Month: November 2021

A twin-engine commuter plane crashed landing on an island in Lake Michigan, killing four people, with an 11-year-old girl in critical condition. The dead included the unidentified pilot, as well as Gaylord real estate agent Mike Perdue and Kate Leese and Adam Kendall. Perdue’s 11-year-old child, Laney, was life-flighted to McClaren Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey. Two dogs also died in the crash.

According to the Charlevoix County Sheriff’s Office, on Saturday afternoon the Island Airways’ Britten-Norman BN-2 plane was landing on the runway of the privately owned Welke Airport on Beaver Island, which is west of Mackinaw City. The flight was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Saturday, and the FAA reported it departed from Charlevoix, which is about 32 miles away. Mackinaw City is 255 miles north of Detroit. The U.S. Coast Guard posted on Twitter that crew members of an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter were was training when an emergency transmission from Beaver Island was received. They saw debris from the crash on the island.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is currently investigating the crash, said in a social media statement that the plane that went down was a Britton-Norman BN-2A. In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said they are also working with the NTSB, according to the Associated Press. The cause of the crash is not yet known.

President Joe Biden has chosen former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu as supervisor of his $1 trillion infrastructure plan. As New Orleans mayor, Landrieu pushed the city into recovery after the devastation from Hurricane Katrina. The White House said on Sunday that Landrieu will be tasked with coordinating across federal agencies to work on roads, ports, bridges and airports. Biden is expected to sign the infrastructure bill into law on Monday.

The 61-year-old Landrieu was formerly the Louisiana lieutenant governor and took over as mayor of New Orleans in 2010, five years after Katrina hit the city. He secured billions in federal funding for roads, schools parks and infrastructure, and turned New Orleans “into one of America’s great comeback stories,” the White House said in a statement.

Landrieu said in the statement: “I am thankful to the president and honored to be tasked with coordinating the largest infrastructure investment in generations,” “Our work will require strong partnerships across the government and with state and local leaders, business and labor to create good-paying jobs and rebuild America for the middle class.”

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Nearly one week after the tragedy at the Astroworld Festival in Houston, a 22-year-old college student has died – marking the ninth person killed in the tragedy. The family attorney of the victim announced Thursday that Bharti Shahani, a student at Texas A&M University studying computer science, died at an intensive care unit surrounded by her family around 7 p.m. Wednesday night.

Shahani has two sisters, one of whom was at the festival with her. Her father said at a news conference Thursday: “Now, I am worried about my two daughters and my wife. What will be the impact on them after we lost our precious angel?” Her mother, Karishma, said, “Bharti is love – I won’t be able to live without her. It’s impossible.”  Bharti’s younger sister Namrata, who was with her at the festival, said she was holding her sister’s hand before they got separated in the crowd surge. Namrata said her sister was like a second mother to her:  “It feels like she meant everything to me. We were always together, always doing things together. The last thing Bharti said to me was, “Are you OK?” 

Nine people, including two teenagers, were killed and dozens more were injured during a crowd surge at the Astroworld festival last Friday. The exact cause of death for the other eight victims has not yet been determined, Houston police chief Troy Finner said on Wednesday. A 9-year-old boy remains in critical condition.

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A federal appeals court on Thursday granted former President Donald Trump’s request to temporarily block the National Archives from giving his White House records to a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. A three-judge panel granted Trump an administrative injunction and set arguments for the case for Nov. 30, writing: “The purpose of this administrative injunction is to protect the court’s jurisdiction to address appellant’s claims of executive privilege and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits.”

The National Archives was expected to start turning over the documents Friday, releasing them over the next several weeks. Trump asked the court to “maintain the status quo” until their expedited appeal can be heard. In the documents, committee members expect to receive call logs, visitor logs, drafts of speeches, memos and even handwritten notes from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and others. Trump’s attorneys have said additional time is needed to properly go over the issues in question.

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Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old Illinois man who was a minor when he traveled to Wisconsin and shot two people dead last year during civil rights protests, took the witness stand at his homicide trial on Wednesday in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse made the trip from his home state of Illinois on Aug. 25, 2020, to Kenosha, Wis., claiming he was protecting other people’s properties from protesters during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in the city over the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse, then 17 years old, showed up with an assault-style rifle that he ultimately used to kill activists Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, wounding a third man.

Under cross-examination, Rittenhouse said he did not intend to kill anyone but admitted using deadly force in self-defense that night. In answering questions from his attorneys, Rittenhouse said he killed the men in self-defense after he encountered Joseph Rosenbaum “walking with a steel chain” and a “blue mask around his face.” Breaking into tears on the stand, Rittenhouse explained the moments leading to the first fatal shooting. After a short break, he defended his actions. “I didn’t do anything wrong, I was defending myself,” he said. adding, “I intended to stop the people who were attacking me. I did what I had to do to stop them from attacking me.” However in cross-examination, Rittenhouse said that he knew Rosenbaum was unarmed when he was chasing after the teenager. Rittenhouse said he pointed his rifle at the man in an attempt to deter him, testifying: “I pointed it at him because he kept running at me and I didn’t want him to chase me.” He added that Rosenbaum did not touch him at all that night, but he feared Rosenbaum would take his gun and kill people: “If I would have let Mr. Rosenbaum take my firearm from me, he would have used it and killed me with it and probably killed more people if I would have let him get my gun.”

Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty to six charges, including first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and first-degree attempted intentional homicide. Prosecutors have argued that Rittenhouse was completely unjustified in using deadly force and should be held responsible for the men’s deaths.

The White House confirmed that President Biden will sign the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill into law during a ceremony at the White House on Monday. Biden will be joined by members of Congress and “a diverse group of leaders who fought for its passage across the country,” including governors and mayors from across America, as well as labor union and business leaders. According to a news release from the White House,”At the signing ceremony, the President will highlight how he is following through on his commitment to rebuild the middle class and the historic benefits the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will deliver for American families.”

The news comes after the House of Representatives voted 228-206 on Friday to pass the legislation, which would not have been successful without the support of 13 Republicans who pushed it through. The bill, officially known as the the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, provides hundreds of billions of dollars to improve the nation’s highways, bridges and roads; passenger rail; public transit; broadband access; and the power grid, among other investments in physical infrastructure. It has already passed through the Senate in a vote of 69-30.

Biden spoke about the infrastructure bill on Wednesday in Baltimore, saying Congress took a “monumental step” in passing the measure. In the coming weeks, the president, vice president, and Cabinet will continue to travel the country to communicate how the law will help communities and grow the economy.

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