Category World News

Several people have been killed and injured when a bus hit a bus stop in central Stockholm, Swedish police said, adding that they had no information pointing to it being an attack.

There were six casualties in the incident on Friday, a spokesperson for Stockholm’s rescue services said, without giving the numbers of those killed and injured.

The spokesperson said there were no passengers on the bus at the time.

“It is being investigated as involuntary manslaughter. The bus driver has been arrested, but that is routine in such an incident,” a police spokesperson said.

Health authorities spokesperson Michelle Marcher told the AFP news agency that two seriously injured people had been transported to hospital.

Police said that several people were hit, but they were not immediately providing information on their number, gender or ages.

Ambulances, police and rescue services were working at the scene, they added.

A picture on daily Aftonbladet’s website showed emergency services at the site, surrounding a blue double-decker bus, with debris scattered around the vehicle.

The incident occurred near the Royal Institute of Technology university, police said.

‘Unreal’

A woman identified as Michelle Mac Key told the daily newspaper Expressen she stepped off another bus at the scene just after the accident happened.

“I crossed the road and saw the double-decker bus that had mowed down an entire bus stop queue,” she said. People were screaming and trying to help the injured.

She said she saw both injured and dead people lying on the ground. “There must have been more people under the bus,” she said.

A nurse by profession, she and another man who was a doctor, offered their help to police when they arrived.

“They told us to stand next to the dead bodies,” she said. “I thought it was an exercise at first. That maybe they were dolls. It was so unreal. Chaos.”

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said his thoughts were with the victims and their families.

“I have received the tragic news that several people have died and been injured at a bus stop in central Stockholm,” he wrote on X.

A team of researchers has uncovered what they say is the first reported use of artificial intelligence to direct a hacking campaign in a largely automated fashion.

The AI company Anthropic said this week that it disrupted a cyber operation that its researchers linked to the Chinese government. The operation involved the use of an artificial intelligence system to direct the hacking campaigns, which researchers called a disturbing development that could greatly expand the reach of AI-equipped hackers.

While concerns about the use of AI to drive cyber operations are not new, what is concerning about the new operation is the degree to which AI was able to automate some of the work, the researchers said.

“While we predicted these capabilities would continue to evolve, what has stood out to us is how quickly they have done so at scale,” they wrote in their report.

The operation was modest in scope and only targeted about 30 individuals who worked at tech companies, financial institutions, chemical companies and government agencies. Anthropic noticed the operation in September and took steps to shut it down and notify the affected parties.

The hackers only “succeeded in a small number of cases”, according to Anthropic, which noted that while AI systems are increasingly being used in a variety of settings for work and leisure, they can also be weaponised by hacking groups working for foreign adversaries.

Anthropic, maker of the generative AI chatbot Claude, is one of many tech companies pitching AI “agents” that go beyond a chatbot’s capability to access computer tools and take actions on a person’s behalf.

“Agents are valuable for everyday work and productivity — but in the wrong hands, they can substantially increase the viability of large-scale cyberattacks,” the researchers concluded. “These attacks are likely to only grow in their effectiveness.”

A spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the report.

Microsoft warned earlier this year that foreign adversaries were increasingly embracing AI to make their cyber campaigns more efficient and less labour-intensive.

The United States Department of Transportation is officially withdrawing from a directive that requires airlines to pay passengers if their flights are delayed.

The White House announced its official withdrawal on Friday after first disclosing its plan back in September.

The plan was first outlined during the administration of former US President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

In December 2024, the federal agency under former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sought public comment on the plan, which would have required airlines to pay $200 to $300 for domestic delays totalling more than three hours and as high as $775 for even longer, unspecified delays.

Trump’s Transportation Department said the rules would be “unnecessary regulatory burdens” amid its explanation of why it will scrap the plan.

Last month, a group of 18 Democratic senators urged the Trump administration not to drop the compensation plan.

“This is a common-sense proposal: when an airline’s mistake imposes unanticipated costs on families, the airline should try to remedy the situation by providing accommodations to consumers and helping cover their costs,” said the letter signed by Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal, Maria Cantwell, Ed Markey and others.

Airlines in the US must refund passengers for cancelled flights, but are not required to compensate customers for delays.

The European Union, Canada, Brazil and the United Kingdom all have airline delay compensation rules. No large US airline currently guarantees cash compensation for significant flight disruption.

The Transportation Department said on Friday that abandoning the compensation plan would “allow airlines to compete on the services and compensation that they provide to passengers rather than imposing new minimum requirements for these services and compensation through regulation, which would impose significant costs on airlines.”

New rules

The Transportation Department also announced in September that it was considering rescinding Biden regulations requiring airlines and ticket agents to disclose service fees alongside airfares.

It also plans to reduce regulatory burdens on airlines and ticket agents by writing new rules detailing the definition of a flight cancellation that entitles consumers to ticket refunds, as well as revisiting rules on ticket pricing and advertising.

The department did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Al Jazeera also reached out to Buttigieg, who was behind the policy that is now being scrapped, but did not receive a response.

On Wall Street, most airline stocks remain below the market open but were trending upwards in midday trading. American Airlines is down 1.2 percent from the opening bell, United Airlines is down 1 percent, and Delta is down 1.3 percent. JetBlue is tumbling 3.6 percent for the day. Southwest is down by 0.2 percent.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) says the Israeli military has constructed walls in Lebanese territory that cross a UN-backed, unofficial “border” between the two countries.

The statement on Friday comes as Israel has carried out near-daily attacks across Lebanon – including in the south of the country, in particular – despite a ceasefire signed a year ago with Lebanese group Hezbollah.

In UNIFIL’s statement, the force said Israel had built “a concrete T-wall” southwest of Yaroun, a town in Lebanon’s southern Nabatieh district.

The wall extends across the so-called Blue Line and has made “more than 4,000 square metres [43,055sq feet] of Lebanese territory inaccessible to the Lebanese people”, it added.

Established in 2000, the Blue Line is a 120km (75-mile) unofficial “border” drawn up by the UN between Lebanon and Israel.

The demarcation line’s main purpose is to confirm the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Lebanese territory as mandated by UN Security Council resolutions.

In October, UNIFIL peacekeepers conducted a geospatial survey of a concrete T-wall erected by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) southwest of Yaroun.

UNIFIL said another section of the wall, southeast of Yaroun, also extends beyond the Blue Line. “UNIFIL informed the [Israeli army] of our findings and requested that they move the walls,” it said.

In response to UNIFIL’s statement on Friday, the Israeli military told the AFP news agency that the wall “is part of a broader plan whose construction began in 2022”.

“Since the start of the war, and as part of lessons learnt from it, the [Israeli military] has been advancing a series of measures, including reinforcing the physical barrier along the northern border,” it said.

“It should be emphasised that the wall does not cross the Blue Line,” the military added.

‘Violations’ of territorial integrity

The Israeli army has killed more than 4,000 people and injured nearly 17,000 in its attacks on Lebanon, which began in October 2023 amid the Gaza war and turned into a full-scale offensive in September 2024. The deadly attacks have not ceased despite last November’s ceasefire agreement.

As tensions increase, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Thursday called for an end to Israel’s military escalation in southern Lebanon, warning that it poses a threat to regional stability.

UNIFIL said “Israeli presence and construction in Lebanese territory are violations of Security Council resolution 1701 and of Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

“We again call on the [Israeli military] to respect the Blue Line in its full length and withdraw from all areas north of it,” it added.

Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, calls for a cessation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel and the establishment of a weapons-free zone between the Blue Line and Lebanon’s Litani River.

Under last year’s ceasefire, the Israeli army was supposed to withdraw from southern Lebanon in January.