PGA Tour Agrees to Merge With Rival Saudi-Backed LIV Golf

The most disruptive year in golf ended Tuesday when the PGA Tour and European tour agreed to a merger with Saudi Arabia’s golf interests, creating a commercial operation designed to unify professional golf around the world.

As part of the deal, the sides are dropping all lawsuits involving LIV Golf against each other effective immediately.

Still to be determined is how players like Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, who defected to Saudi-funded LIV Golf for nine-figure bonuses, can rejoin the PGA Tour after this year.

Also unclear was what form the LIV Golf League would take in 2024. Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a memo to players that a thorough evaluation would determine how to integrate team golf into the game.
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The agreement combines the Public Investment Fund’s golf-related commercial businesses and rights — including LIV Golf — with those of the PGA and European tours. The new entity has not been named.

“They were going down their path, we were going down ours, and after a lot of introspection you realize all this tension in the game is not a good thing,” Monahan said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

“We have a responsibility to our tour and to the game, and we felt like the time was right to have that conversation.”

Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, will join the board of the PGA Tour, which continues to operates its tournaments. Al-Rumayyan will be chairman of the new commercial group, with Monahan as the CEO and the PGA Tour having a majority stake in the new venture.

The PIF will invest in the commercial venture.

Monahan said the decision came together over the last seven weeks.

source https://time.com/6285077/pga-liv-merge-golf/

Atlanta Democrats Vote to Fund Controversial Police Training Center

Atlanta’s city council voted early Tuesday morning to provide public funding for a controversial law enforcement training facility, cementing an unusual alliance that has formed between local Democrats and state Republicans. With the Democratic mayor, left-leaning city council and state Republicans all backing millions of dollars in taxpayer funds for the private non-profit that is building the center, the facility dubbed “Cop City” by opponents is set to take the next step towards construction, local political observers say.

Atlanta’s city council voted 11-4 in favor of allocating public funding to the facility after protesters packed the building and gave hours of heated public comment. In 2021, council members voted 10-4 to lease land to the Atlanta Police Foundation but not to provide money. The session began early Monday afternoon and members voted around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday.
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More than 200 people spoke against the facility, saying it would militarize police and cost too much. “What you’re voting on today is a military facility to propose a compound to make a mock city for training in urban warfare tactics,” said Gary Spencer, senior counsel at the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. “The policing promoted by this facility will not make Atlanta safer; in fact, it will put our communities—particularly our Black and brown communities—in significant danger.”

Just a handful spoke in support of the project.

Supporters, led by Atlanta’s Democratic Mayor Andre Dickens, say the center is needed to properly train police and to replace dilapidated existing facilities. Last week, during his official state of the city address, Dickens argued that police training was key to reducing crime. “We need training facilities, and our police and fire training centers have been long condemned. That’s why we are building the state-of-the-art Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.”

The approval of local funding for the center is a blow to progressive protesters who have argued that it would empower police violence. Atlanta City Councilwoman Keisha Sean Waites voted no, even though she believes the state needs a new public safety training facility and supports law enforcement. She says the facility lacks community support and has a higher price tag than was initially stated. “There is no way in the world we should be supporting a measure that does not have the pulse of those people who sent us down here to represent their voice,” Waites says. “What I don’t understand is why there is this immediate need and urgency to do this. There is no reason why we have to do this on Monday.”

The months leading up to the funding vote have been tense. In January, police shot protester Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán 57 times, according to an official autopsy. Nearly 300 people spoke against the training center at a May 15 city council meeting; public comment lasted more than 7 hours. Taxpayers learned they will actually be paying close to $67 million to help build the facility—more than double the initial announced cost, as first reported by the Atlanta Community Press Collective. About $31 million in public money will be used to fund the site’s construction. The city will also pay $36 million over 30 years for using the 300 acres of forested land, which it leased to the Atlanta Police Foundation for $10 a year.

On Friday, lawyers for a ‘Cop City’ protester sued over the use of a state domestic terrorism charge in a case stemming from the protests, the Guardian reported. Last Wednesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations announced that it had arrested three members of a bail fund on charges of money laundering and charity fraud. The Atlanta Solidarity Fund had been providing financial relief for protesters, many of whom had been charged under domestic terrorism laws. Bond has since been granted for the three activists; a judge said he did not currently find the prosecution’s case “real impressive” after expressing concerns about their free speech rights.

Megan Varner—ReutersA police officer looks up as people protest against the controversial “Cop City” project, inside the city hall in Atlanta on May 15, 2023.

‘Cop City’ critics and some attorneys and lawmakers fear that the charges against bail fund members are intended to chill protests and those who support them. State Sen. Josh McLaurin said he is concerned about the misuse of state resources. “The broad brush that was used to paint a large group of protesters as domestic terrorists months ago is now being further deployed to extend the reach of the criminal legal system to more people, even further out,” McLaurin says.

Attorney General Chris Carr has said authorities “will not rest until we have held accountable every person who has funded, organized, or participated in this violence and intimidation.”

Public resistance has not been enough to change the political reality in Atlanta, as the city council has backed funding for the facility. Atlanta City Councilman Michael Bond voted yes for the center. He says current training facilities are “dilapidated.” “It’s not just something that is glitzy and glamorous…that we want to do to appease the ‘police state,’” he says. “This is a real necessity for our city and it affects the recidivism rate in the police and fire department and harms recruiting the best and brightest.” Bond says that he condemns the death of the protester, as well as the raid of the bail fund.

While public hearings have largely showcased critics of the facility, a March survey by Emory University professors suggest that the views of Atlanta residents are mixed. Overall, 48% supported the training center, 46% opposed it and about 6% were not sure. However, the survey also reveals a racial disparity. “If you go into the more affluent northern parts of the city, like Buckhead, there are much higher levels of support, compared to lower income, more heavily Black neighborhoods in the southern part of the city,” says Zachary Peskowitz, associate professor at Emory University—one of the two people who conducted the study.

Interest in the facility increased when homicides spiked in 2020 and a concerned business community started to work with Atlanta’s mayor and city council to try and decrease crime, Peskowitz says. There has also been an active movement for the majority-white and affluent neighborhood of Buckhead to secede from the rest of Atlanta. “That concern may definitely have led some political leaders to be more enthusiastic about this facility,” he says. “Part of the motivation for this facility is to assuage corporate concerns about crime in the city—to say, here’s a concrete thing that we’re going to do to increase public safety.” For decades, left-leaning Black political leaders and business elites in Atlanta have shared a strong relationship, he adds.

For Michael Leo Owens, the second Emory professor who worked on the survey, any claims that the new facility will definitely increase or decrease public safety is “speculation.”

Atlanta has always had pro-police leanings, even among its Democrats, Owens says; it often defers to its more affluent population. “The ‘Atlanta Way’ is to exceedingly accede to the values, preferences, and wishes of its foremost commercial and philanthropic elites, both those based in and those based beyond the city’s limits,” Owens says.

Still, many left-leaning Democrats and ‘Cop City’ critics feel betrayed by the city’s stance on the project. “In every other space, these two factions claim to strongly dislike each others’ politics but they agree on the repression of protest,” says Tiffany Roberts, policy director at Southern Center for Human Rights, which is helping connect protesters with legal representation. “It all comes down to a so-called progressive man wielding conservative politics.”

source https://time.com/6284605/atlanta-cop-city-council-vote/

China’s Aging Population Is a Major Concern. But Its Youth May Be an Even Bigger Problem

Jason Lu’s parents never went to university. So when the 25-year-old was accepted into a masters program studying translation in Shanghai, they were “very proud,” he says, hoping that his qualifications would one day lead to a good job. “They are getting older and older and want me to look after them.”

However, due to a “terrible” jobs market, as Lu puts it, he is delaying looking for work and instead applying for scholarships to gain a PhD. In April, youth unemployment in China hit a record high with 20.4% of 16- to 24-year-old jobseekers unable to find work. Compounding matters, some 11.6 million students are set to graduate this month, entering a labor market that looks increasingly bleak. “Most of my classmates are very anxious,” says Lu.
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Lu’s experience underscores a twin economic challenge that China is facing—an aging population and young people unable to find work who are expected to care for them. By 2035, around 400 million Chinese people will be aged 60 and over, or some 30% of the population. Last year, deaths outnumbered births for the first time since 1961, further graying the nation’s demographic balance.

Meanwhile, the ratio of workers to dependents is growing even more unfavorable as an estimated 228 million members of China’s baby boom generation from 1963-72 will retire over the decade. Last year, China had 2.26 working-age people supporting each senior—but that is forecast to drop to 1.25 by 2042. It promises to unleash an unprecedented burden on young people like Lu, who like most of his peers is an only child. “My generation feels a mounting pressure from jobs and our family,” he says.

Read More: Why One of China’s Largest Provinces Is Lifting Birth Limits—Even for Unmarried Parents

But while raising retirement ages is a clear—albeit controversial—option to mitigate the problem, providing jobs for Chinese graduates is a more complex and acute challenge. China suffers from a skills mismatch meaning factories have faced worker shortages while graduates are bereft of opportunities that match their proficiency.

“Youth unemployment is a more pressing issue than the aging population,” says Keju Jin, an associate professor at the London School of Economics and author of The New China Playbook. “The 1.1% annual reduction in the labor force doesn’t compare to the fact that the most productive and highly-educated generation cannot find jobs.”

The crisis has led to an outpouring of sardonic grumblings on Chinese social media and the inevitable pushback from officials. In March, the Communist Youth League urged young Chinese to “take off their suits, roll up their sleeves, and go to the farmland,” while Chinese President Xi Jinping weighed in by saying new graduates must “eat bitterness,” a colloquial expression for stoically enduring hardships.

It certainly leaves a sour taste for a Confucian society that invests huge sums in education in the firm belief that it’s the surest path to success. “My parents don’t want me to work in their factory,” says Lu. “I have a master’s degree, they want me to work in an office or as a teacher.”

Youth joblessness reinforces growing discontent over a lack of social mobility in China. Office workers especially in the tech industry are expected to toil for long hours in what’s dubbed “996”—9am to 9pm, six days a week—with no overtime and paltry leave entitlements. It’s contributed to a phenomenon known as “lying flat,” where young workers become so disillusioned by their torpid career advancement that they simply do the bare minimum just to keep getting paid.

Policy blunders have exacerbated the problem. In 2021, the government suddenly banned for-profit tutoring, wiping out a $150 billion industry as well as a key revenue stream that allowed young graduates to support themselves while looking for work more attuned to their chosen careers. A regulatory crackdown on China’s tech industry contributed to tens of thousands of layoffs and a lull in graduate programs.

It’s especially problematic because young people in China account for nearly 20% of consumption, according to a Goldman Sachs analysis, meaning youth joblessness disproportionately impacts growth targets and the nation’s coffers. China’s basic pension fund for urban employees had sufficient reserves to cover 18.5 months of benefits in 2012 but only 11.2 months in 2021. The grim economic outlook has already prompted local governments to slash social services, sparking rare public protests earlier this year in cities such as Wuhan and Dalian.

Proposals to raise retirement ages are seen as inevitable by demographers and policymakers yet remain deeply unpopular among ordinary Chinese (as they do across the globe). “We will conduct careful studies and thorough analysis to roll out the [retirement age] policy prudently in due course,” new Premier Li Qiang told a press conference in March following China’s annual National People’s Congress rubberstamp parliament.

An obvious answer is to channel some of the $3.1 trillion that China holds in foreign exchange reserves back into social programs where it’s most needed. “Of course, there are a lot of vested interests that don’t want their money being pumped into pension funds,” says Jane Golley, an expert on Chinese economics at the Australian National University. “Then it’s a question of government effectiveness—their capacity to actually do what needs to be done.”

Still, tackling youth unemployment remains a trickier issue. The Chinese government is already pivoting towards vocational training and expanding the service sector, which accounts for less than half of jobs in China compared with roughly 80% in Japan and the U.S. “It’s an unfortunate reality that graduates will have to lower their standards and work in sectors that they wouldn’t necessarily have aspired to,” says Golley.

Lu says he’s unable to afford the roughly $1 million rmb [$140,000] he would need to pay for his own four-year doctorate, so if he can’t secure funding, he’ll be forced to take whatever work he can get. “I can find ‘a job,’ but I don’t think it will make me content,” he says. “We want to fulfill our dreams.”

source https://time.com/6284994/china-youth-unemployment-aging-demographics/

Ukraine Accuses Russia of Destroying Major Dam Near Kherson, Warns of Widespread Flooding

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine on Tuesday accused Russian forces of blowing up a major dam and hydroelectric power station in a part of southern Ukraine that Russia controls, sending water gushing from the breached facility and risking massive flooding. Ukrainian authorities ordered hundreds of thousands of residents downriver to evacuate.

Russian officials countered that the Kakhovka dam was damaged by Ukrainian military strikes in the contested area.

Read More: What Comes After Putin’s Rule in Russia. The West Should Beware

Ukrainian authorities have previously warned that the failure of the Kakhovka dam could unleash 18 million cubic meters (4.8 billion gallons) of water and flood Kherson and dozens of other areas downriver where hundreds of thousands of people live, as well as threatening a nearby Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.
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Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom said in a Telegram statement that the blowing up of the dam “could have negative consequences for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” but at the moment situation is “controllable.”

The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency wrote on Twitter that its experts were closely monitoring the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant upstream, and there was “no immediate nuclear safety risk” at the facility.

According to the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Working Group, a total collapse in the dam would wash away much of the left bank and a severe drop in the reservoir has the potential to deprive the nuclear plant of crucial cooling, as well as dry up the water supply in northern Crimea.

Read More: How the World Changed in the Year Since Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called an emergency meeting to deal with the crisis, Ukrainian officials said.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry wrote on Telegram that the Kakhovka dam had been blown up, and called for residents of 10 villages on the river’s right bank and parts of the city of Kherson downriver to gather essential documents and pets, turn off appliances, and leave, while cautioning against possible disinformation.

The Russian-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka Vladimir Leontyev said Tuesday that numerous strikes on the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant destroyed its valves, and “water from the Kakhovka reservoir began to uncontrollably flow downstream.”

Leontyev said the strikes were “a very serious terrorist act” said Moscow-appointed authorities are “preparing for the worst consequences” — though stopping short of urging an evacuation of city residents.

Read More: Inside the Basement Where an Entire Ukrainian Village Spent a Harrowing Month in Captivity

Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply.

Footage from what appeared to be a monitoring camera overlooking the dam that was circulating on social media purported to show a flash, explosion and breakage of the dam.

Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said in a video posted to Telegram shortly before 7 a.m. that “the Russian army has committed yet another act of terror,” and warned that water will reach “critical levels” within five hours.

Energoatom wrote that the Kakhovka reservoir, where water levels are “rapidly decreasing,” is necessary “for the plant to feed the turbine condensers and ZNPP safety systems,” the statement said.

“Currently the station cooling pond is full: as of 8 am, the water level is at 16.6 meters, and this is enough for the needs of the station,” it said.

Energoatom will continue to monitor the situation together with the IAEA, the statement said.

Ukraine and Russia have previously accused each other of targeting the dam with attacks, and last October Zelenskyy predicted that Russia would destroy the dam in order to cause a flood.

Read More: If You Want to Understand Russian Power, Listen to the People Who Leave It

Authorities, experts and residents have for months expressed concerns about water flows through — and over — the Kakhovka dam.

In February, water levels were so low that many feared a meltdown at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, whose cooling systems are supplied with water from the Kakhovka reservoir held up by the dam.

By mid-May, after heavy rains and snow melt, water levels rose beyond normal levels, flooding nearby villages. Satellite images showed water washing over damaged sluice gates.

Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro River, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply. The Kakhovka dam — the one furthest downstream — is controlled by Russian forces.

source https://time.com/6284998/ukraine-russia-kakhovka-dam-flooding/

Hollywood Actors Guild Votes to Authorize Strike, as Writers Strike Continues

Actors represented by the Hollywood union SAG-AFTRA voted Monday evening to authorize a strike if they don’t agree on a new contract with major studios, streamers and production companies by June 30.

The guild, which represents over 160,000 screen actors, broadcast journalists, announcers, hosts and stunt performers, begins its negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on Wednesday, over a month after the Writers Guild of America began striking over its own dispute with AMPTP. If the actors union ultimately moves forward with the strike, it would be limited to television and film productions; news and broadcast work would not be directly affected.
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At stake is increased base compensation, which actors say has been undercut by inflation and the streaming ecosystem, the threat of unregulated use of artificial intelligence, benefit plans and the burden of “self-taped auditions” — the cost of which used to be the responsibility of casting and production.

The strike authorization vote, a tool at the bargaining table, comes at a pivotal moment for the industry as 11,500 writers enter their sixth week of striking and the directors guild reviews a recently reached tentative agreement with studios on issues like wages, streaming residuals, and artificial intelligence. Should the actors strike, the industry already hobbled by the writers strike would come to a near-standstill, from production to promoting completed projects.

Read More: How the Writers Strike Could Impact TV Shows That Are Still Filming

The WGA, DGA and SAG-AFTRA have shown solidarity with one another since the writers began walking the picket lines on May 2. Many in Hollywood worried about the very real possibility that all three guilds would strike at the same time, as both the directors and the actors contracts were soon due to expire as well.

That scenario changed Sunday night when the directors guild, which represents 19,000 film, television and commercial directors, announced that they had reached a “truly historic” tentative agreement with studios. The terms, which have not been disclosed in detail to the press or the other guilds, will be presented to the DGA board on Tuesday for approval and then to the membership for ratification.

Representatives for both the writers guild and the actors guild congratulated the directors group for reaching a tentative deal, though neither commented on specific points of the DGA terms. The WGA also said that its bargaining positions remain the same.

The DGA deal did not sit well with some individual WGA members, some of whom remembered when the directors negotiated their own contract while the writers were striking in 2007-2008. That deal 15 years ago, some felt, set precedent that forced the writers to fall in line with the terms agreed to by the DGA and end the strike.

Read More: How the Writers Strike Will Affect Your Favorite Shows

“Zero surprise. The AMPTP continues to use their tired old playbook. And the DGA sadly continues to toe the line, knowing that they can draft off of the WGA’s resolve to strike for a truly historic deal. Disappointing, but not surprising,” veteran television writer Steven DeKnight, who also wrote and directed “Pacific Rim: Uprising,” tweeted.

Seemingly anticipating a repeat, the WGA negotiating committee last week released a letter cautioning that the studios would once again pursue a “divide and conquer” strategy, pitting the guilds against one another.

“Our position is clear: to resolve the strike, the companies will have to negotiate with the WGA on our full agenda,” the WGA letter had said. “We will continue to march until the companies negotiate fairly with us.”

While the unions have appeared more united this time, their aims are also different in many arenas. For the directors, securing international streaming residuals that account for subscriber growth was a key component, as were wages, safety (like banning live ammunition on set), diversity and inclusion and the addition of Juneteenth as a paid holiday.

The WGA agenda includes increased pay, better residuals and minimum staffing requirements. One key area of overlap between all is artificial intelligence. The DGA said they’d reached a “groundbreaking agreement confirming that AI is not a person and that generative AI cannot replace the duties performed by members.”

Read More: The Writers Strike Is Taking a Stand on AI

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the chief negotiator for SAG-AFTRA, maintains the needs of the guild’s actor members are unique. Hollywood actors haven’t gone on strike against AMPTP since 1980, which saw a 95-day strike over terms for paid television and VHS tapes.

“Our bargaining strategy has never relied upon nor been dependent on the outcome or status of any other union’s negotiations, nor do we subscribe to the philosophy that the terms of deals made with other unions bind us,” Crabtree-Ireland said.

source https://time.com/6284990/hollywood-actors-writers-strike/

Hong Kong Journalist Wins Rare Court Appeal Despite Crackdowns on Press Freedoms

HONG KONG — An award-winning Hong Kong journalist won an appeal quashing her conviction related to work on her investigative documentary Monday in a rare court ruling upholding media freedom in the territory.

Bao Choy was found guilty in April 2021 of deceiving the government by getting vehicle ownership records for journalistic purposes after she had declared in her online application that she would use the information for “other traffic and transport related issues.”

The investigative journalist was trying to track down perpetrators of a mob attack on protesters and commuters inside a train station during the massive anti-government protests in 2019 for her documentary.
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Choy was fined 6,000 Hong Kong Dollars ($765) for two counts of making false statements at that time and called it “a very dark day for all journalists in Hong Kong.” That ruling also sparked outrage among local journalists over the city’s shrinking press freedom.

On Monday, judges of the city’s top court unanimously ruled in Choy’s favor in a written judgment, quashing her conviction and setting aside the sentence.

“The issues of falsity and knowledge were wrongly decided against the appellant because her journalistic investigation into the use of the vehicle on the dates in question did fall into the wide catchall category of ‘other traffic and transport related matters’,” the judgment read.

Even if it did not, it was “not an irresistible inference that she knew that to be false,” the judgment added.

The story Choy co-produced, titled “7.21 Who Owns the Truth,” won the Chinese-language documentary award at the Human Rights Press Awards in 2021. The judging panel hailed it as “an investigative reporting classic” that had chased “the smallest clues, interrogating the powerful without fear or favor.”

In the crackdown on dissent that followed the 2019 protests, two vocal media outlets — Apple Daily and Stand News — have been forced to shut down and some of their top managers have been prosecuted.

Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai faces collusion charges under a sweeping national security law enacted in 2020. Two former Stand News editors were charged under a colonial-era sedition law that has been used increasingly to snuff out critical voices.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to China’s rule in 1997, but critics say Beijing’s promise that it would keep the city’s freedoms is becoming increasingly threadbare.

Hong Kong ranked 140th out of 180 countries and territories in Reporters Without Borders’ latest World Press Freedom Index released last month. The global media watchdog said the city has experienced an unprecedented setback since 2020, when the security law was introduced.

source https://time.com/6284749/bao-choy-hong-kong-journalist-appeal/

Unresponsive Plane Flying Over Washington Followed by Military Jet and Crashed in Virginia

WASHINGTON — A wayward and unresponsive business plane that flew over the nation’s capital Sunday afternoon caused the military to scramble a fighter jet before the plane crashed in Virginia, officials said. The fighter jet caused a loud sonic boom that was heard across the capital region.

Hours later, police said rescuers had reached the site of the plane crash in a rural part of the Shenandoah Valley and that no survivors were found.

The Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna Citation took off from Elizabethtown, Tennessee, on Sunday and was headed for Long Island’s MacArthur Airport. Inexplicably, the plane turned around over New York’s Long Island and flew a straight path down over D.C. before it crashed over mountainous terrain near Montebello, Virginia, around 3:30 p.m.
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It was not immediately clear why the plane was nonresponsive, why it crashed or how many people were on board. The plane flew directly over the nation’s capital, though it was technically flying above some of the most heavily restricted airspace in the nation.

A U.S. official confirmed to The Associated Press that the military jet had scrambled to respond to the small plane, which wasn’t responding to radio transmissions and later crashed. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the military operation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Flight tracking sites showed the jet suffered a rapid spiraling descent, dropping at one point at a rate of more than 30,000 feet per minute before crashing in the St. Mary’s Wilderness.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command later said in a statement that the F-16 was authorized to travel at supersonic speeds, which caused a sonic boom that was heard in Washington and parts of Virginia and Maryland.

“During this event, the NORAD aircraft also used flares – which may have been visible to the public – in an attempt to draw attention from the pilot,” the statement said. “Flares are employed with highest regard for safety of the intercepted aircraft and people on the ground. Flares burn out quickly and completely and there is no danger to the people on the ground when dispensed.”

Virginia State Police said officers were notified of the potential crash shortly before 4 p.m. and rescuers reached the crash site by foot around four hours later. No survivors were found, police said.

The plane that crashed was registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne Inc, which is based in Florida. John Rumpel, who runs the company, told The New York Times that his daughter, 2-year-old granddaughter, her nanny and the pilot were aboard the plane. They were returning to their home in East Hampton, on Long Island, after visiting his house in North Carolina, he said.

Rumpel, a pilot, told the newspaper he didn’t have much information from authorities but hoped his family didn’t suffer and suggested the plane could’ve lost pressurization.

“I don’t think they’ve found the wreckage yet,” Rumpel told the newspaper. “It descended at 20,000 feet a minute, and nobody could survive a crash from that speed.”

A woman who identified herself as Barbara Rumpel, listed as the president of the company, said she had no comment Sunday when reached by The Associated Press.

The episode brought back memories of the 1999 crash of a Learjet that lost cabin pressure and flew aimlessly across the country with professional golfer Payne Stewart aboard. The jet crashed in a South Dakota pasture and six people died.

President Joe Biden was playing golf at Joint Base Andrews around the time the fighter jet took off. Anthony Guglielmi, spokesperson for the U.S. Secret Service, said the incident had no impact on the president’s movements Sunday. Biden was playing golf at the Maryland military base with his brother in the afternoon.

A White House official said the president had been briefed on the crash and that the sound of the scrambling aircraft was faint at Joint Base Andrews.

—Associated Press writers Chris Megerian and Zeke Miller in Washington and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

source https://time.com/6284742/unresponsive-plane-washington-crash-virginia/