Daughter of American woman missing in Bahamas arrives to help with search
Cadaver dogs in the Bahamas to help search for missing American Lynette Hooker, April 16, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — The daughter of Lynette Hooker, an American woman who is missing in the Bahamas, has arrived on the islands with her boyfriend to help with the search after her stepfather, Brian Hooker, left the country.
Karli Aylesworth and her boyfriend, Steve Hansen, said they gave a statement to Bahamian police and plan on retracing her mother’s last steps.
“They’re just not releasing information because it’s an ongoing investigation, which we understand,” Hansen told ABC News.
“We seem frustrated because of the fact that we haven’t found her yet, and we would hope by now we would have,” he added.
Aylesworth’s mother, Lynette Hooker, has been missing since the evening of April 4 when Brian Hooker said she went overboard. The couple had departed Hope Town on the Abaco Islands for their yacht, Soulmate, in Elbow Cay, when bad weather caused her to fall off their dinghy, Brian Hooker told authorities.
Brian Hooker, 58, was arrested on April 8 and questioned by police. He was released on Monday without charges.
Brian Hooker told ABC News on Tuesday that he was staying in the Bahamas with a “sole focus” of finding his wife, “no matter how likely or unlikely that is.”
He said at the time that he planned “to go back to the boat, and then hire or beg people to help me go find some areas to search.”
But Brian Hooker then left the Bahamas, his attorney said on Wednesday, noting that his mother is not well.
Hansen said he and Aylesworth were surprised to learn her stepfather left.
“We’re not gonna say that he doesn’t deserve to see his mother before she dies, but we’re just saying Karli didn’t get that option. Karli didn’t get the option to see her mother before she died,” Hansen said.
The Royal Bahamas Defence Force said in a statement Thursday that the search and recovery work is ongoing, with operations involving “extensive shoreline patrols, sea patrols, aerial drone surveillance, and submersible drone operations.”
ABC News’ Brian Andrews contributed to this report.
People, including a man holding a placard that shows Greenland covered in an American flag, Xed out and that reads: Our Land, Not Yours”, gather to march in protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and his announced intent to acquire Greenland on January 17, 2026 in Nuuk, Greenland. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Thousands of people thronged the snowy streets of the Greenlandic capital of Nuuk on Saturday to have their say on a transatlantic crisis that has shaken the 76-year-old NATO alliance.
“Greenland for Greenlanders,” “Our land, not yours,” and “Yankee go home” were among the signs held aloft by marchers, accompanied by a plethora of red-and-white Greenlandic flags.
The 56,000 Greenlanders who inhabit the world’s largest island — which is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark — have found themselves at the center of a geopolitical storm, as U.S. President Donald Trump wages an escalating pressure campaign to acquire the territory despite intense opposition from Greenlanders, Danes and America’s NATO allies.
The message of the weekend march in Nuuk was clear. But many Greenlanders fear that their voices are being lost in the transatlantic furor, Pele Broberg — the leader of the pro-independence Naleraq party — told ABC News.
“We are currently being caught in broader political conflicts driven by opposition to Donald Trump, because we are just a stepping stone between the Europeans and the Americans,” Broberg said.
“Everybody is busy and stepping on Greenland to make a point that Donald Trump is a bad man,” he added. “I’m not a pro-Trump guy. I’m not pro anything with the U.S. with regards to how they’re handling this situation.”
‘Territories don’t have any rights’ Naleraq is the second-largest party and the official opposition in Greenland’s parliament. While Greenlandic political parties have agreed on independence as a shared eventual goal, Naleraq is widely seen as pushing for a more immediate breakaway from Denmark. The party is also considered by observers to be the most open to U.S. cooperation.
Broberg was clear that he considers Copenhagen at least partly responsible for the crisis engulfing Greenland. “The problem is that everybody talked about the Greenlandic people without the Greenlandic people,” he said.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has repeatedly said that Greenland belongs to Greenlanders and that no decision on the island’s future can be made without their agreement. But Broberg said that the framing of Trump’s bid to acquire Greenland as an attack on Denmark has sown confusion.
“Either Greenland truly belongs to the Greenlandic people, or it is treated as part of the Danish Kingdom. In practice, it cannot be both,” he said. Copenhagen, he said, “has managed to marginalize the Greenlandic government … They have managed to make it a matter of the Danish Kingdom and not the Greenlandic people.”
“Territories don’t have any rights — peoples have rights,” Broberg added.
Broberg said he believes there is “no doubt” that the Danish government is using the current crisis to undermine the goal of Greenlandic independence, using the threat of U.S. domination as a foil.
The Greenlandic government — currently led by the Demokraatit party — and Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen have made clear they have no intention of joining the U.S.
“If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark,” Nielsen said during a press conference earlier this month. “Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.”
The next general election in Greenland is scheduled for 2029, the year Trump’s second term ends.
Amid Trump’s threats, the leaders of all five political parties holding seats in Greenland’s parliament also released a joint statement. “We do not want to be Americans, we do not want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” they said.
A bipartisan U.S. Congressional delegation traveled to Denmark last weekend in a bid to reassure Danes and Greenlanders of their support. Delegation leader Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said at an event in Copenhagen, “I hope that the people of the Kingdom of Denmark do not abandon their faith in the American people.”
Broberg, whose party placed second in last year’s elections with 24% of the vote, suggested there had been a damaging lack of communication between Nuuk and Washington.
“The problem is that they are reacting out of panic rather than having a clear strategy,” Broberg said of the Greenlandic government. “I encouraged them last year, before the elections, to actually go to speak to the U.S. representatives. But they didn’t want to do that because they felt insulted by the way they were talked about.”
‘This started with Trump’ Trump first raised the prospect of acquiring the minerals-rich island in his first term. Frederiksen at that time dismissed the proposal as “absurd.”
President Joe Biden’s administration also showed a keen interest in Greenland, though it engaged in a softer approach. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the island in 2021 and told reporters he was there “because the United States deeply values our partnership and wants to make it even stronger.”
His trip followed bilateral successes in 2020 — before Trump left office — that saw the U.S. reopen its Nuuk consulate, expand cooperation at the American Thule Air Base, since renamed as the Pituffik Space Base, and agree to a new economic collaboration strategy.
Broberg said it is clear that Greenland is part of the long-term, bipartisan U.S. strategic picture. But the crisis over the island’s sovereignty, he said, “started with Donald Trump.”
“We’re not a pro-Trump or pro-U.S. party,” he said. “We’re a pro-Greenland party. We don’t tolerate anything of what came out of the American president’s mouth with regards to Greenland and its people’s rights.”
Broberg, a former Greenlandic foreign minister, urged dialogue. “You have to work this problem, not become the problem,” he said.
Still, Broberg acknowledged that the situation “has escalated to a point where simple solutions are no longer available,” citing the brewing transatlantic trade war. “I don’t see a way out of this that doesn’t involve an election in Greenland.”
Broberg said Naleraq foresees a free association agreement with Denmark twinned with a defense-and security-agreement with the U.S., under which Washington would gain exclusive rights to military operations on the island.
“Under the current defense agreement, the U.S. does not hold full military exclusivity over Greenland,” he said, referring to the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement that gave the U.S. military access across the island. “That’s why you can see that Donald Trump looked at the stationing of troops this week as an escalation, as a provocation.”
Broberg also said Naleraq has discussed the formation of a Greenlandic coast guard — with personnel potentially numbering in the low thousands — to help guard Greenland’s 27,000-mile coastline.
Trump has repeatedly dismissed suggestions that a larger U.S. military footprint on Greenland can address his purported concerns over Russian and Chinese presence in the High North. “I could put a lot of soldiers there right now if I want. But you need more than that. You need ownership,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One this month.
Nonetheless, Broberg said his party is “genuinely interested” in working with the U.S. on security and trade. “We are, from a political point of view, looking to be globalist. We are a free trade country. We don’t impose tariffs on anybody, no matter what,” he said.
Asked if he was currently in touch with the Trump administration, Broberg replied, “Not at all.”
Trump has been dismissive of Greenland’s prime minister. After Nielsen said the island would not join the U.S., Trump told reporters, “That’s their problem. I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him.”
Subs in the fjords Trump’s reasoning for wanting “complete and total control” of Greenland is the purported threat posed by Russia and China in the Arctic.
NATO allies have said they agree that regional military capabilities and readiness should be bolstered. Last year, Copenhagen announced a $6.5 billion Arctic defense package in response to U.S. criticism that it had failed to adequately protect Greenland.
And last week, eight NATO nations sent small contingents of troops to Greenland for what they said were military exercises. In an interview early this week, Broberg was fiercely critical of what he described as that “very stupid” move, saying he felt it would be interpreted as “an escalation” by the U.S.
Broberg also said it was a mistake to send the troops to Nuuk and Greenland’s west coast. “The Russians are on the east coast, they’re in the northeast,” he said.
“If they really wanted to placate the US … they should put them on the northeast coast where nobody lives,” Broberg added.
Asked whether the Russian-Chinese threat to Greenland was genuine or concocted, Broberg replied, “I think the truth is somewhere in between … You don’t have smoke without some fire.”
But he noted that hunting parties — traveling over the frozen terrain quickly and quietly on dogsleds, a mode of transport Trump appeared to mock when criticizing Danish military capabilities in Greenland — “have, on occasion, reported seeing submarines near the coast or fjords.”
“We have never been told what kind of subs there are. But the presumption is Russian subs. So there is some truth to it. But if it’s crawling with them, or if it’s one every 10 years — I have no idea.”
Firefighters extinguish fires after Russian drone attacked residential areas in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine, in February 11, 2026. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine / Handout /Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that another night of Russian long-range strikes further undermined “trust in all diplomatic efforts to end this war,” as the sides continue to maneuver for advantage in ongoing U.S.-led peace negotiations.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 129 drones into Ukraine overnight into Wednesday morning, of which 112 were shot down or suppressed. Fifteen drones impacted across eight locations, the air force said.
Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram that drones attacked the Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Dnipro and Poltava regions.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES) said that four people were killed, three of them children, by a Russian drone strike on a residential building in the northeastern city of Kharkiv. Two other people were injured in the attack, the SES said.
Two people were killed and nine others by Russian strikes in the northeastern Sumy region, according to regional Gov. Oleg Hryhorov.
The SES also reported a drone attack on a residential property in the southern city of Zaporozhzhia, in which at least five people were injured. Zelenskyy said that the attack in the city also damaged a hospital.
Oleksandr Prokudin, the governor of the southern Kherson region, said six people were injured there by Russian shelling.
Each night of attacks “proves that it is only through tough pressure on Russia and clear security guarantees for Ukraine that we can put an end to the killings,” Zelenskyy said in a post to social media.
“Until the pressure on the aggressor is insufficient and until our, Ukraine’s security is not guaranteed, nothing else will work,” he added. “The Russian army is not preparing to stop — they are preparing to continue fighting.”
The Ukrainian president again called for Western partners to provide more air defense support to Ukraine to help blunt Russian attacks and “protect life.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down 118 Ukrainian drones over 15 regions overnight.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, said that temporary flight restrictions were introduced at airports in Cheboksary, Kaluga, Kazan, Saratov, Volgograd, Ulyanovsk and Nizhnekamsk.
Two people were injured in a drone attack on the western Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported in a post to Telegram.
In the southern region of Volgograd, Gov. Andrey Bocharov reported a fire at an industrial site in the south of the region, plus drone damage to an apartment building and a kindergarten.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, suggested in a post to Telegram that an attack occurred at a major oil refinery in the Volgograd area.
Both sides have continued their long-range strike campaigns despite recent trilateral peace talks with U.S. representatives. All participants at last week’s second round of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi described the meetings as constructive, but the negotiations did not appear to achieve a breakthrough on several contentious points.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week continued his recent criticism of ongoing peace negotiations.
In an interview published on Wednesday, Lavrov alleged to the Kremlin-aligned Empathy Manuchi online project that Kyiv and its European partners are sabotaging what he called the “balance of vital interests” agreed between Russia and the U.S. at the August summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
Putin and his top officials have repeatedly referred back to the “spirit and letter” of the Anchorage summit amid Trump’s efforts to hammer out a peace deal. The meeting was widely interpreted as a diplomatic and political coup for Putin.
Lavrov — as quoted by Russia’s state-run Tass news agency — claimed that the understandings reached in Alaska made it “entirely possible to quickly agree on a final agreement on a settlement,” but accused Kyiv and its European partners of trying to “turn it all to their advantage.”
Moscow, he said, will take steps to “ensure our own security.” Russia has demanded that Ukrainian forces withdraw from all of the partially-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions — which together form the Donbas region — as a part of any peace deal. Kyiv has refused the demand.
Lavrov said that Ukrainian troops “will eventually be driven out” of the area regardless.
A view of destruction after the Israeli military launches airstrikes on the Dahieh district in Beirut, Lebanon on March 5, 2026. (Photo by Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(BEIRUT) — Israeli strikes continued to bombard Lebanon’s capital on Thursday morning, as the U.S.-Israel war with Iran widens, further embroiling Iran’s proxy force in Lebanon, Hezbollah.
The Israeli military issued a number of evacuation warnings for parts of Beirut and huge swathes of southern Lebanon prior to the latest attacks on Wednesday, where it has struck hundreds of targets throughout the country since Monday, according to statements by Israel.
The Israeli military on Thursday afternoon expanded its warning to residents of the densely populated southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, ordering them to leave immediately ahead of planned strikes. The notice from the Israel Defense Forces, which lists four neighborhoods, is effectively a forced evacuation of the entire Dahiyeh area on the outskirts of Beirut, which has long been a Hezbollah stronghold but is also a major residential and commercial hub — home to many civilians.
More than 300,000 people have evacuated southern Lebanon, according to the IDF.
The IDF said heading south is “strictly prohibited” and any movement south “could endanger your lives.”
At least 77 people have been killed and 527 others wounded since Israel resumed strikes on Lebanon on Monday, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Anyone south of the Litani River in Lebanon is being told by the IDF to abandon their homes and evacuate north. The order is raising concerns among some residents that this could mean a significant incursion once again from IDF forces moving into southern Lebanon in the coming days and weeks.
Tens of thousands have already fled from parts of Southern Lebanon and from other Hezbollah strongholds to points to the north of the country, according to local reports.
The strikes on Beirut on Wednesday were concentrated on the densely populated southern suburb, Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold, according to local reports.
In Hazmieh, another southern neighborhood of Beirut, the Comfort Hotel was struck without warning before dawn Wednesday, a local council member told ABC News, confirming reports from Lebanese state media. Hazmieh is a Christian neighborhood not under Hezbollah control with foreign embassies scattered nearby and the Lebanese Presidential Palace a quarter mile away from the hotel.
Officials in Lebanon think Israeli targeting neighborhoods like Hamiyeh could show an emboldened strategy — the gloves are off.
Israeli officials said on Wednesday that Hezbollah continues to act in concert with Iran.
Israeli forces had been striking targets periodically in October and November in southern Lebanon that they say are associated with Hezbollah after the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect in Gaza.
Ahead of the attack on Iran, Israel launched strikes against targets in Baalbek, east Lebanon, in February, saying it killed “several” members of Hezbollah’s missile unit in three different locations.
This week’s strikes were the first time Israel struck Beirut, in central Lebanon, since June 2025.
The Israeli military warned Tuesday that Hezbollah “will pay a heavy price” after the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group fired rockets into northern Israel overnight Monday into Tuesday.
Immediately after the rocket fire, the IDF “launched a large-scale attack against Hezbollah terrorist targets throughout Lebanon, including Beirut,” according to IDF spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin.
“We attacked dozens of the organization’s headquarters and launch sites,” Defrin said. “We attacked senior commanders. Some of the last surviving senior veterans of this organization. We are currently examining the results of the attack.”
Defrin noted that “forces are deployed along the border in front and are prepared to continue the defense and attack as long as they require.”
When asked whether the IDF is preparing for a ground maneuver in Lebanon, Defrin said the troops are “well prepared.”
“We have mobilized close to 100,000 men,” he added. “Dozens of battalions, divisions and brigades are prepared in the defense on the northern border. Prepared for all possibilities. In defense and in attack. All possibilities are on the table. We are conducting situation assessments and all possibilities are on the table.”
The deputy head of Hezbollah’s political council, Mahmoud Qamati, warned Tuesday that Israel “wanted an open war … so let it be an open war.”
“The enemy wanted an open war, which he has not stopped since the ceasefire agreement decision, so let it be an open war,” Qamati said in a statement.
The IDF said it struck an underground Hezbollah weapon storage facility and additional command centers in Beirut in its latest wave of strikes. The IDF claimed its targets included an underground weapon storage facility, additional command centers and a site used by Hezbollah for terrorist attacks, intelligence gathering and for propaganda.
