₦airaland Forum

🇺🇸 A people carrier vehicle used to take passengers to and from planes has crashed at an airport near Washington DC, injuring at least 18 people, authorities said.

The vehicle, which is also known as a mobile lounge, hit a dock at Washington Dulles International Airport around 16:30EST (21:30GMT) on Monday.

According to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), the vehicle struck a dock, also causing damage to the terminal. The injured passengers used stairs to exit the carrier, and have been taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The use of mobile lounges at Dulles airport dates back to 1959, and have been long-criticised as out-of-date and insufficiently modern.

The lounge had been transporting passengers from Concourse D, and struck a dock at an angle as it was pulling up to the terminal, according to airport spokeswoman Crystal Nosal.

She added in a statement that the airport remains open and operating normally.

It is unknown how many passengers were onboard at the time of the crash.

Dulles, which is located in Virginia but serves as one of the primary airports for people traveling to and from Washington DC, maintains of fleet of 19 mobile lounges, with each able to transport 102 people.

Earlier this week, a former Trump official who has been nominated to the board of the MWAA criticised the vehicles, telling senators during a confirmation hearing that "the people mover is a relic of the past".

"It's an embarrassment that international travelers, visiting the capital of the most powerful nation in the world, are transported back to the sixties," said Trent Morse.

According to NBC Washington, mobile lounges were involved in 16 accidents during a 10-year period between 2007-2017, including one fatal crash.

The latest incident took place amid the ongoing government shutdown, which has caused flight delays and long queues at US airports.

The Trump administration has ordered 40 airports, including Dulles, to reduce air traffic by 10% due to staffing shortages.

Sonnobax15:
They have been doing that but your govt have been using their usual propaganda to be silencing their voices... They've been rendered helpless by the same leaders who were supposed to protect them.....But now, someone who seems to be greater and stronger than their oppressors have vowed to help fight their battles for them,and the only thing an outsider like you can ever think of is to come online with your cheap data and start crying

Sonnobax15:
. You be strong man,I don hear you na .

But abeg,you fit at least go jos and Benue go repeat exactly the same words, whether your double left legs go complete come back

All of a sudden,una don begin to dey care . Una don turn to una brothers keepers . But when una fellow abokis dey roast people for Jos and Benue state,una turn mute like toy

Salewa97:
US troops in Mexico?

The drug cartels won't have it easy this time around

Sonnobax15:
. Go jos and Benue go repeat exactly the same words , whether your 32 teeth go complete come back

HgAkpobomeEr:
A good plan.

Sonnobax15:

Terrorists and their sympathizers nyash go just dey vibrate anytime Dem hear trump name .

🇺🇸 The Trump administration has begun detailed planning for a new mission to send American troops and intelligence officers into Mexico to target drug cartels, according to two U.S. officials and two former senior U.S. officials familiar with the effort.

The early stages of training for the potential mission, which would include ground operations inside Mexico, has already begun, the two current U.S. officials said.

But a deployment to Mexico is not imminent, the two U.S. officials and one of the former U.S. officials said. Discussions about the scope of the mission are ongoing, and a final decision has not been made, the two current U.S. officials said.

The U.S. troops, many of whom would be from Joint Special Operations Command, would operate under the authority of the U.S. intelligence community, known as Title 50 status, the two current officials said. They said officers from the CIA also would participate.

A U.S. mission using American forces to hit drug cartel targets inside Mexico would open a new front in President Donald Trump’s military campaign against drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere. So far, the administration has focused on Venezuela and conducting strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats.

The mission currently being planned for would be a break with past U.S. administrations, which have quietly deployed CIA, military and law enforcement teams to Mexico to support local police and army units fighting cartels but not to take direct action against them.

If the mission is given the final green light, the administration plans to maintain secrecy around it and not publicize actions associated with it, as it has with recent bombings of suspected drug-smuggling boats, the two current and two former U.S. officials said.

“The Trump administration is committed to utilizing an all-of-government approach to address the threats cartels pose to American citizens,” a senior administration official said in response to this story.

The CIA declined to comment. The Pentagon referred questions to the White House.

Under the new mission being planned, U.S. troops in Mexico would mainly use drone strikes to hit drug labs and cartel members and leaders, the two current U.S. officials and two former U.S. officials said. Some of the drones that special forces would use require operators to be on the ground to use them effectively and safely, the officials said.

In February, the State Department designated six Mexican drug cartels, as well as MS-13 and the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations, giving U.S. spy agencies and military units sweeping legal authorities to conduct espionage and covert operations targeting the criminal networks.

Trump publicly acknowledged earlier this month that he authorized covert CIA action inside Venezuela and has said his administration could strike drug cartel targets on land there.

NBC News reported in April that the Trump administration was considering launching drone strikes on drug cartels in Mexico. Trump administration officials are still debating precisely how aggressive to be in Mexico as part of its fight against drug cartels, according to the two former U.S. officials and another former administration official with knowledge of the effort.

Unlike in Venezuela, the mission being planned for Mexico is not designed to undermine the country’s government, the two current and two former U.S. officials said.

After NBC’s story in April, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed it at a news conference. “We reject any form of intervention or interference. That’s been very clear, Mexico coordinates and collaborates, but does not subordinate itself,” she said, according to a translation provided by the Mexican Embassy to the U.S.

LagosOrigin:
All this for human destruction

🇷🇺 Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia had tested a Poseidon nuclear-capable super torpedo and that it had been a great success.

Officially known as the “Poseidon” (by Russia) and often designated as “Kanyon” by NATO, it is not a traditional torpedo. It is best understood as a large, long-range, nuclear-powered, and nuclear-armed autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) or an intercontinental-range, nuclear-armed underwater drone.

It is massive, estimated to be over 20 meters (65 feet) long and 2 meters in diameter, making it one of the largest torpedoes ever developed. It is powered by a small nuclear reactor, giving it what is believed to be virtually unlimited range. It could traverse entire oceans without needing to surface.

It is an unmanned, autonomous vehicle. Once launched, it would follow a pre-programmed course to its target, operating independently.

The Poseidon’s design gives it a set of capabilities that differentiate it from other nuclear delivery systems like intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

The primary warhead is a nuclear weapon, estimated to be in the multi-megaton range (potentially up to 2 megatons or more). For comparison, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was about 0.015 megatons. This immense explosive yield is not just for blast damage.

Putin, drinking tea with Russian soldiers wounded in the Ukraine war at a hospital in Moscow, said that the test had taken place on Tuesday.

“For the first time, we managed not only to launch it with a launch engine from a carrier submarine, but also to launch the nuclear power unit on which this device passed a certain amount of time,” Putin said. “There is nothing like this.”

“This is a huge success,” Putin said, adding that the power of the Poseidon exceeded the Sarmat intercontinental missile, known as SS-X-29, or simply Satan II.

“The Poseidon’s power significantly exceeds the power of even our most promising Sarmat intercontinental range missile,” Putin said.

Putin last week held a nuclear launch drill and on Sunday announced that Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, a nuclear-capable weapon Moscow says can pierce any defense shield.

Since first announcing the Poseidon and Burevestnik in 2018, Putin cast them as a response to moves by the United States to build a missile defense shield after Washington in 2001 unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and to enlarge the NATO military alliance.