Seven people have been killed and dozens more injured after a bus crash in Mississippi.
A six-year-old and 16-year-old, who are believed to be siblings, were among those who died when the bus overturned on a major motorway near Bovina in Warren County just before 1am on Saturday morning.
Pictures from the scene showed the extremely damaged red bus, with broken windows along one side. Some of the passenger’s belongings, including what looked like a pink coat, was seen hanging out the side of the bus.
Six of the passengers were pronounced dead at the scene on Interstate 20, according to the Mississippi Highway Patrol.
Another passenger died in hospital. Around 37 people were taken to hospital in total.
Warren County coroner Doug Huskey said most of the bus passengers were Latin American.
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No other vehicle is believed to have been involved.
“Anytime you have people injured or killed, it’s tragic but when you have a situation like this where you have multiple fatalities and multiple injuries, it makes it even worse,” Warren County sheriff Martin Pace told ABC.
OceanGate’s former operations boss told the panel earlier this week the sub was a huge risk and the company was only focused on profit.
David Lochridge also painted an unflattering picture of the firm’s founder, Stockton Rush, saying he would “fly off the handle” and had a “total disregard for safety”.
In one incident, he said Mr Rush crashed the sub into a wreck site and threw the PlayStation controller used to pilot the vehicle at his head.
Three Britons died in the incident – adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood
Mr Rush and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet were also killed instantly when the craft was crushed by the pressure of the ocean.
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Tail cone pictured at bottom of Atlantic
OceanGate’s scientific director Steven Ross is expected to give evidence on Thursday, as is Renata Rojas, a mission specialist for the American company.
The firm suspended operations after the disaster and now has no full-time staff but is being represented by a lawyer during the US Coast Guard hearing.
Titan lost contact with its support ship on 18 June last year, prompting a search in the Atlantic that made global headlines.
However, the wreck was found four days later 300m from the Titanic’s bow. The sub had been making voyages to the site of the legendary shipwreck since 2021.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been refused bail a second time as he faces several charges including sex trafficking, drug possession and firearms offences.
US district judge Andrew L Carter said the government had proved “by clear and convincing evidence that there is no condition or set of conditions” that will ensure the safety of the community and that the rapper and music mogul will not tamper with witnesses.
The 54-year-old pleaded not guilty after he was first arrested by officers at the Park Hyatt hotel in Manhattan, New York, on Monday.
He was originally denied bail and told he would be detained after pleading not guilty to three felony counts during an initial court appearance on Tuesday.
Lawyers representing Combs asked a judge on Wednesday to let him await his trial at his luxury home on an island near Miami Beach, as opposed to in jail in Brooklyn.
But prosecutors argued against the proposal, saying there was too great a risk that Combs could threaten or harm witnesses.
Combs’s lawyers offered a $50m (£37.8m) bail package in exchange for his release to home detention with GPS monitoring and strict limitations on who could visit him.
Arguing to keep him behind bars, prosecutor Emily Johnson told the judge that Combs had a long history of intimidating both accusers and witnesses to his alleged abuse.
Ms Johnson cited text messages from women who said Combs forced them into “Freak Offs” and then threatened to leak explicit videos of them engaging in sexual acts.
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She also said that Combs’s own defence team was “minimising and horrifically understating” his propensity for violence.
The defence and prosecution were wrangling over the request before the judge passed his ruling.
“I am feeling confident. We’re going to go get Mr Combs out of jail,” Combs’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo said on his way into court on Wednesday, before the judge decided Combs would spend his time before the trial at the Metropolitan Detention Center.
A legal indictment released after Combs’s arrest detailed allegations dating to 2008, accusing him of abusing, threatening, and coercing women for years “to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct”.
He allegedly induced female victims and male sex workers into drug-fuelled sexual performances, dubbed “Freak Offs”, according to the report.
Combs, formerly known as Puff Daddy and P Diddy, was once one of the most influential figures in hip-hop – famous as a producer and manager of the late Notorious BIG, as well as a rapper in his own right for hits including I’ll Be Missing You, Come With Me, and Bad Boy For Life.
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However, in November, his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, filed a lawsuit accusing him of coercing her, and others, into unwanted sex in drug-fuelled settings.
The suit was settled in one day, but months later CNN aired hotel security footageshowing Combs punching and kicking Cassie and throwing her to the floor.
He apologised after the video aired, saying: “I was disgusted when I did it.”
US interest rates have been slashed for the first time in more than four years – by more than many expected – amid fears the world’s largest economy is flagging.
The US central bank, the Federal Reserve, brought interest rates down by 0.5percentage points to 4.75% to 5%.
Unlike the UK, the US interest rate is a range to guide lenders rather than a single percentage.
Bringing down inflation to 2% is a primary goal of the Fed and it has used interest rates to draw money out of the economy by making borrowing more costly since 2022, when the Ukraine/Russia price shock hit.
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Recent figures show the Fed is not far from its inflation target – with the main measure hitting 2.5% in August, the lowest rate in three years.
But signs of a weakening economy emerged last month as data on job creation led to recession fears.
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The Fed signalled in its statement that while it was confident on both the inflation and growth outlooks, a slowdown in the pace of hiring was a cause for concern.
Only one member of its rate-setting committee dissented on the 0.5 percentage point reduction. Financial market participants had been split on whether it would go for the 0.25 option instead.
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US stocks rallied in the wake of the decision, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and broader S&P 500 both up by more than 0.5% from flat positions moments before the rate decision was revealed.
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Trump criticises Harris on economy
The dollar was trading a cent lower versus sterling at $1.32.
Some market analysts said the Fed’s move showed Fed chair Jay Powell and his fellow policymakers had been too slow to react to the employment slowdown.
He told reporters: “We’re going to be making decisions meeting by meeting, based on the incoming data and the evolving outlook, the balance of risks… it’s a process of recalibrating our policy stance away from where we had it a year ago, when inflation was high and unemployment low, to a place that’s more appropriate given where we are now and where we expect to be.
“That process will time time”, he added, saying there would be no “rush”.
Michael Sheehan, fund manager of fixed income at EdenTree Investment Management, said: “Kicking off this cutting cycle with a 50 basis point reduction will undoubtedly vindicate those who had argued that the Fed had fallen behind the curve.
“Any doubts that this cutting cycle would be any less dramatic than previous ones have been firmly laid to rest.
“We expect this larger cut of 50 basis points to boost risk assets in the short term. The key for markets, and indeed the Federal Reserve, will be how far the softening of the labour market has to run.
“Powell will be hoping that taking aggressive action early will go some way to curtailing a substantial weakening and achieve the elusive soft landing.”
What about the UK?
It comes as the UK central bank the Bank of England meets on Thursday to make its own interest rate decision.
While the Bank will focus on UK economic data – and on Wednesday afternoon was expected by markets to hold rates – it could be influenced by US decision-making.
Lower interest rates tend to weaken currencies, so a big cut from the Fed could be good news for the pound.
While being able to buy more dollars is good news for people holidaying in the US and paying for imports like oil, it’s bad news for exporters who get less for their goods as a result and have a less competitive product.
Lower exports can slow inflation, meaning the Bank could be more likely to cut.