|
BBC News with Eileen McHugh.
The Federal Aviation Administration in the United States has grounded all flights across the country until further notice due to what it described as "extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety." The Transport Secretary, Sean Duffy, blamed a communication issue. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, has stressed there was no risk to the public. More details from Daniel Bush in Washington. Markwayne Mullin said he could not "rule anything out" as a reason for the nationwide air traffic outage. But he told reporters at the White House that the government did not believe it was caused by any "nefarious act" and repeatedly emphasized this was not another 9/11. The Federal Aviation Administration said it grounded all domestic flights because of communications issues. Mr. Mullin said the problem would not be fixed within the hour but did not provide a timeline for how long it might take. This is the third nationwide ground stoppage in recent decades. Divisions have emerged in President Trump's Cabinet between the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his counterpart in the Commerce Department Howard Lutnick over the failure to stop the export of NVIDIA microchips to a Singapore-based company Megaspede. The NVIDIA boss Jensen Huang resigned on Thursday after revelations he'd had an affair with a former Megaspede executive suspected of working for China's intelligence service. Megaspede has been investigated over suspicions it had been smuggling advanced AI chips to China. With more details, here's our White House reporter Bernd Debusmann. The entire scandal has created a very rare instance of internal disagreements inside the Trump administration spilling out into the American media. Scott Bessent's comments about Mr. Lutnick this morning were quite strong and it's still not clear when President Trump was informed about the whole issue and the security concerns surrounding it. In a recent news conference at the White House, he said he had only been told not long ago but some of the reporting suggests that he might have been told about this as much as a year ago ahead of a trip to China in which Mr. Huang was present. Microsoft has apologized for the severe disruption to its services around the globe. It said this was due to a capacity upgrade and was not because of malicious activity. From New York, Michelle Fleury gives us more details. 74 countries have been affected by this. What we do know so far is it wasn't malicious, in other words, it wasn't caused by some sort of rogue AI agent. It was down to kind of issues with technology which they are trying to fix. But here's the thing, bringing everyone back online takes time and so the company appears to be kind of prioritizing stability over speed and that means for businesses, for companies, for people hoping to use email, maybe a bit more frustration but things are kind of moving in the right direction. World news from the BBC. The head of the United Nations migration body has warned that more than 200 million people could be driven from their homes by climate change. Speaking at the U.N. COP summit in Turkey, Amy Pope said last year's combination of drought, forest fires and flooding had already forced 30 million to flee. The Ukrainian president says his armed forces are still encountering significant disruption to the U.S. Starshield communication service hindering their abilities both to attack Russia and defend their country. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this was bad and he hoped his ministers would be able to resolve it in negotiations with U.S. officials. A rescue operation is underway after a tanker struck a river cruise ship in the U.S. port of New Orleans in the southern state of Louisiana. The American Heritage was docked when it was hit by a tanker, the Atlantic Asphalt. Port authorities have told local media that there were around 129 passengers plus crew on board the vessel when it was hit. The governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, spoke to reporters at the scene. "This is a miracle. It is a literal miracle on the Mississippi. When you think about the population that was on that cruise ship and the ability for us to get them off, get them out of the water, just in case you know, the Mississippi River is not some quiet pond, right? I mean, there were challenges out there." The Spanish Football Federation has suspended the FC Andorra goalkeeper Jesús Owono for 12 matches in response to the death of an opponent following a match earlier this month. The Equatorial Guinea international was sent off during a game against Tenerife for his challenge on striker Jesús de Miguel, who later died as a result of head and chest injuries. Owono has expressed his devastation over the incident and is currently taking time away from the sport. BBC News. |