Freighter on the Move after it Was Freed from Ice on Frozen Lake Erie

The US and Canadian Coast Guards are continuing efforts to break up ice and free a freighter that has been trapped in a frozen Lake Erie since Wednesday. The ship wasn't damaged, and its crew is safe, according to officials. - The AP
The US and Canadian Coast Guards are continuing efforts to break up ice and free a freighter that has been trapped in a frozen Lake Erie since Wednesday. The ship wasn't damaged, and its crew is safe, according to officials. - The AP
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Freighter on the Move after it Was Freed from Ice on Frozen Lake Erie

The US and Canadian Coast Guards are continuing efforts to break up ice and free a freighter that has been trapped in a frozen Lake Erie since Wednesday. The ship wasn't damaged, and its crew is safe, according to officials. - The AP
The US and Canadian Coast Guards are continuing efforts to break up ice and free a freighter that has been trapped in a frozen Lake Erie since Wednesday. The ship wasn't damaged, and its crew is safe, according to officials. - The AP

A freighter was on its way to Canada on Sunday after it was freed from ice that trapped it in a frozen Lake Erie for days, the US Coast Guard said.

The Manitoulin, a 663-foot (202-meter) Canadian vessel with 17 people on board, got stuck in the ice on Lake Erie on Wednesday after it dropped off a load of wheat in Buffalo, New York, and was heading back to Canada, the Coast Guard said. It was freed Saturday.

The ship wasn't damaged, and its crew is safe, officials said. Freighters in the Great Lakes often encounter surface ice in the winter but sometimes run into ice that is too hard or thick to break through, The AP reported.

A US Coast Guard icebreaking ship had been working since Thursday to help the Manitoulin, and on Saturday, officials said a second ship arrived to help free the freighter. The Canadian Coast Guard also had a ship assisting with the effort.

The freighter was escorted through nearly 20 miles (32 kilometers) of ice from Buffalo until it got to free water, according to Lt. Kyle Rivera of the Coast Guard.

The freighter has to travel the rest of Lake Erie and then go up the Detroit and St. Clair rivers to Canada, where it will spend the rest of the winter, Rivera told The Associated Press on Sunday.

“There is ice through other portions of the lake and the rivers, but we have another cutter that will take it through there,” he said.

A US Coast Guard helicopter was at the scene conducting flights to monitor the situation. A third US Coast Guard ship was scheduled to arrive Monday, in case the Manitoulin remained stuck.



France, Germany Send Firefighters to Help Battle Dutch Blazes

A French firefighter douses burning vegetation during a bushfire in Budel, Netherlands May 1, 2026. (Reuters)
A French firefighter douses burning vegetation during a bushfire in Budel, Netherlands May 1, 2026. (Reuters)
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France, Germany Send Firefighters to Help Battle Dutch Blazes

A French firefighter douses burning vegetation during a bushfire in Budel, Netherlands May 1, 2026. (Reuters)
A French firefighter douses burning vegetation during a bushfire in Budel, Netherlands May 1, 2026. (Reuters)

France and Germany sent firefighting units to the Netherlands on Friday to help battle woodland blazes flaring in several areas.

Many of the fires, which sparked on Wednesday and Thursday, were raging in land used for military training, including an artillery range, in the south.

Stretched Dutch authorities requested help facing the emergency through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, with France and Germany responding.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on X that Paris had dispatched 41 civil security personnel and 10 vehicles.

A total of 67 firefighters, 21 vehicles and three trailers were sent by the Bonn fire service in Germany.

A Dutch military spokesman, Major Mike Hofman, on Friday confirmed to AFP that army "training grounds were in use at the time the fires broke out".

He said an investigation was under way "examining whether there is a connection between the military operations and the origin of the fires".

The head of the Dutch armed forces said on Thursday that extra precautions were being taken on terrain used for drills because of a drought currently parching the country.

He added, however, that the military exercises being conducted would not be suspended.


Oscar Statuette for 'Mr. Nobody Against Putin' Goes Missing on Flight

FILE PHOTO: File Photo: Pavel Talankin arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscars party after the 98th Academy Awards, in Beverly Hills, California, US, March 16, 2026. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok/File Photo/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: File Photo: Pavel Talankin arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscars party after the 98th Academy Awards, in Beverly Hills, California, US, March 16, 2026. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok/File Photo/File Photo
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Oscar Statuette for 'Mr. Nobody Against Putin' Goes Missing on Flight

FILE PHOTO: File Photo: Pavel Talankin arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscars party after the 98th Academy Awards, in Beverly Hills, California, US, March 16, 2026. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok/File Photo/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: File Photo: Pavel Talankin arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscars party after the 98th Academy Awards, in Beverly Hills, California, US, March 16, 2026. REUTERS/Danny Moloshok/File Photo/File Photo

The Oscar statuette belonging to Pavel Talankin, the Russian director who won best documentary this year for "Mr. Nobody Against Putin," has gone missing after he was forced to check the award into hold luggage on a flight from New York to Germany, his co-director said.

Talankin was due to fly from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Frankfurt on German carrier Lufthansa. But Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents told him that the 8.5 lb (3.8 kg) statuette posed a potential security threat, his co-director David Borenstein said on Thursday.

"At the airport, a ⁠TSA agent stopped ⁠him and said the Oscar could be used as a weapon," Borenstein said on Instagram.

"Pavel didn’t have a bag to check it in, so the TSA put the Oscar in a box and sent it to the bottom of the plane," he said, posting a series of pictures, ⁠including of the box.

"It never arrived in Frankfurt."

Responding to Borenstein's Instagram post, Lufthansa said it was taking the matter seriously.

"We deeply regret this situation," a company spokesperson later said in response to a Reuters request for comment.

"Our team is handling this matter with the utmost care and urgency and we are conducting a comprehensive internal search to ensure that the Oscar is found and returned as soon as possible.”

Speaking to the online magazine Deadline.com after arriving in Germany on Thursday, ⁠Talankin ⁠said it was "completely baffling how they consider an Oscar a weapon."

On previous flights on various airlines, he had flown with it "in the cabin, and there never was any kind of problem," he told the outlet.

Talankin and Borenstein's documentary used two years of footage that Talankin recorded at a school where he worked in Russia's Chelyabinsk region, to show how students were exposed to pro-war messaging.

The 35-year-old Talankin, who fled Russia in 2024, has defended the film as a record for posterity to show how "an entire generation became angry and aggressive."


Russia Successfully Test Launches New Soyuz-5 Rocket from Kazakhstan, Space Agency Says

The ⁠new rocket is ‌capable of ‌carrying payloads of up to ‌17 metric tons. (AP file)
The ⁠new rocket is ‌capable of ‌carrying payloads of up to ‌17 metric tons. (AP file)
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Russia Successfully Test Launches New Soyuz-5 Rocket from Kazakhstan, Space Agency Says

The ⁠new rocket is ‌capable of ‌carrying payloads of up to ‌17 metric tons. (AP file)
The ⁠new rocket is ‌capable of ‌carrying payloads of up to ‌17 metric tons. (AP file)

Russia has test launched its new Soyuz-5 rocket for the first time, the country's space agency said late on Thursday, saying it had lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan without any issues.

The Soyuz-5, which Roscosmos, ‌Russia's space ‌agency, describes as a ‌launch ⁠vehicle equipped with ⁠the world's most powerful liquid-fueled engine, lifted off successfully at 2100 Moscow time (1800 GMT) on April 30, it said in a statement.

The ⁠new rocket is ‌capable of ‌carrying payloads of up to ‌17 metric tons, will significantly ‌reduce launch costs, and is more effective than its predecessors at placing objects like satellites in near ‌earth orbit, the agency said.

Dmitry Bakanov, the head ⁠of ⁠Roskosmos, said the rocket - which he hailed as a "new step in space exploration" - would create new jobs in Russia and Kazakhstan.

Bakanov has previously told President Vladimir Putin that the Soyuz-5 is the first new launch vehicle that Russia has developed since 2014.