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A Florida lawyer and four others were killed at sunrise Christmas Eve in a plane crash in dense fog.
USA TODAY

BARTOW, Fla. — A Florida lawyer and four others were killed at sunrise Christmas Eve in a plane crash in dense fog.

John Shannon, 70, of Lakeland, Fla., was piloting a twin-engine Cessna 340 that went down just after takeoff around 7:15 a.m. ET Sunday from Bartow Municipal Airport about 50 miles southwest of Orlando, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said.

The plane caught fire after the crash and was fully involved by the time rescue crews arrived, Tina Mann, Polk County Fire Rescue spokeswoman, said in a statement.

“There was no chance of survival,” Judd said. “When you look at the crash, the only thing that you say is, ‘Nobody suffered.’ “

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Shannon was making a 45- to 60-minute flight for day trip to the Florida Keys, the sheriff said. Also killed were his two daughters, Olivia Shannon, 24, a student at Southeastern University in Lakeland, and Victoria Shannon Worthington, 26, a Baltimore teacher; his son-in-law, Peter Worthington, 27, a University of Maryland law student; and a family friend, Krista Clayton, 32, a teacher in Lakeland.

The Worthingtons had arrived Saturday in Florida for the Christmas holiday, and John Shannon had filed a flight plan to go to Key West, said Carrie Horstman, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman. No family members were able to be reached for comment.

“This is a tragedy at any time, but it is so much worse because it happened on Christmas Eve,” Judd said.

John Shannon, who graduated in 1975 from Samford University school of law in Homewood, Ala., had been a member of the Florida Bar since 1975, according to state records. The Republican ran for state representative in 2014, but lost in the primary to Colleen Burton, who still holds the office.

He had a private pilot’s license since Oct. 4, 2010, with an instrument rating that allows a pilot to fly solely by referring to flight instruments in clouds or low visibility, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.

Around the time of the crash, a National Weather Service observer reported visibility at the Bartow airport to be less than a quarter mile because of fog.

A photographer who was trying to capture the fog at sunrise was recording video that shows the crash, Judd said.

“He said, ‘I couldn’t believe that they were taking off in this fog,’ ” the sheriff said. “There was not one sign of the aircraft that was, obviously, was soaked in a very dense, very heavy fog at the airbase.” Barstow airport is the former Barstow U.S. Air Force base that closed in 1961.

The private plane crashed just north of the airport toward the end of a runway. It left the hangar at 6:30 a.m., before the sun rose, and took off east into heavy fog, Judd said.

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“Our heart breaks,” Judd said. “You know, certainly, we wish we could rewind this and if we could, I would wrestle him to the floor to keep him from getting into this airplane this morning,” Judd said.

Last year 386 people were killed in 213 fatal general aviation accidents, an average of fewer than two per crash, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Fewer than 10% of these types of plane crashes result in four or more deaths.

General aviation excludes commercial flights and civilian air transport for hire and often involves planes with fewer than 10 seats.

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More than 9 in 10 plane-crash deaths occur in general-aviation accidents, according to the NTSB. Although the number of general-aviation deaths increased slightly from 2015 to 2016, the number of fatal accidents was down by nearly 20, so the fatal accident rate fell lower than 1 per 100,000 flight hours for the first time in 50 years.

But traffic accidents account for far more transportation deaths, 95% of total transportation deaths, the agency said. In 2016, highway deaths totaled 39,339, up more than 5% from the previous year.

In Florida, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration will be investigating Sunday’s plane crash.

Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Andrew Krietz on Twitter: @akrietz

I have received a text message stating my father was the one flying the plane. How do I confirm this. Can someone get in touch with me

— chevis shannon (@cshanters) December 24, 2017

A tropical storm in the southern Philippines unleashed flash floods that swept away people and houses and set off landslides, reportedly leaving more than 120 people dead and 160 others missing, officials said.

Most of the deaths from Tropical Storm Tembin, which strengthened into a typhoon Sunday, were in the hard-hit provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur and on the Zamboanga Peninsula, according to an initial government report.

It was the latest disaster to hit the Philippines, which is battered by about 20 typhoons and storms each year, making the archipelago that lies on the Pacific typhoon belt one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

A search and rescue operation was underway for more than 30 people swept away by flash floods in the fishing village of Anungan, Mayor Bong Edding of Zamboanga del Norte province’s Sibuco town said by phone. Five bodies have been recovered so far in the village.

They “all have AIDS” is just one of the ways President Donald Trump described immigrants who had received visas to enter the United States in 2017, according to a damning report published by The New York Times Saturday.

Six White House officials spoke to the Times and relayed the story of a June meeting in which Trump read from a document highlighting the number of visa recipients.

The president lamented that more than 2,500 recipients were from Afghanistan, expressing concerns about terrorism.

He bemoaned the 15,000 who came from Haiti, saying that they “all have AIDS.” The 40,000 who came from Nigeria, Trump said, would never “go back to their huts” after seeing the United States.

The Times reports that the tone of the meeting eventually escalated, as then-Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly and White House domestic policy advisor Stephen Miller began blaming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for the number of immigrants who had come to the country, “prompting the secretary of state to throw up his arms in frustration.”

The Times reported that Tillerson replied angrily that “if he was so bad at his job, maybe he should stop issuing visas altogether”.

The report comes on the heels of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling Friday that Trump’s travel ban, the third he has proposed since becoming president, is illegal.

The decision read that the ban, issued in September, imposed “indefinite and significant restrictions and limitations on entry of nationals” from seven countries — Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.

The June meeting, which officials said began with Trump expressing his frustration over the number of foreigners who had come to the United States since his travel ban in January, highlights the president’s obsession with immigration as the primary cause of many of the United States’ problems.

“He’s basically saying, ‘You people of color coming to America seeking the American dream are a threat to the white people,’” Frank Sharry, executive director of the pro-immigrant organization America’s Voice, told the Times. “He’s come into office with an aggressive strategy of trying to reverse the demographic changes underway in America.”

When the president’s first travel ban was blocked, the Times reported, Trump was “furious” and often took his anger out on White House officials.

“He did not want a watered-down version of the travel ban, he yelled at Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel,” the Times reported. “Mr. McGahn insisted that administration lawyers had already promised the court that Mr. Trump would issue a new order.”

“This is bullshit,” Trump said, according to the Times.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the Times that the offensive comments about immigrants was not true, calling the claims “outrageous.”

Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who was not one of the story’s writers, took to Twitter to bolster the report:

Two people who described the comments found them so noteworthy that they related them to others at the time, well predating WH pushback https://t.co/wiGpOlAwQM

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 23, 2017

“Two people who described the comments found them so noteworthy that they related them to others at the time, well predating [White House] pushback,” Haberman said.

BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) – The latest U.N. sanctions against North Korea are an act of war and tantamount to a complete economic blockade against it, North Korea’s foreign ministry said on Sunday, threatening to punish those who supported the measure.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Friday for its recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, seeking to limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil and its earnings from workers abroad.

The U.N. resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year and, in a last-minute change, demands the repatriation of North Koreans working abroad within 24 months, instead of 12 months as first proposed.

The U.S.-drafted resolution also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Council to further reductions if it were to conduct another nuclear test or launch another ICBM.

In a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, North Korea’s foreign ministry said the United States was terrified by its nuclear force and was getting “more and more frenzied in the moves to impose the harshest-ever sanctions and pressure on our country”.

The new resolution was tantamount to a complete economic blockade of North Korea, the ministry said.

“We define this ‘sanctions resolution’ rigged up by the U.S. and its followers as a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our Republic, as an act of war violating peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the region and categorically reject the ‘resolution’,” it said.

“There is no more fatal blunder than the miscalculation that the U.S. and its followers could check by already worn-out ‘sanctions’ the victorious advance of our people who have brilliantly accomplished the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force”, the ministry said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Nov. 29 declared the nuclear force complete after the test of North Korea’s largest-ever ICBM test, which the country said puts all of the United States within range.

Kim told a meeting of members of the ruling Workers’ Party on Friday that the country “successfully realized the historic cause of completing the state nuclear force” despite “short supply in everything and manifold difficulties and ordeals owing to the despicable anti-DPRK moves of the enemies”.

North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

South Korea’s foreign ministry told Reuters it is aware of the North Korean statement on the new sanctions, again highlighting its position that they are a “grave warning by the international community that the region has no option but to immediately cease reckless provocations, and take the path of dialogue for denuclearization and peace”.

‘BALANCE OF FORCE’

The North Korean foreign ministry said its nuclear weapons were a self-defensive deterrence not in contradiction of international law.

“We will further consolidate our self-defensive nuclear deterrence aimed at fundamentally eradicating the U.S. nuclear threats, blackmail and hostile moves by establishing the practical balance of force with the U.S,” it said.

“The U.S. should not forget even a second the entity of the DPRK which rapidly emerged as a strategic state capable of posing a substantial nuclear threat to the U.S. mainland,” it added.

North Korea said those who voted for the sanctions would face its wrath.

“Those countries that raised their hands in favor of this ‘sanctions resolution’ shall be held completely responsible for all the consequences to be caused by the ‘resolution’ and we will make sure for ever and ever that they pay heavy price for what they have done.”

The North’s old allies China and Russia both supported the latest U.N. sanctions.

Tension has been rising over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, which it pursues in defiance of years of U.N. Security Council resolutions, with bellicose rhetoric coming from both Pyongyang and the White House.

In November, North Korea demanded a halt to what it called “brutal sanctions”, saying a round imposed after its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3 constituted genocide.

U.S. diplomats have made clear they are seeking a diplomatic solution but proposed the new, tougher sanctions resolution to ratchet up pressure on North Korea’s leader.

China, with which North Korea does some 90 percent of its trade, has repeatedly called for calm and restraint from all sides.

China said on Saturday the new resolution also reiterated the need for a peaceful resolution via talks and that all sides needed to take steps to reduce tensions.

Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times said on Saturday the tougher resolution was aimed at preventing war.

It suggested the United States had wanted an even harsher resolution, and noted there was no indication in the resolution that the United Nations could grant the United States permission for military action.

“The difference between the new resolution and the original U.S. proposal reflects the will of China and Russia to prevent war and chaos on the Korean Peninsula. If the U.S. proposals were accepted, only war is foreseeable,” it said in an editorial.

Reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Hyonhee Shin in SEOUL; Additional reporting by Haejin Choi; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Robert Birsel

The first of a three-part dose of winter weather arrived Friday in northern New England, causing holiday travel headaches and forcing some people to change their plans. On Saturday, the storm could become a full-fledged ice storm , said CBS Boston meteorologist Eric Fisher.

Snow was falling across New Hampshire and Vermont and Maine, with accumulations of up to 8 inches expected in some areas by late Friday, according to the National Weather Service.

The snow sent cars sliding, and many schools closed early though stores remained busy with last-minute holiday shoppers. 

Meteorologist Michael Eckster said that fast on the storm’s heels will be another one on Saturday bringing enough freezing rain to create the potential for scattered power outages. The storm will be moving so fast that there won’t be time for heavy accumulations, he said.

People will have a narrow window to clean up before a coastal storm arrives late on Christmas Eve in Maine and New Hampshire. That storm brings the potential for another 3 to 6 inches of snow through Christmas Day. 

“Very much a white Christmas across parts of New England,” Fisher said. Other than the possibility of a few flakes in the Seattle area, the Northeast is the only area with snow expected.

Across the rest of the country, cold temperatures are expected to come down from Canada, bringing colder-than-average to the upper Midwest to even the Southeast, Fisher said. In Minneapolis, the high temperature is expected to be five degrees and Chicago is expected to have a high of 28 degrees, Fisher said.

If you are looking for warm temperatures, highs are in the 70s in Phoenix. 

Some people left the area earlier than planned on Friday. Others canceled their travel altogether.

“We were supposed to go see my mother-in-law in New York, and I said, ‘It’s not worth an accident. It’s not worth someone getting hurt,'” Sheila Wyncoop told WMUR-TV in Keene, New Hampshire. “So we’re bummed out.”

Utilities are monitoring the storms, and had additional crews ready for possible outages.

The greatest current risk is associated with the icing Saturday, “as small changes to temperature and storm track can have an enormous effect on this type of weather event’s impact,” said Alex O’Meara, a spokesman for Unitil in New Hampshire.

Central Maine Power tweeted that it’d been in contact with the Maine Emergency Management Agency and that trucks are fueled and equipped. “We hope the storm does not cause problems, but if it does, we’re ready,” the utility said.