Bus carrying schoolchildren crashes in eastern France, killing 2 and injuring 16

PARIS (AP) — A bus carrying children to school crashed Friday morning in eastern France, killing a 7-year-old girl and an 18-year-old boy, Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said.

Sixteen people were injured, three seriously, the prefecture in Ain said.

Tabarot visited the scene in a rural area northeast of Lyon, where he described the crash as a “tragic accident” and expressed condolences to the victims’ families.

“This is a bus operated by the regional authority that was transporting about 15 students” and other passengers, he said.

News broadcaster BFM TV reported that the passengers included children traveling to middle and high schools in the area. A photograph from the scene showed that the bus had veered off the road, struck trees and landed in a ditch.

Lent Mayor Yves Cristin told broadcaster Franceinfo that “the road was a little wet, there was no fog, and we don’t understand why the bus ... veered off the road.”

“It is always a difficult moment when our students, our children, are victims of an accident like this. My thoughts, and those of the government and the entire education community, are with the families,” Education Minister Édouard Geffray told reporters during a visit to a high school in the Paris region.

Police and rescue workers stand on the road after a bus crashed in Lent, France, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Police and rescue workers stand on the road after a bus crashed in Lent, France, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Police and rescue workers stand on the road after a bus crashed in Lent, France, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Police and rescue workers stand on the road after a bus crashed in Lent, France, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

ATLANTA (AP) — Panda lovers are expected to line up Friday at Zoo Atlanta to see a new pair of giant pandas make their public debut.

Ping Ping, a male, and Fu Shuang, a female, arrived from China in September as part of a 10-year loan agreement. After getting acclimated to their habitat, the 6-year-old pandas will greet visitors in the newly renovated Arthur M. Blank Panda Grove.

Ping Ping has distinctive dark circles around his eyes, while Fu Shuang has a forehead that protrudes a bit, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Both were born at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China.

The zoo's panda enclosure had been empty for the past two years, after four other pandas returned from Zoo Atlanta to China, ending a 25-year partnership amid strained relations between the two countries.

“The return of giant pandas to Zoo Atlanta is an exciting moment for our city as we once again become home to one of the world’s most beloved animals,” Arthur Blank said in a statement. Blank co-founded The Home Depot and is one of the city’s biggest philanthropists.

China has long used the pandas as part of its diplomacy globally, deploying the bears in loan programs as expressions of goodwill and letting loan agreements lapse when tensions arise.

Zoo Atlanta is one of three U.S. zoos that now house the popular bamboo munchers.

The National Zoo in Washington returned three pandas to China in 2023 before accepting new arrivals Bao Li and Qing Bao in October 2024. The San Diego Zoo debuted two pandas in August 2024.

A decade ago, giant pandas were reclassified from endangered to vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, reflecting pandas’ growing numbers in the wild in China.

FILE - In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, vehicles carrying a pair of giant pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, leave the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, southwestern China's Sichuan Province, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026.(Xu Bingjie/Xinhua via AP, file)