Nashville explosion: Businesses and celebrities pledge $315,000 reward

Businesses and TV personalities have offered more than $300,000 (£224,000) to catch those responsible for a camper van blast in the US city of Nashville.

The explosion rocked the city early on Christmas Day, injuring three people and knocking out communications systems across the state of Tennessee.

Police believe the powerful blast was caused deliberately.

A person of interest, connected to the vehicle that exploded, has been identified, CBS News reports.

No motive has yet been established for the explosion, and no-one has yet said they were behind it. Possible human remains were later found near the blast site.

The FBI and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives surveyed the area on Saturday.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Douglas Korneski said officials had received about 500 tips and that they were looking at a "number of individuals" in possible connection to the explosion.

Earlier, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said he toured the site, saying on Twitter it was a "miracle" that no-one was killed. He said he requested in a letter to President Donald Trump a federal emergency declaration for his state to aid relief efforts.

Police close off an area damaged by an explosion on Christmas morning
The FBI is leading the investigation into the explosion

Businessman Marcus Lemonis is the latest to donate to a reward pot, pledging $250,000.

"We can't have our streets terrorised like this," tweeted Mr Lemonis, who hosts reality TV show The Profit.

Reward pledges began on Friday after a local tourism body, Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp, made an initial contribution of $10,000, later increasing it to $35,000.

Fox Sports host Clay Travis and a shop located near the explosion have also offered a combined $30,000 for information.

What happened in Nashville?

Officers responded to reports of gunshots just before 06:00 local time (12:00 GMT) on Christmas Day in an area of the city known for its restaurants and nightlife.

Shortly afterwards, they found a camper van broadcasting a warning message to leave the area.

The van exploded a few minutes later, the force of the blast knocking an officer off their feet, police said. It is still unclear if anyone was inside the camper van at the time.

Police have released this image of the van - described by Nashville police as a recreational vehicle (RV) - arriving at the scene early on Friday.

The van blew up outside a building belonging to the telecoms giant AT&T, which also occupies an office tower nearby.

Buildings suffered structural damage, windows were blown out, and trees were felled. Videos posted on social media showed water from damaged pipes running down walls as alarms howled in the background.

Police emergency systems were knocked out across the surrounding state of Tennessee.

Telephone, internet and fibre optic TV services were also disrupted in Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia, according to telecoms firm AT&T.

Debris litters the road near the site of an explosion in the area of Second and Commerce in Nashville
The blast was caused by a parked camper van, police say

Resident Buck McCoy said he was woken up by the blast. He posted a video on Facebook, showing some of the damage done, with alarms howling in the background.

"All my windows, every single one of them got blown into the next room. If I had been standing there, it would have been horrible," Mr McCoy told AP. "It felt like a bomb. It was that big."

Latest Stories

  • Biden calls Trump's refusal to sign relief bill an 'abdication of responsibility'

    President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday released a statement criticizing President Trump for refusing to sign the $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill passed by Congress earlier this week.Biden warned "this abdication of responsibility has devastating consequences," noting that millions of Americans will lose enhanced unemployment benefits (which are set to expire Saturday), small businesses will go longer without federal aid, and eviction moratoriums will end next week unless Trump decides to sign the bill.> Biden calls Trump not yet signing the covid relief bill an “abdication of responsibility.” He says Trump should sign it and again argues for “more action that we’ll need to take early in the new year to revive the economy and contain the pandemic.” pic.twitter.com/OsqFNRtWEc> > — Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) December 26, 2020It's unclear whether Trump will relent, though he continued to criticize the package because it designates just $600 for stimulus checks for individuals. Democratic lawmakers seem to be on board with his call to push that figure up to $2,000 per person, but the GOP appears hesitant. Biden didn't address stimulus checks specifically in his latest statement, but he said that while Trump signing the current bill is "critical," it's a "first step and down payment on more action that we'll need to take" after he steps into the Oval Office.More stories from theweek.com Joe Biden's anti-revolution takes shape 7 scathing cartoons about Russia's massive cyberattack The Christmas of 1918

  • Boko Haram kill villagers in Christmas Eve attack

    The Islamist group also burnt down the church in the Christian village in northeast Nigeria.

  • FBI at home of possible person of interest in Nashville bomb

    Federal investigators have identified a person of interest in connection with the explosion that rocked downtown Nashville on Christmas Day and were searching a home associated with that person, law enforcement officials said.

  • Russia holds ally of Kremlin foe Navalny - lawyer

    Russia appears to have detained an ally of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. A lawyer for Lyubov Sobol says she was held for 48 hours after questioning. He says they took her from her flat and seized a laptop. Russian authorities confirmed Friday (December 25) that they had launched a criminal case, but made no mention of detention. Sobol faces accusations of violently entering a flat that her supporters say is linked to a secret agent involved in a plot to kill Navalny. The offence can carry a jail term of up to two years. Navalny was the target of a poisoning he blames on Russia’s FSB security service. The FSB denies his account of the incident. But the move against Sobol is the latest in a clampdown on political opposition ahead of next year’s parliamentary election. She is planning to run for office, though outspoken Kremlin critics are often prevented from standing. Writing on Twitter, Navalny said authorities intended Sobol’s arrest as a warning not to look into his poisoning.

  • Ten climbers killed in Iran, ship crew missing after snowfall and storms

    DUBAI (Reuters) -At least 10 climbers have died and several more are missing in mountains north of Iran's capital Tehran after heavy snowfall, state media reported on Saturday, and the seven crew members of a ship are also missing after storms in the Gulf. Heavy snow and winds in several parts of Iran in the past few days have closed many roads and disrupted transport. Several climbers remain unaccounted for since Friday when two deaths were reported, while the number reported as missing has increased as concerned families contact the authorities, state television said.

  • Government shutdown looms as Donald Trump continues to refuse to sign new stimulus bill

    One of Donald Trump’s most prominent allies in the US Senate has thrown his support behind the US president’s demand for $2,000 stimulus cheques as a new government shutdown looms amid the funding stand-off. Lindsey Graham, who played golf with Mr Trump on Christmas Day, took to Twitter to endorse the president’s call for an increase from the $600 cheques agreed in a major new funding bill passed by Congress. Mr Trump has refused to sign into the law the piece of legislation, which seeks to help those worst affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, insisting the direct payments to Americans should be raised. The president’s initial decision not to sign the bill, which was flown down to the Florida golf resort Mar-a-Lago where he is spending Christmas, creates a number of knock-on problems that are yet to be resolved. For one, millions of Americans who have been receiving higher than normal unemployment benefits from the initial rounds of Covid stimulus laws will see their payments disrupted and potentially ended as they time out.

  • Explosion hits gas pipeline in Egypt's Sinai, no casualties

    EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) — An explosion at a key natural gas pipeline in Egypt's restive northern Sinai Peninsula caused a fire but no human casualties, a senior official said. The group offered no proof for its claim.

  • Trial of HK people detained in China from Monday, supporters say

    Ten of 12 Hong Kong people captured by China at sea as they tried to flee by boat four months ago will go on trial in the mainland city of Shenzhen on Monday, supporters said on Friday. The case has attracted great interest in Hong Kong and abroad as a rare instance of the Beijing authorities arresting people trying to leave the financial hub at a time of growing concern about the prospects for the city’s high degree of autonomy. The families had asked this week for 20 days' notice to allow them to attend the trial, given a 14-day COVID-19 quarantine upon entering mainland China.

  • China's pace to overtake U.S. as world's largest economy accelarates by 5 years, report predicts

    China is on course to overtake the United States as the world's biggest economy by 2028, the Center for Economics and Business Research predicted in a report released Saturday. The two countries have long been expected to swap places, but CEBR anticipates the pace has accelerated thanks to China recovering more quickly from the COVID-19 pandemic.A year ago, the CEBR pegged 2033 as the transition year, but China's economy is expected to grow by 2 percent in 2020, the lone major global economy to expand, while the U.S. economy is expected to contract by 5 percent. The report also anticipates China will become a "high-income economy" by 2023, though living standards are expected to remain much lower than in the U.S.China is not an outlier in its region when it comes to future economic growth. "Other Asian economies are also shooting up the table," said Douglas McWilliams, the CEBR's deputy chair. "One lesson for western policymakers, who have performed relatively badly during the pandemic, is that they need to pay much more attention to what is happening in Asia rather than simply looking at each other." Read more at The Guardian and Bloomberg.More stories from theweek.com Joe Biden's anti-revolution takes shape 7 scathing cartoons about Russia's massive cyberattack The Christmas of 1918

  • Trump claims Florida ‘doing well’ as cases pass 1.25m with death toll nearly seven times that of Japan

    President blames ‘lockdowns’ as infections surge in Republican-governed states

  • Royal Caribbean tries to block families suing over fatal tour to island of live volcano

    Royal Caribbean, the world's largest cruise company, is trying to prevent victims of the 2019 New Zealand volcanic eruption from suing in the US. Passengers from the Royal Caribbean ship Ovation of the Seas took a trip to White Island, a popular tourist site, last December, when a volcano suddenly erupted, killing 27 visitors and injuring 25 more. Ivy and Paul Reed, from the US state of Maryland, who suffered burns as a result of the eruption, and Australians Marie and Stephanie Browitt, who lost family members because of the eruption, filed separate lawsuits against Royal Caribbean claiming that the cruise line did not properly explain the dangers of visiting White Island. Peter Gordon, a lawyer for the Browitt family, told the Australian Broadcasting Company that Royal Caribbean should have known that the volcano could erupt before allowing its passengers to visit White Island.

  • Virus besets Belarus prisons filled with president's critics

    A wave of COVID-19 has engulfed prisons in Belarus that are packed with people in custody for demonstrating against the nation’s authoritarian president, and some of the protesters who contracted the coronavirus while incarcerated accuse authorities of neglecting or even encouraging infections. Activists who spoke to The Associated Press after their release described massively overcrowded cells without proper ventilation or basic amenities and a lack of medical treatment. Kastus Lisetsky, 35, a musician who received a 15-day sentence for attending a protest, said he was hospitalized with a high fever after eight days at a prison in eastern Belarus and diagnosed with double-sided pneumonia induced by COVID-19.

  • Erdogan says Turkey would like better ties with Israel, criticizes Palestine policy

    President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey would like to have better ties with Israel, but criticized Israeli policy toward Palestinians as "unacceptable" and a "red line" for Ankara, adding that intelligence talks resumed between the two sides. The two countries have had a bitter falling out in recent years, despite strong commercial ties, expelling ambassadors in 2018. Ankara has repeatedly condemned Israel's occupation in the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians.

  • Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe sends MPs face masks made in Iranian detention

    British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has sent Christmas gifts of home-made face masks to British politicians to highlight her continuing ordeal in Iran. Former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt revealed that he and his wife received two masks which came with a note saying: "Life is precious, please look after yourself and use a mask. “This mask is handmade with love in Tehran, awaiting freedom." Other masks were sent to her family and those of other political prisoners in Iran, as well as her MP Tulip Siddiqui, while Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was sent a drawing. Her daughter Gabriella, 6, who has not seen her mother for four years, also sent Boris Johnson some festive biscuits with a card, writing: “Please can you bring my mummy home for Christmas. She has been good.” Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who turns 42 on Boxing Day, has been a prisoner in Iran since 2016, accused of "plotting to topple the Iranian government", which she denies. Her husband Richard has claimed she is being detained as a “hostage”, along with other British dual nationals, over historic debts owed to the country by the UK government.

  • Saudi TV: Houthi sea mine strikes cargo ship in Red Sea

    A sea mine planted by Yemen's Houthi rebels struck a cargo ship in the southern Red Sea on Friday, Saudi Arabia's state-owned television channel reported, without providing further details. Al-Ekhbariya quoted the Saudi-led coalition, which has been fighting Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen since 2015. The United Kingdom Marine Trade Operations, an information exchange overseen by the British Royal Navy in the region, did not immediately acknowledge the incident.

  • In official Christmas Day message, Trump barely mentions Covid; Biden talks of pandemic's pain

    Nearly 330,000 Americans have died from the virus, and there are over 18.7 million confirmed cases in the U.S.

  • Japan bans new entries of foreigners after virus variant arrives

    Japan on Saturday said it would temporarily ban non-resident foreign nationals from entering the country as it tightens its borders following the detection of a new, highly infectious variant of the coronavirus. Japanese citizens and foreign residents will be allowed to enter but must show proof of a negative coronavirus test 72 hours before departing for Japan and must quarantine for two weeks after arrival, the statement said. Japan on Friday reported its first cases of a fast-spreading variant in passengers arriving from Britain.

  • Pompeii archaeologists uncover ancient homophobic insult to tavern owner

    Archaeologists excavating a snack bar in the ruins of Italy’s Pompeii have uncovered “exceptional” frescoes, and obscene graffiti likely directed at the establishment’s seventh century owner. The volcanic ash which buried the town during the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in AD79 has preserved an intimate historical record of the Roman town 14 miles southeast of Naples, and the lives of its 13,000 inhabitants. One of these inhabitants was called Nicias and was likely a freed slave from Greece, according to excavators who recently uncovered an inscription insulting the man. “NICIA CINAEDE CACATOR” reads the scrawled graffiti on a fresco of a chained dog painted onto the bar of the Thermopolium of Regio V, a cheap street food eatery. “An inverted s****er” is how archaeologists rendered the slur, though the adjective carries a homosexual connotation from its derivation from the ancient Greek term for catamite.

  • Afghan army: 2 officers killed by roadside bomb in north

    At least two Afghan army officers including a battalion commander were killed Friday when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in the northern Balkh province, the military said. Hanif Rezaie, a spokesman for the army in the country's north, said Capt. Mohammad Qasim Paikar and another officer were killed and two other soldiers were wounded in the explosion, which took place between Balkh and Char Bolak districts. The attack was the latest amid relentless violence in Afghanistan even as Taliban and Afghan government negotiators hold talks in Qatar, trying to hammer out a peace deal that could put an end to decades of war.

  • UPS employee confessed to fatally attacking co-worker found stabbed in truck, warrant says

    “What took you guys so long to find me?” the suspect asked Connecticut authorities who found him after he ran into the woods following the alleged attack.