• UPS acknowledges accident but has not yet confirmed any injuries or casualties.
• Airport houses UPS Worldport, company’s largest global air cargo hub.
• Aerial footage shows fires ignited on ground stretching nearly a mile.

UPS said on Tuesday that one of its wide-body cargo planes with three crew members on board crashed in Louisville, Kentucky, and local police said injuries had been reported.

“UPS Flight 2976 crashed around 5:15pm local time on Tuesday, Nov. 4, after departing from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport in Kentucky,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. The plane was en route to Honolulu, it said.

Television channel WLKY showed video footage of the crash as it occurred, with a huge fireball erupting as the plane hit the ground.

A government source briefed on the matter said the video appeared to show the plane on fire as it went down the runway before exploding in a fireball.

UPS said it had yet to confirm any injuries or casualties due to the accident on one of its MD-11 planes.

The Louisville airport is home to UPS Worldport, a global hub for the delivery firm’s air cargo operations and its largest package handling facility in the world.

The crash will likely disrupt deliveries for UPS and its major customers, including Amazon and the United States Postal Service.

As night fell, live aerial footage over the scene broadcast by WLKY, a local CBS affiliate, showed the red-orange glow of flames from fires ignited on the ground by the crash spread over nearly a mile.

The Louisville airport said the airfield was closed after the incident, while the Louisville Metro Police Department said it was responding to reports of a plane crash and that injuries had been reported.

“Kentucky, we are aware of a reported plane crash near Louisville International Airport. First responders are on-site, and we will share more information as available. Please pray for the pilots, crew, and everyone affected. We will share more soon,” Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on X.

According to FAA records, the MD-11 freighter involved in the crash was 34 years old. Boeing, which owns the MD-11 program, declined to comment.

FlightRadar24 said the plane, which began operations with UPS in 2006, had flown from Louisville to Baltimore earlier on Tuesday before returning to Louisville. The flight from Louisville to Honolulu typically takes 8-1/2 hours, the flight tracking service said.

The US government shutdown entered its 35th day on Tuesday, matching a record set during President Donald Trump’s first term, as lawmakers voiced optimism over progress behind the scenes to end the dispute.

The federal closure appears almost certain to become the longest in history, with no major breakthroughs expected before it goes into its sixth week at midnight — although there were fragile signs in Congress that an off-ramp is closer than ever.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune set the buoyant mood music on Monday when he told reporters he felt “optimistic” that newly energised talks between warring Republicans and Democrats could end in a deal before next week.

The government has been grinding to a halt since Congress failed to approve funding past September 30, and pain has been mounting as programmes — including food aid relied on by millions of Americans — hang in limbo.

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think any of us expected that it would drag on this long. We didn’t believe, we couldn’t have imagined,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told a news conference arranged to mark the six-week milestone.

“It’s now tied for the longest shutdown in US history. And we didn’t think we’d have to come in here every single day — day after day after day — and repeat the obvious facts to the American people and to put on display every day what is happening here.”

Some 1.4 million federal workers — from air traffic controllers to park wardens — have been placed on enforced leave without pay or made to work for nothing, while vital welfare programs and even paychecks for active-duty troops are under threat.

Some lawmakers — including Thune and Johnson — are hoping a slew of elections taking place in New York, Virginia, New Jersey and California on Tuesday will provide the momentum they need to reopen the government.

But both sides remain dug in over the main sticking point — health care spending.

Democrats say they will only provide votes to end the funding lapse after a deal has been struck to extend expiring insurance subsidies that make health care affordable for millions of Americans.

But Republicans insist they will only address health care once Democrats have voted to switch the lights back on in Washington.

While both sides’ leadership have shown little appetite for compromise, there have been signs of life on the back benches, with a handful of moderate Democrats working to find an escape hatch.

A separate bipartisan group of four centrist House members unveiled a compromise framework Monday for lowering health insurance costs.

Democrats believe that millions of Americans seeing skyrocketing premiums as they enroll onto health insurance programs for next year will pressure Republicans into seeking compromise.

But Trump has held firm on refusing to negotiate, telling CBS News in an interview broadcast Sunday that he would “not be extorted.”

The president has sought to apply his own pressure to force Democrats to cave, by threatening mass layoffs of federal workers and using the shutdown to target progressive priorities.

Last week his administration threatened to cut off a vital aid program that helps 42 million Americans pay for groceries for the first time in its more than 60-year history, before the move was blocked by two courts.

But Trump nevertheless insisted Tuesday — in apparent defiance of the court orders — that the food aid would be disbursed only after the government shutdown ends.

Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that benefits from the SNAP program “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!”

Trump also revived his call for the elimination of the Senate filibuster — the 60-vote threshold for passing most legislation — so Republicans can pass government funding without the help of Democrats.

• Quake leaves almost 1,000 injured, destroys several buildings.
• Poor infrastructure causes “immense” difficulties in rescue: official.
• China offers aid after UN pledged assistance for Afghanistan. 
  

Residents of northern Afghanistan were sifting through rubble and treating their injured on Tuesday after a powerful 6.3-magnitude earthquake left at least 27 dead and destroyed hundreds of houses.

The quake struck near the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif early on Monday, injuring almost 1,000 and damaging the city’s historic Blue Mosque, authorities said. The sparsely populated epicentre meant the death toll was lower than initially feared.

Hundreds of houses were either completely or partially destroyed, according to the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA). Aid groups said the figure was concerning just ahead of the Afghan winter, when temperatures drop below freezing.

Relief workers facing ‘immense’ difficulties

The difficulties for relief workers due to poor road conditions and other infrastructure issues are “immense”, said Hosam Faysal, Head of Delegation for Afghanistan at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

“Winter is already completely contributing to the complexity of the situation,” Faysal told journalists in Geneva via video link from Kabul.

Several health facilities have been damaged in the quake, adding to the challenges, Christian Lindmeier, a spokesperson for the World Health Organisation, told the briefing.

Some 956 people have been injured, according to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health.

Buildings at risk of collapse

On Tuesday, residents in Tangi Tashqurgan, an area close to the quake epicentre, were digging out rubble and reinforcing affected buildings.

Mohammad Yasin, a local shopkeeper, said dozens of structures had been damaged or destroyed in the quake.

“If you go inside the shops, you feel afraid they might collapse any moment,” he said.

The disaster is the latest challenge for Afghanistan’s Taliban administration, already grappling with crises including an earthquake in August that killed thousands in the east of the country, a sharp drop in foreign aid and mass deportations of Afghan refugees by neighbouring countries.

The United Nations has pledged assistance along with India, which is seeking to thaw ties with a Taliban government in Afghanistan that is still under sanctions from many Western nations. China said on Tuesday it would also offer aid.

Earthquakes kill hundreds every year in Afghanistan

Hemmed in by rugged mountains, Afghanistan is prone to a range of natural disasters, but its earthquakes are the most deadly, killing about 560 people on average each year and causing annual damage estimated at $80 million.

Rudimentary building techniques contribute to the casualty figures, with experts recommending new structures be built in an earthquake-resistant way and existing buildings be retrofitted to reduce the chances of collapse.

A relatively higher standard of building, comparatively flatter terrain and a lower population meant Monday’s death toll was considerably lower than that of the August quake, said ANDMA spokesperson Yousuf Hammad.