TEXAS (ABC News/ Xinhua) – Six people died after a B-17 heavy bomber collided with another aircraft and crashed during an airshow in Dallas, Texas, a local affiliate of ABC News broadcaster reported on Saturday. The incident occurred during “America’s Premier World War II Airshow,”, which was reportedly Veterans Day weekend, where guests were to see more than 40 World War II-era aircraft, the Asian News International reported. Leah Block, a spokesperson for Commemorative Air Force, told ABC News that she believes there were five crew members on the B-17 and one aboard the P-63. Soon after the news broke, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, said many details remain unknown or unconfirmed at this time and city authorities continue to provide support. A number of videos of the mid-air collision were making rounds on Twitter. In the videos, the two aircraft appeared to collide in the air before they both rapidly descended, causing a large fire and plumes of black smoke. U.S. media reports said the B-17 is an immense four-engine bomber, and was a cornerstone of U.S. air power during World War II. The majority of B-17s were scrapped at the end of World War II and only a handful remain now. In another incident in the U.S., at least six people were injured after a vehicle plowed through a street carnival Saturday night in Los Angeles, California, said authorities. The incident was reported at around 8:20 p.m. local time(1620 GMT) in the historic South Central neighborhood in the southern Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. Six people aged between 30 to 50 were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, said the department in a press release. The suspect of the mass hit-and-run was described as a male, said the police, adding that a search for the suspect is still going on.

 

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CARACAS (Xinhua) – The Venezuelan government on Saturday lambasted the decision of the European Union to renew sanctions against the South American country for another year. “With this anachronistic decision, the intention is to insist on a completely erroneous strategy, with which the EU has not managed to fulfill its objective of overthrowing the Bolivarian government or separating our people from the political course enshrined in our constitution,” said a statement released by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry. The ministry denounced the measures as being “illegally applied ... in a premeditated manner” to “massively punish and violate the human rights of the Venezuelan people,” as the sanctions will only “end in limiting access to food, medicine” and other necessities. “We repudiate the insane policy of resorting to these tools of political blackmail, which are contrary to the principles of democracy and human rights, and institute a dangerous practice contrary to the principles of international law and peaceful coexistence,” the statement said. The ministry said that the Venezuelan people and government would “continue to defend our sovereignty, based on our constitutional principles, reaffirming at all times our independence, gained more than 200 years ago.”

 

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WASHINGTON (AP) – The head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection has resigned from his job leading the nation’s largest law enforcement agency as agents encounter record numbers of migrants entering the U.S. from Mexico. Chris Magnus submitted his resignation to President Joe Biden on Saturday. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden had accepted Magnus’ resignation.   Two people who were briefed on the matter told The Associated Press on Friday that Magnus was told to resign or be fired less than a year after he was confirmed. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to address the matter publicly. Magnus’s removal is part of a larger shakeup expected at Homeland Security as it struggles to manage migrants coming from a wider range of countries, including Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. This comes as Republicans are likely to take control of the House in January and are expected to launch investigations into the border. Migrants were stopped 2.38 million times at the Mexican border in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up 37 percent from the year before.  

 

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MOSCOW (RT) – Several increasingly common new variants of COVID-19 virus are capable of evading both vaccine- and infection-derived immunity, according to a study spearheaded by the director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University.  The institute’s director, David Ho, called for researchers to start developing vaccines against the new strains now, in the hope that the variants will still be circulating by the time they hit the market. The new variants, including BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB, and XBB.1, evolved from Omicron. Like their progenitor, they have mutations in the region of the virus that binds to cells that make them extremely transmissible. Unlike Omicron, no variant-specific vaccine exists to target them. Ho’s study, which has not been published or peer reviewed, found that patients who received the two initial mRNA vaccines plus a booster had 37- and 55-fold lower immune neutralization against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 than they did against the strain of the virus they were inoculated against, and 70-fold lower neutralization against XBB and XBB.1. Those with two of the original booster shots fared even worse against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, and exponentially worse against XBB and XBB.1. People who received the Omicron shot as their second booster did slightly better against all four strains, and individuals who had received the original booster and been infected with the BA.2 variant performed better than any of the other groups against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 even as they did much worse against XBB and XBB.1. Thus while surviving infection with BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5 appears to give some protection against the BQ-type strains, neither infection nor vaccination offers protection against XBB.

 

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RABAT (Anadolu) – Moroccan authorities have intercepted thousands of illegal migrants in the first eight months of 2022, according to a parliamentary report. The report said that over 56,000 migrants were prevented from illegally crossing the Mediterranean into Europe in the period from January to August. “Around 12,000 migrants were rescued from drowning,” the report said. In 2020, the Moroccan authorities said they had stopped around 12,231 illegal migrants and dismantled 150 trafficking networks. The Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta on the northern Moroccan coast are considered main routes for illegal migration trips towards Europe. The two enclaves are under the Spanish rule but Morocco considers them as occupied territories. For years, North African countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and Mauritania have witnessed attempts by migrants – mainly from sub-Saharan Africa – to reach Europe, hoping for a better life. While some of the migrants manage to reach their destination, others often die during the journey.