At least 24 states have enacted policies to close nonessential businesses in an effort to slow the spread of Covid-19 in the United States. While guidance varies from state to state, recreational spaces like museums, movie theaters, gyms, day cares, music venues and malls, as well as personal care retailers like spas, nail and hair salons, tend to fall in the nonessential businesses category.
The states with nonessential business shut-downs are Washington, California, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. Other states like Missouri and Kansas have shut down orders in certain counties.
Shuttering nonessential businesses resulted in tens of thousands of American workers losing their jobs in recent weeks. In New York and New Jersey, so many people filed for unemployment insurance over the past week that both states’ online systems crashed. While guidance varies from state to state, recreational spaces like museums, movie theaters, gyms, day cares, music venues and malls, as well as personal care retailers like spas, nail and hair salons, tend to fall in the nonessential businesses category.
In New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday warned that the “rate of new infections is doubling about every three days,” essential businesses that remain open include health care facilities, infrastructure and manufacturing entities and essential services like trash collection, law enforcement and homeless shelters. Bars and restaurants can only offer take-out or delivery.
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Kenny Rogers, whose legendary music career spanned six decades, has died at the age of 81. The artist’s family announced his passing, saying he died from natural causes under the care of hospice and surrounded by family. “Kenny Rogers left an indelible mark on the history of American music. His songs have endeared music lovers and touched the lives of millions around the world,” read a statement posted by his publicist Keith Hagan. Rogers’ family planned a small, private service out of concern for the coronavirus pandemic, “but look forward to celebrating the life of Kenny Rogers publicly with his friends and fans at a later date,” his publicist’s statement said. Tributes to the country singer poured in from fans and musical artists.
Rogers was inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013, for what organization officials called a “distinctive, husky voice.” He had 24 No. 1 hits and through his career more than 50 million albums sold in the US alone. He wasalso a six-time Country Music Awards winner and three-time Grammy Award winner.
Some of his hits included “Lady,” “Lucille,” “We’ve Got Tonight” and “Through the Years.” His 1978 song “The Gambler” inspired multiple TV movies, with Rogers as the main character. In 1985, he participated in the original recording of “We Are the World” along with more than three dozen artists. A year later, according to his website, he co-chaired “Hands Across America,” a campaign which sought to raise awareness about the homeless and hungry in the US.
He announced his retirement in 2015. “I’ve been so lucky to have enjoyed such a long career and to have such amazing support from my fans and all who have helped me along the way, but there comes a time when I need to focus on spending time with my family,” he had said. “My life is about my wife and my 11-year-old twin boys right now. There are a lot of things I want to do together with them to create some special memories. I don’t have a bucket list of my own … I have a bucket list of things I want to do with them.”
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The U.S. Coast Guard has recovered all but one body after a commercial diving boat named the Conception, caught fire in the early hours of Monday morning off the coast of Santa Cruz Island in Southern California. The only survivors were five crew members of the 75-foot vessel who were sleeping on or above deck. All 33 passengers and one crew member sleeping below deck at the time of the fire were killed in horrific disaster. Authorities have yet to determine the cause of the fire.
The boat and company, Truth Aquatics Inc., are well-known in the tight-knit Southern California diving community, which is now reeling from the horrific maritime tragedy that killed teenagers, families, veteran divers, and one crew member, who were wrapping up a three-day scuba diving trip. Divers were inspecting the ship’s wreckage with plans to raise it from the ocean floor, but that process may be complicated by forecast high winds in the coming days.
The surviving crew members told a harrowing story of their frantic attempts to save the passengers trapped below deck in a bunk room already engulfed in flames. One member of the crew told of hearing a noise from his bunk on the wheelhouse deck of the Conception and that when he opened the door of the wheelhouse, he saw flames erupting from the galley area but never heard smoke alarms. He told investigators he tried to get down a ladder but flames had engulfed the ladder.
Scrambling, the other crew members jumped from the bridge of the boat to the main deck. One person broke their leg doing so. They then rushed to the galley’s double doors to try and reach the passengers below, but the fire was already too intense.
At around 3:15 a.m., the captain made a frantic mayday call to authorities, telling them that the boat was engulfed, 33 people couldn’t escape, and “there’s no escape hatch for any of the people on board.” At that point, due to heat, flames, and smoke, the crew had to jump from the boat. Two crew members swam to the back of the Conception to get the inflatable skiff, then collected the others and made it to a nearby fishing boat, the Grape Escape.
Shirley Hansen, owner of the Grape Escape, said that she and her husband awoke at 3:30 a.m. to “horrific pounding” and a group of distraught, wet men, some injured and just in their underwear. Once on the Hansen’s boat, the men tried to call 911 for rescue and two crew members then took the dinghy boat back to the Conception to try and rescue any survivors but there were none. The Hansen’s said you could hear explosions from the engulfed diving boat every couple of minutes.
Officials have been looking at the dive boat’s maintenance and inspection records, which the Coast Guard said were up to date, and trying to understand if the 34 victims who had been sleeping in rows of narrow bunks even had a chance to escape. Officials are using advanced DNA technology to identify the victims. None of the names of the dead, who ranged in age from 17 to 60, have been publicly released by authorities but friends and family have confirmed who was on the boat. Among the victims were a family of five, a teacher and his daughter, and a diving instructor and marine biologist.
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Daily HI4E.org Trivia Contest Winners For The Week Ending: Sunday, June 30th, 2019.
In an effort to broaden the company’s “social interaction” with our clients and FaceBook fans, Daily Trivia Questions are posted on both of our business pages. Here are the weekly standings for this past week, and the winner of the Sunday night Weekly Drawing for an AmEx gift card!
Congratulations – To this past week’s Trivia Contest Winner!! Our latest contest winner for the weekly FaceBook HealthInsurance4Everyone/Health & Life Solutions, LLC Trivia Contest, drawn randomly by computer late Sunday evening, June 30th, 2019 was:
ROSE ELIZABETH CANTU
Saginaw, MI
Winner Of A $25.00 VISA Gift Card
Each day, fans who have “liked” either of our company FaceBook pages (HealthInsurance4Everyone or Health & Life Solutions LLC) are able to test their skills with our Daily TRIVIA QUESTION. The first 20 winners who post the correct answer to the TRIVIA QUESTION, will then get entered into the weekly drawing held late on Sunday evenings for a $25.00 Am Ex/Visa Gift Card.
Weekly Gift Card winners will be posted in our blog at this site. Remember to become a FaceBook fan and “Like and Follow” either of our company pages to enter and post your answers.
The drawing entries 6/24/19 thru 6/30/19 are:
6/24/19
Amanda Otis
Vickie Gipson
Rhonda Grisham
Jenifer Garza
Kristina Rosson
Jennifer Ramlet
Alyssa DiFazio
Ambreen Javed
Meg Marshall
Nicole Blaha
Sarah Harrison
Nai Merri
Alicia Dansby
Mary Achio
Ashley Agner
Stephanie Marie Walls
Alexis Maureen
Samantha Brown
Jessica Steiner
Kayla Hernandez
Shannon Rush
MarcyLynn Coull
Desire Kightlinger Swarm
Becca Neuenschwander Long
6/25/19
April Ashcraft
Nicole Blaha
Meg Marshall
Stephanie Beckwith
Mary Pettiford
Rachael Smith
Jennifer Ramlet
Rushell Tuggle
Janice McKay Donahue
Susan Clarke Jette
Trish Marks
Alyssa DiFazio
Jenifer Garza
Sherry Lilly
Katrina Jordan
Sean Stover
Kristy Lynn Ballard
Ellen Ciambrelli Ferrari
Brittany Seiler
Sonali Jain Modi
Amanda Otis
6/26/19
Jennifer Lang
Jo Bagavathula Bevara
Tracy Heyer
Phylicia Phillips
Kelsey Polacek
Kendra Lynne Ramsey
Wendi Black
Trish Hysell
Tabitha Pacheco Willette
Tiffany Greene Elliott
Darlene Whyte
Sarah Frank
Be Schwerin
Kimberly Taylor Hall
Tonya Velazquez
Vickie Gipson
Stacy Nelson
Michelle Tyler Jeske
Tera Lee Culverwell
Yolanda Ortega-Hackett
Lori Sexton Leal
6/27/19
Jennifer Ramlet
Meg Marshall
Amber McGrath
Jessica Steiner
Jennifer Leffler
Dave Miller
Rhonda Grisham
Becky VanGinkel
Nancy Pfirrman Schools
Alexis Maureen
Amber Chandler
Nicole Blaha
Robin Jedele
Sarah Harrison
Kathleen Hickman
Pamela Gonzalez
Annette French
Tonya Velazquez
Christy Hawkes
Andrea Ayala
6/28/19
Christy Hawkes
Missy Nicole Adams
Rebecca Hueller Crum
Crystal Young
Tabitha Sinks
Vickie Gipson
Lori Capobianco
Amy Conyers
Karen Rimiller Presley
Phylicia Phillips
Beata Tybor
Sarah Harrison
Susan Saunders
Jen Freese
Jessica Massaway
Kelsey Brooke Vinson
Amanda Otis
Jennifer Ramlet
Tre Bor
Joanie Waterman
Nicole Blaha
6/29/19
Deborah Thomas
Dawn Raasch
Amber Chandler
Nancy Scharnhorst
Janice McKay Donahue
Amy Chavis
Christina Cannon
Debbie Bloxom
Kizzy Alvarez DeSantis
Amanda Rosario
Jessica Steiner
Christine M Miller-Borowczyk
Kendra Lynne Ramsey
Jennifer Vega
Nicole Blaha
Tracy Heyer
Debbie Gremlin
Michelle Benedict-Miller
Deborah Thomas
Rose Elizabeth Cantu
6/30/19
Amber Chandler
Derek Michelle Polk
Darlene Whyte
Dean Bruss
Vickie Gipson
Shannon Rush
Kendra Lynn Ramey
Kayla Clemons
Kim Avery
April Ashcraft
Alicia Johnson
Johanna Landsaw-Davis
Holly D Lawson
Annette French
Nicole Blaha
Tessa Davis
Nai Merri
Melissa White
Joann Tompkins-Winborn
Melissa Ann Stura-Bassett
Stephanie Marie Wall
Be sure to watch both of our FaceBook pages for your chance to win and enter again next week, with questions posted daily on HealthInsurance4Everyone or at Health & Life Solutions, LLC!!
Remember that if you try your hand at answering the Trivia Question several days each week, your odds of winning the Sunday weekly drawing are much better.
Also note that a number of the posted answers each day are from contestants who have forgotten to “Like” one of our pages, so their names WILL NOT be entered at the end week drawing for the gift card, giving our fans a better chance!
You may also find that if you “Like” BOTH of the business pages, you will receive faster notifications of the other players as they post their answers to compete with you!
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At Health Insurance 4 Everyone, we not only want to improve our customer service but also interact with our customers on a social media level that wasn’t available before. Interested in connecting with us? Look us up on….
Twitter: Healthinsurane4 (Follow Us On Twitter To Receive Faster Notifications When Daily Trivia Questions Posted, & To Be Immediately Notified When Weekly AmEX Gift Card Winners Are Announced!!)
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Like us on facebook: HealthInsurance4Everyone or Health & Life Solutions, LLC
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The New Zealand man accused of massacring Muslim worshipers in the city of Christchurch in March pleaded not guilty to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and engaging in a terrorist act. The 28-year-old Australian-born Brenton Tarrant, is an avowed white supremacist who emailed out a racist manifesto minutes before he opened fire with an assault rifle at two mosques, live-streaming his massacre on Facebook.
He live streamed 17 minutes of video which included footage of himself inside the first mosque, going room-to-room, victim to victim, shooting the wounded from close range as they struggled to crawl away and indiscriminately firing into piles of bodies. In the 6 minutes Tarrant was inside, forty-one people were killed at the Al Noor Mosque. The live streamed footage also showed the gunman casually talking and laughing as he walked out of the mosque where he shot at people near the area before driving away at high speed, heading for the Linwood Islamic Centre, about 3 miles away. Another 7 people were killed at the Linwood Mosque, an eighth victim later died in the hospital. Tarrant was apprehended as he fled the Linwood Mosque when two police officers ran his car off the road.
According to his manifesto, he started planning a revenge attack about two years prior to the attack and chose his targets three months in advance. His manifesto expressed several anti-immigrant sentiments including hate speech against migrants, white supremacist rhetoric, and calls for non-European immigrants such as Roma, Indians, Turkish people, Semitic people and others allegedly “invading his land” to be removed. He described himself as an ethno-nationalist and referred to revenge for European civilians who were casualties in Islamic terrorist attacks within Europe as motivation for his attack. He repeatedly mentioned revenge for Ebba Åkerlund, a victim in the 2017 Stockholm truck attack.
Tarrant was judged fit to stand trial after an assessment of his mental state. His pleas of not guilty raise the prospect of a lengthy trial that could give him a platform to air the white supremacist views that allegedly motivated the attack. Tarrant’s trial has been set for May of 2020. He was not in court in person in Christchurch; instead he appeared via a video link from a maximum-security prison where he’s being held in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. New Zealand abolished the death penalty in 1989 and has not executed anyone since 1957. If found guilty, Tarrant faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Eighty survivors and family members of victims watched the proceedings. After the hearing, Abdul Aziz, a survivor of the attack said “He’s a coward and he will lose.” Aziz was at Linwood Mosque during the shootings and has been hailed a hero after confronting the gunmen-ultimately stopping him from claiming as many lives at the second mosque as he did at the first. After hearing shots outside, Aziz ran outside and grabbed the first thing he could find, a credit card machine, which he threw at the gunmen. The gunmen shot at him but they played cat and mouse between cars. Then Aziz grabbed a gun that had been discarded by the attacker tried to fire at Tarrant but the gun was empty. As Tarrant ran back to his car Aziz threw the gun at his car, shattering his windshield. Tarrant yelled that he was going to kill them all but instead drove off and was apprehended by police minutes later.
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Ethiopia released its’ preliminary findings from its investigation into last month’s fatal crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which killed all 157 crew and passengers on board. Ethiopia’s transport minister said the pilots of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet followed normal procedures but were unable to overcome a flaw in the plane’s software that automatically pushed the plane’s nose down. The preliminary report found similarities in the technical failures experienced by pilots of October’s Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, which also crashed just minutes after takeoff, killing all 189 people on board. The report, which could change in the coming months when it’s completed, doesn’t rule out the potential for pilot error in the Ethiopian crash.
The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded all 737 MAX aircraft while Boeing works on fixes to the planes’ software. Boeing said this week that it needed more time to finish a software update and training, which will be necessary before the planes can fly again. Lawmakers and regulators are scrutinizing Boeing and the process for certifying the 737 Max. The families of passengers and crew killed in the two crashes have hired lawyers to pursue claims against Boeing. Boeing is working on an additional software fix for another problem which is related to aircraft flaps and other flight control hardware. These issues are reportedly classified as critical to flight safety.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg released a video apology “We at Boeing are sorry for the lives lost in the recent 737 MAX accidents. … From the days immediately following the Lion Air accident, we’ve had teams of our top engineers and technical experts working tirelessly, in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration and our customers, to finalize and implement a software update that will ensure accidents like that of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 never happen again.”
Boeing dismissed concerns about a powerful new anti-stall system on the 737 Max for months, insisting that pilots could deal with any problems by following a checklist of emergency procedures. The preliminary findings from the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash have raised speculation of the sufficiency of those instructions. The findings show that the pilots on the Ethiopian Airlines flight initially followed the prescribed procedures he was trained on after the anti-stall system malfunctioned. They shut off the electricity that allows the automated software to push the plane’s nose down and took manual control of the jet. They then tried to right the plane, with the captain telling his co-pilot three times to “pull up.”
Unfortunately, they could not regain control and about four minutes after the system initially activated, the plane hit the ground at high speed, killing all 157 people on board. The report’s findings are not yet final but the initial evidence suggests that Boeing’s procedures may not have worked well when a plane was flying at a high speed. The system, according to the investigators’ findings, appears to have forced the nose of the plane down several times in less than three minutes leaving pilots with a very short window to react before going into an irrecoverable nose dive.
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Daily HI4E.org Trivia Contest Winners For The Week Ending: Sunday, March 24th, 2019.
In an effort to broaden the company’s “social interaction” with our clients and FaceBook fans, Daily Trivia Questions are posted on both of our business pages. Here are the weekly standings for this past week, and the winner of the Sunday night Weekly Drawing for an AmEx gift card!
Congratulations – To this past week’s Trivia Contest Winner!! Our latest contest winner for the weekly FaceBook HealthInsurance4Everyone/Health & Life Solutions, LLC Trivia Contest, drawn randomly by computer late Sunday evening, March 24th, 2019 was:
KRISTINA ROSSON
Lawrenceburg, TN
Winner Of A $25.00 AmEx Gift Card
Each day, fans who have “liked” either of our company FaceBook pages (HealthInsurance4Everyone or Health & Life Solutions LLC) are able to test their skills with our Daily TRIVIA QUESTION. The first 20 winners who post the correct answer to the TRIVIA QUESTION, will then get entered into the weekly drawing held late on Sunday evenings for a $25.00 Am Ex Gift Card.
Weekly Gift Card winners will be posted in our blog at this site. Remember to become a FaceBook fan and “Like and Follow” either of our company pages to enter and post your answers.
The trivia drawing entries 3/18/19 thru 3/24/19 are:
3/18/19
Misty Shallcross
Nikki Hunsaker
Hayley Cordaro
Tera Wardrip
Marcy Coull
Priscilla Shimp
Kristina Rosson
Jeanne Marie Rousseau
Brandy Marie
Christy Marie
Mya Murphy
Mary Ellen Laferriere
Vickie Gipson
Sarah Bellestri Shih
Krystal Larsen
Mary Achio
Kim Avery
Rosanne Clark
Trish Musgrave
Michelle Cervantes
3/19/19
Amber Chandler
Sherry Lilly
Be Schwerin
Jennifer Vega
Jessica Steiner
Shannon Rush
Nacole Patrick
April Ashcraft
Johanna Landsaw-Davis
Trish Musgrave
Dave Miller
Karen Brunet Moore
Karen Bondehagen
Taschia Miller
Christy George
Bea Patrick
Brittany Doerfler
Katherine Oliveira
Debbie Gremlin
Trish Hysell
Lenis Abshire
3/20/19
Stephanie Beckwith
April Ashcraft
Angela Janisse
Be Schwerin
Eric Sanders
Jill Nauyokas
Eleazar Ruiz
Kimberly Snyder
Amanda Sue
Ashley Agner
Stacy Nelson
Tonya Velazquez
Derelys Peterson
Tiffany Greene Elliott
Samantha Smith
Becky VanGinkel
Phylicia Phillips
Barbara Austin
Alyssa DiFazio
Suzie Mize Lockhart
Kassie Lynn DiFazio
3/21/19
Adaria Johnson
Tonya Velazquez
Jennifer Ramlet
Jennifer Lang
Jessica Davis
Kristina Rosson
Taschia Miller
Edward John
Brittany Doerfler
Ambreen Rouf
Trish Musgrave
Tiffany Greene Elliott
Sarah Bellestri Shih
Trish Hysell
Jade Good
Melissa Mae
Amanda Sue
Cheryl Hall
Lisa David Carr
Samantha Smith
3/22/19
Dean Bruss
Brooke Scott
Lisa A Mazola
Brandy Marie
Lisa Puckett
Beth Cleveland
Lisa David Carr
Priscilla Shimp
Andrea Ayala
Alyssa DiFazio
Jeremy Mclaughlin
Jillian Dollarhide
Nikki Hunsaker
Kari Wagoner
Jenifer Garza
Christina Radcliff
Kim Avery
Brittany Doerfler
Mary Pettiford
Patricia Goodman
Debbie Smith
Karen Brunet Moore
3/23/19
Jo Bagavathula Bevara
Brittany Doerfler
Misty Shallcross
Samantha Brwn
Natasha Berry
Be Schwerin
Martha Prescott
Tiffany Greene Elliott
Nicole Blaha
Christy Hawkes
Lisa A Mazola
Beth Cleveland
Jill Nauyokas
Tracy Heyer
April Ashcraft
Marcy Coull
Amber McGrath
Audessa Vaught
Derelys Peterson
Alison Giffune Paige
Laurel Klem
Andrea Ayala
Priscilla Shimp
3/24/19
Be Schwerin
Alysia Jackson
Sunney Michelle Johnson
Debbie Bloxom
Rhonda Grisham
Brooke Scott
Amber Chandler
Brandy Marie
Jenifer Garza
Karen Brunet Moore
Amy Chavis
Diane Hamric
April Ashcraft
Rose Elizabeth Cantu
Tonya Velazquez
Nicole Blaha
Amanda Sue
Eric Johnson
Kathleen Hickman
Jo Bagavathula Bevara
Be sure to watch both of our FaceBook pages for your chance to win and enter again next week, with questions posted daily on HealthInsurance4Everyone or at Health & Life Solutions, LLC!!
Remember that if you try your hand at answering the Trivia Question several days each week, your odds of winning the Sunday weekly drawing are much better.
Also note that a number of the posted answers each day are from contestants who have forgotten to “Like” one of our pages, so their names WILL NOT be entered at the end week drawing for the gift card, giving our fans a better chance!
You may also find that if you “Like” BOTH of the business pages, you will receive faster notifications of the other players as they post their answers to compete with you!
—————————————————————-
At Health Insurance 4 Everyone, we not only want to improve our customer service but also interact with our customers on a social media level that wasn’t available before. Interested in connecting with us? Look us up on….
Twitter: Healthinsurane4 (Follow Us On Twitter To Receive Faster Notifications When Daily Trivia Questions Posted, & To Be Immediately Notified When Weekly AmEX Gift Card Winners Are Announced!!)
Click-On for LinkedIn To Follow Our Posts: LinkedIn
Like us on facebook: HealthInsurance4Everyone or Health & Life Solutions, LLC
Over 54,000 Combined Fans/Followers To Our Social Media Sites, & We’re Growing Daily!
Follow Mark Shuster, Founder/Owner at Health & Life Solutions, LLC for daily health tips!
Mark Shuster FaceBook Link
Follow our word press blog and read about everything from health insurance and reform news to healthy living and current events!
Company Blogs
Find out more about LegalShield, our corporate partner which gives you the power to talk to an attorney about any legal issue, and offering high-quality Identity Theft plans.
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An Ethiopian Airlines flight traveling from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to Nairobi, Kenya, crashed, killing all 157 passengers and crew on board. The Boeing 737 Max 8 jetliner was carrying passengers of 35 different nationalities, including eight Americans and 21 United Nations staffers. Sunday’s crash triggered a global grounding of Boeing 737 Max 8 jets after data suggested similarities between the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash and the Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610 crash in October that killed 189 people.
The pilot of the Boeing 737 jetliner that crashed Sunday immediately noticed trouble as the plane accelerated wildly after takeoff. Within one minute of Flight 302’s departure, Captain Yared Getachew calmly reported a “flight control” problem. “Break break, request back to home,” the captain told air traffic controllers as they scrambled to divert two other flights approaching the airport. “Request vector for landing.”
Air traffic controllers knew the plane was in trouble even before the pilot radioed in that he wanted to turn the plane around. They noticed the plane’s speed accelerated inexplicably and it oscillated up and down by hundreds of feet. Radar showed the aircraft’s altitude was well below what is known as the minimum safe height from the ground during a climb. The plane appeared to stabilize and climbed to a higher altitude, but then began to speed up again in a way that is deemed unsafe. The plane then sped up even more just before it disappeared from radar screens and crashed six minutes after takeoff.
The ill-fated flight crashed near the town of Bishoftu, about 39 miles southeast of Bole International Airport. The plane’s crash left a large crater and debris from the Boeing 737 jet was broken into hundreds of small pieces, making the task of recovering each part complex. The largest engine piece on the site was around the size of a small table. Several dozen forensic investigators and Ethiopian Airlines employees slowly combed the crash site in search of any evidence, raising their hands when they come across anything significant.
The flight data and cockpit voice recorders were sent to Paris where French aviation authorities will probe the heavily damaged black boxes for clues to the tragedy. Preliminary conclusions will take several days and aircraft accident investigations can often take years to complete. Senior Transportation Correspondent David Kerley said investigators will look into the MAX 8’s autopilot functions and the training of the pilots who flew the plane, as well as a mechanical part of the control system that alters the up-and-down movement of the plane’s nose. The mechanism, called a “jackscrew,” is a threaded rod in the tail section of the aircraft that affects the plane’s stability.
Data from the “black boxes,” devices will provide further guidance for investigators as well as some answers for the families of the victims. The National Transportation Safety Board, an independent U.S. agency that investigates transportation accidents and issues widely-respected safety recommendations, also sent three additional investigators to assist in the analysis.
Many speculate whether the software in the plane’s autopilot system might have played a role in the Ethiopian Airlines crash, as it seemed to have done in the fatal crash of an Indonesian Lion Air 737 MAX 8. In the October 2018 Lion Air crash, it appears the pilots failed to disengage the autopilot when the plane’s nose began pitching up and down. It’s possible they were unaware of how to do so since some pilots have complained that the information to disengage autopilot was not readily available, and others have raised concerns about the adequacy of the training process.
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A New York City federal jury rendered a guilty verdict on all 10 federal criminal counts against notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, after a 3-month trial. The counts include conspiracy to launder drug money, international distribution of drugs, the use of firearms and engaging in a criminal enterprise. The 61 year old faces a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for the guilty verdict of leading a continuing criminal enterprise, and a sentence of up to life imprisonment on the remaining drug counts. He will be sentenced on June 25.
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera once headed a criminal enterprise that spanned continents and triggered waves of bloodshed throughout his native Mexico, claiming more than 100,000 lives in drug-related violence. During the more than 200 hours of testimony at the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, 56 witnesses took to the stand with stories of murder, violence, spying, widespread corruption and even one tale of the drug lord escaping arrest in 2014 by climbing naked through a sewer alongside a former lover. The kingpin is just as notorious for leading the violent cartel as he is for his extensive measures of escaping arrest and daring prison escapes. Since Guzmán’s capture in 2016 and extradition one year later, he has been kept in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison with little to no human interaction for as many as 23 hours a day.
Over 2½ months, the partially sequestered and anonymous jury sat through testimony from 56 witnesses about unspeakable torture and ghastly murders, corruption at nearly every level of Mexico’s government, narco-mistresses, gold-plated AK-47s and monogrammed, diamond-encrusted pistols. Fourteen of those witnesses — mostly admitted drug traffickers and cartel associates — cooperated with prosecutors in hopes of reducing their own prison sentences. There were also surveillance photos, intercepted phone calls and text messages involving Guzmán, as well as evidence showing extravagant firepower and bricks of cocaine that dropped with the force of potato sacks.
The jury deliberated roughly 34 hours over six days before rendering guilty verdicts on all 10 counts. Jurors did not look at the defendant, who reportedly pocketed nearly $14 billion in cash proceeds as the decades-long head of the Sinaloa cartel. Under El Chapo, the Sinaloa cartel smuggled narcotics to wholesale distributors in Arizona, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York. Federal prosecutors said they will seek a forfeiture judgment for billions of dollars constituting the cartel’s illegal drug-trafficking proceeds.
One of Guzmán’s lawyers described him as “extremely upbeat” after the verdict, “He’s a fighter, he’s not done yet by far” defense attorney Michael Lambert said. After jurors left the room, Guzmán waved and smiled at his wife, Emma Coronel, a former beauty queen and courtroom regular who smiled back and touched her hand to her heart. Another member of the defense team, Jeffrey Lichtman, said they waged a vigorous defense and are disappointed in the jury’s verdict but they plan to file an appeal on a number of issues.
According to experts, his conviction will not diminish the power and reach of the Sinaloa cartel. According to researchers, the violent crime group has not been affected despite the arrests of some of the cartel’s top leaders and important associates. El Chapo created an extraodinary criminal organization that operates in more than 40 countries and was designed to carry on even in his absence. Once El Chapo started running from authorities, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, who lead a faction of the cartel, made sure the cartel still functioned, which he still does to this day.
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According to witness testimony during the trial of accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto once accepted a $100 million bribe from drug traffickers. Alex Cifuentes, who has described himself as Guzman’s onetime right-hand man, discussed the alleged bribe under cross-examination by one of Guzman’s lawyers in Brooklyn federal court. Peña Nieto has not responded to the claim but has previously denied charges of corruption.
Cifuentes testified that he had told U.S. prosecutors Pena Nieto reached out to Guzman first, asking for $250 million, before settling on $100 million. Cifuentes told the prosecutors that the bribe was paid in October 2012, when Pena Nieto was president-elect. Pena Nieto was president of Mexico from December 2012 until November 2018 and previously served as governor of the State of Mexico. Cifuentes also testified that Guzman once told him that he had received a message from Pena Nieto saying that he did not have to live in hiding anymore.
Guzman, 61, has been on trial since November after he was extradited to the United States in 2017 to face charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs into the country as leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. El Chapo had eluded capture for years, in part by widespread corruption along with elaborate means of escape from authorities. He once narrowly escaped a raid at a safe house through a staircase that led to underground tunnels which was hidden under a bathtub. He was captured by Pena Nieto’s government in February 2014 but broke out of prison for a second time 17 months later, escaping through a mile-long tunnel dug right into in his cell. The jailbreak humiliated the government and damaged the president’s already questionable credibility. Pena Nieto personally announced news of the kingpin’s third capture when he was again arrested in northwestern Mexico in January 2016.
Cifuentes is one of many witnesses who have testified against Guzman so far after striking deals with U.S. prosecutors, in a trial that has opened a window into the secretive world of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world’s most powerful drug trafficking organization. Many witnesses at the trial have also made accusations of high-level corruption. Much of the evidence against Guzman has come from the prosecution’s star witness, Jesús Zambada. Zambada testified that the Sinaloa cartel allegedly paid off a host of top Mexican officials to ensure their drug business ran smoothly. He testified that in 1994, traffickers paid $50 million in protection money to former Mexican Secretary of Public Security García Luna, so that corrupt officers would be appointed to head police operations. Zambada said that when former Mexico City Mayor Gabriel Regino was in line to become the next secretary of security, that the the cartel bribed him as well. Both Garcia Luna and Gabriel Regina deny the accusations. Zambada has also testified that paid a multimillion dollar bribe to an aide of current Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2005.
Edgar Galvan testified in that trusted hitman Antonio “Jaguar” Marrufo had a sound-proofed “murder room” in his mansion on the US border, which featured white tiles with a drain on the floor to more easily clean up after slayings. Galvan’s role in the organization was to smuggle weapons into the US, so that Marrufo could use them to “clear” the region of rivals. At the time, Galvan was living in El Paso, Texas, while Marrufo was living in Ciudad Juarez, just across the US-Mexico border. Both men are now in jail on firearms and gun charges.
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