NEW YORK (AP) — A massive, fiery explosion at a house in Queens sent several New York City police officers flying through the air early Thursday morning as they were responding to a call of a man inside armed with a knife and the smell of gas.
Eight officers were treated for minor injuries — including burns and at least one head laceration — after the blast, and all of the people who were inside the building have been accounted for, though several were taken to a hospital, police said.
Police body camera video of the explosion shows officers about to enter a small home in Queens before 3 a.m., and just as one starts to open the door, a huge blast erupts, blowing out windows and knocking officers back across a yard and into a gate. The officers can then been seen scrambling to recover through debris as smoke billows out of the house, checking on each other to see if anyone had been hurt.
“You guys good?” one of the officers can be heard saying.
The video then cuts to about a minute later and shows an officer helping two young children out of the home as a handful of other people come staggering out of the house.
“I want to be clear: We got very lucky today, alright," Assistant Chief Christopher McIntosh of the New York Police Department said at a news briefing hours later. "This could have turned out really differently.”
“Thankfully, today, luck was on their side,” he said of the officers.
McIntosh said the man who prompted the initial call arrived at the home intoxicated and carrying a knife and two garbage bags filled with canisters containing an “unknown substance." He pushed in an air conditioning unit to get into a basement apartment where his wife, daughter and two grandchildren live.
They were eventually able to flee from the building and officers arrived shortly after that. The man is unaccounted for, McIntosh said.
The home collapsed after the explosion, authorities said. Neighboring homes were also damaged.
This image made from New York Police Department body camera video shows an officer after an explosion at a house while responding to a call of an armed man Thursday, April 30, 2026, in the Queens borough of New York. (New York Police Department via AP)
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — President Donald Trump granted a key approval Thursday for a major new oil pipeline from Canada into the U.S. that’s been dubbed “Keystone Light” over its similarities to a contentious project blocked by the Biden administration.
The three-foot-wide (1 meter) Bridger Pipeline Expansion would carry up to 550,000 barrels (87,400 cubic meters) of oil a day from Canada through Montana and Wyoming, where it would link with another pipeline.
The pipeline needs additional state and federal environmental approvals before construction, which company officials expect to start next year. Environmentalists hope to stop the project over worries that the pipeline could break and spill.
At peak volume, the 650-mile (1,050-kilometer) pipeline would move two-thirds as much oil as the better-known Keystone XL pipeline that got partially built before President Joe Biden, citing climate change, canceled its permit on the day he took office in 2021.
“Slightly different from the last administration. They wouldn’t sign a pipeline deal. And we have pipelines going up,” Trump said after signing his approval for it to cross the border between Saskatchewan and northeastern Montana.
Trump in his first term approved the Keystone XL project in 2020 despite concerns from Native American tribes about possible spills and environmental groups about fossil fuels' contribution to climate change. Its cancellation by Biden frustrated Canadian officials, including Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, after Alberta invested more than $1 billion in the project.
Sometimes called “Keystone Light," the Bridger Pipeline Expansion would not cross any Native American reservations.
More than 70% would be built within existing pipeline corridors and 80% on private land, Bridger Pipeline LLC said in a statement. The line would carry various grades of crude, including from Canada's oil sands region, to be exported or refined in the U.S., company spokesperson Bill Salvin said.
The permit from Trump also authorizes other petroleum products including gasoline, kerosene, diesel and liquified petroleum gas. Salvin said including those fuels keeps the company's options open, but it remains focused for now on crude oil.
Bridger Pipeline could avoid a reversal by a future administration if it’s able to complete its project before Trump leaves office. It hopes to start construction in the fall of 2027 and finish it by late 2028 or early 2029, Bridger spokesperson Bill Salvin said.
Trump’s term ends Jan. 20, 2029.
Bridger Pipeline and other subsidiaries of True Company have been responsible for several major pipeline accidents including more than 50,000 gallons (240,000 liters) of crude that spilled into the Yellowstone River and fouled a Montana city’s drinking water supply in 2015, a 45,000-gallon diesel spill in Wyoming in 2022 and a 2016 spill that released more than 600,000 gallons (2.7 million liters) of crude in North Dakota, contaminating the Little Missouri River and a tributary.
Subsidiaries of True agreed to pay a $12.5 million civil penalty to settle a federal lawsuit over the North Dakota and Montana spills.
Salvin said Bridger Pipeline in the years since the Yellowstone spill developed an AI-based leak detection system that allows it to be notified more quickly when there are problems. It also plans to bore 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 meters) beneath major rivers including the Yellowstone and Missouri to reduce the chances of an accident. The 2015 accident occurred on a line that was constructed in a shallow trench at the bottom of the river.
“We designed the pipeline with integrity and safety in mind. We have emergency response plans should something happen where oil happens to get out of the line, which is fairly rare,” Salvin said.
The Casper, Wyoming-based company operates more than 3,700 miles (5,950 kilometers) of gathering and transmission pipelines in the Williston Basin of North Dakota and Montana and the Powder River Basin of Wyoming.
Environmental groups opposed to the project include the Montana Environmental Information Center and WildEarth Guardians.
“The biggest concern we see right now is the concern inherent in all pipeline projects which is the risk of spills,” said attorney Jenny Harbine with the environmental law firm Earthjustice. “Pipelines rupture and leak. It’s just a fact of pipelines.”
Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
