Cubans struggle as power not fully restored days after blackout and hurricane hits island

FEASTERVILLE-TREVOSE, Pa. (AP) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump manned the fry station at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania on Sunday before staging an impromptu news conference, answering questions through the drive-thru window.

As reporters and aides watched, an employee showed Trump how to dunk baskets of fries in oil, salt the fries and put them into boxes using a scoop. Trump, a well-known fan of fast food and a notorious germophobe, expressed amazement that he didn’t have to touch the fries with his hands.

“It requires great expertise, actually, to do it right and to do it fast,” Trump said with a grin, putting away his suit jacket and wearing an apron over his shirt and tie.

The visit came as he’s tried to counter Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ accounts on the campaign of working at the fast-food chain while in college, an experience that Trump has claimed — without offering evidence — never happened.

A large crowd lined the street outside the restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, which is part of Bucks County, a key swing voter area north of Philadelphia. The restaurant itself was closed to the public for Trump’s visit. The former president later attended an evening town hall in Lancaster and the Pittsburgh Steelers home game against the New York Jets.

After serving bags of takeout to people in the drive-thru lane, Trump leaned out of the window, still wearing the apron, to take questions from the media staged outside. The former president, who has constantly promoted falsehoods about his 2020 election loss, said he would respect the results of next month’s vote “if it’s a fair election.”

He joked about getting one reporter ice cream and when another asked what message he had for Harris on her 60th birthday on Sunday, Trump said, “I would say, ‘Happy Birthday, Kamala,’” adding, “I think I’ll get her some flowers.”

Trump did not directly answer a question of whether he might support increased minimum wages after seeing McDonald’s employees in action but said, “These people work hard. They’re great.”

He added that “I just saw something … a process that’s beautiful.”

When aides finally urged him to wrap things up so he could hit the road to his next event, Trump offered, “Wasn’t that a strange place to do a news conference?”

Trump has long questioned Harris’ story of working at McDonald’s

Trump has fixated in recent weeks on the summer job Harris said she held in college, working the cash register and making fries at McDonald’s while in college. Trump says the vice president has “lied about working” there, but not offered evidence for claiming that.

Representatives for McDonald’s did not respond to a message about whether the company had employment records for one of its restaurants 40 years ago. But Harris spokesman Joseph Costello said the former president’s McDonald’s visit “showed exactly what we would see in a second Trump term: exploiting working people for his own personal gain.”

“Trump doesn’t understand what it’s like to work for a living, no matter how many staged photo ops he does, and his entire second term plan is to give himself, his wealthy buddies, and giant corporations another massive tax cut,” Costello said in a statement.

In an interview last month on MSNBC, the vice president pushed back on Trump’s claims, saying she did work at the fast-food chain four decades ago when she was in college.

“Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonald’s in our country who are trying to raise a family,” she said. “I worked there as a student.”

Harris also said: “I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility, then, is to meet those needs.”

Trump has long spread groundless claims about his opponents based on their personal history, particularly women and racial minorities.

Before he ran for president, Trump was a leading voice of the “birther” conspiracy that baselessly claimed President Barack Obama was from Africa, was not an American citizen and therefore was ineligible to be president. Trump used it to raise his own political profile, demanding to see Obama’s birth certificate and five years after Obama did so, Trump finally admitted that Obama was born in the United States.

During his first run for president, Trump repeated a tabloid’s claims that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s father, who was born in Cuba, had links to President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Cruz and Trump competed for the party’s 2016 nomination.

In January of this year, when Trump was facing Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, in the Republican primary, he shared on his social media network a post with false claims that Haley’s parents were not citizens when she was born, therefore making her ineligible to be president.

Haley is the South Carolina-born daughter of Indian immigrants, making her automatically a native-born citizen and meeting the constitutional requirement to run for president.

And Trump has continued to promote baseless claims during this campaign. Trump said during his presidential debate with Harris that immigrants who had settled in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets — a claim he suggested in an interview Saturday was still true even though he could provide no confirmation.

Trump’s visit created a spectacle in Pennsylvania

“It is a fundamental value of my organization that we proudly open our doors to everyone who visits the Feasterville community,” the McDonald’s location’s owner, Derek Giacomantonio, said in a statement. “That’s why I accepted former President Trump’s request to observe the transformative working experience that 1 in 8 Americans have had: a job at McDonald’s.”

Police closed the busy streets around the McDonald’s during Trump’s visit. Authorities cordoned off the restaurant as a crowd a couple blocks long gathered, sometimes 10- to 15-deep, across the street straining to catch a glimpse of Trump. Horns honked and music blared as Trump supporters waved flags, held signs and took pictures.

John Waters, of nearby Fairless Hills, had never been to a Trump rally and had hoped to see the former president so close to his house after missing other nearby rallies.

“When I drove up, all the cars, unbelievable, I was like, ‘He’s here’s, he’s coming, he’s definitely coming with this all traffic,’” Waters said.

Trump is especially partial to McDonald’s Big Macs and Filet-o-Fish sandwiches. He’s talked often about how he trusts big chains more than smaller restaurants since they have big reputations to maintain, and the former president’s staff often pick up McDonald’s and serve it on his plane.

Jim Worthington, a Trump supporter and fundraiser who owns a nearby athletic complex and chaired Pennsylvania’s delegation to the Republican National Convention, said he arranged Trump’s visit to the locally owned McDonald’s franchise.

The campaign contacted him looking for a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania and Worthington started looking for one. He got in touch with Giacomantonio through a friend and talked the franchise owner through some initial nervousness.

Giacomantonio needed to know that McDonald’s corporate offices would be OK with it, first. Second, he was concerned that being seen as a Trump supporter would hurt his business or a spark boycott, Worthington said.

“He certainly had concerns, but I eased his mind, and talked to him about the benefits,” Worthington said.

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Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. – Two crew members who were missing following the crash of a fighter jet in mountainous terrain in Washington state during a routine training flight have been declared dead, the U.S. Navy said Sunday.

The EA-18G Growler jet from the Electronic Attack Squadron crashed east of Mount Rainier on Tuesday afternoon, according to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Search teams, including a U.S. Navy MH-60S helicopter, launched from the air station to try to find the crew and crash site.

Army Special Forces soldiers trained in mountaineering, high-angle rescue and technical communications were brought in to reach the wreckage, which was located Wednesday by an aerial crew resting at about 6,000 feet (1,828 meters) in a remote, steep and heavily wooded area east of Mount Rainier, officials said.

The aviators’ names won’t be released until a day after their next of kin have been notified, the Navy said in a statement Sunday, adding that search and rescue efforts have shifted into a long-term salvage and recovery operation as the cause of the crash is still being investigated.

“It is with a heavy heart that we share the loss of two beloved Zappers,” said Cmdr. Timothy Warburton, commanding officer of the aviators’ Electronic Attack Squadron. “Our priority right now is taking care of the families of our fallen aviators. … We are grateful for the ongoing teamwork to safely recover the deceased.”

Locating the missing crew members “as quickly and as safely as possible” had been top priority, Capt. David Ganci, commander, Electronic Attack Wing, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said Thursday.

The EA-18G Growler is similar to the F/A-18F Super Hornet and includes sophisticated electronic warfare devices. Most of the Growler squadrons are based at Whidbey Island. One squadron is based at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan.

The “Zappers” were recently deployed on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The search took place near Mount Rainier, a towering active volcano that is blanketed in snowfields and glaciers year-round.

The first production of the Growler was delivered to Whidbey Island in 2008. In the past 15 years, the Growler has operated around the globe supporting major actions, the Navy said. The plane seats a pilot in front and an electronics operator behind them.

“The EA-18G Growler aircraft we fly represents the most advanced technology in airborne Electronic Attack and stands as the Navy’s first line of defense in hostile environments,” the Navy said on its website. Each aircraft costs about $67 million.

Military aircraft training exercises can be dangerous and sometimes result in crashes, injuries and deaths.

In May, an F-35 fighter jet on its way from Texas to Edwards Air Force Base near Los Angeles crashed after the pilot stopped to refuel in New Mexico. The pilot was the only person on board in that case and was taken to a hospital with serious injuries.

Last year, eight U.S. Air Force special Operations Command service members were killed when a CV-22B Osprey aircraft they were flying in crashed off the coast of Japan.

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This story has been updated to correct the Navy says it has declared the crew members dead, not found them dead.

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Associated Press writer Jesse Bedayn contributed to this report from Denver.

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SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Georgia authorities said Sunday they are investigating the “catastrophic failure” of a dock gangway that collapsed and killed seven people on an island off the state’s Atlantic seacoast, where crowds gathered for a celebration by the island’s tiny Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants.

“It is a structural failure. There should be very, very little maintenance to an aluminum gangway like that, but we’ll see what the investigation unfolds,” Georgia Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Walter Rabon said at a news conference, a day after the tragedy on Sapelo Island.

He said three people remained hospitalized in critical condition from Saturday’s collapse.

Hundreds were visiting Sapelo Island for a Cultural Day event when disaster struck

The gangway, installed in 2021, gave way as an estimated 700 people visited largely unspoiled Sapelo Island, about 60 miles (nearly 100 kilometers) south of Savannah and 7 miles (11 kilometers) offshore. No bridge connects the island to the mainland. People traveled there Saturday for the annual fall Cultural Day event spotlighting Hogg Hummock, home to a few dozen Black residents. The community of dirt roads and modest homes was founded after the Civil War by former slaves from the cotton plantation of Thomas Spalding.

Rabon said “upwards of 40 people” were on the gangway when at least 20 fell into the water. Installed in 2021, the gangway connected an outer dock where people board the ferry to another dock onshore.

Rabon said his agency had extra staff working, 40 people total, on Saturday because of crowds. After the collapse, the U.S. Coast Guard and local sheriff’s and fire departments rushed to the island to help, using boats and helicopters.

A ferry worker says he tried to help but two people were already dead

Ed Grovner was working as senior mate on one of the ferries taking people between the island and the mainland. He told The Associated Press the ferry pulled up to the dock a short time after the collapse and crew members saw orange lifejackets bobbing in the water that had been tossed in to help people who had fallen. Grovner said he and other crew members tried to help a man and a woman, with someone administering CPR, but they were already dead.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Grovner said. “My wife said I was sleeping, I was hollering in my sleep, saying, ‘I’m going to save you. I’m going to save you. I’m going to get you.’”

He sighed deeply and said: “I wish I could’ve did more.”

Small coastal communities descended from enslaved island populations in the South — known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia — are scattered from North Carolina to Florida, including on Sapelo Island. Scholars say their separation from the mainland caused residents to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills such as basket weaving.

Hogg Hummock resident Jazz Watts was at the festival site, where visitors gathered for demonstrations on crafting quilts and fishing nets while sampling island foods like smoked mullet and gumbo, when word spread of the collapse.

Watts said when he arrived, he saw emergency responders and civilians pulling people from the water and trying to administer CPR and other aid. Some of the dead were covered with blankets.

“It’s devastating,” Watts said. “When you see people being carried that are wrapped in blankets and they have died; it’s traumatizing to everyone.”

A human chain was formed to pass victims from the water to the shore

Resident Reginald Hall was among those who charged into the water, where an outgoing tide created a strong current that was pulling victims toward the ocean.

Hall said he was handed a 2-year-old child and passed her along a chain of bystanders to shore, roughly 60 yards (55 meters) away. He then helped carry blanket-wrapped bodies.

“It was chaotic,” Hall said. “It was horrible.”

JR Grovner loaded an injured woman into the back of a pickup truck and drove her to a field where a helicopter was evacuating victims. The ground was thick with tall grasses that camouflaged holes dug by wild boars, he said.

Sapelo Island residents in 2015 sued McIntosh County and the state of Georgia in federal court, arguing they lacked basic services including facilities and resources for medical emergencies. In a 2022 settlement, county officials agreed to build a helicopter pad on the island.

JR Grovner, Hall and Watts all said that still hasn’t happened. Patrick Zoucks, the McIntosh County manager, did not immediately respond to an email message seeking comment.

The ferry dock was rebuilt in 2021 after Georgia officials reached a settlement in the same lawsuit, in which island residents complained that state-operated ferry boats and docks failed to meet federal accessibility standards for people with disabilities.

Grovner said he complained to one of the ferry captains about four months ago that the gangway to the ferry didn’t seem sturdy enough, but nothing happened. Rabon said he wasn’t aware of any complaints being made.

Watts said a private healthcare provider had planned to open a clinic in a county-owned building long used as Sapelo Island’s community center. But the deal fell apart when county commissioners decided to lease the space for use as a restaurant.

None of the seven dead were island residents, Rabon said. And Watts, Hall and JR Grovner said they weren’t aware of any family members of island residents among the dead.

Rabon identified one of the dead as Charles Houston Jr., a chaplain for the Natural Resources agency.

Investigators are now trying to understand why the walkway failed

A team of investigators with expertise in engineering and accident reconstruction — with assistance from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation — was on the site Sunday to begin probing why the walkway failed.

In 1996, Hogg Hummock, also known as Hog Hammock, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of treasured U.S. historic sites.

But the community’s population has been shrinking for decades, and some families have sold their land to outsiders who built vacation homes. Tax hikes and local zoning changes have been met with protests and lawsuits by Hogg Hummock residents and landowners. The zoning changes approved in 2023 doubled the size of homes allowed in Hogg Hummock, prompting residents’ fears that larger homes would lead to tax increases that could force them to sell land their families have held for generations.

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Associated Press writer Emily Wagster Pettus reported from Jackson, Mississippi.