CNN reporter visits lagoon where Florida manatees are starving to death
CNN's Randi Kaye visits the waters of Florida's Indian River Lagoon to get an up-close look at why manatees are starving to death. What was once a paradise for Florida's manatees has become a death trap. Environmentalists say the cause is septic tanks and wastewater plant runoff from development along the lagoon. A federal judge agrees with them and says Florida violated the Endangered Species Act. The pollutants have caused the manatees' main source of food, sea grass, to die, causing more than 1200 manatees to starve to death.
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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘We Don't Want Them': Trump's Travel Bans Are Back
Donald Trump has revived his first administration's travel ban policy, signing a proclamation Wednesday banning travel from twelve countries and restricting travel from several more. Banned from entering the U.S. are nationals from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Partial restrictions apply to people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. The proclamation carves out exceptions for lawful permanent residents, visa holders, World Cup and Olympics athletes and their immediate relatives, and people whose visit is deemed to benefit U.S. national interests, among other classes. The ban, which goes into effect after midnight on Monday, was issued due to national security risks, the White House said. The antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado last weekend, in which several attendees at a gathering calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas were burned, spurred Trump to complete work on the proclamation quicker, CNN reported. The attack 'underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas,' Trump said. 'We don't want them.' The suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, is an Egyptian national who overstayed his visa. Egypt is not included in the president's travel ban. Deputy White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson said the list of countries named in the proclamation includes those that show high visa overstay rates, among other qualifying factors. 'President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors that want to come to our country and cause us harm,' she wrote on X. 'These commonsense restrictions are country-specific and include places that lack proper vetting, exhibit high visa overstay rates, or fail to share identity and threat information.' A White House fact sheet offered justifications for each country. Libya, for instance, has 'no competent or cooperative central authority for issuing passports or civil documents,' it states. Libya was among the countries Trump singled out in his initial travel ban in early 2017, a move which sparked widespread protests in part because each of the seven nations were predominantly Muslim. Though Trump cited national security and not religion, he had called for a ban on Muslims' entry into the U.S. during his 2016 presidential campaign. Legal challenges to that ban were filed almost immediately. The Trump administration then reworked the language of the ban, and it was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. That decision, Trump v. Hawaii, was cited in the White House fact sheet Wednesday, along with a national security-related executive order Trump signed in January.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Death and hunger': Videos, expert analysis and witnesses point to Israeli gunfire in Gaza aid site shooting
Editor's Note: This story contains graphic images and descriptions of violence. A CNN investigation into a deadly incident near an aid distribution site in southern Gaza on Sunday points to the Israeli military opening fire on crowds of Palestinians as they tried to make their way to the fenced enclosure to get food. More than a dozen eyewitnesses, including those wounded in the attack, said Israeli troops shot at crowds in volleys of gunfire that occurred sporadically through the early hours of Sunday morning. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the US and Israeli-backed aid initiative that runs the site, said that Israeli forces were operating in the area during the same period. Multiple videos geolocated by CNN place the gunfire near a roundabout where hundreds of Palestinians had gathered about half a mile (800 meters) away from the militarized aid site in Tel al-Sultan in Rafah. The designated route to the site along the coast, Al-Rasheed Street, is in an area under the Israeli military's control and Israeli troops operate at a base nearby. Weapons experts said the rate of gunfire heard in the footage, as well as images of bullets retrieved from victims, were consistent with machine guns used by the Israeli military that can be mounted on tanks. Multiple eyewitnesses said that they saw gunfire emanating from Israeli tanks nearby. None of the videos definitively show who fired shots outside of the aid camp. However, CNN's review of audiovisual material sheds fresh light on how the pursuit of aid turned chaotic and then dangerous, on the actions of Israeli forces and the consequences of the new aid mechanism, which has been mired in controversy. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially said on Sunday that its forces did not fire at civilians 'while they were near or within the aid site.' An Israeli military source later acknowledged that troops had fired 'warning shots' at suspects about 1 kilometer (1,093 yards) away. The Israeli military declined to answer questions about CNN's findings. During a press conference on Tuesday, IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said the military investigated and found its troops played no role in any mass casualty event. Defrin said: 'This week, it was claimed that the IDF fired at civilians in an aid distribution area. This report is entirely false and echoes the propaganda of the terrorist organization Hamas… Regarding the incident on Sunday – it simply didn't happen!' Defrin also suggested casualty figures provided by the Palestinian health ministry were inflated, but did not elaborate as to how many people the military believed had been killed or injured. Sunday's mass shooting, which the Palestinian health ministry said killed at least 31 Palestinians and injured dozens, was the deadliest incident involving aid distribution in recent months. It comes amid warnings from the United Nations that the new aid distribution mechanism has become a 'death trap' for desperate people seeking food in the strip. Thousands of starving Palestinians had gathered in the sandy bulldozed area near the GHF-run site before the gates opened on Sunday, braving chaotic scenes when gunfire struck the crowd. 'No one move, stay in your place… no one move!' one Palestinian man is heard yelling in a series of videos posted to TikTok on Sunday, filmed along the coast where crowds had gathered near the aid site. The videos – reviewed and geolocated by CNN – capture Palestinians taking cover amid repeated bursts of gunfire, and what appear to be two explosive munitions seen landing next to the crowd. Mohammed Saqer, 43, told CNN in an interview that he only narrowly escaped death, watching people around him get shot in the head as he crouched on the ground, hoping to survive long enough to reach the site run by GHF and get food for his family. After the US-backed private foundation finally opened the site at 5:00 a.m., witnesses said the Israeli military's gunfire continued nearby. Surveillance footage shared by GHF shows crowds of onrushing Palestinians scrambling to reach the limited boxes of food as tracer fire explodes into the night sky in the distance. By sunrise, the extent of the catastrophe was undeniable. Videos captured bloodied bodies of Palestinians scattered across the sands, roughly a half mile from the food distribution center. Similar deadly incidents on Monday and Tuesday near the same site have raised further questions about whether the militarized aid initiative backed by the US and approved by Israel can deliver food supplies safely. In the subsequent episodes, the IDF acknowledged that Israeli troops had fired warning shots in the area. GHF said none of the shootings occurred within or adjacent to their distribution sites, adding that the location of the shootings was 'an area well beyond our secure distribution site.' For Saqer, who said he managed to finally reach the aid site and escaped with whatever he could carry, the harrowing night still weighs heavily on him. 'We survived a night that was worse than we could imagine,' he said. 'The reality for people was one of death and hunger searching for food.' When GHF announced its distribution plans for Sunday, the instructions were direct: only one aid site would be open starting at 5:00 a.m., and the IDF would be present in the area to secure passage on a designated route. It also warned – albeit after gunfire reportedly already erupted – that the Israeli military would be 'active' in the area ahead of the site's opening. 'Using the passage before 5:00 a.m. is prohibited, as we were informed by the military that it will be active in the area before and after the specified safe hours,' the GHF said in a release on Facebook at 4 a.m. 'We remind all residents to stay on the road — straying from it poses a significant danger.' Having endured an 11-week Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid, thousands of desperate Palestinians began making their way down Al-Rasheed Street in hopes of being among the first to reach the aid site – the only one operating in all of Gaza that day – before the limited supplies ran out. As people attempted to slowly advance to the aid site from the Al-Alam roundabout, more than a dozen witnesses interviewed by CNN described the IDF opening volleys of intense fire on the crowd starting as early as 3:30 a.m. 'I could hear the screams of young people and others from their injuries,' Saqer said. 'In front of me were four young men with direct injuries to the head… there was a person next to me who was injured by a bullet in his eye.' He and others said a quadcopter drone appeared above the crowd, with the voice on its speaker telling people to turn around. But amid the warning, gunfire crackled all around them. 'Even retreating was almost impossible, and everyone was lying on the ground unable to lift their heads because if you lifted your head, you would get shot.' As the chaos unfolded near the Al-Alam area, the GHF aid site officially opened at 5:00 a.m. Security video of the location released by the organization, which was labeled as beginning at 5:02 a.m., shows crowds of Palestinians running into the fenced distribution center. Three minutes later, in the background of the video, bursts of tracer gunfire are seen overhead, which forensics experts told CNN appear to be outgoing from an area near the distribution site. In the video, which has no audio, crowds can be seen running in another direction nearby. It is unclear whether they are running from gunfire. Around the same time back in the Al-Alam area approximately 800 meters (874 yards) away, 30-year-old Ameen Khalifa was filming as he took cover. Several videos shared on TikTok by Khalifa show groups of Palestinians lying flat on the ground and taking cover from ongoing bursts of automatic gunfire. CNN geolocated the video to the area using visible spotlights at the Egyptian border and the unfinished hospital that became an Israeli military base. Robert Maher, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Montana State University, who specializes in forensic audio analysis, examined the footage for CNN and said that the bursts of gunfire were at a rate of 15 and 16 shots per second (or 900 and 960 per minute), fired from a distance of about a quarter of a mile (450 meters). Based on the erratic nature of the sound, Maher said that the shots seemed to be spread out, fired repeatedly in one direction. 'Since the cracks are irregular, it seems more like the gunfire was being sprayed over the area.' Trevor Ball, a former US Army senior explosive ordnance disposal team member, said the rate of fire was consistent with the FN MAG, a heavily-used machine gun in the Israeli military's arsenal. The FN MAG is commonly equipped on the IDF's Merkava tanks, which several eyewitnesses said they saw open fire on the crowds. Ball told CNN he could not confirm the specific weaponry used, or who fired it, but the rate of fire, he said, indicated it wasn't consistent with machine guns used by Hamas. Ball also said the tracer fire – ammunition containing a pyrotechnic charge illuminating its trajectory – seen in the GHF's footage is consistent with the use of machine guns. 'Typically belt fed machine guns have tracer rounds inserted every few rounds. So while only 3 tracers are visible in the video, more rounds were fired.' Khalifa, who loved sports and bodybuilding, survived the harrowing night on Sunday only to be shot and killed by a drone two days later while heading to the same aid site to look for food, one of his close friends told CNN. By daylight, video footage reviewed by CNN captured the dire scene near the coast, with several bodies strewn in the sand. The Palestinian health ministry said that more than 200 casualties reached hospitals, including dozens with serious injuries. It added that all of those killed had been shot in the head or chest. The International Committee of the Red Cross said that its nearby field hospital was overwhelmed by patients, describing the carnage as the 'highest number of weapon-wounded in a single incident' since it opened over a year ago. Other dead and wounded were taken to Nasser Hospital. 'It's difficult to describe what we saw with the young and the old, there was severe injuries to the head, severe injuries to the lung,' recalled Dr. Ahmad Abou-Sweid, an Australian working at the Nasser medical complex. 'There was a heavy proportion of head-targeted injuries from bullet wounds.' Doctors working at Nasser Hospital shared photos with CNN of the bullets retrieved from patients injured and killed in the attack, which weapons experts say appear to match the type of ammunition used in the Israeli military's machine guns. 'This bullet is consistent with the NATO standard 7.62mm M80, which would be fired by IDF 7.62x51mm weapons, including the Negev 7.62 and FN MAG,' Ball said of one of the images. GHF, which runs the site, insisted: 'There was no gunfire in the (distribution) center and also not in the surrounding area.' 'All aid was distributed today without incident. We have heard that these fake reports have been actively fomented by Hamas. They are untrue and fabricated.' The IDF said allegations that Israeli soldiers fired on Gazans near or within the aid distribution site were 'false reports.' It added: 'Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false.' An Israeli military source told CNN that IDF troops did fire warning shots towards suspects approaching their position approximately a kilometer (1,100 yards) away from the aid distribution site in an incident that happened several hours before the site opened. Ihab Musleh told CNN he had taken his two young sons along to the aid distribution center. When he told them to stay put at a nearby hill as he went inside the site, he heard more gunfire and rushed back out. Yazeed, 13, was shot in the stomach by gunfire from an Israeli tank and survived his injuries, according to his dad. 'He was waving his hands towards the tank and within seconds, he was hit with gunfire and fell to the ground,' Musleh said, speaking to CNN from the hospital where his son was being treated. Other witnesses told CNN they were either injured or saw intense gunfire in the area after the aid site opened. Mohammad Abu Rezeq was shot in the stomach upon arriving at Al-Alam where he said Israeli forces were deliberately targeting the crowd. 'I have seen a lot of soldiers in this war. When they want to clear an area or warn you, they shoot around you. But yesterday, they were shooting to kill us,' Abu Rezeq said. CNN asked the IDF about the claim from witnesses that its troops were firing directly at crowds, shooting to kill, but it gave no further comment beyond its published statement. The chaos in the early hours of Sunday morning was not an isolated incident. In consecutive days since, Palestinians attempting to reach the GHF's aid distribution sites have come under fire by the Israeli military. After the intense gunfire near the Al-Alam roundabout on Sunday, GHF's Facebook posts included updated maps of the safe route for the following days. The new maps included a large, red stop sign at Al-Alam. On Tuesday, nearly 30 people were killed and dozens wounded while making their way to the aid sites in Tel al-Sultan in Rafah, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health and Nasser Hospital. The Israeli military said that its forces opened fire multiple times after identifying 'several suspects moving toward them, deviating from the designated access routes.' 'The troops carried out warning fire, and after the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects who advanced toward the troops,' the IDF said in a statement, adding they were looking into reports of casualties. While the Israeli military has acknowledged firing warning shots in the area three days in a row, posts from GHF's Facebook page show the organization works in close coordination with the IDF to establish safe, defined routes. GHF was set up amid Israeli accusations that Hamas is stealing aid in Gaza and profiting from sales, though Israel hasn't presented any evidence publicly to back up the claim. UN aid groups, such as UNRWA, typically check identification and rely on a database of registered families when distributing aid. But GHF is not screening Palestinians at aid distribution sites, despite Israeli officials saying that additional security measures were a core reason for the creation of the new program. UN aid agencies have criticized GHF's aid mechanism, saying it violates humanitarian principles and raises the risks for Palestinians. Criticism has been mounting against both Israel and GHF after chaos broke out last week when tens of thousands of starving Palestinians arrived at two new food distribution sites. The UN's humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, was scathing in his assessment to the UN Security Council late last month. 'It restricts aid to only one part of Gaza, while leaving other dire needs unmet,' he said. 'It makes aid conditional on political and military aims. It makes starvation a bargaining chip. It is cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement.' Video edited by Oscar Featherstone in London. Tareq Al Hilou in Gaza contributed to this report.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
A decade after the Mount Kinabalu earthquake, survivors return to climb again
Dangling from a tree for nearly seven hours, 11-year-old Prajesh Dhimant Patel was barely conscious — only the faint, slow movement of his feet, clad in bright orange shoes, hinted at a trace of life. Amid the debris of crushed boulders unleashed by a devastating earthquake, a tour guide was descending the mountain when, from the corner of his eye, he caught sight of those bright shoes. It was that flash of orange that led the guide to Patel, and ultimately, saved the schoolboy's life. It's been 10 years since the tragic morning of June 5, 2015, when 29 students and eight teachers from Singapore's Tanjong Katong Primary School set off on what was meant to be a memorable school expedition to climb the 13,435 feet Mount Kinabalu on the island of Borneo, Malaysia. As the group ascended, a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck, triggering a landslide that buried part of the expedition. Patel was swept away by the thundering cascade of rocks and dirt and hoisted into a tree. Seven students and two teachers from his group never made it back. Eighteen people in total lost their lives. For Patel, now 21, the memories are blurred by trauma and lost to time, much like the friends and teachers he lost that day. But on the 10th anniversary of the tragedy, he felt ready to revisit that chapter of his life. 'I had always wanted to know what had happened, because nobody shared it with me,' he said. Joined by his former classmate and fellow survivor, Emyr Uzayr, Patel began the journey to retrace the very trails that once tested their limits — and to heal. When Patel and Uzayr reunited for the climb on May 20 this year, they were ready — despite lingering anxiety and fear — to honor the friends who never came home. The two had stayed in a vague sort of touch after the 2015 disaster, little more than brief hellos on Instagram and scattered 'how are you' messages. Despite barely speaking over the years, one thing was clear for both of them: returning to Mount Kinabalu was unfinished business. They were both eager to return and shake off the ghosts on the 10th anniversary of the earthquake. On the climb, they reunited with Cornelius Sanan, the 43-year-old Malaysian mountain guide who, 10 years earlier, had saved Patel's life. Sanan told CNN that the first thing he said to Patel was, 'Where are your magic shoes?' 'I wish I still had them,' Patel replied, 'but they held too many painful memories, so my parents didn't want me to keep them.' Though the bright orange shoes were long gone, Patel wore a familiar religious pendant around his neck — his lucky charm, which Sanan recognized. It was the same pendant Patel had worn on the day of the quake. The group hoped to complete the climb in two days. But in the early hours of May 21, heavy rain began to fall, forcing them to spend an extra day on the mountain. What could have been a frustrating delay turned into an opportunity to listen to the stories of the locals who still remembered that tragic day, and to hear from Sanan himself. 'It became more of a shared journey than a personal one,' Uzayr reflected. The next morning, at 3:30 a.m., just as the rain eased, they resumed their climb through the steep, soggy terrain of Mount Kinabalu. 'It was physically very tough,' Uzayr admitted. 'At some point, I wondered — how did we even manage this when we were just kids?' Under clear skies and with fresh mountain air all around, as Uzayr climbed, the old memories surged back. 'Every step we took,' the 21-year-old recalled, 'memories of our friends came flooding back.' Unlike Patel, Uzayr remembers everything from that fateful day which began with laughter, the thrill of a long-awaited school trip finally coming to life. 'We were just kids, telling each other, 'Hurry up! Move faster!'' he recalled with a soft smile. The day had only just begun when the ground began to tremble. 'The whole mountain shook,' he said. 'And then, thousands of rocks — some the size of car tires — came crashing down from above at very fast, fast speed.' Teachers shouted, 'Get down! Get down!' But the rocks fell faster than anyone could react to. 'I remember the colors of my friends' jackets everywhere,' he said quietly, 'and then… the bodies.' Uzayr was left covered in cuts, with a fractured skull. But he made it out alive. For Patel, though; the memories are mostly lost and scattered. It is Sanan, the mountain guide who found him, who now helps fill in the blanks. He shows Patel the exact tree where he had been found, dangling for hours — barely visible. 'We saw a bit of movement and thought, 'maybe someone is still alive',' Sanan told CNN. 'We made the decision to bring Patel up without any proper gear. We just had to try.' 'If I had landed just a few meters to the left or right,' Patel said, 'they wouldn't have been able to see me. The trees would've hidden me completely.' He was severely injured, physically and emotionally. 'I completely couldn't speak, couldn't walk, couldn't write,' he recalled, 'so I had to relearn how to do every basic thing from the start.' And yet, the man who pulled Patel from the trees wasn't trained in rescue at all. Sanan had only been a mountain guide for five years, with no prior experience in a natural disaster. But on that day, instinct took over. Sanan lost someone too — his cousin Robbie Sapinggi, a fellow guide who had been leading a Thai tourist when the earthquake hit. Sapinggi was caught under falling rocks. Knowing he wouldn't make it, he told the tourist to go on without him. Another mountain guide, Joseph Soludin, also lost his life that day. Sanan still guides today. It's his way of honoring Sapinggi's memory. 'I continue guiding,' he said, 'because part of my soul lives here (in Mount Kinabalu).' To Uzayr and Patel, Sanan will always be their hero — the man who saved lives. But Sanan shakes his head. 'We were all there that day — guides, rescuers, everyone. No one did it alone,' he said softly. 'We were all heroes, in our own way.' The trails on Mount Kinabalu have since been rebuilt. A dedicated rescue team now stands ready every day. Safety has changed, but the mountain hasn't. High up in those peaks, the memories of 2015 still live on. 'In everything we do now, we carry their memories,' Uzayr said. 'We honored what our friends never got the chance to finish.' And sometimes, when the weight of memory grows heavy, they think of the little things. Like the bright orange shoes caught in a tree — proof that life clings on, even in the darkest moments. 'We found a renewed sense of purpose,' Uzayr said. 'And realized it was time to accept the past and move on to the future.'
