Disaster

The Sydney Morning Herald reports: Australia’s aviation safety authority has banned all Boeing 737 MAX aircraft from flying to or from the country in the wake of two deadly plane crashes involving the brand new aircraft in the past five months. In what is a major blow for the aerospace giant and an unusual split from American aviation regulators, the …

Business Insider reports: The US’s top air-safety regulator has said the plane model involved in Sunday’s Ethiopian Airlines crash, the second such disaster in five months, is safe to fly. The Federal Administration said in a Continued Airworthiness Notification to the International Community (CANIC) on Monday evening that Ethiopian’s crash, which killed all 157 passengers on board, cannot yet be …

CNN reports: Airlines in multiple countries have suspended the use of Boeing’s new 737 MAX 8 aircraft over concerns about its safety, after an Ethiopian Airlines flight of the same model crashed Sunday killing all 157 people on board. Flight ET302 to Nairobi had just taken off from the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa Sunday when it reported technical problems …

The BBC reports: An Ethiopian Airlines jet has crashed shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa, killing all on board. The airline said 149 passengers and eight crew members were on flight ET302 from the Ethiopian capital to Nairobi in Kenya. It said 32 Kenyans, 18 Canadians, eight Americans and seven British nationals were among the passengers. The crash happened at …

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: Sarah Palin and her family are safe following two intense earthquakes in Alaska, however, as she tweeted Friday, her residence is not. The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a 7.0 magnitude quake near Anchorage, Alaska, at 9:30 a.m. Friday. Five minutes later, another, measuring at 5.8, struck again nearby. According to seismologists, both earthquakes had “epicenters …

The Arizona Daily Star reports: The Sawmill Fire is shown erupting from an exploding target — with blue smoke curling off the fire’s fringes — in a video just obtained by the Arizona Daily Star. The 49-second video clearly shows the fire starting in yellow grassland near a stand of mesquite trees from the exploding target on state land in …

The Associated Press reports: At least 63 people are now dead from a Northern California wildfire, and officials say they have a missing persons list with 631 names on it in an ever-evolving accounting of the victims of the nation’s deadliest wildfire in a century. The high number of missing people probably includes some who fled the blaze and don’t …

The New York Times reports: It is a measure of how frequent and deadly wildfires have become in California that identifying badly burned remains has become an area of expertise. Once again cadaver dogs have been summoned, forensic dental experts will follow and coroners and anthropologists are using their experience from previous wildfires to locate the victims. At least 48 …

Forbes reports: Residents of the city of Malibu, Calif. are under mandatory evacuation orders Friday as the Woolsley Fire heads for populated areas along the Pacific Coast Highway (aka U.S. Route 101) and the Pacific Ocean. The Woolsey Fire jumped the 101 freeway early Friday as one of three massive wildfires that ignited in the Golden State in just the …

The Sacramento Bee reports: An uncontrolled wildfire raced across the Butte County community of Paradise Thursday afternoon, destroying a large swath of downtown and sending residents fleeing on foot past burning homes, businesses and a local church. “The whole town’s on fire,” said Scott Lotter, a town councilman who evacuated with his family. “It’s pretty grim.” By Thursday evening, the …

The Associated Press reports: Search-and-rescue teams began finding bodies in and around Mexico Beach, the ground-zero town nearly obliterated by Hurricane Michael, an official said Friday as the scale of the storm’s fury became ever clearer. But he gave no details on the number of dead. The death toll across the South stood at 13, not counting any victims discovered …

The Albany Times-Union reports: Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the limousine involved in Saturday’s deadly crash in Schoharie failed an inspection last month. Cuomo, talking to reporters Monday at New York’s Columbus Day Parade, also said the driver did not have the proper license to operate the vehicle. The limousine failed a state inspection last month and was not supposed to …

USA Today reports: Storm-weary residents of North Carolina struggled Monday to loosen the grip of Florence, the lingering killer that has closed more than 100 roads, cut off power to almost 500,000 homes and businesses and essentially cut off the city of Wilmington from the world. At least 17 people have died in the wreckage of the hurricane-turned-tropical depression that …

The BBC reports: Officials in Brazil have blamed lack of funding for a huge fire that has ravaged the country’s National Museum. One of the largest anthropology and natural history collections in the Americas was almost totally destroyed in Sunday’s fire in Rio de Janeiro. There had been complaints about the dilapidated state of the museum. “We never had adequate …

NBC News reports: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s claim that “environmental terrorist groups” created the conditions that enabled California’s wildfires triggered substantial blowback from environmental groups, who chastised the Trump administration official for downplaying the role of climate change in the blazes. Zinke said in a radio interview with Breitbart News that environmental extremists were preventing the government from properly managing …

Reuters reports: A motorway bridge collapsed on Tuesday over the northern Italian port city of Genoa, killing dozens of people according to the local ambulance service, in what the transport minister said was likely to be “an immense tragedy”. A section of the bridge crashed down from a height of about 50 meters over a river and some railroad tracks …

The Hill reports: The Puerto Rican government acknowledged in a new report in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria that more than 1,400 people likely died on the island because of the storm, roughly 20 times the previous number that had been provided. The government on Thursday published a report titled “Transformation and Innovation in the Wake of Devastation,” which outlines …

The Los Angeles Times reports: The Mendocino Complex fire is now the largest wildfire in modern California history, scorching more than 283,000 acres and frustrating firefighters as it continues to leap across natural and man-made barriers in Lake County. The Ranch and River fires, which make up the complex fire, had grown to 283,800 acres as of Monday evening, according …

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: As more than a dozen major fires roar across the state of California, some of them have burned so fiercely that they’re creating their own weather systems. Massive pyrocumulus clouds have formed over the Carr, Ferguson, Cranston and Mendocino Complex fires burning in four different parts of the state (Shasta County, near Yosemite, Riverside County, …

ABC News reports: A tourist duck boat capsized in a lake near Branson, Missouri amidst powerful storms, killing at least 13 people, including children, Stone County Sheriff Doug Rader said. The Thursday night accident also injured seven people and has left six others missing, officials said. A total of 29 passengers and two crew members were on board the amphibious …