Daughter of American woman missing in Bahamas speaks with ABC News
The Hookers’ boat, “Soulmate,” is seen in Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, April 8, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — More than two weeks after American Lynette Hooker went overboard and disappeared in the Bahamas, her daughter is speaking out to ABC News.
“It still feels surreal,” Karli Aylesworth said. “… This feels like something you just watch in a movie, but it’s my life.”
Aylesworth’s mother, Lynette Hooker, has been missing since the evening of April 4 when Aylesworth’s stepfather, Brian Hooker, said she went overboard. The couple had departed Hope Town 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 April 13 without charges.
Brian Hooker told ABC News on April 14 that he was staying in the Bahamas with a “sole focus” of finding his wife, “no matter how likely or unlikely that is.”
But Brian Hooker then left the Bahamas, his attorney said on April 15, noting that his mother is not well.
Aylesworth and her boyfriend said they doubted Brian Hooker’s story from the beginning and are now left with more questions than answers.
“I don’t understand how she drowned or got floated away,” Aylesworth said. “It just made me be more, ‘Why didn’t he do this? Why didn’t you do that? Why did that happen?'”
Aylesworth said she met with the Coast Guard and the Bahamian authorities, who allowed her to visit the sailboat her mother and stepfather called home.
“I went and got some of her belongings, like a headband. I got her ‘L’ necklace that she used to always wear. I got a picture frame I made for her, something that my grandma sewed for her,” she said.
“It was really hard because it was almost eerie, because I felt like she was going to, like, come out of the corner or something,” she said. “… Just knowing that she’ll never, I don’t know, it’s just hit me like a freight train that she’s not there.”
A view of the destruction in the area following Russia’s drone attack in the city of Odessa, Ukraine on February 12, 2026. (Artur Shvits/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that Russia is yet to respond to a U.S.-backed energy truce, as the two combatants continue to exchange long-range drone and missile strikes amid American-led peace talks.
Recent trilateral U.S.-Ukraine-Russia talks in the United Arab Emirates were described by all sides as constructive, though appear to have failed to find a breakthrough on several contentious points or secure a new truce covering critical energy infrastructure.
After the most recent round of talks last week, Zelenskyy said that U.S. officials proposed a temporary pause in attacks on energy targets, which would have mirrored the brief pause on such attacks that occurred at the end of January.
Zelenskyy said on Thursday that Kyiv is yet to receive a response from Moscow on the purported offer. “On the contrary, we’ve received a response in the form of drone and missile attacks. This suggests that they are not yet ready for the energy ceasefire proposed in Abu Dhabi by the American side,” he said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 25 missiles and 219 drones into the country overnight, of which 16 missiles and 197 drones were shot down or suppressed.
The impacts of nine missiles and 19 drones were reported across 13 locations, the air force said. “The main targets are Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Odesa,” the air force wrote on Telegram.
Four people, including two children, were also injured in strikes on the central city of Dnipro, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said. An earlier strike on the Synelnykove city just outside of Dnipro killed four people and injured three others, the regional administration said in posts to Telegram.
The Interior Ministry said that at least 13 people were injured in a series of drone strikes in the city of Barvinkove in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
The regional military administration in Odesa said one person was also injured there by Russian strikes.
The Interior Ministry reported damage to several areas of the capital. At least two people were injured by the attacks on Kyiv, according to the head of the city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that almost 2,600 residential buildings were left without heating due to “damage to critical infrastructure targeted by the enemy.”
In total, approximately more than 1 million people without heating in the Ukrainian capital, according to Klitschko and Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba.
DTEK — Ukraine’s top private energy firm — reported major damage to its energy infrastructure in Odesa, plus an attack on a thermal power plant.
Ukrenergo, the state energy transmission operator, reported power outages in Kyiv, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the attacks as “Russian terror” in a post to X. “Each such strike is a blow to peace efforts aimed at ending the war. Russia must be forced to take diplomacy seriously and deescalate,” he said.
Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram, “There needs to be more protection against these attacks.”
“The most effective defense against Russian ballistic missiles is the ‘Patriot’ system, and the supply of missiles for these systems is needed every day,” he added, referring to the U.S.-made surface-to-air missile platform.
“Everything currently available in the air defense program should arrive faster,” he said.
Ukraine continued its own drone strike campaign overnight. The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 106 Ukrainian drones overnight into Thursday morning.
Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported that two people were killed in drone attacks. At least 15 other people were injured across the region by Ukrainian attacks, the governor said. Gladkov also said Ukrainian forces fired several missiles into the region.
Local officials in the Volgograd, Tambov and Voronezh reported damage to industrial sites and falling drone debris in or close to residential areas.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, reported temporary flight restrictions for airports in Kaluga, Volgograd, Saratov, Yaroslavl, Kotlas, Ukhta, Perm and Kirov.
Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement posted to social media that among the targets of the strikes were the main arsenal of Russia’s missile and artillery forces in the Volgograd region. “This arsenal is one of the largest ammunition storage sites of the Russian army,” the General Staff said.
The ongoing peace talks have seen no easing of long-range strikes by either side, as the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s February 2022 full-scale invasion approaches.
As yet, no next round of talks have been scheduled. Zelenskyy said the U.S. had proposed a new trilateral meeting to be held in Miami, but that, “So far, as I understand it, Russia is hesitating.”
“We are ready. It doesn’t matter to us whether the meeting will be in Miami or Abu Dhabi. The main thing is that there should be a result,” the Ukrainian president said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday that Moscow had “a certain understanding” regarding the next round of talks. “We expect the next round to take place soon. We’ll also give you directions on the location,” he added, as quoted by the state-run Tass news agency.
Russian Foreign Ministry officials have this week been critical of the ongoing peace push.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week suggested that the U.S. side had drifted from the understandings reached between Moscow and Washington at the August meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
Lavrov also said Trump’s administration had failed to roll back former President Joe Biden-era sanctions against Moscow.
Lavrov and Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova framed the lack of progress as the fault of Kyiv and its European backers.
“At the current stage, it is the European Union that is preventing the Kyiv regime from making any compromises in exchange for promises to provide everything necessary to continue military operations,” Zakharova said in a briefing on Thursday, as quoted by Tass.
The Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) Amuay oil refinery at the Paraguana Refinery Complex in Punto Fijo, Falcon State, Venezuela. (Photographer: Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez announced on Sunday that the country’s first shipment of liquefied petroleum gas had been exported.
The announcement in a post on her Telegram channel on Sunday comes almost a month after President Donald Trump ordered a military operation that led to the capture of Venezuela’s former President Nicolas Maduro, who now faces federal charges in the U.S.
Rodriguez, Maduro’s former vice president, was sworn in as the interim president after his capture in January.
Rodriguez said the ship, the Chrysopigi Lady, had set sail from Venezuela “with the first shipment of Liquefied Petroleum Gas,” in a post, originally in Spanish.
The Singapore-flagged Chrysopigi Lady left from a port in northern Venezuela on the evening of Feb. 1 and is set to arrive in Providence, Rhode Island, according to marinetraffic.com.
“Proud to share this moment: the vessel Chrysopigi Lady has set sail from Venezuela with the first shipment of Liquefied Petroleum Gas,” Rodriguez said in the post. “We are marking this historic milestone by exporting the country’s first molecule of gas; an achievement for the well-being of the people of Venezuela.”
Rodriguez faces key tests in the weeks ahead. Since becoming the country’s de facto leader, she has struggled with her new twin responsibilities of maintaining order at home and managing diplomatic relations with the United States who conducted a military operation on her country’s soil weeks ago.
Last week, Rodriguez appeared to struggle publicly with the appropriate tone to both satisfy Washington and assert Venezuela’s independence.
Rodriguez said Venezuela has “opened a space for political dialogue,” but warned “those who seek to perpetuate harm and aggression against the people of Venezuela should stay in Washington,” in public comments during a ceremony recognizing her as Venezuela’s Commander-in-Chief in Caracas on Jan. 28.
Rodriguez also said “no one” in Venezuela surrendered during the military operation on Jan. 3. “That is why I say honor and glory to the heroes and heroines of January 3, 2026,” she said during the ceremony on Jan. 28.
About 100 people overall were killed during the U.S. military operation on Jan. 3, Venezuela’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, said on Jan. 8, according to Reuters. Out of the 100, 32 Cuban security officials were killed during the attack, the Cuban government confirmed on Jan. 4.
Table indicating the escape route in the case of tsunamis. (Getty stock photo)
(TOKYO) — A 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck on Monday off Japan’s northeastern coast, the U.S. Geological Survey said, prompting authorities to issue tsunami warnings and advisories along parts of the coast.
“Based on the preliminary earthquake parameters,” USGS said, “hazardous tsunami waves are possible for coasts located within 300 km of the earthquake epicenter.”
The Japan Meteorological Agency said tsunami warnings were in place for some of the coast along the Pacific, along with lesser advisories and forecasts farther away from the quake’s center.
“Residents in areas where tsunami warnings have been issued should immediately evacuate to higher ground or evacuation buildings and other higher, safer locations,” Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said.
The tsunami waves that were expected to have been the highest struck the coast within hours, with the largest one registering about 80 cm, or about 2.5 feet, but officials said they had not ruled out further waves. Official warnings were still in place, although the U.S. weather officials said in an update that, based on available data, “the tsunami threat from this earthquake has now passed.”
Preliminary U.S. data pinpointed the quake about 100 km, or about 62 miles, off the eastern coast of Miyako, USGS said. Light rumbling could be felt as far away as Tokyo. A 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck nearby about 40 minutes afterward, according to USGS data.
The Japanese agency held a press conference on Monday, during which it identified the quake as having been a 7.5 magnitude one. The depth was 10 km, or about 6.2 miles. It occurred at 4:53 p.m. local time, the agency said.
A tsunami warning was issued under twenty seconds after the initial earthquake, an official said. Officials warned people to stay on the alert for about week, as an equal or lesser than quake may occur. The risk was especially elevated for the next two or three days, officials said.
The U.S. Tsunami Warning System said a “destructive” Pacific-wide tsunami was not expected “and there is no threat to Hawaii.”
