Ax-wielding FlyDubai co-pilot had been flagged over extremism concerns
CAIRO (AP) — The co-pilot accused of attacking the captain of an Israel-bound flight with an ax and trying to seize the controls was an Omani national who had been barred from flying on his country’s airline because of concerns about extremist views, officials said Saturday.
The co-pilot has been identified as Hamam al-Hammami, according to three people with knowledge of the situation, including a Gulf and a Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The United Arab Emirates, which is leading the investigation, said the co-pilot attacked with the cockpit’s crash ax and tried to take control of the plummeting plane in a “terrorist attack" Wednesday. His actions nearly crashed the flight with 182 people on board before passengers and others rushed in and subdued him.
The new details raised questions about how thoroughly FlyDubai vets potential employees, and how the co-pilot's presence on a flight filled with Israeli passengers got past Israel's strict security protocols.
Israel has said it has agreements with foreign carriers to keep pilots of nations without diplomatic ties from flying there. Israel and Oman don’t have formal diplomatic relations. The UAE government has earned a reputation for effective measures against extremist activities but has bristled in the past over criticism of security lapses.
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Who are the mystery men who stepped in to keep the FlyDubai plane from crashing?
JERUSALEM (AP) — Who are the mystery pilots who stepped in to stabilize the FlyDubai flight as it hurtled toward disaster?
As of Saturday, three days after the uniformed crew members rushed to the cockpit to steady the Israel-bound plane carrying 182 people after a sickening plummet, they still haven't been publicly identified. FlyDubai has called them only on-duty crew members traveling on the plane. It’s not clear why the airline hasn't said more.
One passenger at the front of the plane, though, described the men’s actions in an interview with The Associated Press, giving one of the most detailed accounts of the yet-unsung heroes.
“This is one of the miracles,” said Daniel Schlichter, who was seated in the second row.
“That not in every flight they bring two extra pilots. In this case, they brought them because they should have brought the plane back from Tel Aviv to Dubai, and this is the only reason they were there.” The practice is called deadheading.
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Tennessee's prisons chief is resigning after failed execution of Christa Pike
The head of Tennessee's prison system is resigning, Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday, the first major staff shake-up since Christa Pike's stunning failed execution left her unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital.
Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction, will step down this month, Lee said. Some of the governor's fellow Republicans and other elected officials had been urging a change in leadership.
It was the second time since May that Tennessee has not been able to execute a prisoner who was seemingly moments away from death.
The governor also announced that former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton would lead a review of what happened in Pike's death chamber. Stanton previously was named to conduct a review after Lee called off a different execution in 2022; he found in that case that Tennessee had not complied with its own lethal injection process.
Strada said in a statement that resigning was “in the best interest of Tennesseans” while Stanton's review is conducted. The state failed to execute Pike despite administering two doses of a lethal drug, pentobarbital.
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Trump posts cell phone number of Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton in fight over daylight saving time
President Donald Trump on Saturday pressured Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas to support a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, posting the personal cellphone number of the chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee and urging Americans to call it.
The Sunshine Protection Act passed the House in July, but it faces roadblocks in the Senate where some Republicans are strongly opposed. Proponents, including the White House, argue that the change would provide more daylight during the times that Americans are most active. Detractors said permanent daylight saving time would lead to darker and potentially more hazardous winter mornings when children will be waiting for school buses and parents will be driving to work in darkness.
It was a remarkable escalation on Trump's part of a longstanding fixation shared by both men — with Trump supporting making daylight saving time permanent, and Cotton vociferously opposed — at a time just weeks before the midterms, when Republicans would prefer that the president focus on talking about affordability issues and the party's achievements. Cotton is also up for reelection this November, although that race is not expected to be competitive.
Daylight saving time is that period between spring and fall when clocks in most parts of the United States are set one hour ahead of standard time. Not all states observe it — and under the bill, states can opt out of the change if their respective legislatures act to do so before the bill’s enactment.
“It’s a lot of work for a lot of people, running around for two days, changing all the clocks in the house,” Trump told reporters as his left the White House on Saturday for a rally in Vandalia, Ohio. “It discombobulates everybody," he said.
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Voters favor Democrats on key issues but lack faith in either party to solve problems: AP-NORC poll
WASHINGTON (AP) — Aaron Siever was never a single-party voter. But now, the 41-year-old from southwest Virginia is more frustrated than ever with the two political parties whose chief accomplishment, he says, is blaming each other for getting little done.
“There’s so much turmoil,” said Siever, a former police officer who now guides Civil War battlefield tours. “It really messes up chances of getting anything done. It gets really disgusting.”
Voters are deeply dissatisfied with President Donald Trump and his Republican Party heading into the Nov. 3 midterm elections, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, and Democrats have built a clear advantage on pressing issues such as the cost of living and healthcare over just a few months.
But the survey also points to a bigger problem for both parties: Few registered voters think either party is able to solve important problems or help Americans like them.
That undercurrent of cynicism will be a challenge for Democrats and the Republicans, no matter which party controls Congress. Frustration with Republicans is growing, but voters do not appear to think Democrats have a long-term solution to the country’s problems, either.
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What to know about the investigation into Cornell University gang rape allegations
An intense, public outcry over a woman's account of being gang-raped at a Cornell University fraternity house prompted New York's governor this week to angrily yank control of the investigation away from the local prosecutor who didn't initially see what happened as a crime.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten has said Cornell police omitted key information that could have affected his decision whether or not to pursue criminal charges.
Now, the task of unraveling the case will fall to the state's attorney general, Letitia James, who was appointed as a special prosecutor.
James, a Democrat best known for tangling with President Donald Trump, suggested at a news conference Friday that her investigation wouldn't be rushed. She described it as a monthslong process, with no predetermined outcome.
Here’s what we know and don’t know about the woman's allegations and the investigations that followed:
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Russian attacks kill 6 in Ukraine and damage Kyiv’s Northern Bridge
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian attacks in Ukraine killed at least six people and damaged Kyiv’s Northern Bridge, suspending traffic and causing tailbacks for a third day in Moscow's latest effort to disrupt life in the Ukrainian capital.
The strike came after two days of Russian assaults forced the full or partial closure of three of Kyiv’s six road bridges over the Dnipro River. Previously, Russia has hit apartment blocks, supermarket warehouses, gas stations and data centers, among other targets.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said Saturday it would continue to carry out “mass retaliatory strikes" on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, urging foreign nationals and diplomats to leave the country. It previously issued a similar warning in May.
Russia invaded its neighbor more than 4 ½ years ago, and there are no concrete signs that a peace settlement might be possible. Fighting along the roughly 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line snaking through northern, eastern and southern Ukraine has been virtually deadlocked in recent months.
Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said the strike on the bridge damaged the road surface and trolleybus cables, forcing traffic to be suspended. He later said two people were wounded in the attack, one of whom was briefly hospitalized.
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A gut punch in Ohio: Nearly 1,400 laid off at truck factory just days before Trump rally
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — Sipping tea from beer mugs with his co-workers, Kyle Bos listed the ways his life is changing.
Bos has two daughters, with a third due in January. At the grocery store, five items cost as much as a full cart once did. And on Wednesday, Bos and nearly 1,400 other people were laid off from their jobs at what had been the Navistar truck factory in southwestern Ohio.
The layoffs — occurring just three days before President Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday at a nearby high school — were large enough to basically erase an entire year of job growth in the greater Dayton, Ohio, area. And they are one reason why Bos, 30, plans to spend the final weeks before the November election canvassing votes for Democrats.
Asked how many times he had voted for Trump, Bos held up three tattooed fingers. But he said he’s done with the president.
“Something has to change politically in this country,” said Bos, a member of the United Auto Workers who identifies as a centrist. “Seems like it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.”
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The Supreme Court will hear a major climate change case involving a devastating Colorado wildfire
LOUISVILLE, Colo. (AP) — Less than an hour after the first warning that a wildfire was headed for her suburban street, Tawnya Somauroo's Colorado home was in ashes.
She has worked tirelessly for nearly five years to rebuild her house and help ensure her neighborhood can withstand the next blaze. But as climate change contributes to more frequent wildfires, she worries that the careful landscaping, metal fencing and flame-resistant siding are not enough.
“We lost our homes and they left us to figure out for ourselves how to make our neighborhoods safe again,” Somauroo said. “At the end of the day, it comes out of our pockets, you know? And it does feel like maybe the oil and gas industry should have a part in this.”
She lives in Boulder County, one of dozens of jurisdictions across the United States suing oil and gas companies to help pay for damage from disasters linked to climate change.
The case is part of a wave of climate change litigation across the country and the world, with billions of dollars at stake. On Monday, the first day of the Supreme Court's new term, the justices will hear the Boulder case that could decide the fate of others like it.
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A $28B hemp THC industry is fighting to save itself from a looming federal ban
In a commercial kitchen outside Raleigh, North Carolina, Nicholas Hohns spreads a blue-green goo into a gridded mold, making one of his company’s signature products: potent THC gummies, featuring the primary intoxicating compound found in marijuana.
It’s a business he might soon have to give up. America’s multibillion-dollar market for impairing hemp products — from THC seltzers sold at some Target stores to smokable cannabis flowers, and different from the regulated legal marijuana industry — faces potential elimination after Congress voted to close a loophole in federal law that has allowed it to flourish.
Advocates for the industry, along with some lawmakers, are fighting to save it. The short-term government-funding bill signed by President Donald Trump last month delayed the effective date of the “hemp THC ban” from Nov. 12 to Dec. 11, giving Congress more time to consider regulating the products rather than banning them.
“It’s such a weird spot to be in,” said Hohns. “You worked 100 hours a week for the past four years, and, yeah, you made some money. But now you might have nothing to show for it.”
Marijuana and hemp are the same plant — cannabis. Marijuana is cultivated for high levels of THC in its flowers. Low-THC hemp has historically been grown for its sturdy fibers, food or wellness products. “Rope, not dope” was long the motto of farmers who supported legalizing hemp.
