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(LONDON) — A Delta Airlines pilot has been arrested in Scotland for allegedly being over the alcohol limit, known as the “Drink-Fly” limit, police said.

Lawrence Russell Jr., 62, was charged under the Section 93 of the Railways and Transportation Safety Act and appeared on Monday afternoon at Edinburgh Sheriff’s Court, according to the court. He had been arrested at about 10 a.m. Friday at Edinburgh Airport, a Police Scotland spokesperson told ABC News.

Russell made no plea to the charge and has been remanded in custody, “committed for further examination,” a Police Scotland spokesperson told ABC News.

Russell is expected to appear in court again “within the next eight days,” the court’s press office told ABC News.

Russell was scheduled to be the pilot of Delta flight DL209, which was bound for New York’s JFK airport, from Edinburgh, Scotland, Delta said. The EDI-JFK flight was subsequently cancelled, with alternative flights provided to customers, the airline said.

In a statement, Delta said: “Delta confirms that one of its crew was taken into custody this morning at EDI Airport. Delta is assisting the authorities with their ongoing enquiries … we apologise to customers impacted by the cancellation.”

According to the U.K. Railways and Transport Safety Act, a person commits an offense if “he performs an aviation function at a time when the proportion of alcohol in his breath, blood or urine exceeds the prescribed limit.”

In the case of breath, the prescribed limit is 9 micrograms of alcohol per 100 milliliters, and 20 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters in the case of blood, according to the Act.

Delta pilot Gabriel Lyle Schroeder was arrested in Sept. 2019 at Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport for allegedly attempting to fly while intoxicated, police said at the time.

In a statement sent to ABC News, Delta said its alcohol policy is “among the strictest in the industry” and that the company is “cooperating with local authorities” as they investigate in Scotland.

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(NEW YORK) — The U.S. ranking for gender equality worldwide fell significantly over the past year due to a widening gap in political empowerment and health outcomes between men and women, according to a study released on Tuesday by the World Economic Forum.

The report, which assesses equity between men and women on indexes ranging from economic participation to physical well-being, ranked the U.S. 43rd out of 146 countries studied, ranking directly beneath Colombia and above Luxembourg. Last year, the U.S. ranked 27th.

The World Economic Forum convenes an annual meeting of the global elite in Davos, Switzerland, every January.

The falloff in the U.S. ranking from last year is largely due to a widening gap between men and women in the realm of political empowerment, which measures factors such as the share of women who hold positions in the federal legislature and as heads of state, the study found.

The U.S. also faces a growing gender divide over life expectancy, the study showed. Over the last decade, women’s healthy life expectancy has declined by five years and men’s by close to three years, according to the study.

To be sure, the report found that the U.S. gender gap has narrowed in some areas, especially those focused on economic outcomes.

The U.S. has closed almost 80% of the gap between men and women on an index that measures economic opportunity and participation, recovering to a level last seen in 2018, the report said.

On income parity, the U.S. has closed about 67% of the gap between men and women, which continues a trend of gradual improvement over the past several years, the study showed.

Not a single country has completely reached parity between men and women on the study’s overall gender gap index.

Iceland, the report’s top-ranked country for 14 consecutive years, has closed roughly 91% of the divide between men and women on the overall gender gap index.

The group of top-performing countries also featured Norway, Finland, Sweden and New Zealand.

The lowest-ranked countries were Afghanistan, Chad, Algeria, Pakistan and Iran.

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(NEW YORK) — Andrew Tate, the influencer detained in December by Romanian officials, has been charged with rape, human trafficking and creating an organized crime group, local prosecutors said in a statement on Tuesday.

Tate faces the charges along with his brother, Tristan, another internet personality, and two other women, both Romanian nationals, prosecutors said.

The Tate brothers will “embrace the opportunity it presents to demonstrate their innocence and vindicate their reputation,” a spokesperson said.

“Tate’s legal team are prepared to cooperate fully with the appropriate authorities, presenting all necessary evidence to exonerate the brothers and expose any misinterpretations or false accusations,” the spokesperson told ABC News in a statement.

They have all been in police custody — first in jail, then under house arrest — for about six months as they awaited the full charges.

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(PARIS) — Police were searching offices associated with organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympics on Tuesday as part of two financial investigations, French officials said.

“A police search is currently underway at the headquarters of the Organising Committee,” the Paris 2024 committee, COJOP, said in a statement. “Paris 2024 is cooperating fully with the investigators to facilitate their investigations.”

A search was also underway Tuesday at the offices the Société de Livraison des Ouvrages Olympiques, also known a SOLIDEO, a spokesperson for France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office told ABC News.

The searches were part of two open investigations, the spokesperson said.

The first investigation, opened in 2017, was into possible “counts of illegal taking of interests, embezzlement of public funds, favoritism and concealment of favoritism targeting several contracts awarded in particular by” the organizing committee, the spokesperson said.

The second investigation, opened in 2022, was into possible “illegal taking of interests, favoritism and concealment of favoritism relating to several contracts awarded by the COJOP and SOLIDEO, following an inspection by the French Anti-Corruption Agency,” the spokesperson said.

The first investigation was being pursued by France’s Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses. The second was under the Brigade for the repression of economic crime, the official said.

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(NEW YORK) — Hamish Harding, one of the five people aboard a submersible missing near the Titanic wreck, is no stranger to exploration.

Harding circumnavigated the Earth in 2019, he said on Facebook. He made a dive in 2021 to the deepest point on earth, Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench. And he traveled into space last year aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard.

Now he’s one of five passengers aboard the missing OceanGate Inc. tourist submersible, for which the U.S. Coast Guard and others have launched a round-the-clock search.

“Our entire focus is on the wellbeing of the crew and every step possible is being taken to bring the five crew members back safely,” OceanGate said as part of an emailed statement.

The submersible, which last pinged in a location close to the Titanic wreck, was designed with life support to sustain five crew members for 96 hours.

Here’s what we know about the people onboard:

Hamish Harding

Harding, a British businessman and chairman of Action Aviation, previewed his dive to see the Titanic shipwreck in a Facebook post.

“Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023,” he posted on Sunday. “A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”

Shahzada and Suleman Dawood

Shahzada Dawood is vice chairman of Engro Corporation Limited, a sprawling business headquartered in Karachi, Pakistan. Suleman Dawood is his son, the family said in a statement.

“Our son Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman, had embarked on a journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean. As of now, contact has been lost with their submersible craft and there is limited information available,” the Dawood family said.

The statement continued: “A rescue effort that is being jointly led by multiple government agencies and deep-sea companies is underway to reestablish contact with the submersible and bring them back safely. We are very grateful for the concern being shown by our colleagues and friends and would like to request everyone to pray for their safety while granting the family privacy at this time. The family is well looked after and are praying to Allah for the safe return of their family members.”

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(PARIS) — Police in Paris were searching the Paris 2024 Olympics headquarters on Tuesday, the event’s organizing committee said.

“A police search is currently underway at the headquarters of the Organising Committee,” the committee said. “Paris 2024 is cooperating fully with the investigators to facilitate their investigations.”

Story developing…

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(NEW YORK) — The United States Coast Guard and Royal Bahamas Defense Force called off its search on Sunday for an American free diver who went missing off the coast of Bimini, Bahamas.

Ryan Proulx, 31, was last seen near the Bimini Barge Wreck on Friday, a diving location roughly 1.5 miles west of Bimini Inlet, according to the Coast Guard.

After aircraft crews searched over 673 square miles for Proulx, the Coast Guard suspended the search on Sunday afternoon.

“We offer our deepest condolences to the Proulx family,” Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Matt Spado said in a statement on Twitter. “The decision to suspend the active search efforts pending further development is one we never take lightly.”

Proulx traveled from Palm Beach, Florida, to the Bahamas last Thursday with a group including his wife, according to his friend Steve Diffenbacher, who spoke with ABC affiliate WBPF-TV. An experienced diver and licensed captain, Proulx would frequently make the trip down the East Coast for clients who wanted to transport their boats, according to Diffenbacher.

According to the Coast Guard, Proulx was last seen wearing a green top and red fins while free diving at the Bimini barge wreck. Located nearly 75 feet under the surface with strong currents, the wrecked barge-turned-artificial reef attracts large game fish, which cluster near the shipwreck and a nearby drop-off, according to Scuba Schools International.

Proulx previously served as a police officer with the East Hartford Police and Monroe Police Departments, according to a release from the East Hartford Police Department. A representative for the East Hartford Police Department could not be reached for comment about Proulx’s disappearance.

Proulx’s family declined to make a public statement about the search.

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(NEW YORK) — Climate change is taking a major human, economic and environmental toll in Europe, which has now been dubbed the fastest warming continent of the world, according to a new report.

Europe has been warming twice as much as the global average since the 1980s, the report, released Monday by Copernicus, the European Union’s climate change service, and the World Meteorological Organization, states.

Summer 2022 in Europe was characterized by rolling heatwaves, record-breaking temperatures and more than 100 heat-related deaths in a single event.

In 2022, Europe was approximately 2.3 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial revolution average — global temperatures between 1850 and 1900, which are used as a baseline for the Paris climate accord.

Several countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. had their warmest year on record in 2022, according to the report.

Europe’s 2022 annual average temperature was between the second and fourth highest on record, with an anomaly of about 0.79 degrees Celsius above the average between 1991 and 2020.

Summers with extreme heat will likely be “frequent and more intense across the region” in the future, Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement.

“The record-breaking heat stress that Europeans experienced in 2022 was one of the main drivers of weather-related excess deaths in Europe,” Buontempo said. “Unfortunately, this cannot be considered a one-off occurrence or an oddity of the climate.”

The pattern of extreme heat has already continued into 2023. An early season heat wave that plagued countries along the Mediterranean Sea such as Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Algeria in April was found to have been prompted by anthropologic, or human-caused, climate change, according to a study published last month.

In addition to extreme heat, the year was also marked by drought, wildfires and sea surface temperature reaching new highs, which were then accompanied by marine heatwaves, the report states.

Meteorological, hydrological and climate-related hazards in Europe in 2022 resulted in 16,365 reported fatalities (many of them due to heat stress, the No. 1 weather-related killer in the world.

Glaciers in Europe lost a volume of about 880 cubic kilometers of ice from 1997 to 2022. The Alps were the worst affected, with an average reduction in ice thickness of 34 meters, the report said.
MORE: Extreme heat taking its toll on US, European economies

In 2022, glaciers in the European Alps experienced “unprecedented” mass loss in one single year, caused by very low winter snow amounts, a very warm summer and Saharan dust deposition, the researchers said.

The report also noted a “hopeful future” for renewable energy, which generated more electricity on the continent than polluting fossil gas for the first time in 2022.

Wind and solar power generated 22.3% of European Union (EU) electricity in 2022, overtaking fossil gas at 20%, the researchers said.

Increasing use of renewables and low-carbon energy sources is crucial to reduce dependence on fossil fuels,” World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement. “Climate services play a key role in ensuring the resilience of energy systems to climate-related shocks, in planning operations, and in informing measures to increase energy efficiency.

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(BEIJING) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday at 4:30 p.m. local time, according to an official with the U.S. Department of State.

The meeting comes amid soaring tensions between the United States and China, fueling concerns that the two counties could break out into conflict.

“State-to-state interactions should always be based on mutual respect and sincerity. I hope that Secretary Blinken, through this visit, could make positive contribution to stabilizing China-U.S. relations,” Xi said in opening remarks to Blinken before their closed-door meeting, according to Chinese state media.

Blinken, America’s top diplomat, arrived in the Chinese capital on Sunday for an official two-day visit aimed at easing tensions. He is the first U.S. secretary of state to visit China in five years and the highest-level U.S. official to make the trip since President Joe Biden took office.

On the first day of his high-stakes trip, Blinken met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang for nearly six hours and, afterwards, both sides said they had agreed to continue high-level discussions, with Qin accepting an invitation from Blinken to visit Washington, D.C. However, behind closed doors, Qin told Blinken that China-U.S. ties “are at the lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic relations,” according to Chinese state media.

Earlier Monday, Blinken met with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi for about three hours.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(MEXICO CITY) — When responding to the scene where two American tourists were found dead in their luxury hotel room in Mexico this week, paramedics told ABC News that they began to feel “intoxication symptoms such as hypoxia and racing heartbeat.”

The paramedics said they decided to leave because they felt the scene was unsafe. They then took themselves to a local hospital for treatment, they told ABC News.

The victims had no vital signs when the paramedics entered the room at Hyatt’s Rancho Pescadero on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula on Tuesday at around 9:10 p.m. local time. The lifeless body of a woman was found on the bed, while the lifeless body of a man was found in the fetal position on the floor of the shower, which was still on when the paramedics arrived, they told ABC News.

The victims had been dead for about 10 or 11 hours when they were found and there were no signs of violence or an altercation. The cause of death was “intoxication by substance to be determined,” the State Attorney General’s Office of Baja California Sur said in a statement on Thursday.

The attorney general’s office identified the victims as 28-year-old Abby Lutz and 41-year-old John Heathco, both from Newport Beach, California.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State confirmed the death of two American citizens in northwestern Mexico’s Baja California Sur state this week.

Rancho Pescadero is a Hyatt property and boutique beachfront hotel in the scenic village of El Pescadero, nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the foothills of the Sierra de Laguna mountain range. The hotel’s general manager, Henar Gil, said in a statement on Thursday that his staff does “not believe that the cause of death was related to any issues with the hotel’s infrastructure or facilities, including carbon monoxide or a gas of any kind.”

“Beyond anything else, on behalf of the entire Rancho Pescadero team, we are deeply affected and sorry for the loss the families and loved ones of Abby and John are enduring. This is a shocking and unimaginable situation, and we are committed to supporting and treating them with understanding and compassion,” Gil added. “We will continue to cooperate with authorities as they look into the cause of this terrible tragedy.”

Lutz’s family said they “are shocked and saddened to hear about the passing of our beloved Abby.”

“Abby had an adventurous spirit and a wonderfully kind heart,” they said in a statement on Thursday. “She loved to travel, see new places, and share her zeal for life with those around her. We ask for your thoughts and prayers for our family during this very difficult time.”

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