Iowa town flattened as tornadoes cause fatalities and devastation in US Midwest

Published

4 weeks ago

May 22, 2024

admin

An unknown number of people have died after a powerful tornado ripped through a small town in Iowa.

Dramatic pictures showed the destruction left behind in Greenfield, with police confirming there had been fatalities and at least a dozen injuries, without being able to provide specific figures.

The devastation came as multiple tornadoes rolled through the US Midwest.

At least three 250-foot-high wind turbines were toppled by an apparent tornado in southwest Iowa.

One turbine was in flames, with black smoke pouring from the bent structure.

Officials said most of Greenfield, with a population of about 2,000 people, had been destroyed, with rescue efforts continuing in an attempt to find survivors.

Buildings, including homes and businesses, were flattened, trees shredded, and vehicles thrown down the streets which were left strewn with piles of debris.

Sgt Alex Dinkla, a spokesperson for the Iowa State Patrol, said: “This tornado has devastated a good portion of this town.

“Sadly, we can confirm that there have been fatalities. We’re still counting at this time.”

He said Greenfield’s hospital was among the buildings that were damaged, which meant at least a dozen people who were hurt had to be taken to facilities elsewhere.

Residents helped each other salvage their belongings as they tried to come to terms with what had happened.

Rogue Paxton said he sheltered in the basement of his home when the storm moved through.

He told WOI-TV he thought his family was lucky not to lose their house.

“But everyone else is not so much, like my brother Cody, his house just got wiped,” he said.

“Then you see all these people out here helping each other.

“Everything’s going to be fine because we have each other, but it’s just going to be really, really rough. It is a mess.”

The storms followed days of extreme weather which has ravaged much of the middle section of the US.

Strong winds, large hail and tornadoes swept across parts of Oklahoma and Kansas late Sunday, damaging homes and injuring two people.

Donald Sutherland, Hunger Games and Kelly’s Heroes actor, dies

Published

12 hours ago

June 20, 2024

admin

Donald Sutherland, Hunger Games and Kelly's Heroes actor, dies

Donald Sutherland, who appeared in films including The Hunger Games and Kelly’s Heroes, has died at the age of 88.

His agency, CAA, said he died in Miami “after a long illness”.

The Canadian actor won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his performance in the mini-series Citizen X.

In 2017, he received an honorary Oscar.

His son, fellow actor Kiefer Sutherland, said “with a heavy heart” that his father had “passed away”.

“I personally think [he was] one of the most important actors in the history of film,” Kiefer Sutherland posted on X, adding that he was “never daunted by a role – good, bad or ugly”.

“He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that. A life well lived.”

In the Hunger Games franchise, Donald Sutherland played President Snow alongside Jennifer Lawrence.

In Kelly’s Heroes he starred alongside Telly Savalas and Clint Eastwood as Sergeant Oddball – on a mission to steal gold from the Nazis.

“I love to work – I passionately love to work,” Sutherland told US talk show host Charlie Rose in 1998.

“I love to feel my hand fit into the glove of some other character. I feel a huge freedom – time stops for me. I’m not as crazy as I used to be, but I’m still a little crazy.”

His “breakthrough performances” were in 1967 movie The Dirty Dozen and MASH, CAA said.

He also took parts in Robert Redford’s Ordinary People and Oliver Stone’s JFK.

He is survived by his wife Francine Racette, sons Roeg, Rossif, Angus, and Kiefer, daughter Rachel, and four grandchildren.

“A private celebration of his life will be held by the family,” CAA said.

Born in St John, New Brunswick, on the east coast of Canada in July 1935, he was the son of a salesman and a mathematics teacher.

He started university in Toronto as an engineering student but switched to English and started acting in college productions.

Travis Scott arrested for ‘causing a disturbance while drunk and trespassing’

Published

18 hours ago

June 20, 2024

admin

Travis Scott arrested for 'causing a disturbance while drunk and trespassing'

Rapper Travis Scott has been arrested for “disorderly intoxication and trespassing”, police in the US have said.

Scott, who has two children with Kylie Jenner, was arrested for causing a “disturbance” on a charter boat at the Miami Beach Marina, where he “was drunk, and asked to leave multiple times”, the Miami Beach Police Department said.

Officers were called to the marina at 12.44 am on Thursday morning to reports of a disturbance, according to official records.

The 10-time Grammy Award nominee was reportedly getting off a charter boat when the owner of the boat asked him to leave, 7News Miami said on its website.

The force said officers found Scott, arguably one of the biggest hip-hop acts in the world, “standing by the dock yelling at the vessel occupants”, and while he complied with their instructions to begin with, he then ignored them, NBC, Sky’s US partner, said.

Officers could sense “a strong smell of alcohol coming from the defendant’s breath”, records showed.

Though he agreed to leave the dock after being threatened with arrest, he did not go quietly.

As he walked to the boardwalk, Scott “walked backwards yelling obscenities to the occupants of the vessel”, police said.

He left the marina, but returned five minutes later and was seen by officers walking back toward the vessel.

Scott spoke to a sergeant he had spoken to earlier and began yelling once again – “becoming erratic” and “disturbing the peace of the occupants of the marina and nearby residential buildings causing a public disturbance”, court documents said.

The 33-year-old musician was arrested at 1.17am and booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center at 4.35 am on a charge of alleged disorderly intoxication as well as trespassing property after warning.

He submitted a $650 (£512) bond – $500 (£394) for the trespass charge and $150 (£118) for disorderly intoxication, the Daily Mail said.

Scott, real name Jacques Bermon Webster II, has achieved four number-one hits on the US charts and is known for his energetic live shows and successful albums, including Astroworld.

He has two children with the socialite and media personality, Kylie Jenner, but the pair are no longer together.

His European tour, titled Circus Maximus, is due to start in The Netherlands next Friday and he is scheduled to play Manchester’s Co-Op Live venue on 13 July.

In 2021, 10 fans died in a crowd surge at his Astroworld festival in Houston, Texas, where he was born.

He did not face criminal charges over their deaths but remains involved in civil cases alleging that organisers were at fault.

Last year he scored his first UK number one album with Utopia, which has been streamed more than 50 billion times globally, NME said.

US

Texas: Video shows moment driver rams into two cyclists before driving over one of them

Published

24 hours ago

June 20, 2024

admin

Texas: Video shows moment driver rams into two cyclists before driving over one of them

The moment two cyclists were rear-ended by a drunk driver has been caught on camera by one of their colleagues.

Filmed on Monday, the video shows cyclists riding on the right-hand side of the road near Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport when a white SUV rams them from behind.

Both riders are knocked to the ground – the SUV then veers to the left, before driving over one of the stricken cyclists.

Thomas Geppert, 69, was was taken to hospital with a severe laceration to his leg, the other victim, 65-year-old Deborah Eads was treated at the scene.

Local news outlets reported other cyclists riding with the pair then pursued the driver – 31-year-old Benjamin Hylander – to a nearby Shell petrol station and forced him to return to the scene of the crash.

According to a police report, Hylander told investigators he had a beer an hour before the crash, but a breathalyser test showed his blood alcohol concentration was over the minimum threshold of 0.15.

It added that officers also found six empty cans of Voodoo Ranger beer while searching his vehicle.

Hylander is now in custody and has been charged with two counts of intoxication assault with a vehicle, one count of accident involving injury, and one count of driving while intoxicated.

His employer is listed as American Airlines, who said on Wednesday that he would be withheld from service.