out, his win was so big that he could have gotten there even without a single vote from Philadelphia and its suburbs: In Erie County, which Biden won by 1 point in 2020, Shapiro won by 21 points; and in Washington County, which Biden lost by 22 points, Shapiro only lost by 2.

His coattails helped keep the Senate race tilted to Fetterman even when the candidate was sidelined by a stroke. He also helped his party hold three swing US House seats and narrowly win a majority in the state House of Representatives for the first time in more than a decade.

“He was able to represent everyday consumers against the big guys,” said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, the outgoing chair of the Democratic Governors Association and a former state attorney general himself. “People remember that, when you stood up on their behalf.”

As attorney general, Shapiro faced the corny political joke: “AG” really stands for “aspiring governor.” While many have made the jump, few have done it successfully.

Shapiro knows he’s going to have to adjust.

“When we were in the AG’s office, these cases would come to us,” said the Shapiro aide. “Now we’re in the position of, we drive the agenda.”

They’re still trying to sort out what exactly that the shift in mentality will mean.

“It’s hard to accuse me of not doing things,” Shapiro said. “I feel a responsibility to now be able to take what I did, that type of approach in the AG’s office and show that government can work.”

Shapiro arrives to deliver his victory speech in Oaks, Pennsylvania, on November 8, 2022.

There’s only so far most Democrats can go in following the Shapiro model. Members of Congress can’t go to grand juries. A president can’t negotiate legal settlements.

But with Shapiro and fellow Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey of Massachusetts winning their governor’s races, other Democratic attorneys general are gearing up for more.

Even in states with multiple competitive races, every Democratic attorney general was reelected in 2022, except in rapidly reddening Iowa, and the party picked up the office in the key swing state of Arizona.

Those and other state AGs are already moving individually and in small groups on more investigations they expect to soon go public in a big way, including more pharmaceutical inquiries, privacy and data protection, and online consumer fraud. Also now rising on the list of targets: cryptocurrency.

“It certainly works. It gets the attention of corporate America. They know they have to contend with us,” said Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who also co-chairs the Democratic Attorneys General Association and just won a second term back home. “And the voters appreciate it, and it’s recognized.”

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[World] Australia helicopter collision: Four dead in mid-air incident over Gold Coast

BBC News world 

Image source, EPA

Four people have died after a mid-air collision between two helicopters near Seaworld on Australia’s Gold Coast.

The nine other passengers aboard the two aircraft were all treated for injuries, Queensland’s ambulance service said.

Three passengers – a woman and two young boys – have been taken to hospital in critical condition.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has said it will investigate.

The collision took place around 14:00 local time (04:00 GMT) along a tourist strip known as Main Beach, about 75km (47 miles) south of Brisbane.

Gary Worrell of Queensland police told reporters that one helicopter appeared to be taking off as the other one was landing.

He said the four deaths and three serious injuries had all occurred in the same aircraft.

“It’s a difficult scene,” he said. “Due to the area it’s located, on the sand bank, it was difficult to gain access, to get our emergency services to the scene to manage it appropriately.”

Image source, EPA

Images from the crash site show debris strewn around the area and a mangled helicopter apparently lying upside down opposite the Seaworld resort.

The other helicopter has the popular marine park’s logo emblazoned on its side, and appears to have safely landed after the collision.

Seaworld Drive, the main access road to the marine park, has been closed off to traffic by local police.

They urged motorists and pedestrians to avoid the area as first responders inspect the scene.

Investigators from the ATSB’s offices in Brisbane and Canberra are being deployed to the scene to gather evidence, examine the wreckage and interview witnesses.

ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell has also asked eyewitnesses who saw the collision or the helicopters in flight to contact investigators.

A preliminary report will be made public in the next six to eight weeks, with a final report to follow once the investigation is complete, he added.

The Gold Coast region is currently in its peak tourist season with children on their summer breaks.

 

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Opinion: What Kevin McCarthy's silence about George Santos reveals

Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” Follow him @[email protected]. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.



CNN
 — 

GOP Rep.-elect George Santos has been making headlines since December 19 — when The New York Times published its jaw-dropping article documenting his litany of false claims about his work experience, education and just about everything in between. (Santos later described these falsehoods as “resume embellishment” but admitted to misrepresenting his employment and educational background.)

Dean Obeidallah

Santos also claimed that his grandparents fled the horrors of the Holocaust as Ukrainian Jewish refugees from Belgium — only to have this version of his family background contradicted by a review of genealogy records. (Santos’ campaign did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.)

Adding to the firestorm are recent developments that federal and state authorities have launched criminal investigations into Santos over his finances and fabrications. When he first ran for Congress unsuccessfully in 2020, Santos reported he had no assets, yet somehow he was able to lend his 2022 campaign $700,000.

Throughout these twists and turns, one thing has remained constant: GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy has not condemned Santos. Not over his admitted falsehoods, his apparent misrepresentation about family members fleeing the Holocaust, questions regarding his campaign funding or even reports on his spending of campaign funds on travel to places such as Miami. (McCarthy has not returned CNN’s requests for comment about Santos.)

This silence is not surprising. It perfectly sums up McCarthy and many in today’s GOP who seek power at any cost — with no regard for principle or the greater good of our nation.

Even fellow GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz — who has opposed McCarthy’s bid for House speaker — recently slammed the Republican leader for not having any core values, writing in an op-ed, “Every single Republican in Congress knows that Kevin does not actually believe anything. He has no ideology.”

It’s likely McCarthy has declined to condemn Santos because the California lawmaker is so desperate to secure the 218 votes he needs to be elected speaker when the new Congress is sworn in on Tuesday. (Before this scandal broke, Santos had pledged his support on Twitter for McCarthy’s speakership bid — but has since apparently deleted that tweet.) Given the incoming House GOP majority will be a razor-thin four votes, McCarthy needs Santos’ support if he is to have any chance of becoming speaker.

McCarthy has been outspoken on many other political issues since The New York Times article put the spotlight on Santos. For example, on December 21, McCarthy took to Twitter to slam the January 6 committee, writing in part: “Pelosi’s Select Committee has been focused on political theater and posturing.” That same day, McCarthy vowed on Fox News that Republicans “can eliminate waste and wokeism” when they take control of Congress.

McCarthy has also criticized the Biden administration’s border policy and played up accusations on Fox Business that the FBI worked to suppress news stories hurtful to Democrats.

Yet not a peep about the Santos story — which even caused an uproar on Fox News on December 27 when former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as a guest host confronted Santos about his fabrications, asking: “Do you have no shame?”

But it’s not just McCarthy. The GOP leadership has largely been silent about Santos. One of the few senior GOP lawmakers to chime in has been Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee. In remarks Thursday on Fox News, Comer described Santos’ actions as “a disgrace, he’s lied to the voters.” But Comer didn’t call for Santos to step aside, instead only saying he’s “pretty confident” the House Ethics Committee will investigate Santos.

It isn’t the first time McCarthy has shown his willingness to abandon principle in the pursuit of power. The most glaring example was his flip-flop on Trump’s culpability over the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. McCarthy initially took to the House floor proclaiming about Trump: “The President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.” McCarthy added, “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.”

It wasn’t long though before McCarthy traveled to Mar-a-Lago to make up with Trump. By April 2021, McCarthy was rewriting history to defend Trump’s actions surrounding January 6. Why? Apparently because McCarthy understood that without Trump’s support he could never become speaker. And that transaction appears to have paid dividends; a few weeks ago Trump publicly supported McCarthy’s bid for speaker, urging his allies in the House GOP Caucus to vote for him.

Imagine for a moment if an incoming Democratic member of Congress had been engulfed in such a scandal. McCarthy likely would be screaming about how this representative-elect should not be in Congress and how the Democratic leadership needed to denounce this politician.

Barring something unexpected, Santos likely will be sworn in as a member of Congress on Tuesday without a word of criticism by McCarthy. This is today’s GOP on display. It’s a party that stands for nothing except acquiring power at any cost — even if it is gravely bad for our republic.


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[World] Rajouri: Tension in Kashmir after five killed

BBC News world 

Image source, ANI

Image caption,

Sunday’s attack on civilians has triggered protests in Kashmir

Parts of Indian-administered Kashmir are tense after five civilians were killed in two separate attacks in the same area in less than 24 hours.

Four people were killed and nine injured after militants fired at three houses in Rajouri district on Sunday evening.

On Monday, a child died and four people were hurt after a blast took place near the same houses.

The cause of the blast was not immediately clear.

Top police officials have started an investigation into the incidents.

Sunday’s attack has triggered protests and strikes in Rajouri as people blamed the local administration for the security lapse.

Manoj Sinha, the administrative head of the region, has condemned “the cowardly terror attack in Rajouri” and announced financial assistance for the families of the victims.

“I assure the people that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished,” he tweeted on Monday.

The Himalayan region of Kashmir is hotly contested by both India and Pakistan, who both claim it in full but rule it in parts. The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two wars and a limited conflict over Kashmir since 1947, when India was partitioned and Pakistan was created.

For more than three decades, an armed revolt has been waged against India’s rule in the region, claiming tens of thousands of lives.

India blames Pakistan for stirring the unrest by backing separatist militants in Kashmir – a charge Islamabad denies.

Jammu and Kashmir was India’s only Muslim-majority state until August 2019, when the federal government revoked its autonomy and divided it into two separate territories.

The four people who were killed on Sunday were from the minority Hindu community in Muslim-majority Kashmir.

Over the past year, several Hindus in Kashmir have been killed in targeted attacks by militants, sparking fear in the community.

Read more India stories from the BBC:

 

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Storm pushes into Central US after walloping California with dangerous flooding and forcing water rescues and evacuations



CNN
 — 

A powerful storm system that battered California on New Year’s Eve, bringing widespread flooding and power outages, is pushing into the Central US Monday, as more than 15 million people from the West Coast to Illinois are under winter weather alerts.

The atmospheric river – a long, narrow region in the atmosphere which can carry moisture thousands of miles – fueled a parade of storms that dropped thick snow on the mountains and drenched northern California, shutting down roadways and prompting water rescues and evacuation orders.

At least two people died in the storm, including one who was found dead inside a completely submerged vehicle Saturday in Sacramento County, and a 72-year-old man who died after being struck by a fallen tree at a Santa Cruz park, according to officials.

Scores of others in northern California were rescued from flood waters as rivers swelled and roads became impassable.

There were 103,000 homes, businesses and other power customers without power across California and Nevada as of Sunday night, down from a high of more than 300,000 outages on Saturday, according to Poweroutage.US.

On Monday, snow is expected to fall across the Rockies, northern Plains, and eventually into parts of the Midwest where winter storm alerts are posted.

Widespread snowfall of 4 to 8 inches is forecast but higher elevations in the mountains could see 1 to 2 feet of snow.

On the southern edge of the storm, a severe storm outbreak is possible across the South Monday into Tuesday.

Parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana are at risk of severe storms on Monday, with damaging winds, strong tornadoes and hail possible. Storms are expected to begin in the afternoon and will last through the overnight hours.

Three vehicles are submerged on Dillard Road west of Highway 99 in south Sacramento County in Wilton, California, Sunday, after heavy rains on New Year's Eve.

The Sacramento County area was particularly hard hit, with emergency crews spending the weekend rescuing multiple flood victims by boats and helicopter and responding to fallen trees and disabled vehicles in the flood waters, the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District said.

An evacuation order was issued Sunday for the rural Sacramento County areas of Point Pleasant, while Glanville Tract and Franklin Pond were under an evacuation warning.

“It is expected that the flooding from the Cosumnes River and the Mokelumne River is moving southwest toward I-5 and could reach these areas in the middle of the night,” the agency tweeted.

The day before, rising flood waters forced evacuations in Wilton, California, as well as three communities near the city of Watsonville in Santa Cruz County.

A Flash Flood Watch was in place along and west of 5 Freeway to the Sacramento River, where there were worries about excessive rainfall and flooding on the Cosumnes and Mokelumne Rivers.

The storm snarled travel across multiple northern California highways, amid reports of inundated roadways and mudslides.

Flooding from the Cosumnes River forced the closure of Highway 99 south of Elk Grove in Sacramento County, the California Department of Transportation tweeted. “SR 99 is one of the state’s heavily traveled, and commercially important, corridors,” its website adds.

Aerial video from CNN affiliate KCRA showed cars submerged past their doorhandles in flood waters from Highway 99 and the Dillard Street area. Chris Schamber, a fire captain with the Cosumnes Fire Department, told the station “dozens upon dozens” of people had been rescued.

US Highway 101 – one of California’s most famous routes – was also temporarily closed in both directions in South San Francisco Saturday with the California Highway Patrol reporting “water is not receding due to non-stop rainfall & high tides preventing the water to displace.”

The weather system is expected to bring light to moderate valley rain and mountain snow to the area Monday and Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service in Sacramento.

It’s not clear how much this storm will make a dent in drought conditions that have persisted in California, which started 2022 with the driest beginning of the year on record and ended it with flooded roads and swelling rivers.

Northern California’s mountainous areas recorded impressive snow totals over the weekend.

Sierra locations above 5,000 feet received around 20-45 inches of snow Saturday through early Sunday morning – and another round of lighter snow is on the way.

The Sierra Snow Lab recorded 24-hour snow totals of 29.9 inches, Bear Valley Ski Resort recorded 21 inches, Boreal Ski Resort received 40 inches, Sierra at Tahoe Ski Resort 42 inches and Soda Springs saw 40 inches, according to the Weather Service.


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[World] Lula sworn in as Brazil president as predecessor Bolsonaro flies to US

But diversity and inclusion too was a big part of today’s inauguration. With Mr Bolsonaro abandoning his final official duty of passing on the presidential sash, it was left to Eni Souza, a rubbish picker, to do the honours. And standing next to Lula was an indigenous leader, a black boy and a disabled influencer. In this country where racism is all too common, it was an important image that will endure.

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Ukraine faces grim start to 2023 after fresh Russian attacks

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainians faced a grim start to 2023 as Sunday brought more Russian missile and drone attacks following a blistering New Year’s Eve assault that killed at least three civilians across the country, authorities reported.

Air raid sirens sounded in the capital shortly after midnight, followed by a barrage of missiles that interrupted the small celebrations residents held at home due to wartime curfews. Ukrainian officials alleged Moscow was deliberately targeting civilians along with critical infrastructure to create a climate of fear and destroy morale during the long winter months.

In a video address Sunday night, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised his citizens’ “sense of unity, of authenticity, of life itself.” The Russians, he said, “will not take away a single year from Ukraine. They will not take away our independence. We will not give them anything.”

Ukrainian forces in the air and on the ground shot down 45 Iranian-made explosive drones fired by Russia on Saturday night and before dawn Sunday, Zelenskyy said.

Another strike at noon Sunday in the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed one person, according to the head of the regional military administration, Alexander Starukh. But Kyiv was largely quiet, and people there on New Year’s Day savored the snippets of peace.

“Of course it was hard to celebrate fully because we understand that our soldiers can’t be with their family,” Evheniya Shulzhenko said while sitting with her husband on a park bench overlooking the city.

But a “really powerful” New Year’s Eve speech by Zelenskyy lifted her spirits and made her proud to be Ukrainian, Shulzhenko said. She recently moved to Kyiv after living in Bakhmut and Kharkiv, two cities that have experienced some of the heaviest fighting of the war.

Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night, wounding dozens. An AP photographer at the scene of an explosion in Kyiv saw a woman’s body as her husband and son stood nearby.

Ukraine’s largest university, the Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv, reported significant damage to its buildings and campus. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two schools were damaged, including a kindergarten.

The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks Russia launched Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities. Saturday’s unusually quick follow-up alarmed Ukrainian officials. Russia has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October, increasing the suffering of Ukrainians, while its ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance.

Nighttime shelling in parts of the southern city of Kherson killed one person and blew out hundreds of windows in a children’s hospital, according to deputy presidential chief of staff Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Ukrainian forces reclaimed the city in November after Russia’s forces withdrew across the Dnieper River, which bisects the Kherson region.

When shells hit the children’s hospital on Saturday night, surgeons were operating on a 13-year-old boy who was seriously wounded in a nearby village that evening, Kherson Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said. The boy was transferred in serious condition to a hospital about 99 kilometers (62 miles) away in Mykolaiv.

Elsewhere, a 22-year-old woman died of wounds from a Saturday rocket attack Saturday in the eastern town of Khmelnytskyi, the city’s mayor said.

Instead of New Year’s fireworks, Oleksander Dugyn said he and his friends and family in Kyiv watched the sparks caused by Ukrainian air defense forces countering Russian attacks.

“We already know the sound of rockets, we know the moment they fly, we know the sound of drones. The sound is like the roar of a moped,” said Dugin, who was strolling with his family in the park. “We hold on the best we can.”

While Russia’s bombardments have left many Ukrainians without heating and electricity due to damage or controlled blackouts meant to preserve the remaining power supply, Ukraine’s state-owned grid operator said Sunday there would be no restrictions on electricity use for one day.

“The power industry is doing everything possible to ensure that the New Year’s holiday is with light, without restrictions,” utility company Ukrenergo said.

It said businesses and industry had cut back to allow the additional electricity for households.

Zelenskyy, in his nightly address, thanked utility workers for helping to keep the lights on during the latest assault. “It is very important how all Ukrainians recharged their inner energy this New Year’s Eve,” he said.

In separate tweets Sunday, the Ukrainian leader also reminded the European Union of his country’s wish to join the EU. He thanked the Czech Republic and congratulated Sweden, which just exchanged the EU’s rotating presidency, for their help in securing progress for Ukraine’s bid.

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the Western military alliance’s 30 members need to “ramp up” arms production in the coming months both to maintain their own stockpiles and to keep supplying Ukraine with the weapons it needs to fend off Russia.

The war in Ukraine, now in its 11th month, is consuming an “enormous amount” of munitions, Stoltenberg told BBC Radio 4′s “The World This Weekend” in an interview that aired Sunday.

“It is a core responsibility for NATO to ensure that we have the stocks, the supplies, the weapons in place to ensure our own deterrence and defense, but also to be able to continue to provide support to Ukraine for the long haul,” he said.

Achieving the twin goals “is a huge undertaking. We need to ramp up production, and that is exactly what the NATO allies are doing,” Stoltenberg said.

The NATO chief said that while Russia has experienced battlefield setbacks and the fighting on the ground appears at a stalemate, “Russia has shown no sign of giving up its overall goal of taking control over Ukraine.” he said.

“The Ukrainian forces have had the momentum for several months but we also know that Russia has mobilized many more forces. Many of them are now training.

“All that indicates that they are prepared to continue the war and also potentially try to launch a new offensive,” Stoltenberg said.

He added that what Ukraine can achieve during negotiations to end the war will depend on the strength it shows on the battlefield.

“If we want a negotiated solution that ensures that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent, democratic state in Europe, then we need to provide support for Ukraine now,” Stoltenberg said,

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For more AP stories on the war in Ukraine, go to https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

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