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Forty-six people were found dead and 16 others were taken to hospitals after a tractor-trailer rig containing suspected migrants was found Monday on a remote back road in southwest San Antonio, officials said. A city worker at the scene was alerted to the situation by a cry for help shortly before 6 p.m. Monday, Police Chief William McManus said. Officers arrived to find a body on the ground outside the trailer and a partially opened gate to the trailer, he said. Of the 16 taken to hospitals with heat-related illnesses, 12 were adults and four were children, said Fire Chief Charles Hood. The patients were hot to the touch and dehydrated, and no water was found in the trailer, he said. Also read: Morocco: 18 migrants dead in stampede to enter Melilla Three people were taken into custody, but it was unclear if they were absolutely connected with human trafficking, McManus said. Those in the trailer were part of a presumed migrant smuggling attempt into the United States, and the investigation was being led by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, McManus said. Those in the trailer were in a presumed migrant smuggling attempt in South Texas, according to an official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the information had not been authorized for public release. It may be the deadliest tragedy among thousands who have died attempting to cross the U.S. border from Mexico in recent decades. Ten migrants died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck that was parked at a Walmart in San Antonio. In 2003, 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of San Antonio. Big rigs emerged as a popular smuggling method in the early 1990s amid a surge in U.S. border enforcement in San Diego and El Paso, Texas, which were then the busiest corridors for illegal crossings. Also read: Global efforts must be enhanced to save lives, reduce risks of migrants: Shahriar Alam Before that, people paid small fees to mom-and-pop operators to get them across a largely unguarded border. As crossing became exponentially more difficult after the 2001 terror attacks in the U.S., migrants were led through more dangerous terrain and paid thousands of dollars more. Heat poses a serious danger, particularly when temperatures can rise severely inside vehicles. Weather in the San Antonio area was mostly cloudy Monday, but temperatures approached 100 degrees.

Pride parades kicked off in New York City and around the country Sunday with glittering confetti, cheering crowds, fluttering rainbow flags and newfound fears about losing freedoms won through decades of activism. The annual marches in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and elsewhere took place just two days after one conservative justice on the Supreme Court signaled, in a ruling on abortion, that the court should reconsider the right to same-sex marriage recognized in 2015. “We’re here to make a statement," said 31-year-old Mercedes Sharpe, who traveled to Manhattan from Massachusetts. “I think it’s about making a point, rather than all the other years like how we normally celebrate it. This one’s really gonna stand out. I think a lot of angry people, not even just women, angry men, angry women." Thousands of people — many decked in pride colors — lined the parade route through Manhattan, cheering as floats and marchers passed by. Organizers announced this weekend that a Planned Parenthood contingent would be at the front of the parade. In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot called the top court ruling a “momentary setback” and said Sunday’s events were “an opportunity for us to not only celebrate Pride, but be resolved for the fight.” “We will not live in a world, not in my city, where our rights are taken from us or rolled back,” said Lightfoot, Chicago’s first openly gay mayor, and the first Black woman to hold the office. Read:Spanish LGBTQ groups wary of monkeypox stigma as Pride nears In San Francisco, some marchers and spectators held signs condemning the court’s abortion ruling. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who rode in a convertible holding a gavel and a rainbow fan, said the large turnout was an acknowledgement that Americans support gay rights. “Even in spite of the majority on the court that’s anti our Constitution, our country knows and loves our LGBTQI+ community,” she told KGO-TV. The warning shot from the nation's top court came after a year of legislative defeats for the LGBTQ community, including the passage of laws in some states limiting the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity with children. As anti-gay sentiments resurface, some are pushing for the parades to return to their roots — less blocks-long street parties, more overtly civil rights marches. “It has gone from being a statement of advocacy and protest to being much more of a celebration of gay life,” Sean Clarkin, 67, said of New York City's annual parade while enjoying a drink recently at Julius', one of the oldest gay bars in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. As he remembers things, the parade was once about defiance and pushing against an oppressive mainstream that saw gays, lesbians and transgender people as unworthy outsiders. “As satisfying and empowering as it may be to now be accepted by the mainstream,” Clarkin said, “there was also something energizing and wonderful about being on the outside looking in.” New York's first Pride March, then called the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, was held in 1970 to mark the first anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion, a spontaneous street uprising triggered by a police raid on a gay bar in Manhattan. San Francisco's first march was in 1972 and had been held every year since, except during the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Celebrations are now global, taking place throughout the year in multiple countries, with many of the biggest parades taking place in June. One of the world's largest, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, was held June 19. In the United States, this year's celebrations take place amid a potential crisis. In a Supreme Court ruling Friday striking down the right to abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas said in a concurring opinion that the court should also reconsider its 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage and a 2003 decision striking down laws criminalizing gay sex. New York City parade spectator Jackie English said she and her fiancee Dana had yet to set a wedding date, but have a new sense of urgency. “Now we feel a bit pressured," she said, adding they might “jump the gun a little sooner. Because, what if that right gets taken away from us?” More than a dozen states have recently enacted laws that go against the interests of LGBTQ communities, including a law barring any mention of sexual orientation in school curricula in Florida and threats of prosecution for parents who allow their children to get gender-affirming care in Texas. Several states have put laws in place prohibiting transgender athletes from participating in team sports that coincide with the gender in which they identify. According to an Anti-Defamation League survey released earlier this week, members of LGBTQ communities were more likely than any other group to experience harassment. Two-thirds of respondents said they have been harassed, a little more than half of whom said the harassment was a result of their sexual orientation. In recent years, schisms over how to commemorate Stonewall have opened, spawning splinter groups events intended to be more protest-oriented. Read:Prospects dim for passage of LGBTQ rights bill in Senate In New York City, the Queer Liberation March takes place at the same time as the traditional parade, billing itself as the “antidote to the corporate-infused, police-entangled, politician-heavy Parades that now dominate pride celebrations." San Francisco's parade was marked by the return of uniformed police, who were banned in 2020 after a 2019 confrontation with protesters who staged a parade-stopping sit-in. Critics accused them of using excessive force. On Sunday, San Francisco Police Chief William Scott, in full dress uniform, passed out small rainbow pride flags to spectators. Despite the criticism of growing commercialism, a strong streak of activism was apparent among attendees this year. “The recent overturning of Roe v. Wade has caused a very strong uproar about what went down," said Dean Jigarjian, 22, who crossed the river from New Jersey with his girlfriend to take part in the New York City parade. “So as you can see here, the crowd seems to be very energized about what could be next.”

Protests outside the Arizona Capitol over the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade that ended with a volley of tear gas were variously described Saturday as either peaceful or driven by anarchists intent on destruction. Republican Senate President Karen Fann issued a news release describing it as a thwarted insurrection, while protesters called it a violent overreaction by police who they said acted without warning or justification. Arizona Department of Public Safety statements said state troopers launched the gas as some in a group of 7,000 to 8,000 people that rallied at the Capitol on Friday night were trying to break into the state Senate. Lawmakers were working to finish their yearly session. The vast majority of people were peaceful and state police said there were no arrests or injuries. While both abortion opponents and abortion rights backers were there, most of the crowd opposed the high court's decision. Police fired tear gas at about 8:30 p.m. as dozens of people pressed up against the glass wall at the front of the Senate building, chanting and waving signs backing the right to abortion. While most were peaceful, a handful of people were banging on the windows, and one person forcefully tried to kick in a sliding glass door. That's when SWAT team members with the Department of Public Safety stationed on the second floor of the old Capitol building fired the tear gas. READ: Palestinian march in Paris defies ban, is met by tear gas Video taken from inside the Senate lobby by Republican Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita showed the scene. Another she took moments later showed state police in riot gear forming a line inside the building, facing protesters on the other side of the glass. She said in an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday morning that the protesters were clearly trying to enter the locked building. "They were aggressively banging on the windows in a way that at any moment it could break," Ugenti-Rita said. “This wasn’t a knock on a window. I mean, they were trying to break the windows.” Hundreds of protesters could been seen in her videos milling about the plaza between the House and Senate buildings, while about a hundred were closer, near the glass wall at the front of the Senate building. “There was no other conclusion than they were interested in being violent,” she added. "I have no other takeaway than that. I’ve seen many protests over my years, in many different sizes and forms. I’ve never seen that ever.” Democratic state Rep. Athena Salman of Tempe, however, said those gassed were peaceful. “A bunch of House and Senate Democrats voted to give these cops a huge pay raise,” said said on Twitter in a post showing police firing tear gas. “Some even called it historic. Remember that every time the cops gas peaceful protesters.” State police said in a statement that what “began as a peaceful protest evolved into anarchical and criminal actions by masses of splinter group.” And they said they had issued multiple warnings for people to leave. Police said gas was deployed “after protesters attempted to break the glass" and was later deployed again in a plaza across the street. Police said some memorials at the plaza were defaced. No broken glass was visible at the Senate building after the crowd dispersed. Salman said in an interview Saturday that police in Arizona have a long history of using unneeded force against people exercising the First Amendment rights to protest and then blaming them for causing the trouble. She pointed to Black Lives Matter and immigrant justice protests, and said she's not surprised to see it at an abortion rights protest. “Anything related to human rights they're ultimately going to gas the crowd and then come up with cover stories justifying this excessive use of force,” Salman said. State Senate Democrats issued a statement Saturday saying the vast majority of protesters were peaceful while noting that a small number tried to enter the building. “We unequivocally condemn violence in all forms, and anxiously await the investigation results to explain the response of law enforcement,” the statement said. They also criticized “right-wing media and lawmakers” who called it an “insurrection attempt,” and said they were “weaponizing this moment to deflect from the actions of January 6th.” READ: Palestinian march in Paris defies ban, is met by tear gas Republicans lawmakers had enacted a 15-week abortion ban in March over the objection of minority Democrats. It mirrors a Mississippi law that the Supreme Court upheld on Friday while also striking down Roe. A law dating from before Arizona became a state in 1912 that bans all abortions remains on the books, and providers across the state stopped providing abortions earlier Friday out of fear of prosecution. The protester incident forced Senate lawmakers to flee to the basement for about 20 minutes, said Democratic Sen. Martin Quezada. Stinging tear gas wafted through the building afterward, and the proceedings were moved to a hearing room instead of the Senate chamber. Fann was presiding over a vote for a contentious school vouchers expansion bill when she abruptly halted proceedings. Speeches backing or supporting the bill expanding the state's school voucher program to all 1.1 million public school students were cut off, and the bill passed. “We're going into recess right now, OK?” Fann announced. “We have a security problem outside.” The building was never breached, said Kim Quintero, a spokesperson for the Senate GOP leadership. After the tear gas sent protesters fleeing, the Senate reconvened to vote on its final bills before adjourning for the year shortly after midnight. A faint smell of tear gas hung in the air.

A Texas group that helps women pay for abortions halted its efforts Saturday while evaluating its legal risk under a strict state ban. Mississippi's only abortion clinic continued to see patients while awaiting a 10-day notice that will trigger a ban. Elected officials across the country vowed to take action to protect women's access to reproductive health care, and abortion foes promised to take the fight to new arenas. A day after the Supreme Court's bombshell ruling overturning Roe v. Wade ended the constitutional right to abortion, emotional protests and prayer vigils turned to resolve as several states enacted bans and both supporters and opponents of abortion rights mapped out their next moves. In Texas, Cathy Torres, organizing manager for Frontera Fund, a group that helps pay for abortions, said there is a lot of fear and confusion in the Rio Grande Valley near the U.S.-Mexico border, where many people are in the country without legal permission. That includes how the state's abortion law, which bans the procedure from conception, will be enforced. Under the law, people who help patients get abortions can be fined and doctors who perform them could face life in prison. “We are a fund led by people of color, who will be criminalized first,” Torres said, adding that abortion funds like hers that have paused operations hope to find a way to safely restart. “We just really need to keep that in mind and understand the risk.” Tyler Harden, Mississippi director for Planned Parenthood Southeast, said she spent Friday and Saturday making sure people with impending appointments at the state’s only abortion clinic — which featured in the Supreme Court case but is not affiliated with Planned Parenthood — know they don't have to cancel them right away. Abortions can still take place until 10 days after the state attorney general publishes a required administrative notice. Mississippi will ban the procedure except for pregnancies that endanger the woman’s life or those caused by rape reported to law enforcement. The Republican speaker of the Mississippi House, Philip Gunn, said during a news conference Friday that he would oppose adding an exception for incest. “I believe that life begins at conception,” Gunn said. Harden said she has been providing information about funds that help people travel out of state to have abortions. Many in Mississippi already were doing so even before the ruling, but that will become more difficult now that abortions have ended in neighboring states like Alabama. Right now Florida is the nearest “safe haven” state, but Harden said, “we know that that may not be the case for too much longer.” At the National Right to Life convention in Atlanta, a leader within the anti-abortion group warned attendees Saturday that the Supreme Court’s decision ushers in “a time of great possibility and a time of great danger.” Randall O’Bannon, the organization’s director of education and research, encouraged activists celebrate their victories but stay focused and continue working on the issue. Specifically, he called out medication taken to induce abortion. “With Roe headed for the dustbin of history, and states gaining the power to limit abortions, this is where the battle is going to be played out over the next several years,” O'Bannon said. “The new modern menace is a chemical or medical abortion with pills ordered online and mailed directly to a woman’s home.” Protests broke out for a second day in cities across the country, from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City to Jackson, Mississippi. In the LA demonstration, one of several in California, hundreds of people marched through downtown carrying signs with slogans like “my body, my choice” and “abort the court.” Turnout was smaller in Oklahoma City, where about 15 protesters rallied outside the Capitol. Oklahoma is one of 11 states where there are no providers offering abortions, and it passed the nation's strictest abortion law in May. “I have gone through a wave of emotions in the last 24 hours. ... It’s upsetting, it’s angry, it’s hard to put together everything I’m feeling right now,” said Marie Adams, 45, who has had two abortions for ectopic pregnancies, where a fertilized egg is unable to survive. She called the issue “very personal to me.” READ: Overturning of Roe v Wade abortion law huge blow to women's rights: Bachelet “Half the population of the United States just lost a fundamental right,” Adams said. “We need to speak up and speak loud.” Callie Pruett, who volunteered to escort patients into West Virginia’s only abortion clinic before it stopped offering the procedure after Friday’s ruling, said she plans to work in voter registration in the hope of electing officials who support abortion rights. The executive director of Appalachians for Appalachia added that her organization also will apply for grants to help patients get access to abortion care, including out of state. “We have to create networks of people who are willing to drive people to Maryland or to D.C.," Pruett said. "That kind of local action requires organization at a level that we have not seen in nearly 50 years.” Fellow West Virginian Sarah MacKenzie, 25, said she's motivated to fight for abortion access by the memory of her mother, Denise Clegg, a passionate reproductive health advocate who worked for years at the state's clinic as a nurse practitioner and died unexpectedly in May. MacKenzie plans to attend protests in the capital, Charleston, and donate to a local abortion fund. “She would be absolutely devastated. She was so afraid of this happening — she wanted to stop it,” Mackenzie said, adding, “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that this gets reversed.” The Supreme Court's ruling is likely to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states. Since the decision, clinics have stopped performing abortions in Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Women considering abortions already had been dealing with the near-complete ban in Oklahoma and a prohibition after roughly six weeks in Texas. In Ohio, a ban on most abortions from the first detectable fetal heartbeat became law when a federal judge dissolved an injunction that had kept the measure on hold for nearly three years. Another law with narrow exceptions was triggered in Utah by Friday's ruling. Planned Parenthood Association of Utah filed a lawsuit against it in state court and said it would request a temporary restraining order, arguing it violates the state constitution. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, where abortion remains legal, signed an executive order shielding people seeking or providing abortions in his state from facing legal consequences in other states. Walz also has vowed to reject requests to extradite anyone accused of committing acts related to reproductive health care that are not criminal offenses in Minnesota. “My office has been and will continue to be a firewall against legislation that would reverse reproductive freedom,” he said. In Fargo, North Dakota, the state’s sole abortion provider faces a 30-day window before it would have to shut down and plans to move across the river to Minnesota. Red River Women’s Clinic owner Tammi Kromenaker said Saturday that she has secured a location in Moorhead and an online fundraiser to support the move has brought in more than half a million dollars in less than three days. Republicans sought to downplay their excitement about winning their decades-long fight to overturn Roe, aware that the ruling could energize the Democratic base, particularly suburban women. Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said she expects abortion opponents to turn out in huge numbers this fall. But Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, said Saturday he believes the issue will energize independents and he hopes to translate anger over Roe’s demise into votes. “Any time you take half the people in Wisconsin and make them second-class citizens,” Evers said, “I have to believe there’s going to be a reaction to that.”

The shock quickly turned to sadness for Victoria Lowe. The 37-year-old lawyer, working outside a cafe in suburban Bucks County, Pennsylvania, said she couldn't believe the Supreme Court stripped away the constitutional right to abortion that women have had her entire life. She started to cry. “I don’t understand how they could reach this conclusion," she said. In the immediate aftermath of one of the Supreme Court's most consequential rulings, it was too soon to know how deeply the political landscape had shifted. But in this politically competitive corner of one of the most important swing states in the U.S., embattled Democrats hope to harness the emotion from women like Lowe to reset what has been an otherwise brutal election year environment. For much of the year, the threat to abortion rights has seemed somewhat theoretical, overshadowed by more tangible economic challenges, particularly inflation and rising gas prices. But the Supreme Court's decision ensures that abortion will be a central issue in U.S. politics for the foreseeable future. That's especially true as restrictions begin to take effect. Pregnant women considering abortions already had been dealing with a near-complete ban in Oklahoma and a prohibition after roughly six weeks in Texas. Clinics in at least eight other states — Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, South Dakota, Wisconsin and West Virginia — stopped performing abortions after Friday’s decision. In Pennsylvania, the future of the procedure could hinge on November's elections. For now, women here will continue to have access to abortion up to 24 weeks. Republicans are poised to change state law, however, should they maintain control of the legislature and seize the governorship in November. Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for governor, opposes abortion with no exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. Democrats in Pennsylvania and beyond initially appeared to unite behind their collective outrage, fear and sadness. They planned widespread protests. From the White House on Friday, President Joe Biden urged protesters to keep the peace, even as he described the court ruling as “wrong, extreme and out of touch.” The Democratic president also called on voters to make their voices heard this fall: “Roe is on the ballot." At the same time, members of the Democratic National Committee raised the prospect of a silver lining within the high court's historic gut punch. “Democrats have a real opportunity right now to harness this anger, to harness the sadness," Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee said during a meeting of a DNC subcommittee. “We are setting the foundation to ensure that Democrats stay in the White House, so that the next time, there’s an opening on the bench, on the federal bench anywhere, that we’ve got a Democratic president making that appointment.” Democratic-aligned groups moved to deploy the resources to warn of what's at stake in this year's midterms. NARAL Freedom Fund and Priorities USA Action immediately spent $300,000 on digital advertising. Republicans, for their part, sought to downplay their excitement about winning the decades-long fight against abortion rights, aware that the ruling could energize the Democratic base, particularly suburban women. Before Friday's ruling, Democrats close to the White House were increasingly pessimistic about the party's chances of holding either the House or Senate in November. Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said she expected abortion opponents to turn out in huge numbers this fall, even if Democrats might be motivated by Friday's ruling. She called it “a great day for unborn children and mothers.” "Because it’s been a so-called right for 50 years doesn’t mean it was right,” Tobias said. Polling shows that relatively few Americans wanted to see Roe overturned. In 2020, AP VoteCast found that 69% of voters in the presidential election said the Supreme Court should leave the Roe v. Wade decision as is. Still, recent surveys tend to show other issues rising above abortion as the most important problems facing the country. Thirteen percent of Democrats mentioned abortion or reproductive rights as one of the issues they want the federal government to address in 2022, according to a December poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s up from less than 1% of Democrats who named it as a priority for 2021 and 3% who listed it in 2020. Other issues like the economy, COVID-19, health care and gun control ranked as higher priorities for Democrats in the poll. But the exponential rise in the percentage citing reproductive rights as a key concern suggests the issue was resonating with Democrats as the Supreme Court considered overturning Roe. The fight for abortion rights — and the related political fallout — now shifts to the states. Thirteen deep-red states have so-called “trigger laws” that will now ban abortion almost immediately, but the future of abortion access is less certain across several other more moderate states with Republican-controlled legislatures: Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin, among them. In many cases, GOP legislatures have already approved restrictive abortion laws, including so-called “heartbeat” bills that would outlaw abortions before most women know they’re pregnant. Some legislation is tied up in the courts, while others have yet to move through Republican legislatures. Now that Roe has fallen, such laws — or more restrictive bans — could only be stopped by a veto from a Democratic governor or Democrat-backed court challenge, if at all. Some states, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Texas, have decades-old abortion bans predating Roe that would now presumably take effect absent another challenge in their state courts. Despite initial hope among Democrats that the upheaval would motivate their base, some on the front lines of the party's uphill midterm fight aren't so sure. Jamie Perrapato, executive director of the pro-Democratic group Turn PA Blue, notes that Democrats produced record turnout across Pennsylvania in last year's off-year elections. But so did Republicans, who ultimately dominated down-ballot races across the state. “I feel sick. I hope this wakes people up. I hope they realize, even though it's terrible, you can't put your head in the sand," Perrapato said. “But I don't know. It's a really bleak time.” Back in Bucks County, Lowe said she votes Democratic and planned to vote in November even before Friday’s decision. Abortion rights are a top issue for her, even as inflation surges. “I would say it is more important to me than the gas issue,” she said. “This is such a personal, fundamental human right that it’s bigger than the economy.” Sitting next to Lowe at the cafe, 56-year-old Margaret Pezalla-Granlund also choked up when asked about the Supreme Court decision. Although they were strangers, Lowe offered her a tissue, and the women dried their eyes together. Pezalla-Granlund was especially worried about her 15-year-old daughter. "She’ll be growing up in a really different situation than I had and I expected she’d have,” she said. Such concern wasn't limited to Democrats. Not far away, 75-year-old Karen Sloan was smoking a cigarette outside a cafe in the Delaware River town of Bristol. A self-described Republican who supports abortion rights, she said Friday’s ruling upset her. “I just can’t believe it,” Sloan said. “I’m not saying it’s right to take a human life. But there are circumstances it needs to be done.” She said she would have voted in November even before the ruling, but now she’s planning to support candidates who back abortion rights. For her, the issue outranks high gas prices and inflation. “You're taking away someone’s rights and that to me is more important,” Sloan said. “It’s a big thing in the United States for women.”

A Vietnam-era helicopter showcased in action movies crashed on a rural West Virginia road, killing all six people on board, during an annual reunion for helicopter enthusiasts. The Federal Aviation Administration said the Bell UH-1B “Huey” helicopter crashed along Route 17 in Logan County about 5 p.m. Wednesday. All six people on board were killed, said Ray Bryant, chief of operations for the Logan County emergency ambulance service authority. The helicopter crashed in clear weather on a road near the local airport, he said. “The entire cab of it was on fire,” Bryant said in a phone interview Thursday. “It was recognized by the first responders as being a helicopter from this area because we see it a lot,” he said. The crash occurred during an annual reunion for helicopter enthusiasts at MARPAT Aviation in Logan. It was scheduled to begin Tuesday and end Sunday, according to MARPAT's website. During the event, visitors could sign up to ride or fly the historic helicopter, described by organizers as one of the last of its kind still flying. Read: Medical helicopter crashes near church; all 4 aboard survive The helicopter was flown by the 114th Assault Helicopter Company, “The Knights of the Sky,” in Vinh Long, Vietnam, throughout much of the 1960s, according to MARPAT. After the Huey returned to the U.S. in 1971, the website says, it was featured in movies like “Die Hard, “The Rock” and “Under Siege: Dark Territory." Neither reunion organizers nor MARPAT officials returned requests for comment Thursday. Patty Belcher, who lives nearby, was driving to the store when she came upon the crash. “There was smoke so thick that you couldn’t hardly see nothing but smoke and flames," she said by phone Thursday. "It was coming down the ditch line on the righthand side, and I said, ‘My God, I better turn around. It might catch this truck on fire.’ So I turned around and came back.” The crash was near the Battle of Blair Mountain historic sites, where a deadly clash erupted a century ago as thousands of coal miners marched to unionize in West Virginia. Read: Pakistan army helicopter crashes in Kashmir; 2 pilots killed Bobbi Childs saw smoke and flames and got close enough to see a man who was trapped. “I saw that there was a guy trapped, I guess the captain. I tried to get down to the door where he was at. You could see him plain as day. I tried to get to him, but the fire was too hot. I couldn’t get to him,” Childs told WOWK-TV. The road was expected to remain closed for at least 24 hours. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. ___ Willingham reported from Charleston, W.Va. Schreiner reported from Frankfort, Ky.

The Biden administration has started shipping monkeypox tests to commercial laboratories, in a bid to speed diagnoses for suspected infections for the virus that has already infected at least 142 people in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sending tests to labs, including Aegis Science, Labcorp, Mayo Clinic Laboratories, Quest Diagnostics and Sonic Healthcare, which it said would significant expand the nation's health system's capacity to test for monkeypox. Previously, testing has largely been confined to public health labs, which combined have a capacity of about 8,000 tests per week. Read: WHO convenes experts to decide if monkeypox is an emergency “All Americans should be concerned about monkeypox cases," said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in a statement. "Thankfully we have right now the tools to fight and treat cases in America. By dramatically expanding the number of testing locations throughout the country, we are making it possible for anyone who needs to be tested to do so.” The disease first causes flu-like symptoms before progressing to a rash on the face and body and is commonly found in parts of central and west Africa. But this year, 1,880 infections have been reported in more than 30 countries where monkeypox isn’t typically found. Most of those cases have been found in Europe. As of June 21, the CDC has confirmed 142 monkeypox infections in the U.S. Read: Britain records 104 more monkeypox cases Monkeypox comes from the same family of viruses as smallpox. Most people recover from monkeypox within weeks, but the disease is fatal for up to 1 in 10 people, according to the World Health Organization.

The number of new coronavirus cases rose in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe last week, while the number of deaths globally dropped by 16%, according to the World Health Organization’s latest weekly pandemic report issued Wednesday. The WHO said there were 3.3 million new COVID-19 infections last week, marking a 4% decrease, with more than 7,500 deaths. But cases jumped by about 45% in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and by about 6% in Europe. Southeast Asia was the only region to report a slight 4% increase in deaths, while figures fell elsewhere. Globally, the number of new COVID-19 cases has ben falling after peaking in January. Salim Abdool Karim, an epidemiologist and vice-chancellor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, said the recent fall in COVID-19 numbers had reached “trough” levels and had not been seen much in the last two and a half years. He warned, however, that some countries, including Britain, were starting to see a slight resurgence in cases. British health officials said last week there were early signs the country could be at the start of a new wave of infections driven by omicron variants, although hospitalization rates have so far remained “very low.” The country dropped nearly all of its COVID restrictions months ago. Last week, the U.K. recorded a 43% rise in cases following the street parties, concerts and other festivities celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee earlier this month, that marked her 70 years as monarch. Read: Biden visits clinic, celebrates COVID shots for kids under 5 Meanwhile in the U.S., officials began rolling out vaccines for the littlest children late last week, with shots for kids aged six months to five years. Advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control authorized vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna on Saturday, saying they helped prevent severe disease, hospitalization and deaths in young children. Read: Govt hopes FY2023 will be final year of Covid pandemic: Document While young children generally don’t get as sick from COVID-19 as older kids and adults, their hospitalizations surged during the omicron wave and American experts determined that benefits from vaccination outweighed the minimal risks.

A jetliner carrying 126 people caught fire after landing Tuesday at Miami International Airport when the front landing gear collapsed, but no serious injuries were reported, authorities said. The fire followed the collapse of that landing gear on a Red Air flight arriving from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Miami-Dade Aviation Department spokesman Greg Chin said in an email to The Associated Press. The MD-82 jetliner was carrying 126 people, and three of them were taken to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries, he added. Other passengers were being bussed from the plane to the terminal. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue posted on Twitter that fire crews had placed the fire under control and were mitigating fuel spillage. Read: Eastern Afghanistan earthquake kills at least 255 people TV news images showed the plane appeared to have come to rest in grass beside a runway and that the aircraft and an area all around it were apparently doused with white firefighters’ chemicals. At least three firefighting vehicles were positioned nearby. The airport was experience some flight delays Tuesday evening, airport officials said in a tweet, adding passengers were instructed to check with airlines for details. The tweet added that the collapse of the front landing gear in the nose of the aircraft appeared to be the cause of the fire. The National Transportation Safety Board posted that a team would arrive at the airport by Wednesday to investigate the fire.

President Joe Biden visited a vaccination clinic Tuesday to celebrate that virtually all Americans can now get a COVID-19 shot Tuesday after the authorization of vaccines for kids under 5 over the weekend. Biden visited a vaccination clinic in Washington, where some of the first shots were given to young children in the last major age group ineligible for vaccines, hailing it as an important pandemic milestone that will support the country’s recovery. While anyone aged six months and up is now eligible for vaccines, the administration is cautioning that it expects the pace of shots for the youngest kids to be slower than older ones, as parents are more likely to rely on their children’s pediatricians to administer them. “The United States is now the first country in the world to offer safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as six months old,” Biden said at the White House. Read: Biden takes spill while getting off bike after beach ride Addressing parents, Biden said, “I encourage you to talk to the doctor after you make a plan to get your child vaccinated.” Biden also delivered a thinly veiled criticism of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who blocked his health department from ordering and delivering pediatric vaccines in his state, a move the White House said delayed the availability of shots for kids under 5. “Let’s be clear: Elected officials shouldn’t get in the way and can make it more difficult for parents who want their children to be vaccinated and want to protect them and those around them,” he said. “This is no time for politics. It’s about parents being able to do everything they can to keep the children safe.” Earlier Tuesday, he and first lady Jill Biden met with newly vaccinated kids and their parents at Church of the Holy Communion in southeast Washington. As he handed out hugs to kids, Biden spoke of his youngest grandson, Beau, aged two, being newly eligible for vaccination. Read: Yellowstone National Park to partly reopen after floods “Everybody knows I like kids better than people,” he joked. In a Friday interview with The Associated Press, White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha predicted that universal eligibility for vaccines would be a “huge psychological milestone” for the country as it seeks to emerge from two years of pandemic disruption. “When the President came into office, he was very clear, he said over and over again, that he wanted to make sure that every American had the access and availability of these life protecting vaccines,” he said. “We are now at the point where that vision, that expectation that mission can now be fulfilled.”