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A flight made an emergency landing Monday after its pilots lost a radio link with flight staff, prompting them to bang on the locked cockpit door and raising fears that someone was trying to break in. Flight 6469 set off from Omaha, Nebraska, to Los Angeles at 7:23 p.m. ET but turned around and landed back at Eppley Airfield just 36 minutes later, according to FlightRadar. The American Airlines flight was operated by regional carrier SkyWest. SkyWest said in a statement that the flight “returned to Omaha out of abundance of caution after experiencing communication issues with a flight crew mic. The flight later continued to Los Angeles. We apologize for the inconvenience.” American did not immediately respond to overnight requests for comment. The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the plane landed safely “after declaring an emergency when the pilot could not contact the cabin crew.” “After landing, it was determined there was a problem with the inter-phone system and the flight crew was knocking on the cockpit door,” the statement said. According to a video shot after the plane landed, the captain announced to confused passengers: “We weren’t sure if something was going on with the airplane, so that’s why we’re coming back here. It’s gonna be a little bit. We have to figure out what’s going on.” Doors on passenger jets are normally locked during flights and were reinforced according to FAA rules introduced after 9/11. However, most commercial planes also have a touchpad through which the flight crew can request access — it’s not clear whether this was attempted in this case.

Just, wow. Three million-dollar-winning Powerball tickets were sold in New York for Monday’s drawing earlier this week, according to lottery officials. All three of them were sold at the same Yonkers gas station. The New York Lottery said in a statement that all three million-dollar winners, second prize in the Powerball game, were sold at V & C Taneja, a convenience store adjacent to a BP station at 600 Nepperhan Avenue. We all know the odds of any one of us hitting the jackpot at any given time are abysmal: 1 in 292.2 million. We don’t know the odds of three second-prize tickets being sold at the same New York store for the same drawing, but we bet those aren’t very good either. The next drawing is Saturday night, with an estimated $344 million jackpot ($163.7 million cash value). People probably figure that place is out of luck. Or is it? The manager of V & C Taneja says the store doesn’t know who purchased the winning tickets. They don’t believe they get a cash prize for selling the three second-prize winners, but they are happy for their role in the winnings. The largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history stands at $2.04 billion and was won by a single Powerball ticket in California on Nov. 7, 2022. The winner, Edwin Castro, came forward in early 2023 after months of speculation. Powerball is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are held at 10:59 p.m. ET at the Florida Lottery studio in Tallahassee.

Authorities are investigating a grisly discovery on Park Avenue in Manhattan. A woman’s body was found in a black garbage bag that was inside a green laundry bag on Park Avenue and 124th Street in Harlem Monday night, law enforcement sources said — apparently under strings of yellow, purple and green holiday lights strung up under the Metro-North tracks, according to crime scene footage. As of Tuesday, authorities had yet to identify her, though some neighbors believe they knew who it was. “I do know that she was seen in the area very, very heavily sedated and, anything could have happened to her. But, she was definitely loved in the community. Not a problem. She wasn’t aggressive. She was always loving, caring, kind, just sad,” said Madeline Sosa, who works for Mt. Sinai’s addiction program. According to police, they were called to the scene around 6:30 p.m. by Metro-North personnel after the person who made the startling discovery flagged down an MTA officer. They were responding to a report of an unconscious female. They arrived to find the naked body. The woman, believed to be in her 20s, was pronounced dead at the scene. The medical examiner will determine the cause of death. Sosa told NBC New York she spent the past year trying to help the woman. “It’s just heartbreaking to hear this. This is where she, she would sleep here and there’s a park on the block, Marcus Garvey Park. She would sleep in the park as well,” Sosa said. “Like I said, I offered her to get into multiple programs and she would say one day, one day, and now she don’t have that day.” Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.

Hurricane Melissa left at least dozens dead amid widespread destruction across Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica, where roofless homes, toppled utility poles and water-logged furniture dominated the landscape Wednesday. A landslide blocked the main roads of Santa Cruz in Jamaica’s St. Elizabeth parish, where the streets were reduced to mud pits. Residents swept water from homes as they tried to salvage belongings. Wind ripped off part of the roof at a high school that serves as a public shelter. “I never see anything like this before in all my years living here,” resident Jennifer Small said. The extent of the damage from the deadly hurricane was unclear Wednesday as widespread power outages and dangerous conditions persisted in the region. “It is too early for us to say definitively,” said Dana Morris Dixon, Jamaica’s education minister. Melissa made landfall Tuesday in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane with top winds of 185 mph, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, before weakening and moving on to Cuba, but even countries outside the direct path of the massive storm felt its devastating effects. At least 25 people have died across Haiti and 18 are missing, Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency said in a statement Wednesday. Twenty of those reported dead and 10 of the missing are from a southern coastal town where flooding collapsed dozens of homes. At least eight are dead in Jamaica. In Cuba, officials reported collapsed houses, blocked mountain roads and roofs blown off buildings Wednesday, with the heaviest destruction concentrated in the southwest and northwest. Authorities said about 735,000 people remained in shelters. “That was hell. All night long, it was terrible,” said Reinaldo Charon in Santiago de Cuba. The 52-year-old was one of the few people venturing out Wednesday, covered by a plastic sheet in the intermittent rain. Melissa was a Category 2 storm with top sustained winds near 105 mph (165 kph) early Thursday and was moving north-northeast at 21 mph (33 kph) according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. The hurricane was centered about 215 miles (345 kilometers) northeast of the central Bahamas and about 685 miles (1,105 kilometers) southwest of Bermuda. Melissa was forecast to pass near or to the west of Bermuda late Thursday and may strengthen further before weakening Friday. Jamaica rushes to assess the damage In Jamaica, more than 25,000 people were packed into shelters Wednesday after the storm ripped roofs off their homes and left them temporarily homeless. Dixon said 77% of the island was without power. The outages complicated assessing the damage because of “a total communication blackout” in areas, Richard Thompson, acting director general of Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, told the Nationwide News Network radio station. “Recovery will take time, but the government is fully mobilized,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in a statement. “Relief supplies are being prepared, and we are doing everything possible to restore normalcy quickly.” Officials in Black River, Jamaica, a southwestern coastal town of approximately 5,000 people, pleaded for aid at a news conference Wednesday. “Catastrophic is a mild term based on what we are observing,” Mayor Richard Solomon said. Solomon said the local rescue infrastructure had been demolished by the storm. The hospital, police units and emergency services were inundated by floods and unable to conduct emergency operations. Jamaican Transportation Minister Daryl Vaz said two of the island’s airports will reopen Wednesday to relief flights only, with U.N. agencies and dozens of nonprofits on standby to distribute basic goods. “The devastation is enormous,” he said. “We need all hands on deck to recover stronger and to help those in need at this time.” The United States is sending rescue and response teams to assist in recovery efforts in the Caribbean, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X. St. Elizabeth…