Archive November 6, 2025

Federal investigators say they have recovered the flight recorder from the wreckage of a UPS cargo plane that crashed in Louisville, Kentucky, killing at least 12 people.

UPS Flight 2976 crashed shortly after takeoff on Tuesday as it departed from Louisville’s Muhammad Ali airport bound for Honolulu, Hawaii.

CCTV footage from the airport showed that the plane’s “left engine detaching from the wing during the takeoff roll” before it caught fire, according to National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman.

“After being cleared for takeoff, a large plume of fire in the area of the left wing occurred during the takeoff roll. The plane lifted off and gained enough altitude to clear the fence at the end of runway 17R,” Inman said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The NTSB is an independent US government agency that investigates all civilian plane crashes alongside the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Inman said investigators found the plane’s engine on the airfield, but he did not explain how or why it may have detached from the 31-year-old McDonnell Douglas MD-11 wide-body aircraft during takeoff or how the plane’s wing caught fire.

Authorities have also recovered the plane’s data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, which have been sent to the lab for processing, he said. It will be months, however, before the investigation concludes.

Flight 2976 hit several buildings near the airport as it crashed, leaving an 800-metre trail of fire and destruction, according to authorities.

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg told local news outlet WHAS-TV on Wednesday that 12 people were confirmed dead, while 15 people from the nearby area have been reported missing.

“We believe that three of [confirmed fatalities] are likely the crew, and nine others, all of whom those nine are unidentified at this time,” Greenberg said.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear earlier told a news conference that the deaths had risen to 11, but said he expected it “to reach 12 possibly by the end of the day”.

Among the buildings hit by the plane were a petroleum recycling company and an auto parts company, but it missed hitting a nearby Ford Motor factory and a convention centre, Beshear said.

“I’ve walked the line of an F4 tornado through my dad’s hometown. I’ve seen towns hit by flooding we’d only describe as biblical. What this scene is is violent,” Beshear told the media.

“Where the initial explosion happened, you have significant damage. And then, like a lot of these disasters, just five or six feet [1.5 to 1.8 metres] away, not even the paint disturbed on another vehicle.”

UPS said Wednesday that it will soon reopen its facility at Louisville airport, after suspending operations following the accident, according to the Reuters news agency.

Seven Italian climbers are missing in Nepal’s Himalayan mountains after heavy snowstorms and avalanches have killed at least nine people in recent days.

Three Italian climbers were among five foreigners and two Nepali guides who were confirmed killed on Monday when a huge avalanche smashed through a base camp near the summit of Mount Yalung Ri in Nepal’s Himalayan range, according to reports.

Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday that local authorities had confirmed the deaths of the three Italian climbers, but there “remains no news of seven other Italian nationals” who have been reported missing.

“In recent days, several areas of the Nepalese Himalayas have been affected by a series of avalanches that have struck numerous mountaineers, including Italian citizens,” the ministry said.

“Communication between local authorities, rescue teams, and the diplomatic missions of the countries involved continues to be extremely challenging,” the ministry added.

Nepal’s Department of Tourism director, Himal Gautam, said there was no immediate information about the fate of the seven people reported missing.

Nepal’s Himalayan Times newspaper reported on Wednesday that the bodies of an Italian and a French climber were recovered from the site of the avalanche that struck a group of 12 people at their base camp on Mount Yalung Ri on Monday.

The seven people killed at the camp included three Italians, two Nepalis, a German and a French climber and, according to the newspaper, five others were rescued, including three Nepalis and two French nationals.

7 climbers, including 5 foreigners killed in Yalung Ri avalanche pic.twitter.com/eM424vMQjp

French survivor Isabelle Solange Thaon, 54, who lost her husband, Christian Manfred, in the avalanche on Yalung Ri, told The Associated Press news agency that she was lucky to have survived with another French climber, Didier Armand.

“We were lucky,” Thaon said from her hospital bed in the capital Kathmandu, adding that she had jumped over rocks and swam in the snow of the avalanche until help arrived to pull them out.

“Unfortunately, Christian died … because rocks hit his head,” she said of her late husband.

Mount Yalung Ri, located in the Rolwaling Valley of northeastern Nepal, is a 5,600-metre (18,370-foot) peak considered suitable for novice mountaineers.

On Friday, in western Nepal, contact was lost with two Italian climbers, who were later confirmed to have died while attempting to scale the 6,887-metre (22,595-foot) Panbari mountain.

Nepal was hit last week by unseasonal rains and heavy snow due to the impact of Cyclone Montha, which left many trekkers and tourists stranded on popular Himalayan trekking routes.

United States President Donald Trump has suggested that he is open to assisting New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, but warned that the trailblazing democratic socialist will need to be “respectful” of Washington to succeed.

Trump made the comments on Wednesday as Mamdani announced his transition team following his historic election as the first Muslim and first South Asian mayor of the US’s largest city.

Responding to Mamdani’s victory night remarks pledging to stand up to Trump, the US president described the mayor-elect’s comments as a “dangerous statement”.

“He has to be a little bit respectful of Washington, because if he’s not, he doesn’t have a chance of succeeding,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier.

“And I want to make him succeed. I want to make the city succeed,” Trump added, before quickly clarifying that he wanted New York City, not Mamdani, to succeed.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump suggested that his administration would “help” the new mayor, even as he branded him a “communist”.

“The communists, Marxists, and globalists had their chance, and they delivered nothing but disaster, and now let’s see how a communist does in New York. We’re going to see how that works out,” Trump said in a speech to the American Business Forum in Miami, Florida.

“We’ll help him, we’ll help him. We want New York to be successful. We’ll help him a little bit, maybe.”

Trump railed against Mamdani in the run-up to Tuesday’s mayoral election in New York, describing him as a “communist lunatic” and threatening to cut off federal funding to the city if he won the race.

Mamdani, whose platform includes free universal childcare, free buses, and government-run grocery stores, has rejected the communist label, describing himself as a democratic socialist.

While Mamdani will be responsible for governing a city of about 8.5 million people, his election has been widely seen as having implications nationwide amid the Democratic Party’s struggles to reconcile its centrist and progressive factions and effectively counter Trump.

In his victory speech, Mamdani cast his election as a model for how to defeat Trump, addressing the TV-loving president directly by telling him to “turn the volume up”.

In a speech laying out his priorities on Wednesday, Mamdani, who is set to take office on January 1, reiterated his determination to oppose Trump, while also indicating his willingness to engage with the administration.

“I will not mince my words when it comes to President Trump,” the mayor-elect said.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has called for sexual harassment to be made a crime nationwide after being groped on the street while greeting supporters near the presidential palace in Mexico City.

Sheinbaum, 63, said on Wednesday that she had pressed charges against the man and would review nationwide legislation on sexual harassment following the attack by a drunk man who put his arm around her shoulder, and with the other hand touched her hip and chest, while attempting to kiss her neck.

Mexico’s first woman president removed the man’s hands before a member of her staff stepped between them. The president’s security detail did not appear to be nearby at the moment of the attack, which was caught on camera.

The man was later arrested.

“My thinking is: If I don’t file a complaint, what becomes of other Mexican women? If this happens to the president, what will happen to all the women in our country?” Sheinbaum told her regular morning news conference on Wednesday.

In a post on social media, the president said the attack was “something that many women experience in the country and in the world”.

Presenté una denuncia por el episodio de acoso que viví ayer en la Ciudad de México. Debe quedar claro que, más allá de ser presidenta, esto es algo que viven muchas mujeres en el país y en el mundo; nadie puede vulnerar nuestro cuerpo y espacio personal.

Revisaremos la… pic.twitter.com/jcs6FweI6q

Translation: I filed a complaint for the harassment episode that I experienced yesterday in Mexico City. It must be clear that, beyond being president, this is something that many women experience in the country and in the world; no one can violate our body and personal space. We will review the legislation so that this crime is punishable in all 32 states.

Sheinbaum explained that the incident occurred when she and her team had decided to walk from the National Palace to the Education Ministry to save time. She said they could walk the route in five minutes, rather than taking a 20-minute car ride.

She also called on states across Mexico to look at their laws and procedures to make it easier for women to report such assaults and said Mexicans needed to hear a “loud and clear, no, women’s personal space must not be violated”.

Mexico’s 32 states and Mexico City, which is a federal entity, all have their own criminal codes, and not all states consider sexual harassment a crime.

“It should be a criminal offence, and we are going to launch a campaign,” Sheinbaum said, adding that she had suffered similar attacks in her youth.

The incident has put the focus on Mexico’s troubling record on women’s safety, with sexual harassment commonplace and rights groups warning of a femicide crisis, and the United Nations reporting that an average of 10 women are murdered every day in the country.

About 70 percent of Mexican women aged 15 and over will also experience at least one incident of sexual harassment in their lives, according to the UN.

The attack also focused criticism on Sheinbaum’s security detail and on her insistence on maintaining a degree of intimacy with the public, despite Mexican politicians regularly being a target of cartel violence.

But Sheinbaum dismissed any suggestion that she would increase her security or change how she interacts with people following the incident.