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Superman is in trouble.

I mean, that is if we are to take the introductory title cards to the new Superman instalment seriously. Because to trust them, he’s facing a raft of problems. 

First of all, it’s been three decades since an alien baby named Kal-El fell to planet Earth, three years since Superman (David Corenswet) revealed himself to the world, and a whole bunch of other descending three metrics that are hard to keep in your head. 

In short, what you need to know is a bad guy named the Hammer of Boravia — representing, it would seem, a fictional, warmongering and vaguely Eastern-European sounding country — just attacked dear old Metropolis. But worst of all, he just handed Supes his first ever L, knocking him all the way to his Arctic fortress of solitude with a bad case of broken ribs.

That all stacks up to a bad morning for our hero. But there are other things putting our caped crusader in jeopardy, and they don’t all take place on the screen.

As numerous reboots over the past couple decades prove, getting this guy right is a contentious question. And because of that, any framing of one of the most well-known and divisive characters in the modern pop culture pantheon is bound to elicit wildly different opinions on what really makes Superman super.

WATCH | Superman trailer: 

For example, there’s a spotty (at best) trajectory in recent years for perhaps the most popular superhero character of all time, which alternates between small-screen Smallville series, cursed and cancelled Nicolas Cage franchises, Brightburn reimaginings of Superman as a villain — and even unfortunately gritty Man of Steels that turned the sunny superhuman into a sociopath with nukes in his eyes. 

Poll an audience, and any one of these might be labelled character assassination or much needed character rejuvenation. (OK, maybe not the Nicolas Cage one.) 

But it’s clear that director James Gunn had these contrasting arguments in his mind when deciding what version of Superman to bring to screen: either the tortured, eminently human and fallible man of DC’s recent efforts, or the Jesus-like, campy saviour portrayed by Christopher Reeve in the 1978 classic.

Trying to balance cartoon and realism

His solution is simple: do both. Make Superman both the huggable, uncomplicated paragon of truth, justice and the American way. But also: complicate the relationship between him and his adopted home with a political hot potato — one that is now predictably making the rounds in outrage media.  

If we’re just judging by the cape, Gunn obviously trends toward the former characterization: his Superman is rife with cartoonish (though admittedly wildly expensive looking) costumes that wouldn’t look out of place at X Æ A-XII Musk’s birthday party.

Beyond the now reintroduced — and highly controversial — red trunks on Superman himself, there is the hilariously ugly bowl cut on Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern, the comic-y screeches of Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl, and the somehow-still-cool-looking black “T” emblazoned on Mr. Terrific’s (Edi Gathegi) scowling face. 

But look elsewhere, and Gunn is playing a different game — one that’s putting the franchise itself in hot water, if we are to believe Fox News. In an interview with the Times of London, Gunn called Superman a definitively political story, one meant to showcase “the story of America”: in his understanding, it is the story of an immigrant (Superman) accepted by a country that both saves, and is saved by, him. 

That those fighting words have proven as provocative as they have is somewhat confusing when looking at the character: he was created by Jewish children of immigrants, initially depicted as a champion against antisemitism in wartime America, and — long before Gunn — constantly and consistently interpreted as an immigrant and refugee by everyone from fans to news outlets to the Library of Congress to DC Comics itself.

In the prequel series Smallville, a sort of very-special-episode has Kent angrily tell his adoptive mom that he was an illegal immigrant she’d been harbouring for 17 years. Less than 10 years ago, the comics company used him as a promotional image for World Refugee Day. In a tweet, they implored readers to “#StandWithRefugees” on the same day in 2018 that U.S. President Donald Trump caved to enormous political pressure and signed an executive order ending family separation at the border. 

And then there’s the official DC Nation bio of Superman’s most recent comics iteration. Their description is similarly deadpan, and seemingly untroubled by Kent’s citizen-status at birth. 

“This is the story of Kal-El,” it reads, “an immigrant, coming of age in the world of today.”

But for all the furor outside of the theatre, you’d be hard-pressed to find reasons to be offended in an actual screening. At least, that is, for the reasons already expressed: while this Superman does rest its plot largely on a scheme by Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) to discredit the hero as an undocumented alien, it’s muddied by all the other masters Gunn tries to serve. 

Subplots and throwaway gags

More prominent is Superman grappling with his humanity, or lack thereof: can he really be one of us, when his near unlimited cosmic power positions him as something more like a god? There’s also the perennial question confronted by several newer superhero movies: what right do ungoverned individuals have to act as vigilantes, or even world police? 

Gunn tackles the latter question via a drawn out and complicated war between Boravia and the vaguely Middle Eastern, African or South Asian residents of Jarhanpur. 

The onerously saccharine image of brown faces holding pitchforks and ratty flags bearing superman’s logo also threatens to sink the entire movie into the realm of self-parody; as superheroes swoop in to the valiantly save the day, Superman starts to read more like the vainglorious movie-within-the-show of superhero satire The Boys: an-in universe film expressly intended to mock how insipid and offensively shallow superhero franchises tend to be. 

And that’s even before getting to the various subplots and throwaway gags meant to satisfy every possible whim of every possible demographic. There’s the uber-modern pocket universe disaster that reeks of the MCU, and an honestly disgustingly stale joke based around how manchild Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) is both bored and disgusted by a beautiful woman he calls “mutant toes.”

His womanizing — like Superman’s mildly silly red trunks or his mildly infuriating super-powered dog Krypto — is more-or-less comics accurate. And they all largely function as olive branches to fans disenchanted with the realism-addicted route Superman has taken in a post Dark Knight world. 

But seeing them play out in modern-day live-action shows how woefully misguided it is to view that as the all-encompassing guidepost for success. Things that work in comics do not always land in other mediums. Slavishly throwing them in might satisfy an internet argument, but often leads to tone-deaf results.

Far more than any immigrant subplot, this is where Superman suffers: a frenetic and busy story that tries to preemptively answer so many fan complaints that it satisfies none. And despite generally entertaining action and impressive acting performances all around, it leads to a tone less for 14- or 40-year-olds, and instead one that splits the difference. It’s a perfect shooting strategy — if you want to hit nothing.  

City officials reported eight people were hurt during the second day of the San Fermin festival, per Reuters. The nine-day, centuries-old festival held in Pamplona, Spain, is known for its famous running of the bulls.

Police say an explosion that blew open the door of a British Columbia cabinet minister’s constituency office in North Vancouver came from an “unsophisticated” homemade device.

Cpl. Mansoor Sahak with the North Vancouver RCMP said the device was likely a number of bear bangers or fireworks taped together and lit by a fuse. 

The explosive went off just after 4 a.m. outside the office of Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma on June 27. 

Police have released photos, hoping the public will recognize the two male suspects.

One is described as a white man with short, balding hair, a stocky build, wearing a black jacket, dark T-shirt and blue jeans.

The other suspect is described as a white man with a slender build who was wearing a long, blond wig and a dark hoodie.

There were two explosions in the area near the same time, and Sahak said they believe the two men were also responsible for damaging a street sign earlier that morning. 

He said the motive for the attack is still unknown, but police don’t believe they intended to hurt anyone. For now, police say they are looking at recommending potential charges of mischief. 

Elon Musk has the money and, at least for the moment, the motivation to steer America’s politics away from its two dominant parties. But long-standing obstacles to third parties, as well as his own unique profile, could prove too formidable.

Musk, irritated for several weeks over the amount of spending in U.S. President Donald Trump’s budget bill, seemingly reached a breaking point as it was signed into law on July 4. The following day, Musk announced on X, the social media platform that he owns, that “the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”

The relationship between Trump and Musk has burned white hot over the past year. The Tesla and SpaceX founder spent about $290 million US in the 2024 presidential campaign to help elect Trump and other Republicans.

The president then controversially allowed a team led by Musk — none of them confirmed by the Senate — to go through government agencies looking for inefficiencies and opportunities to slash public sector spending and workers.

Trump has called Musk’s third party “ridiculous” and said the billionaire had gone “completely off the rails.” The Republican president — who in his decades of public life has previously been affiliated with the Democratic Party and the now-defunct Reform Party — may doth protest too much.

People are down on the 2 parties

On the surface, Musk’s idea would have support. Gallup has been polling Americans since 2003 on whether a third major political party is needed in the United States, and it has found, on average, that 56 per cent supported the idea. The peak rate was recorded in 2023, at 63 per cent, with the tallies for 2017 and 2021 close behind, as the sentiment seems to bubble up more intensely in non-election years.

The Pew Research Center has asked similar questions over the years. In a 2023 survey, it found that nearly half of respondents aged 18 to 49 wish there were more parties to choose from. The rate plummeted among the older cohorts, with only about one-fifth of respondents 65 and over thinking more parties were desirable.

There are caveats, however.

The percentage of survey respondents who identify as Independents has been comparable or greater than those identifying as Democrats or Republicans since the late 1980s. But despite considerable efforts by the Green Party and Libertarian Party, among others, there are only two parties on the ballot in every state, in nearly every midterm of presidential election year.

When push comes to shove at election time, voters appear to be concerned about “wasting” their vote in a system where there isn’t proportional representation and the vast majority of House districts are not competitive.

That has only seemed to strengthen recently, as 5.6 per cent of Americans voted for presidential candidates who were not Democratic or Republican in 2016, but less than two per cent did so in the last two presidential elections.

Demand-side questions

Musk, in his rationale for a new party, has coined the term the “Porky Pig party,” accusing Democrats and Republicans alike of runaway spending and a love of “pork” — pet projects for their districts or states.

“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste and graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” he said.

But since Musk’s announcement, political scientists and analysts have questioned that sentiment, given that the antipathy and differences between the parties seem far greater than, for example, in the 1980s — when the Democratic Party still had former segregationists in its midst, and the Republican Party had socially liberal “Rockefeller Republicans,” who would likely be unpalatable in today’s version of the party.

“When the two parties seem to cross paths during their perpetual process of slow realignment, it presents an opportunity for a third party. But when the two parties are far apart, it’s a radically different picture,” Kevin Kruse, a political historian at Princeton University, wrote on his Substack.

If there’s a middle way desired, Kruse said, the challenge is “that every single voter has a different understanding of what that ‘middle’ represents.”

It was a point expounded on by a trio of analysts writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 2018, based on studying decades of data. “Many Americans who want a new party are not unhappy centrists but instead are voters looking for something more left, right, or populist than what currently exists,” they wrote.

Musk’s fixation on budget issues seemingly doesn’t make him any different than Republicans from the past, such as Jack Kemp.

“At this point, Musk isn’t offering anything voters can’t find in the right wing of the Republican Party or, barring that, in the Libertarian Party, ” Ed Kilgore, a veteran political analyst with New York Magazine, wrote on Monday.

Musk also doesn’t seem to be offering a path that is more populist or MAGA than the president — he’s already talked about supporting Republican House Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the few in the Republican Party who occasionally criticize Trump.

The Elon problem

It’s not clear if voters would care greatly who founded a political party, but if anyone tested that proposition, it might be Musk.

Musk’s favourability was about 20 percentage points underwater in a recent YouGov poll — 55 per cent had an unfavourable view, compared with 35 per cent who had a favourable view — and an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in May found that Musk’s unfavourability jumped by about 20 percentage points among Independents since December.

As friction between Musk and Trump began to play out in the spring, YouGov then asked respondents who they’d side with between the two men. Trump held a solid edge with those identifying as Independents, and it was overwhelmingly the response even with those who said they were non-MAGA Republicans.

Terry Haines of market analyst Pangaea Policy put it more bluntly, characterizing Musk as “radioactive.”

Haines, in conversation with Yahoo Finance, said Musk has “torched his brand with both the most engaged people on the left and the most engaged people on the right. That’s hard to do, but this is an unusual guy.”

Pope “Mac” McCorkle, a professor of public policy at Duke University, acknowledged that challenge in an interview with NPR and said any Musk party would somehow have to navigate “sending a message to Washington” while de-emphasizing its founder, who currently posts on social media incessantly.

“A couple percentage points can matter,” McCorkle said, “especially in midterms, [when] some of the MAGA base is not going to be interested if Trump is not on the ballot.”

Systemic issues

In recent days, Musk has posted of the possibility of a “laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts” in his efforts, to increase the chances of being “the deciding vote on contentious laws.” The sentiment has some logic, given what seems to be an increase in tiebreaking votes in the Senate in recent years.

As outlined by Reuters last year, in the decentralized U.S. election system, the two major parties have made the prospect of new entrants more difficult at the state level. There are specific and Byzantine hurdles of getting on the ballot for each of the 50 states in terms of residency and signature requirements, and qualifying one time doesn’t grant a party status the next time out — as three-time presidential candidate Jill Stein of the Green Party and others have found.

Political analyst Richard Winger of Ballot Access News said in an NPR interview that while the Libertarian Party managed to get on more than half of the House district ballots in 2000, no third party has done so for more than a quarter of the House’s 435 seats.

Even Musk’s America Party name may be a non-starter, according to a post at Election Law Blog, as New York state forbids parties with “American” in the name, while in California, the name may be too similar to the already-registered American Independent Party.

Political scientist Lee Drutman, who has long pushed for ways to break the “doom loop” of the two-party system, lamented this week that third parties in the U.S. have been “mostly refuges for cranks and weirdos.”

It remains to be seen if Musk —who as recently as late May was talking about spending less on politics after his millions did not achieve a desired outcome in a Wisconsin election — will rise above that characterization.

Nine provinces and one territory have signed on to an agreement that will allow direct-to-consumer alcohol sales by next spring.

Canadians in all provinces — except Newfoundland and Labrador — and Yukon will be able to order alcohol for personal consumption directly from producers that operate elsewhere in the country.

The announcement was made Tuesday following a meeting of provincial, territorial and federal ministers in Quebec City.

May 2026 is the deadline, but a number of details still need to be finalized — including how shipping and taxation will work.

“We hope that Quebecers and Canadians will be able to benefit from this as soon as possible,” Quebec’s junior economy minister, Christopher Skeete, told reporters during a news conference Tuesday.

“But you understand that this has never been done before, and so we want to make sure that we get it right.”

The agreement was part of a broader effort to remove interprovincial trade barriers in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war. In addition to alcohol sales, the ministers signed a memorandum of understanding addressing labour mobility issues and trucking regulations.

“This meeting is part of a series of conversations and actions and legislation passed, federally and provincially, which has created a more united Canadian economy [than] at any time since Confederation,” Chrystia Freeland, the federal minister of internal trade, said during Tuesday’s news conference.

Ottawa passed legislation last month that removes federal internal trade barriers, including a measure that considers a good or service that meets provincial or territorial rules to have met federal requirements. It also makes it easier for certain workers to get a federal licence by recognizing provincial or territorial work authorizations.

The government has also removed federal barriers from the Canadian Free Trade Agreement.

In addition to the federal level, several provincial and territorial governments have been signing agreements or are working with other provinces to remove trade barriers. The latest such agreement came Monday when Ontario and Alberta agreed to build infrastructure and energy corridors that include a possible railway to the mineral-rich Ring of Fire region.

Air travellers racing to catch a flight at U.S. airports are no longer required to remove their shoes during security screenings, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Tuesday.

Noem said the end of the measure put in place almost 20 years ago was effective nationwide immediately. She said a pilot program showed the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had the equipment needed to keep airports and aircraft safe while allowing people to keep their shoes on.

“I think most Americans will be very excited to see they will be able to keep their shoes on, and it will be a much more streamlined process,” Noem said.

While shoe removal is no longer standard procedure, some travellers still may be asked to take off their footwear “if we think additional layers of screening are necessary,” she said.

The travel newsletter Gate Access was first to report that the security screening change was coming.

Security screening sans shoes became a requirement in 2006, several years after “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s failed attempt to take down a flight from Paris to Miami in late 2001.

All passengers between the ages of 12 and 75 were required to remove their shoes, which were scanned along with carry-on bags and other separated items such as outerwear.

Travellers were previously able to skirt the extra security requirement if they participated in the TSA PreCheck program, which costs around $80 US for five years. The program allows airline passengers to get through the screening process without removing shoes, belts or light jackets, and without having to take their laptops and bagged toiletries out of their carryon luggage.

PreCheck will remain the easier option for the time being, since people going through regular screening stations will still have to place other items on a conveyor belt for scanning, Noem said.

The TSA plans to review other rules and procedures to see how airport screenings can be simplified and expedited, she said. The agency is testing separate lanes for military personnel and families with young children, and expects to pilot other changes in the next six to eight months, according to Noem.

The TSA was created in 2001 by then-U.S. president George W. Bush, two months after the 9/11 attacks. The agency included federal airport screeners that replaced the private companies airlines had used to handle security.

Although regular air travellers are familiar with the intricacies of going through airport security, long lines during busy times and bags getting pulled aside for infractions such as forgotten water bottles can make the process fraught.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy asked the public in an April social media post what would make travel more seamless. The following day, Duffy posted on X that, “It’s clear that TSA is the #1 travel complaint. That falls under the Department of Homeland Security. I’ll discuss this with @Sec_Noem.”

One of Hudson’s Bay’s biggest lenders says the department store chain has handled its liquidation so badly that a court should end a buzzy but fraught lease transaction the retailer signed with a B.C. billionaire and subject the company to even more oversight as it winds down.

A motion filed Tuesday by Restore Capital LLC asks a court to stop the defunct retailer from selling up to 25 of its leases to mall owner Ruby Liu and appoint a “super monitor” to more prudently liquidate the remainder of its assets.

It argues both are necessary because the retailer has “frittered away” Restore’s collateral “without any clear path or plan towards realizing any benefit for HBC’s stakeholders.” 

Restore, an investment manager, spent two decades lending money to the Bay. Its most recent tranche sent the 355-year-old retailer $151 million in December 2024, three months before the Bay filed for creditor protection.

Canada’s oldest company has since liquidated all 80 of its stores and another 16 under its sister Saks banners as sold assets, including leases and intellectual property.

The company brokered two lease deals with Liu in May. The first — a $6-million transaction involving three leases for stores at B.C. malls she owns — was approved by a court last month.

Another deal was for up to 25 more leases in Alberta, B.C. and Ontario. The Bay has yet to seek court approval for the second deal, which spans 25 more leases in Alberta, B.C. and Ontario.

Landlords, including Cadillac Fairview and Oxford Properties, have overwhelmingly opposed taking on Liu as a tenant because they say she has not provided them with a practical business plan for the department stores she wants to run on their properties. 

Restore’s motion seizes on their dissent and positions the work the Bay has been doing to try to garner their approval as costly and fruitless.

“HBC has incurred exorbitant rent costs and professional fees in trying to obtain the necessary landlord consents with nothing to show for it, despite the landlords having indicated long ago that no consent will be provided,” Restore’s motion says.

It points out that the latest financial forecasts show between June 30 and Aug. 15, the Bay will incur $7.5 million in rent costs in connection with pursuing the Liu deal and a significant portion of the $8.5 million in professional fees projected during the seven-week period are linked to it as well. 

Liu, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, says if a court approves the sale, she believes she can win landlords over.

If the company can’t close on a deal with Liu, Restore and other lenders will see their collateral “irretrievably eroded,” the lender said in its filings.

Hudson’s Bay spokesperson Tiffany Bourré said the retailer will respond to the motion “in due course.”

In the meantime, she said it “continues to manage the monetization of its assets and the wind-up of its affairs in a responsible and diligent manner, appropriately balancing the interests of various stakeholders.”

Yet Restore said it’s seen its chances of recovering cash stymied because it said the Bay mismanaged its liquidation by failing to disclaim leases that no one wanted to buy in a timely fashion, close stores properly and remove fixtures and equipment.

These moves and a decision to “unnecessarily” pay for the removal of exterior signage have led to an additional $18 million in expenditures that would otherwise form the basis of its recovery, Restore said.

It argues these expenses and the Bay’s overall actions have made it so lenders are “perversely being compelled to fund increases in their own projected shortfall.”

Restore fears the only other chance at recovering money it is owed will be turning to the company’s pension plan, which has a surplus but might take years to draw any money from because of potential conflicting views on entitlements.

As a result, Restore wants the court to expand the powers of Alvarez and Marsal, a monitor previously appointed to guide the Bay through the creditor protection process, so the company can be wound down. 

If the court doesn’t agree to a “super monitor” arrangement, it suggests appointing Richter Consulting Inc. as a receiver. 

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday met for a second time in two days with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss Gaza as Trump’s Middle East envoy said Israel and Hamas were closing their differences on a ceasefire deal.

The Israeli leader departed the White House on Tuesday evening after he spent just over an hour meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, with no media access. The two men also met for several hours during a dinner at the White House on Monday during Netanyahu’s third U.S. visit since the president began his second term on Jan. 20.

Netanyahu met with Vice-President JD Vance, then visited the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, and is due back in Congress on Wednesday to meet with U.S. Senate leaders.

He told reporters after a meeting with the Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson that while he did not think Israel’s campaign in the Palestinian enclave was done, negotiators are “certainly working” on a ceasefire.

“We have still to finish the job in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy Hamas’s military and government capabilities,” Netanyahu said.

Shortly after Netanyahu spoke, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said the issues keeping Israel and Hamas from agreeing had dropped from four to one, and added he hoped to reach a temporary ceasefire agreement this week.

“We are hopeful that by the end of this week, we’ll have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire. Ten live hostages will be released. Nine deceased will be released,” Witkoff told reporters at a meeting of Trump’s cabinet.

A delegation from Qatar, which has been hosting indirect talks between Israeli officials and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, met with senior White House officials for several hours before Netanyahu’s arrival on Tuesday, Axios reported, citing a source familiar with the details.

The White House had no immediate comment on the report.

The war erupted when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, with 20 believed to be alive.

Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the war and nearly half a million people are facing famine within months, according to United Nations estimates.

The man who was charged with second-degree murder after a public attack in Kelowna, B.C., on Friday was convicted of uttering threats and choking that same day.

James Edward Plover was charged in relation to the death of Bailey Plover in what Kelowna RCMP called a “highly visible and tragic event” on Friday at a parking lot on Enterprise Way.

The B.C. Prosecution Service confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that James Plover was convicted of three counts of uttering threats, and one count of assault by strangling on the day of the attack. Court documents indicated the case concerned intimate partner violence.

Plover was under a bail order, with a $500 cash deposit and “extensive protective conditions,” on the day of the Friday attack, according to the prosecution service. 

In addition to Bailey Plover, one more female victim of the attack, who was known to James Plover, was hospitalized with serious injuries, Kelowna RCMP said Saturday.

CBC News has been unable to confirm the current nature of the relationship between James and Bailey Plover.

However, a family member told CBC News there was a history of domestic violence in the relationship, prompting calls for more support for domestic violence victims in B.C.

Charges sworn last year

A publication ban is in place on the names of the victims in the uttering threats and choking case that James Plover was convicted of, according to the prosecution service. 

He was charged with one count each of uttering threats and assault by choking on June 23, 2024, and two more charges of uttering threats were sworn the following month.

The trial for the case happened on April 16 and 17, 2025, and a judge convicted Plover of all four counts on July 4.

“A pre-sentence report with a psychological component was ordered by the court, and the matter was adjourned to Sept. 16, 2025, for a sentencing hearing,” wrote a spokesperson for the Crown.

Plover remained under his court-ordered bail conditions after his conviction on Friday. After Plover was arrested later that day, however, the Crown said prosecutors applied to revoke his bail order.

He remains in custody, with his next court appearance on July 10.

At an unrelated news conference on Monday, B.C. Premier David Eby said he was pressing the federal government to enact bail reform.

“We’ve been pressing the federal government aggressively to improve our bail system, to make sure that violent offenders are kept behind bars … to ensure that intimate partner violence, violence against women in relationships specifically, was named as an area for bail reform,” he said.

“[This is a] tragic, timely reminder of the importance of that work, and we hope the federal government works very quickly to get that in place.”

Italy’s Milan Bergamo Airport, which offers low-cost airline connections to and from Milan, was temporarily closed on Tuesday after a man died on a runway during takeoff preparations for a flight.

Flight operations were suspended from 10:20 a.m. until midday local time “due to a problem that occurred on the taxiway,” the airport said in a statement, adding that authorities were investigating.

A spokesperson confirmed that a man had died, adding that he was neither a passenger nor a member of airport staff.

According to the ANSA news agency, the man was sucked into the engine of a departing plane. He ran toward the moving aircraft, chased by airport police who were unable to stop him, it added.

The Bergamo police had no immediate comment.

Spanish low-cost carrier Volotea said in a statement that following an incident with an engine of its 10:35 am flight to Asturias, “one person who was not on board … and has no connection with the company suffered serious injuries.”

The 154 passengers on the plane were rescheduled on an afternoon flight and offered psychological support, as were crew members who may have been traumatized by the events, Volotea said.