The National Transportation Safety Board has found that helicopter traffic out of Ronald Reagan International Airport posed an “intolerable risk to aviation safety by increasing the chances of a mid-air collision” ahead of a crash in January that resulted in the deaths of over 60 people.
“It is stronger than an oversight,” said NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy at a news conference in Arlington, Virginia, where the DCA airport is located, on Tuesday while announcing the agency’s preliminary report into the incident, as Reuters reported.
Sixty-seven people were killed on January 29, when a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet mid-air over the Potomac River in Washington D.C.
American Airlines Flight 5342 was on its descent from Wichita, Kansas, with 64 people on board, as three soldiers on the helicopter participated in a training mission.
It’s believed the service members were traveling above their 200-foot allocated air clearance and wearing night-vision goggles that could have obscured their vision.
Black Hawk helicopters frequently flew along Route 4, an airway spanning from Hains Point to Wilson Bridge in Washington D.C., before the U.S. Transportation Department restricted the airspace after the crash until March 31.
The restriction does not apply to helicopters entering the airspace for lifesaving medical support, active law enforcement, air defense and presidential transport, but operations outside of those exemptions are prohibited.
“As that deadline nears, we remain concerned about the significant potential for a future mid-air collision at DCA, which is why we are recommending a permanent solution today,” Homendy said. “We believe a critical safety issue must be addressed without delay.”
According to Homendy, the Transportation Department should prohibit helicopter operations along the route when airport runways one, five, and 33 are being used for departures and arrivals.
Following the release of the report it was recommended that the Transportation Department establish an alternative route to allow travel for law enforcement and military personnel when the segment of the route is closed.
This organization has thus far only made the request of the FAA to find an appropriate airway; it is not offering any alternate routes.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy responded to Homendy's comments and consented to comply with the suggestions.
Initial data analysis by the NTSB revealed that between 2011 and 2024, airport officials received one traffic collision alarm each month as a result of helicopters.
The helicopters may have been operating above the 200-foot route altitude restriction in more than half of those reports. Two-thirds of those incidents took place during the night.
Additionally, helicopters flying along Route 4 and planes landing on Runway 33 accounted for a significant amount of the near misses.
There were 15,214 instances of close proximity events that took place between commercial aircraft and helicopters from October 2021 to December 2024, in which the lateral separation distance was less than one nautical mile and the vertical separation was less than 400 feet.
About 944k flights were recorded at the airport during that period. Within the past two and a half years, 85 near misses have occurred within a vertical separation of 200 feet.
Former first son Hunter Biden is still in the public eye, as his legal troubles seem to mount, even after his former world leader parent steps away from the public eye.
Hunter, who has been accused of a plethora of crimes due to his laptop being abandoned at a repair shop, is still being investigated actively by those who consider it the responsibility of the justice department to mead out punishments equally, regardless of an offender's family ties, as the New York Post reported.
Biden, however, seems to be attempting to doge a deposition in the lawsuit involving his now infamous laptop. The documents in question, reported on by the New York Times, show that Biden wants to decamp in South Africa for several months.
Biden is using the LA wildfires as his justification for going overseas, according to the court papers. A former aide for President Donald Trump, Garrett Ziegler, is fighting Biden's request to drop the lawsuit against the former first son.
The history between Ziegler is a tempestuous one, with Bidne accusing Ziegler of illegally hacking his laptop and spreading its embarrassing contents.
Biden claimed last week that he would be unable to pursue the suit, however, because he is now low on funds because of his art no longer selling, and financial strains of the wildfire.
The artist, whose work was selling for insane amounts while his father was in office, seems to be having difficulty moving product, and was forced to move out of a Malibu mansion.
However, Ziegler is pushing back against Biden's claims, saying that the financial situation couldn't really be that bad, considering that Biden is essentially about to leave for a three-month vacation.
The former White House aide says that Biden has planned a three-month trip to South Africa that will start this week and that he is strictly attempting to "avoid his deposition."
In addition, the lawsuit claimed that Hunter's side may have "ignored" Ziegler's attempts to initiate settlement talks or mediation because of the trip—to Melissa Cohen's native country.
"Working to confirm facts published in the New York Post." Ziegler added in his petition. The Post broke the exclusive last week that Hunter's house looked unaffected by the wildfires.
“We note that Mr. Biden did not expressly claim to have lost his home or belongings,” Ziegler’s lawyers wrote in papers Friday.
And while the fires were devastating for many, “It does not, however, serve as an excuse to avoid litigation responsibilities,” Holliday wrote.
During the first Trump administration, Ziegler was an aide to trade adviser Peter Navarro. He believes that the 2023 litigation should go on so that he may sue Hunter for the almost $200,000 in legal bills that he has incurred due to the case.
At the same time, the attorneys for Ziegler were accused by Hunter's side of submitting "gaslighting" and "emotionally charged" court papers.
Friends of the late Gene Hackman told Fox News that he kept busy in the years before his death by taking golf lessons, practicing boxing, and other hobbies like painting and flying before his Alzheimer's diagnosis.
Mike Anaya worked with Hackman on boxing after an injury as part of his rehab.
Anaya said Hackman's background in the military meant he knew how to stand and throw punches. He also shared that Hackman asked Anaya to call him Gene when they got to know each other and that he was a "good man."
Golf instructor Mike Putnam agreed, saying he "enjoyed his time with both Hackmans and that it was a "nice, fun relationship to have."
Hackman, who lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, made friends with Stephen Marshall, a retired FBI agent who trained them as part of a citizen's academy.
Marshall considered Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa Hackman friends and they socialized together until a few months before their deaths in February.
Gene was "starting to have some issues with age. And so I was seeing them less and less often. They were going out less," Marshall recalled.
Marshall also said Hackman had been bothered by the idea of getting old and didn't like seeing old movies where he looked younger.
He refused an invitation to see a screening of "Night Moves," one of his older movies, because he didn't want any comparisons with his younger self.
"When we went out, he didn't want to advertise who he was," he said. "I remember the first time we went out, we're walking down the street in Santa Fe, and I noticed people noticing him. And I said, ‘Do you get used to the idea of people going, "Hey, that’s Gene Hackman"’? And he said, "Yeah, but now they add, ‘And he got so old.’"
"So I thought he looked much younger," Marshall added. "I thought he looked great, but he was concerned that he had aged and that bothered him."
Investigators said Hackman died from heart disease and not getting needed medications to treat it about a week after his wife died from hantavirus, a disease contracted from contact with an infected rodent or its excretions.
Because of his Alzheimer's, he might not have been aware enough of his situation to help himself.
Apparently, the couple had become reclusive and been out of contact with family and friends for a while, so no one thought to check up on them.
Politico interviewed a number of House lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle who said that between six and a dozen of their colleagues have mental faculties too diminished to do their jobs effectively.
“There’s no question that somewhere between six and a dozen of my colleagues are at a point where they’re … I think they don’t have the faculties to do their job,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn) said.
An anonymous Republican added, “I have a difficult time sometimes telling between the deterioration of members and a handful who are just not very smart.”
One example of lawmakers hanging on too long was Kay Granger, a longtime GOP representative from Texas, who missed six months of votes even though she was chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
Granger had planned to retire in 2024, but was found to be living in an assisted living facility in Texas while still a member of the House in December.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) said of Granger and others in similar situations, “I do think that leadership probably has a responsibility, on both sides, when somebody’s getting past their due date, to really encourage them to step aside, like Kay Granger last summer."
Beyer did acknowledge that the balance of power can make it hard to force the issue at times.
"I knew it was hard for them because the votes were so close, so they had a reason not to do it. But if they had a comfortable minority or majority, it would have been very good to say, ‘Please retire,’” he suggested.
Then there was Dianne Feinstein, who was there unless she was in the hospital, but reportedly had trouble recognizing people and staying on top of crucial votes and issues.
Her colleague Rep. Bo Khanna (D-CA) said, “In Feinstein’s case, it was just not being able to do the job. If you’re missing votes, if you’re not participating in meetings — if someone is really in decline where they’re not being able to do the job, they need to step aside.”
Turns out it's hard to let go of power, especially when the machine around you knows that any successor would be starting from the ground up.
Sometimes it seems more advantageous to prop up a failing member until it becomes plainly obvious that they can't do the job anymore.
That's what the Democrat machine thought about former President Joe Biden--even diminished, he was better than any alternative until he got a little cocky and decided to do a debate he no longer had the capacity to even fake his way through.
His situation has shined a light on an aging Congress. With increased scrutiny, there will probably be more retirements in the near future.
Vice President JD Vance is setting himself up as President Donald Trump's successor in 2028 by taking an active role in diplomacy, and his performance so far has delighted Trump supporters.
Vance has made it clear that he is a force to be reckoned with ever since the Vice President's debate against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, which went so badly for Democrats that it ended Walz's short-lived time in national politics.
Vance's latest moment came during the meeting at the White House with President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
During that meeting, it was Vance who took the initiative to call out Zelensky for being disrespectful during talks about how much the U.S. has contributed to Ukraine's defense.
Zelensky implied that the U.S. hadn't done enough, and Vance immediately struck back, with Trump jumping in after. Vance sent Zelensky packing from the White House in shame and demonstrated to the American people that he has the guts to take on any international figure.
The meeting with Zelensky demonstrated that American Vice Presidents don't need to be seen and not heard at major diplomatic meetings.
Vance's calling out of Zelensky came as a shock for Americans who sat by watching Vice President Kamala Harris do nothing for years. Of course, ignoring the fact that anytime Harris opened her mouth, it was a word salad disaster.
Where Harris was a national embarrassment waiting to happen at any given moment, Vance has emerged as a capable right-hand man for Trump, who is flexing his might and smacking unruly allies around.
Vance didn't just bring Zelensky into line; he also singlehandedly went to Europe and called out European leaders for undermining liberty and pushing authoritarian rules.
At the Munich Security Conference last month, Vance spoke to a room of European leaders and blasted them for anti-free speech policies and other authoritarian laws. Vance correctly pointed out that our alliance with Europe is based on shared values, which are no longer shared.
Many European countries have become no better than totalitarian countries like Russia and China, and Vance made it clear that unless changes were made, these countries would not enjoy unrestricted friendship.
Vance's powerful showing on the international stage has made it abundantly clear that Trump hit it out of the park by selecting Vance as his running mate.
Vance has hit it out of the park, and people are already talking about Vance being the GOP nominee in 2028. President Trump is going to be term-limited in four years, but Vance is being set up as his successor, and some believe Vance could be even better than Trump.
While Trump has been coy about 2028, insiders have indicated that Trump is pleased with his Vice President and will happily push Vance heavily in four years.
In many ways, Vance possesses a certain clarity and refined nature that Trump lacks, which makes him even more immune to the attacks of the left. In four years, after Vance smacks every major world leader around, he will be more than ready to take over as #48.
Autopsies for actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were released confirming Hackman died from advanced Alzheimer's while Arakawa died from a rare rat-borne disease.
Dr. Heather Jarrell, Chief Medical Investigator for the state of New Mexico, confirmed that there was no external or internal trauma to either Hackman or Arakawa, confirming that rumors of foul play are firmly out of the picture.
When news of Hackman's passing first broke, police suggested that there were suspicious circumstances to the couple's death.
This immediately set off a flurry of speculation about foul play being the cause of death for the legendary actor and his wife, who was substantially younger, further decreasing the likelihood that both died of natural causes at the same time.
Now, thanks to the autopsies conducted by the state of Mexico, we know the truth about the terrible last days for Hackman and his wife.
According to the autopsy, Hackman passed away from advanced Alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease about one week after Arakawa died.
It's estimated that Arakawa passed away on February 11th from Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome in a room separate from Hackman. This is a rare disease that has flu-like symptoms and is carried by rats, although how she contracted this disease isn't known.
Hackman reportedly persisted for another week until he died on February 18, as he was dealing with advanced Alzheimer's and was possibly not even aware that his wife had passed away in another room.
The couple's dog also died and was found in a kennel as it had just had a procedure at the vet on February 9th, but Arakawa appears to have succumbed before she could take the dog out.
Arakawa appears to have succumbed quickly to the disease as she had communicated with a massage therapist on February 11th and attended a farmers market. As for Hackman, he was found lying on the ground after apparently falling.
Hackman was dealing with Alzheimer's and heart disease, which are being pinned as the cause of death. He was in no position to help himself and without Arakawa, it was only a matter of time before he passed away.
Hackman was a legend as he was a five-time Oscar nominee and starred in countless classic movies from the 1960s all the way up until the 2000s. Hackman was a household name for many Americans, but sadly, he was alone in the end.
The couple wasn't discovered until February 26th by two maintenance workers who saw them through windows at their secluded home. The couple was private and clearly weren't regularly checked on by either family or medical assistants.
It's surprising that Hackman wasn't regularly attended to by a travel nurse, but Hackman was known to be reclusive and private, and that carried through in his battle with Alzheimer's.
While the truth of Hackman's passing is finally settled, many fans and no doubt family are in shock at the circumstances of Hackman and Arakawa's deaths. This situation is a reminder of the importance of regularly checking on elderly family members.
President Donald Trump's general popularity may be reaching new heights, but the rise in approval is not reflected in the price of his or First Lady Melania Trump's meme coins, which have lost 81% and 92% respectively from their highs just before his inauguration.
Official Trump was trading at $72 and now sits at $13, while Official Melania reached $13.69 on January 20 and now sits at 77 cents.
The Trump coin still has a market cap of more than $3 billion, but it had more than $14 billion at its peak.
Cryptocurrency seemed to rally ahead of the White House Crypto Summit on Friday, with Bitcoin rising 5% to over $91,000 on Thursday.
The boost didn't last long, however.
Thursday afternoon, Trump signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in an attempt to “make America the crypto capital of the world.”
Bitcoin immediately dropped to around $84,000 on the news, eventually coming back up to around $87,000.
The reason crypto markets were not too thrilled with the order is because the reserve is being created with crypto already owned by the federal government, seized during drug busts and other criminal activities.
“The government will not acquire additional assets for the Stockpile beyond those obtained through forfeiture proceedings,” crypto czar David Sacks stated.
Many crypto investors thought taxpayer money might be used to create the reserve and that it might be as large as 1 million bitcoin, but that is not happening.
A strategic reserve is meant to provide more stability to the asset, and bitcoin has been extremely volatile since its beginning.
The order also created a US Digital Asset Stockpile, “consisting of digital assets other than Bitcoin forfeited in criminal or civil proceedings.”
With more than 37 million digital tokens in existence, there seems to be no end in sight to the exploding growth of this medium.
In her first public comments since her husband's inauguration, First Lady Melania Trump spoke out on Monday about the release of sexually explicit pictures created of minors.
She described the effects for victims as "heartbreaking" and referred to the climate on the internet as "toxic," as The Associated Press reported.
"It’s heartbreaking to witness young teens, especially girls, grappling with the overwhelming challenges posed by malicious online content, like deepfakes," said Melania Trump.
Trump was holding an event on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., where she was joined by lawmakers and victims of digital abuse in support of the Take it Down Act, which was unanimously passed by the Senate earlier this month.
"We must prioritize robust security measures and uphold strict ethical standards to protect individual privacy," added Trump,
The first lady announced Tuesday that she would be joining President Donald Trump for his first joint congressional address of his second term.
The bill was passed by the Senate and proposed in August by Senators Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, and Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota.
The legislation makes it illegal to publish "non-consensual, sexually exploitative images, including deepfakes, including AI-generated deepfakes."
This law encompasses "digital forgeries" that are generated using AI software and necessitates that technology platforms eliminate reported content within 48 hours of receiving a valid request.
On Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a fervent Trump supporter who was present at the first lady's roundtable discussion, expressed his desire to see legislation passed that would address the subject.
"As the dark side of technology advances, these unspeakable evils become part of the culture. The law has to keep up," Johnson said.
"We are anxious to put it on the floor in the House to get it to President Trump's desk for signature cause we've gotta do what we can to stop this.”
Elliston Berry, a 15-year-old who was seated next to the first lady, recounted her experience of being "violated" on social media.
At the age of 14, a classmate utilized an AI application to affix a nude body to an Instagram photo of her, which was subsequently shared on social media.
"Fear, shock and disgust were just some of the many emotions I felt," Berry said. "I felt responsible and began to blame myself and was ashamed to tell my parents despite doing nothing wrong."
Emails received by Reuters indicate that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informed employees on Monday that they may apply for early retirement within 10 days and should provide details on their successes over the preceding week.
Republican President Donald Trump and entrepreneur Elon Musk, who runs the Department of Government Efficiency, are leading a historic federal bureaucracy reduction, including job cutbacks, as Reuters reported.
The HHS informed employees via email that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management authorized early retirement under the Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, affecting agencies undergoing significant restructuring, reshaping, downsizing, function transfers, or reorganization.
According to OMP's website, eligible personnel must be 50 years old with 20 years of federal service or any age with 25 years, among other qualifications. The email indicated the promotion ends March 14 at 5 pm EST.
The management sent a second set of emails last week requesting employees to list five weekly successes in bullet points.
HHS employees, including the FDA and CDC, were previously told there was "no impact to your employment with the agency if you choose not to respond."
FBI, State Department, and other U.S. agencies advised staff not to comply with DOGE's request.
HHS instructed staff to respond to DOGE's email by midnight without providing sensitive information, such as their medicine and device names, in a Monday email seen by Reuters.
Employees were previously warned by HHS that their responses to the Department of Defense's request could "be read by malign foreign actors."
Both versions of the department's email were sent out on Monday, with the second version removing the reference to the previous version.
In an email that reporters saw the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which is the union that represents workers at the Department of Health and Human Services, informed its members that they are required to cooperate with the agency's decision to proceed with the "ill-advised exercise."
In an email sent by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), employees were instructed to follow the guidelines provided by their supervisors for how to answer and respond in a manner that would not identify grants, grantees, contracts, or contractors, nor information that might distinguish the precise nature of scientific experiments, research, or evaluations.
"I feel I will spend the whole day writing these five bullets in a way that does not contain sensitive information while also providing information that my job is important. I don't know if this can be called efficiency," said an FDA source who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Nobody needs to answer if they're on leave, can't make it to the office because of work, or have signed a deferred resignation agreement, says the email.
Iranian Vice President Mohammad Javad Zarif resigned from his office on Sunday, implying in his resignation letter that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni and other hardliners in the government forced him from power.
Zarif was considered a moderate or "reformist" in Iran's government, which only means he wasn't as hardline as Khameni and other officials.
He was instrumental in brokering the 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S., known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which then-President Barack Obama entered into and President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from during his first term in office.
Zarif and former moderate President Hassan Rouhani endorsed Masoud Pezeshkian, a fellow moderate, in the June 2024 special election to replace hardline President Ebrahim Raisi after he died in a helicopter crash, and Pezeshkian won.
Zarif was actually Vice President for Strategic Affairs, one of several vice presidential positions in the Iranian government, but he campaigned alongside Pezeshkian like the vice president does here in America.
He had already tried to resign once, only two weeks into his term, during a struggle over Pezeshkian's cabinet.
At the time, Pezeshkian refused to accept his resignation.
Zarif continued to be targeted by hardliners who thought he was too moderate.
His opponents have tried to invoke an Iranian law that they say prohibits anyone from holding office if they or their children have dual citizenship. Zarif's children were born in the United States during Iran's mission to the United Nations, of which Zarif was a part.
This means they are naturalized American citizens with passports.
Zarif said in a social media post that he had endured “the most ridiculous insults, slanders, and threats against my family in the past six months.”
It was “the most bitter” time of his 40 years in government service, he said.
He said the chief justice of Iran, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, advised him to go back to lecturing at university so the government would be under less pressure.
Zarif favored negotiating a new deal with President Donald Trump, but an edict by Khameni forbade the negotiations in February.