Connect with us

Published

on

Ten people are dead after an overloaded van crashed on a remote south Texas highway.

The van was carrying 29 migrants when it crashed just after 4pm on Wednesday on Highway 281 in Encino, a small community about 50 miles north of McAllen.

The driver is among the dead and about 20 other passengers were injured, all of them seriously or critically.

Brooks County Sheriff Urbino Martinez said the van was designed to hold just 15 passengers and that it was speeding and top-heavy when the driver lost control and it tipped over.

Sheriff Martinez said the van was not being pursued by police.

The victims have not been identified because police are still trying to inform their families.

No information has been released about the van, such as who owns it.

More on Texas

Encino is about 20 miles south of the Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint.

Ten people are dead after an overloaded van crashed on a remote south Texas highway. Pic: NBC
Image:
The crash was on Wednesday afternoon, local time. Pic: NBC

According to reports in The Dallas Morning News, young people are often recruited to drive vehicles crowded with migrants who have paid to be smuggled into the US.

Victor Manjarrez Jr, director of the Center for Law and Human Behavior at the University of Texas at El Paso, told the newspaper that criminal groups recruit drivers from Texan cities and from parts of Latin America.

He said the drivers are often seeking safe passage themselves and are offered a discount if they agree to drive.

“They’re told: ‘If you’re caught, it’ll go bad for you’,” he added.

But their young age, bad driving and speeding have already led to crashes.

Thirteen people died in March when a semi-trailer truck hit a sport utility vehicle with 25 migrants in California.

Just a few weeks later, eight migrants died when their truck crashed into another truck while it was chased by police nearly 30 miles north of the border city of Del Rio in Texas.

Continue Reading

US

Dad who called 911 for help during break-in killed by Las Vegas police officer

Published

on

By

Dad who called 911 for help during break-in killed by Las Vegas police officer

A 43-year-old man was shot dead by police after calling 911 to report intruders had entered his home in Las Vegas.

Brandon Durham was at home with his 15-year-old daughter when he called the emergency line to report armed intruders were trying to break into his property on 12 November.

Bodycam footage shows Mr Durham struggling with a person over a knife in the moments before he was shot and killed at the scene.

“The loss of life in any type of incident like this is always tragic, and it’s something we take very seriously,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren said on Thursday.

The force is investigating the incident.

Mr Durham called 911 to report multiple people were outside shooting at his residence in Las Vegas’ Sunset Park neighbourhood, where he had been staying with his 15-year-old daughter, Sky News’ US partner network NBC reports.

It was one of multiple emergency calls reporting a shooting in the area.

More on Las Vegas

Mr Durham then said someone had managed to get into his home through the front and back doors of the property and he was locking himself in the bathroom, according to a police statement from 14 November, two days after the incident.

Officers reported to the scene at approximately 12:40am and could hear screaming from inside the residence.

One of the officers, Alexander Bookman, kicked open the front door and once inside, saw Mr Durham and another individual, later identified as 31-year-old Alejandra Boudreaux, struggling over a knife in a doorway.

Mr Bookman ordered them to drop the knife and about two seconds later, the officer fired the gun and Mr Durham appeared to be struck, the bodycam footage shows.

Read more from Sky News:
Londoner, 18, held in Dubai for having sex with 17-year-old British girl
Labour’s pugnacious stalwart who pulled no punches

Both Mr Durham and Mr Boudreaux fell to the ground and the officer fired another five shots. Roughly three seconds are believed to have gone by between the first and last shot, NBC reports.

Attempts were made to save the 43-year-old but he died at the scene.

Ms Boudreaux was taken into custody and is facing charges of home invasion with a deadly weapon; assault with a deadly weapon domestic violence; willful or wanton disregard of safety of persons resulting in death; and child abuse, neglect or endangerment.

Continue Reading

US

Homeless man charged in plot to bomb New York Stock Exchange

Published

on

By

Homeless man charged in plot to bomb New York Stock Exchange

A homeless man has been arrested and charged over a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.

The 30-year-old man from Florida, Harun Abdul-Malik Yener, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with attempting to use an explosive device to damage or destroy a building used in interstate commerce, having unveiled some of his plans to undercover agents, according to the FBI.

They began investigating Yener in February based on a tip that he was holding “bomb-making schematics” in a storage unit.

Bomb-making sketches, many watches with timers, electronic circuit boards and other electronics that could be used for building explosive devices were found, the FBI said.

It also said he told undercover FBI agents that he wanted to detonate the bomb the week before Thanksgiving and that the stock exchange in lower Manhattan would be a popular site to target, and that doing so “will wake people up”.

An agent also allegedly recorded him saying: “I feel like Bin Laden.”

Read more:
Google could be forced to sell its Chrome browser
US anaesthetist jailed for 190 years for tampering with IV bags

He described how he hoped the bomb would “reboot” the US government, explaining that it would be “like a small nuke went off,” killing everyone inside the building, according to court documents.

The documents also claim he had rewired two-way radios so that they could work as remote triggers for an explosive device and planned to wear a disguise when planting the explosives.

Yener, who had also searched online for things related to bomb-making since 2017, was sacked from his job at a restaurant in Florida last year after his former supervisor said he threatened to “go Parkland shooter in this place”, the FBI added.

He had his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon and will be detained while he awaits a trial.

Continue Reading

US

Google could be forced to sell its Chrome browser over internet search monopoly claims

Published

on

By

Google could be forced to sell its Chrome browser over internet search monopoly claims

Google must sell its Chrome browser to restore competition in the online search market, US prosecutors have argued.

The proposed breakup has been floated in a 23-page document filed by the US Justice Department.

It also calls for lawmakers to impose restrictions designed to prevent its Android smartphone software from favouring its own search engine.

If the rules were brought in, it would essentially result in Google being highly regulated for 10 years.

Google controls about 90% of the online search market and 95% on smartphones.

Read more:
School smartphone ban will not become law after MP drops proposal
Grieving parents tell Ofcom to ‘step up’ over social media content

Court papers filed on Wednesday expand on an earlier outline for what prosecutors argued would dilute that monopoly.

More on Google

Google called the proposals radical at the time, saying they would harm US consumers and businesses and shake American competitiveness in AI.

The company has said it will appeal.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) and a coalition of states want US District Judge Amit Mehta to end exclusive agreements in which Google pays billions of dollars annually to Apple and other device vendors to be the default search engine on their tablets and smartphones.

Google will have a chance to present its own proposals in December.

A trial on the proposals has been set for April, however President-elect Donald Trump and the DoJ’s next antitrust head could step in.

Continue Reading

Trending