City officials in North Miami Beach called for an emergency meeting Saturday after ordering the evacuation of a condominium tower just five miles from last week’s building collapse that left 22 dead and more than 120 missing.

Authorities said Friday that the closing of the 156-unit Crestview Towers stems from an audit prompted by the Champlain Towers disaster in nearby Surfside.

“In an abundance of caution, the City ordered the building closed immediately and the residents evacuated for their protection, while a full structural assessment is conducted and next steps are determined,” North Miami Beach City Manager Arthur H. Sorey, III said. “Nothing is more important than the safety and lives of our

Mexico’s state-owned oil company said a fire caused by a rupture in an undersea gas pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico is over, but videos showing efforts to put out what appears to be an underwater caldron of fire live on.

The “fire in the sea” was put out at 10:45 a.m. following a gas leak about 500 feet from a drilling platform, Pemex tweeted. No injuries were reported and the company said it took about 5 hours to bring the incident under control.

The company said it used boats to pump water over the underwater blaze, although nitrogen was also used to control the fire, Reuters reports, citing a Pemex incident report.

Mexican publications and journalists reporting

Elsa strengthened into the first hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic storm season on Friday as it battered the eastern Caribbean, where officials closed schools, businesses and airports.

The storm is forecast to impact Florida early next week and officials are urging residents there to make preparations.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday said he is putting together a potential emergency order as Elsa approaches, adding that id South Florida could see tropical-storm-force winds as soon as Sunday night. 

Sustained winds were near 85 mph, making the storm a Category 1 hurricane, according to the 8 p.m. EDT advisory from the National Hurricane Center. Elsa was located 475 miles east-southeast of Isla Beata in the Dominican Republic, moving west-northwest at

SURFSIDE, Fla. — Crews looking for survivors in the rubble of a condo that collapsed outside Miami last week found more bodies on Friday, raising the number of confirmed deaths to 22 as 126 people remain missing.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she has signed off on the demolition of the part of the building that remains standing because it poses a threat to public health and safety, although no date has yet been set for the demolition. The top priority remains search and rescue, she said.

Earlier Friday Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett worried that Hurricane Elsa, which forecasters say could hit south Florida with heavy rains, strong winds, tornadoes and storm surge in

Gender wage gap in Biden White House narrower than predecessors Trump, Obama.The administration established a pay band system to ensure equal pay regardless of race, gender.The Biden administration is also the most racially and ethnically diverse in history.

WASHINGTON — Women working in the White House under President Joe Biden earn 99 cents for every $1 earned by male employees, according to an annual report released by the Executive Office of the President, a gap significantly narrower than under bothprevious administrations and the national average.

Nationally, women currently earn an average of 80 cents for every dollar a man earns.

The administration cited the adoption of a pay band salary structure as the “best practice for

Bessemer Trust requested to resign as co-conservator of Britney Spears’ estate in a new court filing.Last night, a judge denied the singer’s request to remove her father as sole conservator.Jamie Spears and Bessemer Trust have control over Britney Spears’ estate, while professional conservator Jodi Montgomery has control over her person.

Bessemer Trust‘s request to withdraw as co-conservator of Britney Spears’ estate has been granted. 

According to a court document filed and obtained by USA TODAY on Friday, Judge Brenda Penny approved the wealth management firm’s petition to resign as co-conservator of the pop star’s finances alongside her father Jamie Spears.

The next court hearing in Spears’ conservatorship case is still set for

SURFSIDE, Fla. – Engineers were evaluating options Friday for demolishing the remaining portion of a condo building that partially collapsed outside Miami last week, leaving 22 people dead and 126 unaccounted for.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she signed an emergency order to demolish the remaining portion of Champlain Towers South, once engineers have signed off on the project, given the structure’s imminent threat to public health and safety.

There is no specific start date for the demolition,which would likely take “weeks,” Levine Cava said in a Friday evening news briefing. Engineers are meeting regularly to determine what the demolition process would look like, and officials’ top priority remains search and rescue, she said.

“We’re

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has ended a federal program that provided aid for restaurants hurt financially during the COVID-19 pandemic after high demand depleted funds, leaving more than two-thirds of applicants without assistance. 

Restaurant leaders are pushing for additional money to keep the program afloat but it’s unclear whether Congress will act. The White House would not commit Friday to supporting legislation to replenish funds.  

The U.S. Small Business Administration announced the closure of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund after exhausting $28.6 billion in funding allocated in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. The program provided grants for more than 105,000 restaurants – less than one-third of the 370,000 restaurants that applied since the SBA started accepting applications May