The alert, issued on September 16, reads: “This SAFO serves to emphasise the operational and safety-critical importance of strict passenger compliance with crewmember instructions during emergency evacuations.
“Specifically, it addresses the adverse effects of passengers attempting to evacuate with carry-on items, which can significantly impede evacuation procedures and increase the potential for injury or fatality.”
The federal government agency stated that operational data and post-incident reviews have shown passengers consistently try to retrieve carry-on items during aeroplane evacuations. This behaviour creates several risks, such as overcrowding in aisles, blocking exits, and damaging evacuation slides.
Retrieving hand baggage significantly contributes to delays in evacuation, higher injury rates, and reduced chances of survival. This is particularly critical during emergencies involving smoke, fire, or structural damage plane
“Any delay caused by retrieval of baggage can significantly affect survival rates in rapidly deteriorating conditions,” the alert added.
In light of these risks, the FAA has urged operators to reassess their emergency evacuation procedures, announcements and training to tackle passenger ‘non-compliance’ in this area.
It said this could encompass bolstered communication methods to ‘highlight consequences of non-compliance with crewmember commands’ or displaying more visual content in airports to stress its importance.
The alert continued: “Operators should evaluate their emergency evacuation procedures, training and emergency announcements and commands to address passenger non-compliance particularly in relation to carry-on item retrieval.
“A coordinated approach rooted in regulatory compliance, operational best practice, and clear public communication may contribute significantly to reducing evacuation times and preserving life in time-critical emergencies.”
The FAA oversees civil aviation and commercial space transportation in the US. Similarly, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority advises passengers to leave all luggage behind during emergency evacuations.
Its official guidance reads: “In the unlikely event of an emergency evacuation, you must follow crew instructions and leave the aircraft quickly, leaving all cabin baggage behind.
“Evacuations occur only when there is a significant safety risk. Even if the cause of the emergency is not immediately apparent, rapid evacuation is imperative. Do not block your own or others’ escape by attempting to retrieve belongings.”
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Stronger police presence is called for to monitor the former president, who is under house arrest awaiting trial.
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has requested the police to tighten security around former President Jair Bolsonaro’s home while he is under house arrest.
Moraes on Monday sent a notice to police calling for full-time monitoring near Bolsonaro’s house to ensure he is complying with the restraining orders against him.
Earlier this month, the embattled former president was placed under house arrest after Moraes determined that he had violated precautionary measures imposed by the court restricting his social media use and political messaging.
Police said last week that they had found a draft letter on Bolsonaro’s phone of a request for asylum in Argentina. It was last edited in 2024, police said.
Bolsonaro’s legal defence said the document was not evidence that the former president was a flight risk.
Bolsonaro’s trial is expected to start on September 2. The former president faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of plotting to overthrow his democratically elected successor as president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in 2022.
His case has been a flashpoint for the administration of United States President Donald Trump, who insists it is a witch-hunt against his former ally.
Last month, Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on Brazil, directly tying the levy to the trial of his fellow right-wing politician, Bolsonaro. That was followed by sanctions against Moraes, with the Trump administration accusing the judge of “arbitrary detentions that violate human rights”.
Demolition operations being conducted by Israel in Gaza’s southern Rafah Governorate have been stepped up sharply, an investigation by Al Jazeera’s Sanad investigations unit has found.
Israel’s defence ministry has announced a plan to relocate 600,000 people into what observers say would be “concentration camps” in the area in southern Gaza, with plans to expand this to the Strip’s entire population.
Sanad’s analysis of satellite imagery up to July 4, 2025, shows the number of demolished buildings in Rafah rising to about 28,600, up from 15,800 on April 4, 2025, according to data from the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT).
This means that approximately 12,800 buildings were destroyed between early April and early July alone – a marked acceleration in demolitions that has coincided with Israel’s new push into Rafah launched in late March 2025.
‘Humanitarian city’
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, told reporters on Monday that an initial 600,000 Palestinians living in the coastal al-Mawasi area would be transferred to Rafah, the location for what he called a new “humanitarian city” for Palestinians, within 60 days of any agreed ceasefire deal.
According to Katz, the entire civilian population of Gaza – more than 2 million people – will eventually be relocated to this southern city.
A proposal seen by Reuters carrying the name of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) detailed plans for a “Humanitarian Transit Area” in which Gaza residents would “temporarily reside, deradicalise, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so”.
The minister said Israel hopes to encourage Palestinians to “voluntarily emigrate” from the Gaza Strip to other countries, adding that this plan “should be fulfilled”.
He also stressed that the plan would not be run by the Israeli army, but by international bodies, without specifying which organisations would be implementing it.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) – which has been banned by Israel – warned against the latest mass forced displacement plan.
“This would de facto create massive concentration camps at the border with Egypt for the Palestinians, displaced over and over across generations,” he said, adding that it would “deprive Palestinians of any prospects of a better future in their homeland”.
Israeli political commentator Ori Goldberg told Al Jazeera that the plan was “for all facts and purposes a concentration camp” for Palestinians in southern Gaza, meaning that Israel is committing “what is an overt crime against humanity under international humanitarian law”.
(Al Jazeera)
“It should be taken very seriously,” he said, and questioned the feasibility of the task of “concentrating the Palestinian population in a locked city where they would be let in but not let out”.
The sheer scale of the destruction, and some exceptions
For now, Rafah, which was once home to an estimated 275,000 people, lies largely in ruins. The scale of Israeli destruction since April this year is particularly apparent when examining specific neighbourhoods of Rafah.
Sanad has identified six educational facilities that have been destroyed, including some located in the Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood, west of Rafah City.
However, satellite data shows that several key facilities have been spared; 40 educational institutions – 39 schools and one university – are intact. Eight medical centres also remain standing.
Sanad has concluded that this noticeable pattern of selective destruction strongly suggests that the preservation of these facilities in Rafah is unlikely to be a coincidence.
Rather, it indicates that Israel aims to use these sites in the next phase of its proposed plan to displace the entire population of Gaza to Rafah.
The spared educational and medical buildings already serve as critical humanitarian shelters for tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians.
The war’s initial wave of displacement from northern to southern Gaza resulted in an overwhelming influx of people into the 154 UN facilities across all five governorates of the Gaza Strip, including schools, warehouses and health centres.
According to UNRWA’s Situation Report in January 2024, these facilities were by then sheltering approximately 1.4 million displaced people, an average of 9,000 people per facility, while an additional 500,000 people were receiving support from other services.
The report also notes that in some shelters, the number exceeds 12,000, four times their intended capacity.
According to UNRWA’s latest report on July 5 this year, 1.9 million people remain displaced in Gaza.
Satellite imagery analysis of the Rafah area from May 2024 to May 2025 reveals that Israeli forces carried out a two-phase operation in Rafah, including in areas which had been designated for humanitarian aid distribution.
Phase One began with the launch of a military offensive in May 2024, during which most buildings in targeted zones in most of eastern Rafah and parts of western Rafah were demolished.
Phase Two, which began in April this year, involves the continued demolition of remaining residential buildings. This phase also included land levelling and the construction of access roads to facilitate the operation of these aid centres.
British Israeli analyst Daniel Levy told Al Jazeera that Israel intends to use Rafah “as a staging post to ethnically cleanse, physically remove, as many Palestinians as possible from the landscape”.
The distribution of aid, which is now under the monopoly of the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is run by private US contractors guarded by Israeli troops, is also “a premeditated part of a plan of social-demographic engineering to move Palestinians – to relocate, displace and kettle them,” Levy said.
Ceasefire talks
Katz’s announcement came a day after Netanyahu arrived in the US to meet US President Donald Trump, as the latter pushes for a deal to end the war in Gaza and bring back the remaining Hamas-held captives.
Netanyahu stressed his opposition to any deal that would ultimately leave Hamas in power in Gaza. “Twenty living hostages remain and 30 who are fallen. I am determined, we are determined, to bring back all of them,” he told reporters before boarding his plane. He added, however: “We are determined to ensure that Gaza will no longer constitute a threat to Israel.”
“That means one thing: eliminating Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. Hamas will not be there,” he said.
An Israeli negotiating team was in Doha this week for indirect talks with Hamas. Trump said on Tuesday that Israel had accepted the latest ceasefire proposal, which provides for the release, in five separate stages, of 10 living and 18 dead captives, in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire, an influx of humanitarian aid to the Strip and the release of many Palestinian detainees currently held in Israeli prisons.
Palestinians gather to collect what remains of relief supplies from the GHF distribution centre, in Rafah on June 5, 2025 [Reuters]
Hamas gave what it called a “positive” response to the proposal, stressing its reservations about the temporary nature of the proposed truce and making some demands.
Netanyahu’s office called Hamas’s stipulations, concerning aid mechanisms and Israel’s military withdrawal, “unacceptable”.
Ethnic cleansing: the ‘end game’
A sticking point remains Israel’s control of the Morag Corridor, just north of Rafah, which would allow Israel to control and isolate Rafah, facilitating the implementation of the mass expulsion plan.
In his remarks on Monday, Katz said Israel would use a potential 60-day ceasefire to establish the new “humanitarian zone” south of the corridor, and that the army would hold nearly 70 percent of Gaza’s territory.
Gideon Levy, Israeli columnist for Haaretz, told Al Jazeera negotiations were unlikely to result in more than a temporary ceasefire, whith the release of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners, as “Netanyahu doesn’t want an end to the war.”
While Trump could pressure his ally into a permanent deal, the US president does not seem inclined to pull his weight, observers say.
“The end game is an ethnic cleansing,” Levy said. “Will it be implemented? I have my doubts.
“But they are already preparing the area, and if the world is passive and the US gives its green light, it might work.”
June 17 (UPI) — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is warning President Donald Trump to “respect the Constitution” after the president ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to ramp up deportation efforts in Democratic-led sanctuary cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles.
In response, Johnson and city officials announced Tuesday they will relaunch a “Know Your Rights” ad campaign to educate Chicago residents.
“Even if the federal government doesn’t know or care about the Constitution, Chicagoans deserve to know their constitutional rights,” Johnson told reporters at a City Hall news conference.
The ads, which will educate residents about their rights if they are stopped or detained by ICE agents, will be displayed on more than 400 screens across the Chicago Transit Authority system.
The ads direct transit riders to the campaign website with a more in-depth resource guide, which is translated in multiple languages. The guide instructs residents how to react if stopped, but warned the information “should not be construed as legal advice.”
“We can’t tell people not to be afraid,” said Beatriz Ponce de León, Chicago’s deputy mayor of immigrant, migrant and refugee rights. “Folks are seeing what is happening here and in other cities. But what we can do is give people information. The best that people can do is be prepared.”
Earlier this month, Trump deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles to help protect ICE agents and federal buildings after protests in the downtown area turned violent. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom objected to the president’s actions, calling the deployment unjustified.
Other sanctuary cities, including Chicago, are now bracing for a similar crackdown. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has joined Johnson in opposing the president’s actions, while Trump denounced state leadership.
“I look at Chicago. You’ve got a really bad governor and a bad mayor. But the governor is probably the worst in history,” Trump said.
Pritzker responded by saying, “I think you can see that this has not gone well for him politically, and he’s all about the politics.”
Acting director of ICE, Tom Homan, told CNN in January that Chicago’s efforts to educated undocumented immigrants have made deportation efforts “very difficult.”
“For instance, Chicago is very well educated,” Homan said. “They call it ‘know your rights.’ I call it how to escape arrest … how to hide from ICE.”
