Category: Americas

Hurricane Melissa has seen its death toll enter double digits amid widespread destruction across Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, where roofless homes and water-logged furniture dominated the landscape.
At least 25 people were killed across Haiti and 18 are missing, Haiti's Civil Protection Agency said in a statement on Wednesday.
Twenty of those reported dead and 10 of the missing are from the southern coastal town of Petit-Goave, where flooding collapsed dozens of homes.
Hurricane Melissa damaged more than 160 homes and destroyed 80 others, with 10 of the 20 people killed there confirmed to be children.
open image in galleryA man places plastic tarps over tents at a shelter for families displaced by gang violence during a break in the rain brought by Hurricane Melissa in Port-au-Prince, HaitiLawyer Charly Saint-Vil, 30, said he saw bodies lying among the debris after the storm as he walked the streets of the small coastal town where he grew up.
“People have lost everything,” he said, ad..

CloseMoment Hurricane Melissa tears through Jamaica's resort town Montego BayThe death toll from Hurricane Melissa is growing as the powerful storm nears the Bahamas after leaving a trail of “catastrophic” destruction across Jamaica and parts of Cuba.
Authorities in Haiti said that at least 25 people, including children, have been killed, the Associated Press reports. Haitian officials initially reported that 40 people were killed, but they later corrected the number. In Jamaica, at least eight people have been killed. One death has also been reported in the Dominican Republic. That would bring the current known death toll from the hurricane to 37 across the Caribbean.
It’s expected that the extent of Hurricane Melissa’s damage will be clearer in the coming days as authorities work to reach the hardest-hit areas.
Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated to shelters ahead of the arrival of the “extremely dangerous” storm, with a hurricane warning put in place for Santiago de..

Both Republicans and Democrats are digging in their heels, with no sign of White House intervention or a serious breakthrough in negotiations evident as a federal government shutdown approaches the one-month mark.
On Capitol Hill, the House remains out of session and the Senate squabbles over the prospect of standalone resolutions to provide funding for individual initiatives, like pay for air traffic controllers. But as November 1 approaches, the pressure on the legislative branch and especially in individual House districts is going to ramp up considerably — setting a new tone for any talks going forward.
Lawmakers on Tuesday watched as air traffic controllers and a wide range of other federal employees from civilian agencies missed their first full paycheck of the shutdown period. The federal government employs more than one million Americans and with rent traditionally due at the beginning of the month, hundreds of thousands are now facing real, tangible financial instability. Even..

Leer en EspañolA truck hauling “aggressive” monkeys thought to be carrying hepatitis C, herpes and Covid-19 has overturned in Mississippi, with at least one on the loose, according to authorities.
The truck was loaded with caged Rehsus monkeys when it crashed on Interstate 59, north of Heidelberg, on Tuesday.
It was transporting the monkeys to a testing facility in Florida, Connecticut news outlet WFSB reported.
Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson told local outlet WAPT that 21 monkeys were on the truck, six of whom escaped.
“The monkey that got away actually crossed interstate, went out into a wooded area,” Johnson said.
A truck hauling 'aggressive' monkeys carrying hepatitis C, herpes and Covid has overturned in Mississippi, with several on the loose, according to authoritiesThe sheriff’s department initially said in a Facebook post that the monkeys posed “potential health threats.”
“The driver of the truck told local law enforcement that the monkeys were dangerous and pos..

Baby clothing vendor Carter's will close about 150 stores across North America and lay off around 300 people after President Donald Trump's tariffs ate badly into its profit margins.
In an earnings report on Monday, the company said its net income for the three months ending in September had crashed by more than 80 per cent since the same period last year, from $58.3m to only $11.6m.
As a consequence, the Atlanta-based retailer will try to save around $35m per year by increasing its number of store closures by 50 and cutting around 15 percent of its total workforce, having previously announced it would close around 100 stores.
It comes as companies in multiple industries report damage to their business from Trump’s import taxes, leading many business leaders to fear that a financial crash may be imminent.
“Our third quarter performance reflected continued improvement in U.S. Retail business demand,” said CEO and president Doug Palladini on Monday.
“However, elevated product c..

Satellite imagery shows the “monster” eye of Hurricane Melissa, the most powerful storm recorded this year, that is currently hurtling towards Jamaica.

Donald Trump’s administration is using a large private donation and an executive order to make a big deal about efforts to keep members of the armed services paid during a federal government shutdown, which is now in its 25th day.
But experts agree that the White House and Pentagon’s efforts have likely crossed the bounds into illegality. The question is now: does that even matter anymore?
When Democrats and Republicans failed to meet an October 1 deadline to fund the government for the current fiscal year, Congress kicked off a countdown clock. More than a million Americans, employed by the federal government in some manner, were due to miss a paycheck when the clock struck zero.
It did so on October 15, resulting in those hundreds of thousands of workers going unpaid. The same day, Trump signed an executive order restarting that clock for service members, directing the Pentagon to make sure the military continued to receive pay.
“Funds used for military pay and allowances during the ..

Residents in Jamaica prepared for Hurricane Melissa as it strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane on Sunday (26 October).

Bijou Phillips, the ex-wife of actor Danny Masterson, wants to change her daughter's last name in the wake of Masterson's rape conviction two years ago.
Phillips, 45, filed a request in a California court on October 24 to change the name of her 11-year-old daughter from Fianna Francis Masterson to Fianna Francis Phillips, according to PEOPLE.
A judge is currently reviewing the request, according to TMZ, which broke the story.
On Friday, a judge also changed both Phillips and Masterson's legal statuses to “single.”
Masterson, 49, was convicted of raping two women in September 2023. He is currently being held at North Kern State Prison in Delano, California.
Bijou Phillips, left, with her ex-husband Danny Masterson, right. Phillips filed for divorce after Masterson was convicted on two rape charges and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.Phillips filed for divorce from Masterson, whom she'd been married to for approximately 12 years, two weeks after he was se..

A man fleeing immigration agents in Virginia was killed when he ran onto a busy highway and was struck by a car, according to officials.
Police named Jose Castro-Rivera, 24, of Honduras, as the deceased individual.
Agents were conducting a vehicle stop as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based immigration enforcement operation” when the man “resisted heavily and fled the scene onto a busy highway,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Castro-Rivera was then hit by a pickup truck on Interstate 254 at the Military Highway Interchange in Norfolk, according to Virginia State Police, who were not involved in the chase but are investigating the death.
ICE officers attempted to give the 24-year-old CPR at the scene, though he succumbed to his injuries, DHS said.
open image in galleryAt least two immigrants have been hit by cars and died while fleeing federal immigration agents this year“The officer then informed the three detained aliens that their friend had deceased,” accordin..