TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The U.S. special envoy for Belarus said Wednesday that the country's authorities have agreed to release 25 prisoners in exchange for the lifting of U.S. sanctions against two Belarusian companies.
John Coale, President Donald Trump's special envoy for Belarus, made the statement a day after meeting Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who pushed for the remaining U.S. sanctions against his country to be lifted.
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Belarus' opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya gestures as she speaks to the media while waiting to meet the released Belarusian prisoners in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
Dzmitryi Halavach, one of the released Belarusian prisoners, embraces his colleague as he arrives in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
Tatsiana Kouzina, one of the released Belarusian prisoners reacts as she speaks on the phone upon her arrival in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
Dzmitry Navazhylau, right, one of the released Belarusian prisoners, is welcomed by his colleagues upon his arrival in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
In this photo, released by Belarusian Presidential Press Service, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, center, visits the Obuz-Lesnovsky combined-arms training ground, Belarus, on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (Belarusian Presidential Press Service via AP)
“25 prisoners are free today!” Coale said on X, adding that “President Trump’s commitment to direct diplomacy delivers results.” He also thanked Lukashenko and authorities in Lithuania, a European Union member that neighbors Belarus, for their support.
“We will continue to improve U.S.-Belarus relations and are working to secure the release of more people in the very near future,” Coale said. “We are not finished!”
Speaking to reporters in Minsk, Coale said as part of what he called “an interim deal” and “as a show of good will,” Belarus will release 25 people in exchange for the U.S. lifting sanctions on two Belarusian companies, Lakokraska and Bellesbumprom.
He added that further release of prisoners and the lifting of more sanctions will follow later after all details are agreed upon.
Belarusian authorities haven't announced any details of the prisoners' release yet.
Lukashenko has governed the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been sanctioned repeatedly by Western countries — both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Since Trump returned to the White House for his second term, Lukashenko has released hundreds of political prisoners in a series of U.S.-mediated deals that also lifted some U.S. sanctions.
Belarusian opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya welcomed the prisoners' release, but noted that many others remain in custody.
“This is an important step, but only a step,” Tsikhanouskaya told The Associated Press. “Many political prisoners remain behind bars.”
For Lukashenko, “people are bargaining chips — something he can trade and then replace with new hostages,” she said, adding that “we have to break this vicious cycle of repression.”
Belarus still has 887 political prisoners, according to the Viasna human rights center.
Tsikhanouskaya, who met the freed prisoners in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, said the prisoners’ release shouldn’t be seen as a sign of political change in Belarus.
“Repressions are continuing,” she said. “Ultimately, every political prisoner must be released.”
As part of a deal in March that Washington helped broker, Lukashenko ordered the release of 250 political prisoners, while the U.S. agreed to lift sanctions on two Belarusian state banks and the country’s Finance Ministry, and to remove the top Belarusian potash producers from a sanctions list.
Another deal in April released prominent journalist Andrzej Poczobut in a swap with Poland that saw a total of 10 people freed.
Lukashenko’s rule was challenged after a 2020 presidential election, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest a vote they viewed as rigged. In an ensuing crackdown, tens of thousands were detained, with many beaten by police. Prominent opposition figures fled the country or were imprisoned.
Five years after the mass demonstrations, Lukashenko won a seventh term last year in an election that the opposition called a farce.
Among the prisoners released Wednesday were media managers Andrei Aliaksandrau and Liudmila Chekina and journalists Dzmitry Navazhylau and Kiryl Pazniak.
Pavel Sapelka, a lawyer with the Viasna human rights center, said that Belarusian authorities confiscated passports of some of those released in what he said amounted to “forced deportation.”
“Lukashenko's regime is simply throwing dissidents out, getting rid of dangerous voices inside the country,” Sapelka told the AP.
Belarus' opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya gestures as she speaks to the media while waiting to meet the released Belarusian prisoners in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
Dzmitryi Halavach, one of the released Belarusian prisoners, embraces his colleague as he arrives in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
Tatsiana Kouzina, one of the released Belarusian prisoners reacts as she speaks on the phone upon her arrival in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
Dzmitry Navazhylau, right, one of the released Belarusian prisoners, is welcomed by his colleagues upon his arrival in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
In this photo, released by Belarusian Presidential Press Service, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, center, visits the Obuz-Lesnovsky combined-arms training ground, Belarus, on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (Belarusian Presidential Press Service via AP)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A motorist was arrested on suspicion of murder charges after authorities say she slammed her SUV into a city bus in Los Angeles, killing at least two people and injuring six others in a prelude to a second deadly tragedy: the fiery crash of a TV news helicopter used by NBC and Telemundo that was covering the collision.
Bailee Lynn Rios, 36, of Simi Valley, was arrested Monday night and is being held at a Los Angeles jail with bail set at $4 million, police said. Information on a lawyer who could speak on her behalf wasn’t immediately available.
NBC4 Los Angeles reported that two people aboard the helicopter — reporter Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw — were killed when the chopper went down Tuesday in the Chatsworth neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley north of downtown. A person on the ground, identified as 29-year-old Edy Gutierrez Mejia, died in a parking lot, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
The crash happened as news crews were reporting on the collision involving an SUV that slammed into the bus.
There were no immediate details on what caused the helicopter crash, but an alarm could be heard sounding inside the helicopter's cockpit as it lost altitude in the final seconds of video the crew broadcast before the crash.
Just after the beeping noise starts, a woman’s voice says “uh oh.” The helicopter moves quickly away from the bus crash site and starts losing altitude. The woman says “You can’t pull up?” before the video stops as the chopper nears the ground.
The helicopter, a Eurocopter AS350, went down near a large storage facility. At least four cars and two storage containers burned after the helicopter caught fire. NBC4 reporter Robert Kovacik was at the bus scene and saw black smoke and rushed to the helicopter crash site.
The station identified the helicopter crash victims as Moreno, a familiar voice for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 during the station’s aerial coverage, and Marciniw. Both were employees of Angel City Air, which operated the chopper for the station.
Moreno, born in Orange County, joined Angel City Air in 2010, the same year she earned a broadcast journalism and political science degree from Chapman University. She reported for several news outlets and began flying with Marciniw in 2023, the NBC4 website said.
Marciniw grew up in Southern California and graduated from Burbank High School in 1974.
“I think a lot of us are still trying to process what happened, this terrible loss,” NBC4 reporter Lauren Coronado told viewers early Wednesday as she stood near the crash site. A hazmat crew was cleaning up jet fuel, she said.
In a tribute to Moreno and Marciniw, the newscast referred to them as “the team in the sky,” saying Moreno would often post videos from her job and was in awe of the view. Anchor Lynette Romero held a colleague’s hand and wiped away tears after hearing Moreno’s voice when one of her posts was played.
In an interview with the station, Esteban Jimenez, a pilot, said he had known Marciniw since the 1990s. He said Marciniw had been his instructor.
“I just talked to him on Sunday. We were talking about the aviation business and retiring,” he said.
Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said the alarm sounding in the helicopter’s final video sounds like the low rotor RPM warning horn that signals the main rotor is no longer spinning enough to keep the helicopter in the air.
“It just has all the earmarks of a potential loss of engine power and a dangerous decrease in the main rotor speed,” said Guzzetti who used to investigate crashes for both the NTSB and FAA.
Guzzetti said the pilot appeared to be trying to perform an emergency maneuver to use the wind to force the rotor to spin again much like a breeze turns a windmill. Doing that can create a bit of lift that could help cushion the impact, but Guzzetti said there would have been little opportunity to do that because the helicopter had been hovering at a low altitude beforehand.
There are risks to news helicopters particularly in a major city like Los Angeles where multiple helicopters respond to an incident, but the pilots all coordinate closely over the radio to ensure they maintain a safe distance from each other. The industry also shares best practices to help keep these news flights safe.
“It’s a very unique form of flying. And the community is very good about lessons learned," Guzzetti said. “And so because of that, you don’t hear about too many of those accidents. So they’re rare, but they do occur, just because the mission is a risky one.”
NBC4 and Telemundo 52 Los Angeles said in a statement they “are deeply saddened” and extended “heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of those who lost their lives.”
“Losing five Angelenos is very painful,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said. “And I know this community of Chatsworth, hit hard, will be grieving for some time.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom thanked the emergency crews responding to both crashes and said in a post on X that “our hearts are with the victims and families.”
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration said personnel will arrive Wednesday to begin an investigation into the cause of the helicopter crash.
The station said this is the second aviation tragedy in its history.
In 1977, a KNBC news helicopter crashed when it ran out of fuel while returning to the station after covering a wildfire in Santa Barbara, killing the pilot and camera operator. The pilot, former U.S. Air Force officer Francis Gary Powers, had been in the news years earlier when he was shot down and captured while flying a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union for the CIA, an ordeal portrayed in the movie “Bridge of Spies.”
There have been at least eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters in the U.S. since 2000, killing 16 people, according to a review of federal accident records and news accounts. They include a 2023 crash in a New Jersey forest that killed the pilot and a photographer aboard a helicopter used by Philadelphia station WPVI and a 2022 crash beside a Charlotte, North Carolina, interstate that killed a pilot and meteorologist during a training flight for WBTV.
This story has been updated to correct that Marciniw, not Moreno, graduated from Burbank High School and to correct the spelling of Jeff Guzzetti's last name.
Golden reported from Seattle. AP Transportation Writer Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.
In this aerial view, people investigate the aftermath of a news helicopter crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026.(AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
A police officer works the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
An aerial view of the aftermath of a news helicopter that crashed in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
An aerial view of the aftermath of a news helicopter that crashed in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
An aerial view of the aftermath of a news helicopter that crashed in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attends a news conference at the scene of a helicopter crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
First responders work the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass joined by other officials walk to a news conference near the scene of a helicopter crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Two people hug each other behind police lines at the scene of a helicopter crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass talks during a news conference at the scene after a helicopter crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows first responders work the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows First responders work the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows firefighters respond to a deadly bus crash, in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
In this still image provided by KABC-TV shows a helicopter that crashed near a deadly bus crash, in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (KABC-TV via AP)
First responders work the scene after a helicopter crashed near a bus crash in Chatsworth, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
