Jet missing since 1971 found submerged in Lake Champlain

Fifty-three years after a private plane carrying five men disappeared on a snowy Vermont night, experts believe they have found the wreckage of the long lost jet in Lake Champlain. The corporate jet disappeared shortly after departing the Burlington airport for Providence, Rhode Island, on Jan. 27, 1971. Those aboard included two crew members and three employees of a Georgia development company Cousin’s Properties, who were working on a development project in Burlington.

Initial searches for the 10-seat Jet Commander turned up no wreckage and the lake froze over four days after the plane was lost. At least 17 other searches happened, until underwater searcher Garry Kozak and a team using a remotely operated vehicle last month found wreckage of a jet with the same custom paint scheme in the lake close to where the radio control tower had last tracked the plane before it disappeared. Sonar images were taken of the wreck found in 200 feet of water near Juniper Island.

— The Associated Press

U.S. bans imports from 3 Chinese companies over ties to forced labor

The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday added three Chinese companies to a list of firms whose products can no longer be exported to the United States, as part of what it described as an escalating crackdown on companies that aid in forced labor programs in Xinjiang.

The companies include a seafood processor, Shandong Meijia Group, that an investigation by the Outlaw Ocean Project identified as a business employing laborers brought from Xinjiang, a far-of China where the government has detained and surveilled large numbers of minorities, including Uyghurs.

Another firm, Xinjiang Shenhuo Coal and Electricity, is an aluminum processor, a U.S. official said. The third, Dongguan Oasis Shoes, brought Uyghurs and people from other persecuted groups to its footwear factory in Guangdong, the U.S. government said.

Chiquita held liable for deaths during Colombian civil war

A jury in South Florida has ruled that Chiquita Brands is liable for eight killings carried out by a right-wing paramilitary group that the company helped finance in a fertile banana-growing region of Colombia during the country’s decades-long internal conflict.

The jury on Monday ordered the multinational banana producer to pay $38.3 million to 16 family members of farmers and other civilians who were killed in separate episodes by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia [--] a right-wing paramilitary group that Chiquita bankrolled from 1997 to 2004.

Memoir by Trump’s nephew examines family’s ‘darker corner’

Fred C. Trump III, the nephew of former President Donald Trump and the older brother of Mary Trump, will publish a memoir about the Trump family, according to his publisher, Simon [Amp] Schuster.

The memoir, titled “All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way,” is set to come out on July 30 from Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon [Amp] Schuster [--] just a few months before the 2024 presidential election, in which former President Trump is running as the presumptive Republican nominee against President Joe Biden.

Gallery described the memoir as a “candid and revealing” account of what it was like to grow up in the Trump family, and noted that the book will include “never-before-told stories” that shed “a light into the darker corner of the Trump empire.” The publisher also stated that Fred Trump III was motivated to tell his family’s story because of the upcoming election, and suggested that his book could “shape the decision of a nation.” It was not clear to what extent “All in the Family” would focus on Donald Trump, or in what light. Gallery declined to share more information about the book beyond a brief description.

Fred Trump III, who has largely remained out of the public eye and has not been a vocal critic of the former president, declined to be interviewed, according to his publisher.

— The New York Times

Michigan couple and attorney winners of $842.4M jackpot

A mid-Michigan couple and a lawyer from the west side of the state were announced Tuesday as winners of an $842.4 million Powerball lottery jackpot from a ticket purchased on New Year’s Day. The Breakfast Club lottery club opted for a cash lump sum of $305 million after taxes, Michigan Lottery Commissioner Suzanna Shkreli told reporters outside the Food Castle convenience store in Grand Blanc Township near Flint, where the winning ticket was sold.

None of the winners were identified by name.

— The Associated Press