CNN, CHUCK PATERAKIS, PATRICK OYULU

By Aaron Cooper, Sarah Dewberry, CNN

(CNN) — A United Airlines flight landing at Newark Liberty International Airport hit a streetlight and a tractor-trailer on the nearby highway on Sunday, injuring the truck’s driver, according to the New Jersey State Police.

United Flight 169 was arriving from Venice, Italy, carrying more than 200 passengers and 10 crew members. The plane, a Boeing 767, was going more than 160 miles an hour when it crossed over the New Jersey Turnpike, just outside of the airport, according to flight tracking site Flightradar24.

No one on board the flight was hurt, and the plane landed normally, United said in a statement.

A preliminary investigation shows a tire from the plane’s landing gear and the underside of the plane “collided with a pole and a tractor-trailer. The pole then struck a Jeep,” New Jersey State Police spokesman SFC Charles Marchan said in a statement. “The driver of the tractor-trailer sustained non-life-threatening injuries and was transported to an area hospital.”

Dashcam video from the truck showed the driver traveling along the road as the sound of the plane’s engines grew louder. Suddenly, the plane’s landing gear tires struck the truck, shaking it and sending shards of glass flying.

The truck driver, Warren Boardley of Baltimore, was heading north on the turnpike to deliver bread products to a Newark airport depot when the incident occurred, Chuck Paterakis, senior vice president of transportation for Schmidt Bakery and co-owner of H&S Family of Bakeries, told CNN.

Boardley sustained cuts to his arm from broken glass but did not suffer serious injuries and was able to pull over safely, according to Paterakis, who added Boardley was expected to be released from the hospital later Sunday tonight.

Patrick Oyulu was driving on the highway when he saw the low flying plane and felt a huge gust of wind go over him.

“It was just coming directly in front of the truck … I just saw smoke and debris,” he told CNN. “I think (the truck was) trying to evasively maneuver out of its way or something, but they were cornered.”

The pilots and air traffic control did not appear to be aware the plane had struck the light pole upon landing, according to recordings of air traffic control communications captured by LiveATC.net.

The 767 was given instructions to taxi to the gate as other aircraft continued to land on the same runway.

Air traffic controllers reported “a hole in the side of the airplane” to an operations vehicle preparing to inspect the runway about half an hour after the landing, according to another recording from LiveATC.net.

When asked about air traffic control recording, United told CNN its maintenance team was evaluating damage to the aircraft and promised “a rigorous flight safety investigation into the incident.”

“The aircraft landed safely, taxied to the gate normally and no passengers or crew were injured,” United said, noting the plane’s crew has been remov

Por Brad Lendon, reportero sénior global de asuntos militares de CNN

El plan de Estados Unidos para “guiar” barcos a través del estrecho de Ormuz, anunciado por el presidente Donald Trump apenas horas antes de que entrara en vigor, deja muchas preguntas sin respuesta.

El Mando Central de Estados Unidos dijo en un comunicado en X que su apoyo a la operación, denominada Proyecto Libertad, “incluirá destructores con misiles guiados, más de 100 aeronaves terrestres y marítimas, plataformas no tripuladas multidominio”.

Pero no se define cómo esos activos militares contribuirán a que los buques mercantes vuelvan a transitar por el estrecho.

Jennifer Parker, investigadora no residente del Lowy Institute y exoficial de la Marina Real Australiana, dijo a CNN este lunes que espera que las fuerzas armadas estadounidenses aumenten su presencia en y sobre el estrecho para brindar tranquilidad a los buques comerciales que intentan atravesarlo.

“Esto parece ser una operación… que tiene menos que ver con proporcionar protección directa a un buque o a un par de buques y más con tratar de cambiar la situación en el estrecho” para que los barcos “se sientan seguros”, dijo Parker.

Esa misión podría incluir algunos buques de la Marina de Estados Unidos en el estrecho y una variedad de aeronaves volando sobre él que podrían detectar y eliminar cualquier embarcación pequeña o barco que intente atacar a los buques comerciales, señaló.

Aunque una operación de escolta en convoy —con destructores estadounidenses navegando junto a barcos mercantes— es poco probable, según Parker, dijo que un aumento de buques de guerra estadounidenses atravesando el estrecho sería un paso positivo.

Eso se debe a que, para detener la operación, Irán tendría que confrontar directamente a la Marina de Estados Unidos, algo que hasta la fecha no ha hecho.

“En cierto modo, (Trump) está obligando a Irán a definirse”, dijo.

“Tendrían que escalar y disparar contra buques de guerra estadounidenses, lo cual es un nivel diferente de escalada”, afirmó Parker.

El anuncio del plan por parte de Trump provocó una rápida reprimenda de Irán: Ebrahim Azizi, jefe de la Comisión de Seguridad Nacional del parlamento iraní, advirtió de que cualquier interferencia de Estados Unidos en el estrecho de Ormuz sería considerada una violación del alto el fuego que está en vigor desde el 8 de abril.

“El estrecho de Hormuz y el golfo Pérsico no serían gestionados por las publicaciones delirantes de Trump”, dijo en un mensaje en X.

“Cualquier fuerza militar extranjera, especialmente el Ejército invasor estadounidense”, será atacada si intenta acercarse o entrar al estrecho de Hormuz, dijo el comandante del Cuartel General Central Khatam al-Anbiya de las fuerzas armadas iraníes, según informó la agencia de noticias iraní Fars.

Trump dijo anteriormente que cualquier “interferencia” de Irán sería respondida con “fuerza”.

Los ejecutivos navieros no están convencidos de que el nuevo plan de EE.UU. reduzca el riesgo. “Se necesitan ambas partes para desbloquear, no solo una”, dijo Bjørn Højgaard, CEO del administrador de barcos Anglo-Eastern, a CNN.

Hasta ahora en la guerra, Washington ha sido reacio a poner buques de guerra de la Marina de EE.UU. al alcance de misiles antibuque terrestres iraníes o embarcaciones de ataque pequeñas que Teherán puede desplegar en gran número en y alrededor del estrecho de Hormuz.

CENTCOM solo ha reconocido el paso de destructores estadounidenses por el estrecho en una ocasión, el 11 de ab

By Tierney Sneed, CNN

(CNN) — For decades, it’s generally been assumed that any mass purges of voter rolls had to be completed at least 90 days out from an election.

But Republicans and the Trump administration are now testing the scope of the federal law that imposes that ban on “systematic” removal programs within three months of an election, as President Donald Trump pushes for more aggressive reviews of voter rolls for non-citizens and other ineligible voters.

The Justice Department has launched a sprawling effort to obtain nearly every state’s voter registration file and to review those files for suspected non-citizens. For its review, the DOJ is using a federal immigration database tool known as SAVE – or the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements – which has shown itself prone to produce false positives.

Some state election officials have indicated they want the freedom to remove names in the months or weeks before an election, but other election officials – along with voter advocates – are concerned that eligible voters are at risk of being disenfranchised with the ramp up in the purge programs, especially as Trump tries to get more involved. They say that the so-called “quiet period” is needed to give eligible voters who are mistakenly caught up in such removals adequate time to get back on the rolls.

Trump and top officials in his administration been relentless in their claims that a flood of foreigners on the voter rolls have polluted elections, even though studies have shown non-citizen voting to be very rare.

That the Trump administration is attempting to insert the federal government more directly in the voting process makes the Republicans’ legal arguments about the quiet period “more concerning,” said Brent Ferguson, the senior director of strategic litigation at Campaign Legal Center, which has successfully sued states for violating the National Voter Registration Act’s 90-day “quiet period.”

“It sets up a situation where the federal government itself is the actor trying to purge voters from the rolls in the days before the election, which is clearly illegal,” Ferguson said.

An appeals court ruled in 2014 that Florida could not use the SAVE data system to purge its rolls within 90 days of the election because of the quiet period provision in the NVRA.

The Trump administration and Republicans argue that the ban does not apply to purges aimed at non-citizens and other people who should have never been registered in the first place.

Another appeals court rejected that argument when it was made by Republican state officials in Virginia. But the Supreme Court in 2024 issued an emergency order in that case that let then-Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin restart a voter removal program just days before the election that used state records to identify alleged non-citizens. (Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger formally ended the program when she took office this year and the lawsuit was settled.)

Now the Republican National Committee is asking the Supreme Court to take up the question on the merits in a case arising from Arizona. The Justice Department has claimed in the litigation over its demands for state registration files that the quiet period doesn’t apply to voter roll rev

By Helen Regan, CNN

(CNN) — More than four years after a Boeing 737-800 passenger jet plunged 29,000 feet and crashed into a mountain in southern China, killing all 132 people on board, newly released data appears to indicate that someone in the cockpit may have intentionally switched off the fuel supply to the engines.

It was China’s deadliest air disaster in decades, but the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has not addressed the crucial question of what had prompted the deadly nosedive of China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 in March 2022 in remote Guangxi region.

Data released by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in response to a freedom of information request, shows that the fuel switches to both engines were shut off simultaneously before the Boeing 737-800 jet dropped out of the sky.

The data was taken from the plane’s flight data recorder — one of two so-called “black boxes” that record all relevant operational information — which was recovered from the wreckage and sent to the NTSB’s laboratory in Washington DC for analysis (with the agency’s involvement stemming from Boeing being a US aircraft manufacturer).

“It was found that while cruising at 29,000 feet, the fuel switches on both engines moved from the run position to the cutoff position. Engine speeds decreased after the fuel switch movement,” the NTSB report said.

Fuel switches on commercial planes are physical controls that regulate the flow of fuel to the engines. On the 737, a pilot must pull the switch up before moving it from the run to cutoff position.

“This data clearly shows that the fuel switches were manually placed in the off position just prior to the crash,” said David Soucie, CNN aviation safety analyst.

“There is no indication the switches were placed back to the on position. That indicates there was no attempt to restart the engines,” he added. “If the switches were turned off in error the pilots would have made an attempt to turn them back on.”

The flight data recorder stopped recording when the plane’s generators lost power at 26,000 feet and did not capture the final moments of the crash, according to the report. The cockpit voice recorder – the plane’s other “black box” – continued recording via a battery backup.

US investigators managed to obtain four voice recordings from the damaged cockpit recorder and sent them to the CAAC, but the NTSB said it did not retain a copy of the audio files.

CNN has reached out to the CAAC and China Eastern Airlines for comment. The CAAC has previously denied the crash was intentional.

Aviation expert Tony Stanton of Australian consultancy Strategic Air cautioned the NTSB document should not be treated as a final accident report.

“The released material does not by itself prove motive, intent, or who moved the switches,” Stanton said.

He added, however, that the sequence of events is “very difficult to reconcile with a conventional dual-engine mechanical failure and is much more consistent with (human) commanded fuel shutoff.”

But any movement of the cockpit controls in “an extreme upset and high-speed descent” needs to be interpreted together with “full validated data, CVR (cockpit voice recorder) evidence, aircraft state, and the investigating authority’s final analysis,” Stanton said.

Speculation surrounds the crash

Previous reports have indicated that someone in the cockpit deliberately crashed the plane.

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