Mexico airliner crashes and burns, but all aboard survive

MEXICO CITY (AP) — An Aeromexico jetliner crashed while taking off during a severe storm in northern Mexico on Tuesday, smacking down in a field nearly intact then catching fire, but officials said everyone on board escaped alive.

Gov. Jose Aispuro, who had initially reported there were no deaths but later said authorities were searching the charred Embraer 190 to make sure, announced late Tuesday that "no person has died."

He said the pilot and one other person were in serious but stable condition. Earlier, he said a total of 49 people had been taken to hospitals, and officials said most had minor injuries.

"Fortunately we have now found all 103 — now we know where each one is — this gives us a lot of tranquility," Aispuro said.

The federal government earlier said 101 people were on the plane, 97 passengers and four crew members. But the governor said two minors had not been included in the first tally.

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Judge blocks release of blueprints for 3D-printed guns

SEATTLE (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday stopped the release of blueprints to make untraceable and undetectable 3D-printed plastic guns as President Donald Trump questioned whether his administration should have agreed to allow the plans to be posted online.

The company behind the plans, Austin, Texas-based Defence Distributed, had reached a settlement with the federal government in June allowing it to make the plans for the guns available for download on Wednesday.

The restraining order from U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik in Seattle puts that plan on hold for now. "There is a possibility of irreparable harm because of the way these guns can be made," he said.

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson called the ruling "a complete, total victory."

"We were asking for a nationwide temporary restraining order putting a halt to this outrageous decision by the federal government to allow these 3D downloadable guns to be available around our country and around the world. He granted that relief," Ferguson said at a news conference after the hearing. "That is significant."

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Facebook finds 'sophisticated' efforts to disrupt elections

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook elevated concerns about election interference Tuesday, announcing that it had uncovered "sophisticated" efforts, possibly linked to Russia, to manipulate U.S. politics and by extension the upcoming midterm elections.

The company was careful to hedge its announcement; it didn't link the effort directly to Russia or to the midterms, now less than a hundred days away. And its findings were limited to 32 apparently fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram, which the company removed because they were involved in "co-ordinated" and "inauthentic" political behaviour.

But official Washington connected those dots anyway, not least because the reported activity so closely mirrored Russian influence campaigns during the 2016 presidential election. Nearly 300,000 people followed at least one of the newly banned accounts and thousands expressed interest in events they promoted.

"This is an absolute attack on our democracy," said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, which Facebook had briefed in advance. Warner expressed "pretty high confidence" that Russia was behind the assault.

A spokesman for Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley said Facebook had informed his office that "that a limited group of Russian actors has attempted to spread disinformation using its platform and that the affected groups are affiliated with the political left."

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NKorea provided just 1 dog tag with 55 sets of war remains

WASHINGTON (AP) — When North Korea handed over 55 boxes of bones that it said are remains of American war dead, it provided a single military dog tag but no other information that could help U.S. forensics experts determine their individual identities, a U.S. defence official said Tuesday.

The official, who discussed previously undisclosed aspects of the remains issue on condition of anonymity, said it probably will take months if not years to fully determine individual identities from the remains, which have not yet been confirmed by U.S. specialists to be those of American servicemen.

The official did not know details about the single dog tag, including the name on it, or whether it was even that of an American military member. During the Korean War, combat troops of 16 other United Nations member countries fought alongside U.S. service members on behalf of South Korea. Some of them, including Australia, Belgium, France and the Philippines, have yet to recover some of their war dead from North Korea.

The 55 boxes were handed over at Wonsan, North Korea last Friday and flown aboard a U.S. military transport plane to Osan air base in South Korea, where U.S. officials catalogued the contents. After a repatriation ceremony at Osan on Wednesday, the remains will be flown to Hawaii where they will begin undergoing in-depth forensic analysis, in some cases using mitochondrial DNA profiles, at a Defence Department laboratory to attempt to establish individual identifications.

Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said last week that the return of the 55 boxes was a positive step but not a guarantee that the bones are American.

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Trump at rally makes false claim on photo IDs for groceries

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday wrongly claimed that shoppers need to show photo identification to buy groceries and accused Democrats of obstructing his agenda and his Supreme Court nominee during a raucous rally aimed at bolstering two Florida Republicans ahead of the state's primary.

Trump, addressing thousands of supporters in one of the nation's top electoral battlegrounds, also mounted a rigorous defence of his trade agenda, accusing China and others of having "targeted our farmers."

"Not good, not nice," he told the crowd as tensions with China continue to escalate, adding: "You know what our farmers are saying? 'It's OK, we can take it." The Trump administration last week announced plans for $12 billion in temporary aid to help farmers deal with retaliatory tariffs from U.S. trading partners in response to Trump's policies.

Tuesday night's freewheeling rally lasted more than an hour and included numerous attacks on the media, as well as one glaring false claim. Trump was railing against the idea of noncitizens voting and advocating stricter voting laws when he claimed that IDs are required for everything else, including shopping.

"If you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID," he said at the event at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa. "You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture."

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House Speaker Paul Ryan uncovers Jewish roots on PBS show

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — House Speaker Paul Ryan was surprised and proud to find out he has Jewish roots.

The Wisconsin Republican discovered his family history while filming a segment for the upcoming season of the PBS series "Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr."

Gates said Tuesday at a TV critics meeting that he traced Ryan's heritage back to his 10th great-grandfather born in 1531 in Germany. The research showed Ryan is 3 per cent Ashkenazi Jewish.

"You could have knocked him over with a feather and then he was very proud of it," Gates said of Ryan's reaction. "We don't know who that Jewish person was, but we know it was on his mother's German line, which makes sense. So somebody who was a Christian German slept with a Jewish German person and that's where that came from."

Also featured on the show's fifth season debuting in January is Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii.

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Prosecutors: Paul Manafort believed he was above the law

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Paul Manafort orchestrated a multimillion-dollar conspiracy to evade U.S. tax and banking laws, leaving behind a trail of lies as he lived a lavish lifestyle, prosecutors said Tuesday as they laid out their case against the former Trump campaign chairman.

Prosecutor Uzo Asonye told the jury during his opening statement that Manafort considered himself above the law as he funneled tens of millions of dollars through offshore accounts. That "secret income" was used to pay for personal expenses such as a $21,000 watch, a $15,000 jacket made of ostrich and more than $6 million worth of real estate paid for in cash, Asonye said.

"A man in this courtroom believed the law did not apply to him — not tax law, not banking law," Asonye said as he sketched out the evidence gathered by special counsel Robert Mueller's team in Manafort's bank fraud and tax evasion trial.

Manafort's trial is the first arising from Mueller's investigation into potential ties between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia. It opened with extraordinary anticipation amid unresolved questions about whether Trump associates co-ordinated with the Kremlin to tip the election in the president's favour.

But it was clear from the outset that the case would not address that question: Prosecutors did not once reference Manafort's work for the Trump campaign nor mention Mueller's broader and ongoing investigation into Russian election interference. Mueller was not present in the courtroom.

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New fire erupts in Northern California; homes threatened

UPPER LAKE, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters struggling to contain destructive Northern California wildfires found themselves facing a new blaze that erupted Tuesday and drove through a rural area near a national forest.

About 60 homes in an old ranching and farming area near Covelo, which is about 180 miles (290 kilometres) north of San Francisco, were ordered evacuated as the blaze erupted late in the afternoon. Gusty winds quickly drove it through about a square mile of brush and grasslands, oak, pine and timber near Mendocino National Forest, Mendocino County Undersheriff Matthew Kendall said.

"We're advised that the fire was threatening structures," he said.

However, there were no immediate reports of homes being burned.

Firefighting aircraft were called in but it was unclear when they might arrive because many already were engaged in other fires, Kendall said.

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Kate Spade's husband posts heartfelt image on Instagram

NEW YORK (AP) — Andy Spade, the widower of Kate Spade, has returned to Instagram with a heartfelt dedication to the late fashion designer nearly two months after her death.

He posted a photo late Monday of a desert tree he and their 13-year-old daughter Bea decorated with Christmas lights and a tin foil star made out of cardboard, writing it was "like we do every Christmas."

Spade said of his wife: "She was born Christmas Eve, 1962. She loved the Midwest, the desert, and the city." He found the tree alongside the home of friends where they were staying "through a difficult time," rigging it up with the multicolored lights and a long extension cord.

Kate Spade, 55, killed herself in New York in early June. Her husband, the co-founder of Kate Spade New York, issued a statement soon after saying she had suffered from depression and anxiety for years.

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Nationals set team scoring record, rout Reyes, Mets 25-4

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the highest-scoring game in franchise history, Daniel Murphy hit two early home runs and the Washington Nationals kept pouring it on against emergency reliever Jose Reyes and the New York Mets in a 25-4 rout Tuesday night.

Trea Turner, who apologized before the game to his teammates for homophobic and racially insensitive tweets he sent several years ago, had four of Washington's 26 hits. Pitcher Tanner Roark hit a three-run double during a seven-run first inning.

The Nationals set the team scoring mark dating to their days as the Montreal Expos in 1969. It was the Mets' most-lopsided loss in their 57-season history, worse than a 26-7 pounding by Philadelphia in 1985.

Reyes made the first pitching appearance of his career, and the 35-year-old infielder got tagged for home runs by Matt Adams and Mark Reynolds in a six-run eighth. Throwing a fastball in the mid-80s mph and a curve in the upper 40s, Reyes gave up five hits and walked two.

Reyes also plunked Ryan Zimmerman with a soft toss. After getting hit in the leg, Zimmerman playfully faked a charge toward the mound, drawing a laugh from Reyes, who wore one of ace Jacob deGrom's gloves on the mound.

News from © The Associated Press, 2018