pelespirit

Passengers on an American Airlines flight were evacuated on to the tarmac of an airport in Colorado as a fire broke out on the plane, sending smoke billowing into the air.

Footage of the evacuation showed passengers huddled on the wing of the Boeing airliner, some holding bags, with flames burning near the bottom of the plane.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said passengers used inflatable slides to reach the ground safely at the Denver International Airport. The agency said that it would investigate the cause of the incident.

There were no reports of serious injuries, although the airport later confirmed 12 people were taken to hospital for minor injuries.

His remarks came at the start of the quarterly meeting of the Business Roundtable, a nonpartisan Washington-based economic advocacy group comprising more than 200 CEOs with the following high profile members.

• Apple CEO Tim Cook
• JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon
• GM chief Mary Barra
• Walmart CEO Doug McMillon

The meeting came as financial markets continued their downward slide on Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost as much as 700 points before ending the trading day down 478 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq also closed lower.

Much of Wall Street’s uncertainty has centered on Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs on Canada and Mexico. But Trump has brushed off calls for clarity from the business community, as well as fears that his expanding tariff plans risk stoking an out-of-control trade war.

The announcement came after Bloomberg reported last Thursday that Walmart had asked some Chinese suppliers, including makers of kitchenware and clothing, to lower prices by as much as 10% for each round of U.S. tariffs.

“If this is true, it is unreasonable for Walmart to require Chinese suppliers to bear all tariffs, which will disrupt fair competition and foreign trade order,” the report said, according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese.

Walmart’s reported move “may create the risk of supply chain disruption and harm the interests of Chinese and American companies and American consumers,” it added, warning of further actions if the company fails to correct its course.

Canadians who visit the US for more than 30 days will be required to register with authorities and have their fingerprints taken, as the Trump administration tightens migration rules amid soaring tensions between the North American neighbors.

The new requirement, effective from 11 April, will harden enforcement of an existing law, which states that all foreign nationals 14 years old or older who plan to stay in the US for 30 days or more must register with the authorities.

In practice, that rule has not been applied consistently to Canadians entering the United States across the 5,525-mile land border between the two countries.

A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked parts of President Trump's executive order targeting a prominent law firm for its representation of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and for causes unpopular with his administration.

President Trump issued an executive order last week that accuses Perkins Coie of "dishonest and dangerous activity" and seeks to impose several punitive measures, including suspending security clearances held by Perkins Coie employees and prohibiting government contractors from retaining the firm. It also bars the firm's employees from federal buildings, and prohibits federal employees from engaging with Perkins Coie staff.

At a hearing in federal court in Washington, D.C., U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the executive order. Ruling from the bench, Howell said the president's order against Perkins Coie is clearly intended to punish the firm, and likely violates its First, Fifth and Sixth amendment rights.

Ushakov reiterated Russia's demands: Ukraine must recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea and four southeastern regions, withdraw troops from lands claimed by Russia and pledge never to join NATO. He said he "hopes [the United States] knows our position and wants to believe that they will take it into account as we work together going forward."

Moscow also seeks limits on Ukraine's military, protections for Russian speakers and elections to replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has slashed two programs that provided more than $1 billion for schools and food banks to purchase food from local farms and ranchers. About $660m of those funds were contained in the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program, which provided funds to schools and child care facilities but is now being eliminated. The rest were part of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which provided funds to local food banks and other organizations. The USDA unfroze funds for existing agreements, but a second round of funding in fiscal year 2025 has been nixed.

Rollins responded with a rambling, and transphobic, explanation in which she called the programs “nonessential” and equated them to other contracts she said the USDA canceled that supported what she called “food justice for trans people in New York and San Francisco.” In essence, the secretary portrayed these vital programs, which help make sure kids and poor people don’t starve, as forms of Biden administration largesse, baselessly claiming they are evidence of the previous administration trying to “push ... taxpayer dollars out that is not reaching its intended target.”

But much like Elon Musk, who stood earlier this year and admitted his so-called Department of Government Efficiency would make "mistakes" that he vowed to correct "quickly," Rollins seemed to leave room for a reversal. “As we have always said, if we are making mistakes, we will own those mistakes and we will reconfigure,” she said. “But right now, from what we are viewing, that program was nonessential, that it was a new program, and that it was an effort by the left to continue spending taxpayer dollars that were not necessary.”

First, Department of Justice lawyers requested a two-month extension on Monday in a lawsuit seeking to reimpose outdated restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone — changes that would limit access nationwide by ending telemedicine prescriptions. There should be no need for an extension. It’s a case that the Biden DOJ asked a federal judge to dismiss in January after the Supreme Court decided last term that the original plaintiffs weren’t injured by the Food and Drug Administration’s actions on mifepristone and didn’t have legal standing to sue.

Next, the administration asked on Tuesday to participate in Supreme Court arguments alongside South Carolina in a case about whether states can exclude Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs, even for non-abortion services. South Carolina seeks to disqualify any abortion provider from Medicaid because it claims that “payment of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any purpose, results in the subsidy of abortion.” Arguments are on April 2. If the Supreme Court sides with the state, it would mean people with Medicaid can’t use their insurance at Planned Parenthood or other abortion providers, which would decimate people’s access to affordable birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and more.

Finally, the administration dismissed a lawsuit on Wednesday that Biden’s DOJ had filed against Idaho because its abortion ban violates a federal law regarding care in emergency rooms. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires any hospital that receives federal funds, which is most of them, to provide stabilizing care to patients. For pregnant women facing complications like their water breaking too early, that care can include abortion. But Idaho’s abortion ban prohibits terminating a pregnancy unless someone’s life is at risk — threats to their health aren’t enough.

“This reporting system will provide a direct channel for officers and employees to report any failure by their agency to comply with Florida’s immigration enforcement policies,” Keefe said. “Let there be no misunderstanding — Florida law will be enforced.”

The Freedom Cities Coalition is a project of NeWay Capital, a company that has been centrally involved in the development of Prospera, a private, “free market,” crypto-friendly enclave in Honduras. Prospera was made possible by a special regulatory setup, dubbed a special economic zone (or ZEDE), that was established in the country in 2013 in the wake of a U.S.-backed coup. ZEDEs allow for private actors to essentially move into geographically partitioned areas and write their own regulatory and judicial rules.

Prospera is also part of something called the “Network State,” an anarcho-capitalist ideological movement, backed by tech-billionaires, that seeks to create privately run cities with native cryptocurrencies.

Where will America’s new “Freedom Cities” be built? It seems quite possible that the Network Staters want to build them in our national parks. On its website, the Freedom City Coalition notes that 28 percent of U.S. land is “federally owned and ready for innovative development.” It doesn’t specify what kind of federal land is “ready” for this “innovation,” but most of the government land that isn’t used for farming and energy development is used for wildlife conservation.

The U.S. General Services Administration, which orders many of the vehicles and owns EV chargers used by other federal agencies, has "temporarily suspended" orders of zero-emission vehicles, stopped the installation of new EV charging stations, and ordered some existing stations to be shut down, according to internal memos obtained by NPR and Colorado Public Radio.

"All existing charging stations that are deemed not to be mission-critical should be disconnected from the network and turned off," reads a March 3 memo on EV chargers signed by Michael Peters, the new commissioner of the GSA's Public Buildings Service, appointed by President Trump.