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Travis Scott has promised to help the families of the eight people who were killed during his concert at the Astroworld festival in Texas, saying he could never “imagine anything like this happening”.

The rapper posted an emotional video on social media as police in Houston said they had opened a criminal investigation into the stampede that led to the deaths of the concert-goers, which included a 14-year-old and a 16-year old.

Police confirmed an incident at the event where a security officer was left unconscious after apparently being injected in the neck by a concert-goer.

Scott said he was “devastated”.

The musician said: “I just wanna send out prayers to the ones that was lost last night.

“We’re actually working now to identify the families so we can help assist them through this tough time.”

The 29-year-old said his fans “really mean the world to me”, adding he would “always just wanna leave them with a positive experience”.

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“Any time I can make out anything (negative) that’s going on, I just stop the show and help them get the help they need, you know,” Scott said.

“I could never just imagine the severity of this situation,” he added.

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‘Security, help him’: Travis Scott stops show

Scott said festival organisers were working with Houston’s police, fire department and city authority “to get to the bottom” of what happened.

“If you have any information, please just contact your local authorities,” he said.

The Houston-born rapper concluded the video by saying: “I mean, I’m honestly just devastated. I could never imagine anything like this happening.

“I’m (going to) do everything I can to keep you guys updated, just keep you guys informed on what’s going on.

“Love you all.”

Travis Scott performs on day one of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP)
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Travis Scott says he is ‘absolutely devastated’ by the tragedy. Pic: AP

The tragedy happened when the crowd began to press towards the front of the stage during the concert.

Concert-goers who survived the disaster have described the desperate scenes as members of the crowd rushed to the front of the stage.

Twenty-five people were admitted to hospital and 13 are still receiving treatment, including five under the age of 18.

Houston mayor Sylvester Turner said it was “a tragedy on many different levels” and that it was too early to draw conclusions about what went wrong.

However, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said that “one of the narratives was that some individual was injecting other people with drugs”.

He confirmed an incident at the festival where a member of security “felt a prick in his neck” after trying to restrain a concert-goer.

Mr Finner said the security officer “went unconscious” and was revived with several doses of Narcan, a prescription drug used for the treatment of suspected opioid overdoses.

Medical staff said the neck injury suffered by the member of security “was similar to a prick that you would get if somebody’s trying to inject”, the police chief added.

Matthew Shelton, Diego Rivera, Anthony Perez and Juan Carillo place flowers on a gate to NRG Park, after a deadly crush of fans during a performance the night before at the Astroworld Festival by rapper Travis Scott in Houston, Texas, U.S. November 6, 2021. REUTERS/Daniel Kramer
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Tributes at the concert venues the day after the deadly stampede

Mr Finner said some people were “trampled” during the concert and “this is now a criminal investigation”.

Officials had declared a “mass casualty incident” during Scott’s headline performance at the festival on Friday night.

Some of the 50,000-strong crowd “began to compress towards the front of the stage” while the rapper was performing on the opening night, authorities said.

Scott stopped multiple times during his 75-minute set after spotting fans in distress near the front of the stage, and asked security to help people out of the crowd.

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Donald Trump labels hush money trial a ‘mess’ after jury selected

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Donald Trump labels hush money trial a 'mess' after jury selected

Donald Trump described the hush money case against him as a “mess” after the jury who will decide his fate has been selected.

Leaving the court in New York after proceedings were adjourned for the day, Trump addressed reporters, saying he was supposed to be in states like Georgia, New Hampshire and North Carolina as part of his campaign for the 2024 presidential election.

“[But instead] I’ve been here all day,” he said, labelling the trial as “unfair”.

Trump trial as it happened: Former president looks ‘bored’ in court

Trump held up a stack of news stories and editorials that he said were critical of the case while he continued railing against the trial.

“The whole thing is a mess,” he said.

It comes as all 12 jurors have been seated in the first criminal case against a former US president.

Former President Donald Trump speaks alongside attorney Todd Blanche as they return from a lunch break in his trial at Manhattan criminal court in New York on Thursday, April 18, 2024.  (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via AP, Pool)
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Pic: AP

Members of the jury include a sales professional, a software engineer, an English teacher and multiple lawyers.

Sky News’ US partner network, NBC News reported there are seven men and five women on the jury.

It comes after lawyers grilled hundreds of potential jurors asking questions on everything from their hobbies and social media posts to their opinion of the former president.

More than half of a second group of prospective jurors were dismissed by Judge Juan Merchan on Thursday after most said they doubted their ability to be fair and impartial.

One juror was also dismissed after she said she “slept on it overnight” and woke up with concerns about her ability to be fair and impartial in the case.

The challenge now is to select six alternate jury members before the trial can move to opening statements, with Mr Merchan hopeful this will be completed on Friday.

Read more:
Judge warns Donald Trump over ‘intimidating’ potential jurors
Trump calls hush money case an ‘assault on America’

Donald Trump orders ’30 milkshakes at chicken restaurant

Trump is accused of criminally altering business records to cover up a $130,000 (£104,200) payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, during his 2016 election campaign.

Ms Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who was paid $150,000 (£120,000), both claim to have had affairs with Trump.

Stormy Daniels, seen here in January, received a $130,000 payment from Trump's lawyer Pic: AP/DeeCee Carter/MediaPunch /IPX
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Stormy Daniels. Pic: AP

His lawyers say the payment was meant to spare himself and his family embarrassment, not to help him win the election.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He could get up to four years in prison if convicted.

The former president faces two other criminal trials accusing him of trying to subvert his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, and another that accuses him of mishandling classified information after he left the White House in 2021.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

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Boeing whistleblower claims 787 Dreamliner planes ‘defective’

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Boeing whistleblower claims 787 Dreamliner planes 'defective'

Crisis-hit Boeing has rushed to defend itself from fresh whistleblower allegations of poor practice, as the airline continues to grapple its latest safety crisis.

A Congressional investigation heard evidence on Wednesday on the safety culture and manufacturing standards at the company – rocked in January by a mid-air scare that saw an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 flight suffer a panel blowout.

One Boeing quality engineer, Sam Salehpour, told members of a Senate subcommittee that Boeing was taking shortcuts to bolster production levels that could lead to jetliners breaking apart.

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He said of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, that has more than 1,000 in use across airlines globally including at British Airways, that excessive force was used to jam together sections of fuselage.

He claimed the extra force could compromise the carbon-composite material used for the plane’s frame.

“They are putting out defective airplanes,” he concluded, while adding that he was threatened when he raised concerns about the issue.

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Boeing quality engineer Sam Salehpour testifies during the Senate homeland security subcommittee hearing. Pic: AP
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Boeing quality engineer Sam Salehpour testifies during the Senate homeland security subcommittee hearing. Pic: AP

The engineer said he studied Boeing’s own data and concluded “that the company is taking manufacturing shortcuts on the 787 programme that could significantly reduce the airplane’s safety and the life cycle”.

Boeing denied his claims surrounding both the Dreamliner’s structural integrity and that factory workers jumped on sections of fuselage to force them to align.

Two Boeing engineering executives said this week that its testing and inspections regimes have found no signs of fatigue or cracking in the composite panels, saying they were almost impervious to fatigue.

The company’s track record is facing fresh scrutiny amid criticism from regulators and safety officials alike in the wake of the incident aboard the Alaska Airlines plane.

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What’s going on at Boeing?

It has become a trust issue again after the worst period in Boeing’s history when two fatal crashes, both involving MAX 8 aircraft, left 346 people dead in 2018 and 2019.

All 737 MAX 8 planes were grounded for almost two years while a fix to flawed flight control software was implemented.

A separate Senate commerce committee heard on Wednesday from members of an expert panel that found serious flaws in Boeing’s safety culture.

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Boeing CEO: ‘We fly safe planes’

One of the panel members, MIT aeronautics lecturer Javier de Luis, said employees hear Boeing leadership talk about safety, but workers feel pressure to push planes through the factory as fast as they can.

In talking to Boeing workers, he said he heard “there was a very real fear of payback and retribution if you held your ground”.

Pressure on Boeing to focus on safety has included restrictions placed on production, limiting its manufacturing output.

At the same time, it is still facing three separate investigations by the Federal Aviation Administration, the Justice Department and the National Transportation Safety Board relating to the panel blowout.

A management shake-up announced amid the inquiries will see the chief executive depart the company by the year’s end.

Sky News has approached British Airways for comment.

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Biden suggests his uncle may have been eaten by cannibals during WWII – in apparent swipe at Trump

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Biden suggests his uncle may have been eaten by cannibals during WWII - in apparent swipe at Trump

Joe Biden has suggested his uncle may have been eaten by cannibals after his plane was shot down during the Second World War – as he said Donald Trump was unworthy of serving as commander in chief again.

The US president visited a war memorial near his Pennsylvania hometown to honour his late uncle Ambrose J Finnegan’s service in the conflict.

“He flew single-engine planes, reconnaissance flights over New Guinea. He had volunteered because someone couldn’t make it. He got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals in New Guinea at the time,” Mr Biden told reporters afterwards.

“They never recovered his body.”

But there appears to be no record of his uncle’s death being the result of hostile action or any indication that cannibals played any role in the inability to recover his remains, according to the US defence department.

Military records show he was killed when the reconnaissance plane he was in crashed in the Pacific Ocean off the northern coast of New Guinea in May 1944 after engine failure.

“We have a tradition in my family my grandfather started,” Mr Biden said. “When you visit a gravesite of a family member – it’s going to sound strange to you – but you say three Hail Marys. And that’s what I was doing at the site.”

He attempted to draw a contrast between his family’s record of sacrifice to remarks allegedly made by Mr Trump that fallen service members were “suckers” and “losers”.

Former aides to Mr Trump have said he made the comments when he did not want to visit a cemetery for American war dead in France during his first term as president in 2018.

Mr Trump has denied making those remarks.

The president said Mr Trump – the presumptive Republican candidate to take on Mr Biden in November’s presidential election – “doesn’t deserve to have been the commander in chief for my son, my uncle.”

Mr Biden’s elder son, Beau, died in 2015 of brain cancer. The president has linked his son’s death to his year-long deployment in Iraq, where the military used burn pits to dispose of waste.

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White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement to Sky’s US partner network NBC News that the president was “proud of his uncle’s service in uniform, who lost his life when the military aircraft he was on crashed in the Pacific after taking off near New Guinea.”

He added: “The president highlighted his uncle’s story as he made the case for honouring our ‘sacred commitment… to equip those we send to war and take care of them and their families when they come home’, and as he reiterated that the last thing American veterans are is ‘suckers’ or ‘losers’.”

Mr Bates did not comment on the cannibalism claim.

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