US Business

Officials arrived in Miami Wednesday to investigate a passenger jet that caught fire as it touched down at the US city’s international airport, forcing more than 100 people to flee the burning and mangled aircraft.

Three people were hospitalized after the crash of Red Air Flight 203 late Tuesday, according to Miami-Dade fire officials, but no deaths or serious injuries have been reported among those on board.

Dramatic video footage showed people being evacuated from the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 aircraft, lying askew on the runway with its nose crumpled as thick black smoke billows from its body.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the US government agency in charge of probing civil aviation accidents, said the airplane’s left main landing gear collapsed during landing. 

The plane then “departed the runway” before coming to rest on a grassy area, it said, with a fire breaking out on its right side.

Red Air, a Dominican budget carrier which only launched in November last year, said the plane was arriving from Santo Domingo when it met with “technical difficulties.”

Investigators were able to recover the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the plane. They will additionally examine runway markings and the physical environment.

Red Air and the NTSB said there were 130 passengers and 10 crew on board.

The congressional panel investigating last year’s attack on the US Capitol announced a break from its blockbuster series of televised hearings Wednesday after receiving a glut of new video footage of Donald Trump and his family from a documentary filmmaker. 

Chairman Bennie Thompson told reporters Thursday’s hearing on Trump’s alleged attempts to corrupt the Justice Department would be the last until two further hearings “later in July.”

Thompson did not elaborate on the timetable but said further hearings after the two in July were “always a possibility.”

“The timeline of the hearings is driven, and continues to be driven, by the investigation. The select committee continues to receive relevant new evidence that we think is very important to the investigation,” an aide to the panel said.

“It’s important that our members (and) investigators take the time needed to assess that information and figure out how we’re going to use that information as we continue to make our presentation to the American people.”

The new evidence includes documents from the National Archive and multiple new leads given to a tip-line since the televised hearings began earlier in June.

The most prized haul though will be hours of footage from documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who was granted extensive access to Trump and his inner circle — including for interviews — before and after January 6. 

Holder began filming on the campaign trail in September 2020, according to Politico, and had substantial access to Trump, Trump’s grown-up children and his vice president Mike Pence for months.

Congress goes on a two-week recess for the July 4 holiday starting next week.

When lawmakers return in the second week of July, they are expected to dedicate at least some of the remaining hearings to the radicalization of extremists who stormed the Capitol, as well as the culture of political violence on the far right.

– Threats of violence –

In a sign of heightened political tensions around the hearings, The New York Times reported an uptick in violent threats against members of the panel, adding that they would likely receive a security detail.

Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the nine-member committee, revealed a letter addressed to his wife over the weekend that threatened to execute the couple and their five-month-old baby. 

“There is violence in the future, I’m going to tell you,” Kinzinger told ABC on Sunday. “And until we get a grip on telling people the truth, we can’t expect any differently.”

Committee vice-chair Liz Cheney halted large, public events long ago due in part to concerns over her safety as she fends off a primary challenge to her Wyoming seat in Congress.

Federal agents issued subpoenas over the insurrection Wednesday, raiding the homes of two people involved in the plot to overturn the election, The Washington Post reported.

One Trump supporter had allegedly tried to impersonate an official elector — the people picked by the winning party in each state to choose the president under America’s arcane “electoral college” voting system. 

The other raid target worked on Trump’s drive to invalidate the election in Arizona and New Mexico. Other participants in Trump’s alleged plot received subpoenas.

The action came after officials in Arizona and Georgia appeared Tuesday before the select committee’s fourth public hearing this month to outline Trump’s efforts to cling to power, which involved bullying local officials and poll workers, publishing their personal details and defaming them.

The US economy remains strong but a series of aggressive rate hikes meant to cool soaring inflation could eventually trigger a recession, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell cautioned Wednesday.

Powell, whose testimony before senators was closely watched by investors and analysts, also said the world’s largest economy faces an “uncertain” global environment and could see further inflation “surprises.”

The Fed chair again stressed that policymakers understand the hardships caused by rising prices and are committed to bringing down inflation, which has reached a 40-year high.

Last week, the US central bank announced the sharpest interest rate increase in nearly 30 years and promised additional similar moves to combat the price surge, with gas and food costs skyrocketing and millions of Americans struggling to get by.

But when peppered with questions about the prospect of a recession, Powell acknowledged the risk.

“It’s not our intended outcome at all, but it’s certainly a possibility,” he told the Senate Banking Committee.

“And frankly, the events of the last few months around the world have made it more difficult for us to achieve what we want, which is two percent inflation and still a strong labor market.”

In his opening remarks, Powell insisted the US economy “is very strong and well positioned to handle tighter monetary policy.”

“Inflation has obviously surprised to the upside over the past year, and further surprises could be in store,” the Fed chief said in his semi-annual appearance before Congress.

Policymakers “will need to be nimble” given that the economy “often evolves in unexpected ways,” he said.

The Fed is facing intense criticism that it was too slow to react to the changing economy, which benefited from a flood of federal government stimulus.

Last week’s super-sized 0.75-percentage-point increase in the benchmark lending rate was the third since March, taking the policy rate up a total of 1.5 points. Powell at the time said a similar increase was likely in July.

The ideal scenario would be for those moves to cool the economy enough to douse inflation pressures, without choking off growth — the hoped-for “soft landing.”

“I think it’s going to be very challenging,” Powell said, insisting there are “pathways” to avoid recession, and that he does not view the risk of a downturn as “particularly elevated.”

Financial markets seemed cheered by his relatively upbeat comments, which echo those of other Fed officials in recent days who have pushed back against rising pessimism. 

But Wall Street stocks lost steam late in the trading session, and the Dow finished the day down 0.2 percent.

– ‘Essential’ to curb inflation –

In addition to easing the financial strain on less-wealthy American families, the Fed chief said tamping down inflation was “essential” to maintain a healthy labor market.

The US economy recovered quickly from the Covid-19 pandemic, helped by robust consumer spending, and has continued to create jobs at a strong pace, pushing unemployment down to near a 50-year low.

But the buoyant demand for homes, cars and other goods clashed with transportation and supply chain snarls in parts of the world where Covid-19 has remained a challenge.

That fueled inflation, which got dramatically worse after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February and Western nations imposed stiff sanctions on Moscow, sending food and fuel prices up at a blistering rate.

But Powell noted that inflation is a global issue, not unique to the United States.

Many major central banks have joined the Fed in beginning to tighten monetary policy — with the notable exception of the Bank of Japan.

Powell said many factors driving inflation are beyond the Fed’s control, but he pointed to signs that rising rates are having an impact, as business investment slows and “activity in the housing sector looks to be softening, in part reflecting higher mortgage rates.”

Average home loan rates jumped to 5.23 percent in May for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage, from 4.98 percent in April, according to Freddie Mac, while the median price for homes topped $400,000 for the first time.

“The tightening in financial conditions that we have seen in recent months should continue to temper growth and help bring demand into better balance with supply,” Powell said.

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and model Jerry Hall are getting divorced, the New York Times reported Wednesday, citing two people with knowledge of the matter.

It will be the fourth divorce for the 91-year-old Murdoch, who married Hall, 65, in London in March 2016.

The Australian Murdoch is worth more than $17 billion, according to Forbes.

The New York Times reported that the separation is unlikely to alter the ownership structure of businesses he holds stakes in, which include parent companies of Fox News and The Wall Street Journal. 

His powerful global media empire also includes the New York Post, The Times of London and British tabloid The Sun.

Bryce Tom, a spokesman for Murdoch, said he had no comment to make when contacted by AFP.

A representative for Hall did not immediately respond to a request for a statement.

Murdoch’s first wife was Patricia Booker, an Australian flight attendant, whom he divorced in the late 1960s.

He and his second wife, Anna, a newspaper reporter, were together more than 30 years before divorcing in 1999.

Murdoch then married entrepreneur Wendi Deng. They divorced in 2013.

Hall, who is also an actress, was the longtime partner of The Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger, with whom she has four children.

Joe Biden pitched a temporary fuel tax break Wednesday to help American drivers face the highest inflation in four decades, but critics called it window dressing by an unpopular US president ahead of difficult midterm elections.

Biden asked Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for three months as price increases — in large part spurred by fallout from President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions on Russia — drive general inflation.

But so far, lawmakers seem unlikely to give his plan the green light.

In a televised address, Biden called for lifting the federal tax on gasoline of 18 cents a gallon until September. He also asked state governments to suspend their own taxes for the same period.

Noting that gas prices — now averaging near $5 per gallon — had gone up almost $2 a gallon since the start of the Ukraine invasion, Biden said he was doing what he could.

“I fully understand that the gas tax holiday alone is not going to solve the problem but it will provide families some immediate relief,” he said.

– Skepticism –

A handful of states including New York and Connecticut have already suspended fuel taxes or delayed planned tax increases. 

But some 46 states have yet to act, including Democratic-governed California, where gasoline is the most taxed and the most expensive in the country, at well over $6 a gallon.

Federal tax revenues on gas and diesel help pay for the Highway Trust Fund, which is used to maintain roads and support public transport, but Biden says Congress can ensure the estimated $10 billion gap that would be caused by a three-month tax break is made up from other sources.

Whether Congress — where Democrats hold only a narrow majority over Republicans — will pass tax relief is a big question. Even Biden’s backers are lukewarm.

“I’ve not been a proponent,” Steny Hoyer, a senior Democratic leader in Congress, told Politico. “I just don’t know that it gives much relief.”

Jason Furman, a former top economic adviser to president Barack Obama — who himself once dismissed so-called gas tax holidays as a “gimmick” — also said the move would not help regular people. 

“It would be very unlikely that gas prices would fall by more than a dime because of this change. And oil company profits would go up by billions of dollars,” he told NPR.

– Biden’s populist mission –

Biden urged retailers at filling stations to apply any tax cuts immediately and he pushed refiners to expand their crude processing capacity in the hopes that the combined measures could cut gas prices by as much as a dollar a gallon.

He has previously tried other measures, including releasing a million barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, negotiating the release of an additional 60 million barrels from international partners, and expanding access to biofuels.

Nothing so far has had an appreciable effect.

With Democrats fearing a severe defeat in November midterm elections — thereby leaving Biden weakened for the rest of his first term in office — the president has turned to an increasingly populist message, portraying himself as fighting for the middle class against profiteering Big Oil.

The White House recently called out groups including ExxonMobil and Chevron, denouncing their profit margins as “well above normal” and calling it their patriotic duty to increase output.

In his remarks, Biden repeatedly underlined that the blame for high prices lay with Russia and the oil industry, not the White House.

“This is a time of war, global peril, Ukraine — these are not normal times,” he said, addressing the oil companies. “Bring down the price.”

Responding to criticism growing within the Republican Party, he also defended his leadership of the strong Western response to Russia, including the highly disruptive sanctions on Russian energy exports.

“We could have turned a blind eye to Putin’s murderous ways and the price of gas wouldn’t have spiked,” he said. “I believe that would have been wrong.”

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is due to meet with refiners Thursday to urge them to contribute to these measures, including increasing their output.

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel quickly dismissed the president’s speech, saying: “No one is buying Biden’s gimmicks, yet Americans are paying the price for his anti-US energy agenda.”

Yellowstone National Park, which was hit by devastating floods last week, partially reopened Wednesday, with long queues forming at entrances to the US landmark before dawn.

Hundreds of visitors in cars, campers and trucks waited to get into the oldest national park in the United States, where roads and bridges were swept away in the wake of torrential rainfall and rapid snowmelt.

Thousands were urged to leave the park, and dozens of people had to be airlifted to safety after mudslides and rockfall cut roads in the northern section of the park.

The National Park Service, the government body that operates Yellowstone, said last week that sections of the park — home to the Old Faithful geyser — would likely remain shuttered for the rest of the year.

On Wednesday, the southern part of the park was open to visitors, whose numbers were being controlled by a license plate system that allows even numbers in on even dates, and odd numbers on odd dates.

“Unprecedented amounts of rainfall caused substantial flooding, rockslides, and mudslides within Yellowstone National Park,” the NPS said Wednesday.

“Historic water levels caused severe damage to roads, water and wastewater systems, power lines, and other critical park infrastructure. 

“Visitors may now access the south loop of Yellowstone via an Alternating License Plate System. The park’s north loop remains closed due to flood damage until further notice.”

Yellowstone Park welcomed more than 4.8 million visitors last year.

The park was the inspiration for Jellystone Park, the home of beloved cartoon favorite Yogi Bear — an affable but permanently hungry character whose chief preoccupation was stealing picnic baskets and outwitting a park ranger.

Google has agreed to pay for ramped-up Wikipedia services, part of a growing trend for the US tech giant to strike commercial deals with other web companies.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the charity that oversees the online encyclopedia, said Google was the first paying customer for its commercial venture Wikimedia Enterprise, which it launched last year.

The Internet Archive, a non-profit that runs a site called the Wayback Machine that saves snapshots of websites and is used to fix Wikipedia links, will be offered the commercial services for free.

“We’re thrilled to be working with them both as our longtime partners,” said Wikimedia’s Lane Becker in a statement on Tuesday.

Wikipedia, one of the world’s most visited websites, is free to use, updated by volunteers and relies on donations to keep afloat.

The new commercial venture will not change that arrangement for individual users, the foundation said.

Google uses material from the site for its “knowledge panel” — a sidebar that accompanies the main search results.

The source of the information is not always shown, a practice that had sparked complaints from Wikimedia.

The foundation said its new product gave customers a “feed of real-time content updates on Wikimedia projects” beyond what is available to the public.

The product was “designed to make it easier for these entities to package and share Wikimedia content”, it said in a statement.

Google has previously given money to Wikipedia through donations and grants but the new deal puts their relationship on a more formal commercial footing.

“We have long supported the Wikimedia Foundation in pursuit of our shared goals of expanding knowledge and information access for people everywhere,” said Google’s Tim Palmer.

The foundation’s statement did not reveal the value of the Google contract.

Google has long had a troubled relationship with other websites — it even attempted to create a rival to Wikipedia called Knol, though the venture failed.

But the company has changed tack in recent years and is increasingly making deals, particularly with media companies.

French regulators and Google ended a years-long dispute on Tuesday by agreeing a framework for the US firm to pay news outlets for content.

Google said it had already made deals with hundreds of news outlets across Europe, Agence France-Presse among them.