SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — The search has been suspended for five missing crew members of a cargo ship that overturned near the Northern Mariana Islands during a typhoon, authorities said Wednesday.
Six people were aboard the 145-foot (44-meter) ship, called the Mariana. Divers on April 21 recovered one crew member's body from the overturned ship.
“The decision to suspend the search is an incredibly difficult one that is only made after very careful consideration of all available information,” Cmdr. Preston Hieb of the U.S. Coast Guard Oceania District said in a video posted on X. “From working and communicating with the families, I know how devastated they are by this outcome.”
The search lasted more than 100 hours and covered an area larger than the state of California, he said.
The search was stopped two weeks after the crew notified the Coast Guard that the ship had lost its starboard engines and needed assistance as Super Typhoon Sinlaku battered the Pacific island chain. The Coast Guard lost contact with the vessel the next day.
Heavy wind hindered initial search efforts, but the overturned ship was eventually spotted April 18 about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northeast of Pagan, one of the islands that make up the Northern Marianas, which is a U.S. territory.
The Coast Guard said debris included a partially submerged inflatable life raft was spotted about 110 miles (177 kilometers) from the ship. The five remaining crew members are still missing, Hieb said Wednesday.
“We offer our heartfelt condolences to the families of the Mariana crew, as well as the entire Saipan community,” Hieb said.
Super Typhoon Sinlaku battered the Northern Mariana Islands, causing wind damage and flooding.
A U.S. Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules airplane crew assigned to Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point flies over an overturned vessel offshore Saipan, Saturday, April 18, 2026, while searching for a missing vessel, the Mariana, that experienced an engine failure April 15. (U.S. Coast Guard/Air Station Barbers Point via AP)
Russia's traditional parade marking the 81st anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II this year will take place without tanks, missiles and other military equipment, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement late Tuesday.
It will be the first time in nearly two decades — and in the more than four years of Russia's war in Ukraine — that no military equipment will rumble through Moscow's Red Square on May 9, the day Russia celebrates its most important secular holiday. The Kremlin has used it to showcase its military might and global clout.
Victory Day parades on Red Square involved military equipment and various weaponry every year since 2008.
The ministry statement this week cited the “current operational situation” as a reason for excluding a military equipment convoy, as well as cadets, from the parade. The statement didn't elaborate.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday blamed Ukraine and its “terrorist activity, in an apparent reference to Kyiv's strikes deep inside Russia. “All measures are being taken to minimize the danger,” he said.
The parade will feature “servicemen from higher military educational institutions of all kinds and certain service branches of the Russian Armed Forces" and a traditional military aircraft flyover, the ministry said.
World War II remains a rare point of consensus in the nation’s divisive history under Communist rule, and the Kremlin has leveraged that sentiment to encourage national pride and underline Russia’s position as a global power.
The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in what it calls the Great Patriotic War in 1941-45, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche.
President Vladimir Putin, who has ruled Russia for over 25 years, has turned Victory Day into a key pillar of his tenure and has tried to use it to justify the war in Ukraine.
Last year's parade was the largest since Russia sent troops into Ukraine, and drew the most global leaders to Moscow in a decade, including high-profile guests like Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico.
It featured over 11,500 troops and more than 180 military vehicles, including tanks, armored infantry vehicles and artillery used on the battlefield in Ukraine, as well as huge Yars nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles launchers and drones carried on military trucks. Fighter jets flew over Red Square, too.
Putin had declared a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire starting May 7, 2025, and the authorities blocked cellphone internet in Moscow for several days in an effort to avert Ukrainian drone attacks.
In 2023, the parade was scaled down, with fewer troops and military equipment on display and no flyover.
Troops attend a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade at the Dvortsovaya (Palace) Square in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Troops attend a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade at the Dvortsovaya (Palace) Square in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Navy cadets march during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade at the Dvortsovaya (Palace) Square in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Troops march during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade at the Dvortsovaya (Palace) Square in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
Troops attend a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade at the Dvortsovaya (Palace) Square in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
