Tornadoes leave trail of death and destruction across parts of US
Powerful storms have killed at least 15 people and left a trail of destruction in their wake as they swept across parts of the central United States.
A tornado tore through a rural area in northern Texas, near the Oklahoma border, on Saturday night, killing at least seven people.
Cooke County sheriff Ray Sappington said two children, aged two and five, were among the victims, with numerous injuries also reported.
He said some of the many trailer homes in the area were “completely gone”, while others suffered massive damage from the storm which left a quarter of a mile-wide path of destruction for three to four miles.
“It’s just a trail of debris left,” he said. “The devastation is pretty severe.”
Storms also killed two people and destroyed houses in Oklahoma, where guests at an outdoor wedding were injured, while at least five people were killed in Arkansas, including a 26-year-old woman.
Elsewhere, a man was killed in Louisville, Kentucky, when a tree fell on him on Sunday.
The small community of Valley View, a town in Cooke County, where barely 800 people live, was among the hardest hit.
Kevin Dorantes, 20, said he came across a father and son trapped under the debris and friends and neighbours worked to get them out.
“They were conscious but severely injured,” he said. “The father’s leg was snapped.”
He said they managed to carry the father on a mattress to a truck and he and his son were driven to a nearby ambulance.
Juana Landeros salvages a Guadalupe Virgin statue from her destroyed home. Pic: AP
Hugo Parra collects belongings from his vehicle. Pic: AP
Hugo Parra said he sheltered with around 40 to 50 people in the bathroom of a truck stop near Valley View as the storm sheared the roof and walls off the building, mangling metal beams and leaving battered cars in the car park.
“The best way to describe this is the wind tried to rip us out of the bathrooms,” he said.
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The full scale of the devastation began to come clear on Sunday morning as aerial footage showed dozens of damaged homes, many without roofs and others reduced to rubble, as residents woke up to overturned cars and collapsed garages.
Hundreds of thousands of customers were without power across a large part of the country, including in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas on Sunday, according to poweroutages.us.
In Indiana, bad weather delayed the start of the famous Indy 500 car race.
More severe weather is expected across parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, with the National Weather Service warning of damaging winds, large hail and more tornadoes in the affected areas.
April and May have been a busy month for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest, with Iowa hit hard last week, when a deadly twister devastated Greenfield.
Elon Musk says he has created a new political party – the America Party –
after asking his followers if he should do so in an online poll.
It follows his public falling out with Republican President Donald Trump.
On Friday, the billionaire had asked his followers on X whether a new US political party should be created.
On Saturday evening he wrote on the same platform: “By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.
“Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
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Trump threatens to ‘put DOGE’ on Musk
The world’s richest man made the announcement just one day after President Trump signed a tax-cut and spending bill into law on Friday, which Musk had fiercely opposed.
Musk had previously said we would form and fund a new political party to unseat lawmakers who supported the bill.
From bromance to bust-up
The Tesla boss backed Trump’s election campaign with more than a quarter of a billion dollars, later rewarded with a high profile role running the newly created department of government efficiency (DOGE).
But observers of the two men, both with huge wealth and reputations, wondered how long the bromance would last.
Donald Trump gave Musk a warm send-off in the Oval Office in May. Pic: Reuters
In May Musk left the role, still on good terms with Trump but criticising key parts of his legislative agenda.
After that, the attacks ramped up, with Musk slamming the sweeping tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination” and Trump hitting back in a barbed tit-for-tat.
Trump earlier this week threatened to cut off the billion-dollar federal subsidies that flow to Musk’s companies, and said he would even consider deporting him.
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