CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) — A suspected meteor that fell over the Cleveland area on Tuesday shook homes and startled residents who heard a boom that some compared to an explosion.

People hundreds of miles (kilometers) away reported seeing the bright fireball even though it was 9 a.m. The American Meteor Society said it received reports from Wisconsin to Maryland.

“This one really does look like it’s a fireball, which means it’s a meteorite — a small asteroid,” said astronomer Carl Hergenrother, the group’s executive director.

“So much stuff is being launched that a lot of times what you see burning up is just reentering satellites. But usually those don’t get especially bright,” he said.

He estimated that Tuesday’s fireball might have been the size of a softball or basketball, or perhaps even larger, and that it would have hit the atmosphere at “many tens of miles per second.”

Staff at the National Weather Service in Cleveland also heard the boom and felt the vibrations, and suspected it was a meteor. They had no early reports of any debris being found.

“There could be some small fragments, but a lot of it would have burned up in the atmosphere,” NWS meteorologist Brian Mitchell said.

Meteors typically fall somewhere in the U.S. about once a day, while smaller pieces of space dust might fall 10 times an hour, Hergenrother said. Scientists track meteors through a network of special cameras that help capture the night sky, but more members of the public are catching them on cellphones and security cameras of their own.

“Now we’re seeing them, and there’s dozens of videos popping up all the time,” Hergenrother said.

Etienne Davignon, 93, is the only one alive among 10 Belgians accused by the Congolese leader’s family of complicity.

A 93-year-old former Belgian diplomat has been ordered by a Brussels court to stand trial over the assassination of Congo’s first prime minister and anti-colonial icon, Patrice Lumumba, in 1961.

Lumumba, who became the prime minister of the country – now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo – upon its independence from Belgium on June 24, 1960, was ousted in September of the same year and later killed by a Belgian-backed secessionist rebel group just months later on January 16, 1961.

But in 2002, a parliamentary investigation found that Belgium was “morally responsible” for Lumumba’s death.

On Tuesday, Etienne Davignon, 93, a former European commissioner who was a junior diplomat at the time, stands trial over his death, marking the first trial related to the murder of Lumumba.

He is also accused of being involved in the murder of Lumumba’s political allies, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito.

According to prosecutors, Davignon, who is accused of war crimes, had participated in the unlawful detention or transfer of Lumumba and deprived him of his right to an impartial trial.

Prosecutors added that Davignon had subjected Lumumba to “humiliating and degrading treatment”.

If the trial goes ahead, Davignon would be the first Belgian official to face the courts in 65 years since the prime minister was killed and his body was dissolved in acid.

While 10 people were accused of being complicit in the murder of Lumumba, Davignon is the only suspect alive.

Lumumba’s family members brought the case, which Belgian federal prosecutors have since taken up.

His granddaughter Yema Lumumba told the Reuters news agency after the ruling that it was a “step in the right direction”.

“What we want is to search for truth and establish different responsibilities,” she added.

The family’s lawyer, Christophe Marchand, also told the AFP news agency that “It’s a gigantic victory”.

“No one believed when we first brought the case in 2011 that Belgium would prove capable of seriously investigating this,” he said, adding: “It’s very hard for a country to judge its own colonial crimes.”

Gold-capped tooth

As African countries pushed for independence from their European rulers in the 1960s, Lumumba rose as an anti-colonial hero, though his government lasted only three months.

At just aged 35, Lumumba was executed in the southern region of Katanga, with the support of Belgian-backed mercenaries.

The only known remains of the killed leader, a single gold-capped tooth, were taken from the daughter of a deceased Belgian officer who was involved in the disappearance of his remains.

During a ceremony in 2022, his remains were returned in a coffin to DRC’s authorities.

During the handover, then Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo reiterated the government’s “apologies” for its “moral responsibility” in Lumumba’s disappearance.

Cuba plunged into an unprecedented blackout after its entire electrical grid suddenly suffered a total collapse on Monday, briefly leaving roughly 10 million residents in total darkness. 

“At 1:54 p.m. local time, there was a disconnection of the national electrical grid resulting in a complete power outage across Cuba which includes the Havana metropolitan area,” the U.S. Embassy in Cuba said. 

The nationwide outage comes just two days after a large crowd of protesters, fed up with the island’s energy crisis, were caught on camera attacking a local Communist Party headquarters in Cuba, ransacking the building and attempting to set it on fire.

Efforts to restore electricity are currently underway across the island, with reports indicating that power is slowly returning to some areas.

RUSSIAN ‘DARK FLEET’ TANKER BELIEVED TO BE DELIVERING OIL TO CUBA, DETECTED OFF US COAST AMID TRUMP BAN

“The causes are being investigated and protocols for restoration are beginning to be activated,” the Ministry of Energy and Mines of Cuba said Monday afternoon, referring to the island’s disrupted National Electrical System of Cuba. 

Cuba’s electrical grid has grown increasingly unstable over the years due to aging infrastructure, fuel shortages, and economic restrictions that have limited the country’s access to energy resources – including Washington’s long‑standing oil embargo and recent U.S. actions that disrupted Venezuelan fuel shipments, a key source of the nation’s energy.

Power outages have become a frequent occurrence across the country, disrupting water supply, refrigeration and communications.

“Officials in the US gov must be feeling very happy by the harm caused to every Cuban family,” Cuban Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Carlos F. de Cossio said in response to Monday’s blackout. 

MILLIONS LOSE POWER ACROSS CUBA AS TRUMP SANCTIONS CONTINUE TO FUEL ONGOING ENERGY CRISIS

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Friday that no fuel has entered the country for the past three months. Since then, electricity generation has relied heavily on a “considerable contribution from renewable energy sources.”

The total collapse of the power grid came just as officials announced updates to their solar panel project in Villa Clara, describing it as a “national security necessity” amid ongoing restrictions on fossil fuel imports under the Trump administration.

“Amid a context of severe energy constraints and a recurring economic lockdown, #Cuba takes another firm step towards electric sovereignty,” the Villa Clara Electric Company said Monday morning. 

“This connection comes at a critical time: Washington maintains severe restrictions on our country’s access to fossil fuels, funding and technology. Betting on renewables isn’t just environmental — it’s a national security necessity.”

As the island continues to face rolling power outages, residents have been urged to brace for significant disruption and unplug all nonessential equipment, “leaving only essential devices powered on until service stability is restored,” the Villa Clara Electric Company said.

Last Saturday, in a rare display of public dissent driven by frustration over widespread blackouts, anti-government protesters in Cuba reportedly targeted a Communist Party office by hurling rocks, shouting “liberty” and igniting large fires at the scene.  

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The rally, caught on video, began peacefully in the city of Morón late Friday but escalated into violence within hours, Reuters reported, citing local sources.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.