Bridge between US and Canada closed following explosion. (Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls)

18-24-61-B-17-17-4@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 209 points –
Rainbow Bridge between US, Canada closed following explosion: Sources
abcnews.go.com
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Ok... so ABC is saying that the vehicle was flagged as suspicious at a checkpoint and it was being sent to a second checkpoint when the explosion happened. I have to say that really sounds like it isn't an accident.

All of the bridges linking Canada and the U.S. over the Niagara River are currently closed.

It's those sneaky Canadians trying to steal our jobs!

Nah man, we have parental leave, minimum vacation, workers' rights and healthcare up here, you can keep your jobs.

"Think of your children pledging allegiance to the maple leaf. Mayonnaise on everything. Winter 11 months of the year. Anne Murray - all day, every day."

EDIT: More recent reporting directly contradicts the Fox report below:

A preliminary investigation has found that the car did not contain explosives, according to three law enforcement officials with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation.

A law enforcement official briefed on the incident said investigators believed the explosion resulted from the impact of the collision. The car went airborne and struck a cement pillar, according to the official. A suitcase was found near the car but did not contain explosives, the official added.

source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/22/nyregion/rainbow-bridge-explosion-niagara-falls

--

https://www.foxnews.com/us/ny-vehicle-explosion-reported-rainbow-bridge-niagara-falls-injured

The FBI is investigating a vehicle explosion Wednesday at the Rainbow Bridge border crossing between the U.S. and Canada in what sources tell Fox News was an attempted terrorist attack.

Explosives were in the vehicle at the time and two people who were in the car are dead, the sources told Fox News. A border officer was injured.

(Note: I think Fox is the only news org reporting this. And it's Fox.)

If Fox "News" is ever the only entity reporting on a topic, then that topic is likely untrue.

Fox "News" has testified multiple times in sworn court testimony that their content is not fact-based and that "no reasonable person could confuse" their content as factual reporting. They testified that their content is for entertainment only.

We should never, ever look to Fox "News" for news as they are, by their own sworn description, never to be believed.

That's why I said to wait for corroboration. Fox would then be the first to report, not the only.

I think most of us are mature enough to handle unconfirmed reports.

They also didn't make that argument about their content, they made it about their opinion personalities. Saying no reasonable person could take Tucker Carlson seriously isn't the same as saying everything they publish is fiction. Yes, they suck and a world where they didn't exist would be a better world but, unfortunately, we still live in a world where Fox News occasionally breaks a story.

Of course the person who posts Fox News content would defend Fox News.

Rupert Murdoch himself admitted in a deposition that Fox News was knowingly promoting dangerous consipiracy theories in the wake of the 2020 election and here you are minimizing their lies and defending them as a legitimate news source.

Stop it. Just stop. Posting them as a legitimate news source is harmful to humanity. Period.

I replied to you because you replied to me. I'm not defending Fox News. Their arguments in court defending their on-air personalities are vile enough in their actual context without pretending they apply more broadly. Substituting our dishonesty for theirs is hardly a victory.

Ahhh.. a lecture in "dishonesty" from the account that posts Fox News articles and then defends the source as valid.

The dishonesty in our conversation started with your post from a notoriously dishonest source. It continued when you minimized Fox News' admissions of dishonesty to a single lawyer's statement regarding Tucker Carlson. Then, as you pretended to agree that Fox News is bad, you simultaneously defended their reporting as valid. And now you are lecturing me on honesty. Got it. I will print this exchange and file it appropriately.

There exists a possible world where Fox sucks and you're a liar even if you're lying about Fox. Your statement about what their sworn testimony says is demonstrably false, either because you're misinformed or being dishonest. If it wasn't you could produce proof that it wasn't. But you can't, because it was. Me pointing that out about you doesn't mean I'm somehow defending Fox.

If you want to take an article linked with a disclaimer that it's uncorroborated and from a less than trustworthy source followed by a comment saying that I wouldn't accept it as fact without corroboration as a ringing endorsement, you're free to I guess. I remain confident that a reasonable person wouldn't.

You referenced the McDougal case against Fox News and claimed that was the only time Fox used that defense (in defense of Tucker Carlson). I replied with the Rupert Murdoch testimony from the Dominion case, in which he admitted that Fox News at large knew it was spreading lies and did nothing to mitigate it. In his testimony, he claimed the anchors were merely personalities expressing opinions, but the evidence clearly showed that these "opinions" were being presented as news pieces in articles and news package stories. He then admitted Fox News knew the truth and allowed the lies to spread.

The same defense (that Fox News "news" is just opinion that no reasonable person would confuse an editorial with fact) was also used in the Smartmatic case and the Nina Jankowicz case. When that defense did not work, they then shifted to, "We were just reporting the debate". This double-play is Fox News' go-to defense strategy.

That's four cases in which they've used this strategy, which they have dubbed their "First Ammendment Defense" and their "Newsworthy Reporting" defense.

Fox News openly admits in these four cases (under oath) to being liars. They attempt to conflate their deceptive reporting with opinion editorials, even when the "news piece" is presented as fact. When shown that they were not presented as editorials, they then claim to just be reporting the "national debate" on the topic. The strategy has not worked in 3 of the 4 cases, but they are sticking with it.

Please stop defending their propaganda machine. It is harmful to share Fox News stories and claim that such a source can, in any universe, be relied upon for honest factual reporting.

Again, only in your imagination am I defending Fox. it speaks volumes that you need a straw man.

First, I didn't say they only used that argument to defend Carlson. I said they use it to defend their on-air opinion personalities. Plural. Like they did multiple times in the examples you cite.

I'm not debating whether they lied or not. They did. They already paid out nearly a billion dollars because of it. They're going to get their asses handed to them even harder by Smartmatic. They deserve it. It's hard to argue they even have a strategy in the Dominion and Smartmatic (still in discovery, ftr) cases since they've thrown all kinds of shit at the wall because they're just so dead-to-rights guilty of defamation. I'm not even debating whether they use that on-air personality defense in good faith. They don't! They want their on-air ghouls to lie and mislead with impunity. Once again, Fox News sucks and it shouldn't exist.

That's all pretty immaterial to whether some beat reporter out of Buffalo could possibly have a source with valuable information in a sudden crisis though.

You said this:

Fox “News” has testified multiple times in sworn court testimony that their content is not fact-based and that “no reasonable person could confuse” their content as factual reporting.

That statement is false. They have not said in sworn testimony that their "content," in this context meaning the entirety of their news reporting, is non-factual or that no reasonable person would take their news reporting as factual. It'd be nice if they did!

The vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed when it hit the structure, caught on fire and exploded. An initial search did not find a secondary explosive or device, the law enforcement officials said, noting this was preliminary information.

Yeah, NBC is reporting the opposite: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rainbow-bridge-niagara-falls-closed-explosion-vehicle-reportedly-enter-rcna126397

I think most reporting is in line with NBC. The Fox report is worth noting but I wouldn't trust it without corroboration, especially with unnamed sources.

I trust NBC over Fox, but this is probably too early to say anything for sure.

I definitely don't want to assume this was something nefarious when there's still the possibility of an accident, but this is pretty suspicious timing for an accident.

Suspicious timing and location. A vehicle "exploding" isn't suspicious, a vehicle exploding at a boarder crossing the day before Thanksgiving is suspicious.

Yes, sorry, I meant timing and location. I'm watching the news too. I think it's likely to be intentional. Let's hope there won't be anything else.

Yeah, but if they made it across the bridge, it would have been almost a month since Thanksgiving

Any fatalities? From the fbi getting involved I assume it was a terrorist event?

Any explosion at a border is going to be treated as a terrorist event until otherwise shown. But cars also generally don't just explode, so I would also assume criminal malice of some kind at least.

The word explosion is in the headline. No government agency or anyone who was at the scene is quoted using that word. (Edit: not in the linked article at time of writing, FBI Buffalo Field Office has used that term in statements) I question whether there even was an explosion.

Cars are fueled by a flammable liquid. The gas can catch fire, and cars do catch fire from time to time. Cars don't have pressurized fuel tanks, so will burn rather than explode.

However, there is enough fuel for a car fire to be large enough that a layperson might mistake it for an explosion.

This could be an accident. It could be a terrorist attack. But we can be sure that for-profit news companies have an incentive to use whatever language sounds most scary. If it bleeds it leads, as the saying goes.

The FBI Buffalo Field Office is the one that termed it an explosion.

To their credit, I am watching ABC News coverage of this right now over their website and they are being very clear that there's not enough information yet. Some people are saying it's suspicious, but they are not fearmongering.

The day before thanksgiving is a day with lots of people traveling. More people driving means accidental car fires at high traffic locations are more likely. Could be suspicious. But I'm certain if anyone credible described it as a terrorist attack, they would have put that in the headline as its much more clickable.

Cars...will burn rather than explode

Some of the other folks pointed out the vapors possible in a fuel tank. I'll add that I had a coworker who had been an explosives disposal fella, and he used to get twitchy if the tank in our car dropped under half. He said it was a relatively small but definitely larger-than-our-car bomb ready to go off. I'd trust his reckonings on that one. Plus, there are parts of a car that, even if its just burning, will explode, such as the tires. I had a single tire blow as I walked around a burning car, and I would not have been amiss in describing it as a small bomb going off.

An electrical fire hitting the gas tank will look like an explosion, especially if there's a lot of vapor in the tank, and especially to a layman. Prior to CGI explosions, pyrotechnics on movie and TV would have jugs of gasoline taped around them to get a nice fireball.

Holy shit, I used to go over this bridge all the time before I fully emigrated. Hope everyone is okay.

Whoops! I mixed up my bridges, I actually used the Lewiston one most of the time.

I actually used the Lewiston one most of the time.

Can confirm, this is the correct bridge to go over it you're not just going to the Canadian side of the falls.

Hot damn... I wonder what happened. Well at least there are multiple bridges crossing in that area so it won't be the worst inconvenience.

Ron Rienas, GM of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, told ABC News all four Canada-U.S. bridges over the Niagara River have been closed out of an abundance of caution while the Rainbow Bridge investigation continues.

I'm saddened by the fact that my first assumption is it was blown up because it was named Rainbow.

Ok that sucks, but following the preliminary investigation if there are no significant findings, Lewiston, Whirlpool and Peace Bridge should open up not after long.

Except it sounds like they closed them all due to this. Tons of families probably not going to get home for Thanksgiving, sucks.

We went that way during a trip to Niagara Falls and it was slow as fuck. Like you'll wait in line for 45 minutes or longer. And then you have to be told to turn around because of this. People are going to be super pissed off.

Yeah that really is annoying... the quickest options by car are either park and fly, take a vehicle ferry from a port somewhere, drive to Windsor then all the way through Ohio, or head to the Gananoque/Thousand Islands Bridge, altogether up to a half day delay for anyone.

Maybe it's time to revive the ferry between Rochester and Toronto.

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