Survey indicates 64% of Americans believe flying is safe, down from 71% who said so last year
Americans’ confidence in aviation has slipped following a string of plane crashes in 2025, according to a new poll.
As of this year 64% of Americans said they believe air travel is very or somewhat safe, marking a decrease from 71% of Americans who indicated so last year, said the poll, conducted by AP-NORC and released on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Republican Kentucky lawmaker formally announced his retirement in a Senate floor speech on Thursday
Senator Mitch McConnell announced he will not run for re-election next year, bringing an end to a decades-long career for a Republican leader who marshaled his party through multiple administrations with a singleminded focus on power that enraged his critics and delighted his allies.
The Associated Press broke the news of McConnell’s retirement on Thursday, which marked the Republican senator’s 83rd birthday. McConnell formally announced his retirement in a Senate floor speech on Thursday.
Continue reading...‘Kremlin whisperers’ have the president’s ear and dissenters are few – but a thin skin and self-interest are also at play
Donald Trump’s tarring of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator” who is to blame for the war with Russia, plunging Ukraine into a Darwinian struggle for its very existence, landed like a bombshell on the diplomatic landscape. But it did not come out of nowhere.
The US president has left the already badly frayed western alliance in disarray with a devastating social media attack on his Ukrainian counterpart, just hours after he had already implicitly blamed Kyiv for Russia’s invasion.
Continue reading...Claudia Sheinbaum’s warning follows Washington designating Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations
Mexico will never tolerate an “invasion” of its national sovereignty by the United States, Claudia Sheinbaum has warned after Washington designated Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations.
“This cannot be an opportunity for the US to invade our sovereignty,” the Mexican president said. “With Mexico, it is collaboration and coordination, never subordination or interventionism, and even less invasion.”
Continue reading...Jean-Noël Barrot tells G20 to prioritise those who support the law rather than power by force
European powers have made a plea at the G20 in South Africa to countries in the global south that they show unambivalent support for the international rules-based order, including the sovereignty of Ukraine.
Writing in the Guardian, the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said the real line of geopolitical division was not between north and south but between those who supported the international rules-based order and those who did not.
Continue reading...US president issues order aimed at preventing taxpayer dollars supporting illegal immigration and another designed to get rid of regulations
Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at ending federal benefits for people in the country illegally, his latest in a blizzard of moves to crack down on immigration.
The White House said the order seeks to end “all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens” but it was not clear which benefits will be targeted. People in the country illegally generally do not qualify except for emergency medical care. Children are entitled to a free K-12 public education regardless of immigration status under a 1982 supreme court ruling.
Continue reading...Andrew Lester, who is white, was charged with assault after Ralph Yarl, who survived, rang doorbell by mistake in 2023
An 86-year-old Missouri man died just days after pleading guilty to a lesser charge in the 2023 shooting of Ralph Yarl, a Black honor student who rang the white man’s doorbell by mistake, prosecutors announced on Wednesday.
Andrew Lester of Kansas City had been charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action in the shooting of the then 16-year-old, who survived and is now a freshman at Texas A&M. Before his trial was scheduled to begin, Lester had pleaded guilty on Friday to a lesser charge of second-degree assault, which carries up to seven years behind bars. He had been scheduled to be sentenced on 7 March.
Continue reading...Zheng Lijuan fled Panama City hotel as 170 of deported migrants were transported to dense, lawless region
Police are searching for a Chinese woman who escaped from a downtown Panama City hotel where she was being held following her deportation from the US under Donald Trump’s intensified campaign against immigrants.
Zheng Lijuan was one of 299 migrants – from China, Afghanistan, Iran and other countries with which the US lacks extradition agreements – who have been flown in shackles to Panama since last Wednesday. Panamanian authorities say they believe that Zheng was aided by locals who had been “prowling” outside the Decapolis hotel in the capital city where the deportees had been held.
Continue reading...The United States is unprepared for the burdens placed on its air travel system when the country hosts the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, according to a report released on Wednesday.
The US Travel Association, a non-profit that represents the travel industry, commissioned a report written by former government officials and industry experts. The report raises concerns about visas, creaking infrastructure and poor security technology.
Continue reading...Black bear weighing 500lb found in crawlspace in Pasadena, two weeks after Altadena man discovered unfamiliar tenant
Two 500-plus pound black bears have laid claim to homes evacuated during the destructive Eaton fire in southern California.
Last month, when Samy Arbid returned to his Altadena home, he found “Barry” – a 525lb black bear – living under the house. This week, another Californian reported a different unexpected visitor living in his house’s crawlspace in neighboring Pasadena: another 500 to 600lb bear.
Continue reading...After becoming embroiled in scandal, formerly hot startup and Wall Street star had said it would likely run out of cash
Troubled electric vehicle maker Nikola has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection months after saying that it would likely run out of cash early this year.
Nikola was a hot startup and rising star on Wall Street before becoming enmeshed in scandal and its founder was convicted in 2022 for misleading investors about the Arizona company’s technology.
Continue reading...Six cartels added to list as part of Trump’s plan to ‘wage war’ on drug trafficking groups to address fentanyl crisis in US
The US has added six Mexican cartels to its list of foreign terrorist organisations (FTOs), as it calls for the “total elimination” of the criminal groups trafficking drugs to the US.
Mexico’s two biggest organised crime groups, the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, were among those added, as were Tren de Aragua and Mara Salvatrucha, groups with ties to Venezuela and El Salvador.
Continue reading...Agency works to rehire employees shortly after touting plan to ‘optimize workforce’ by cutting staff with help of Musk
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said it accidentally fired several employees working on the H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu, outbreak and is now trying to rehire them.
The about-face came after the USDA touted its plans to “optimize its workforce” by firing workers and terminating contracts, actions aided by billionaire Elon Musk’s unofficial agency, the “department of government efficiency” (Doge), NBC News reported on Tuesday.
Continue reading...More than 400 artists sign letter urging organization to resist funding ban for projects focused on DEI and gender
Donald Trump’s efforts to influence US cultural institutions received more pushback on Tuesday, as a group of more than 400 artists sent a letter to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) calling on the organization to resist the president’s restrictions on funding for projects promoting diversity or “gender ideology”.
The letter, first reported by the New York Times, comes after the NEA declared that federal grant applicants – which include colleges and universities, non-profit groups, individual artists and more – must comply with regulations stipulated by Trump’s executive orders. The new measures bar federal funds from going toward programs focused on “diversity, equity and inclusion” or used to “promote gender ideology”.
Continue reading...Executive power grab would affect Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission
Donald Trump has signed an executive order making independent regulatory agencies established by Congress now accountable to the White House – a move that some experts said clashes with mainstream interpretations of the constitution.
The order forces major regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to report new policy priorities to the executive branch for approval, which will also have a say over their budgets.
Continue reading...Foreign posts told to end all ‘non-mission critical’ news subscriptions in Trump directive that will ‘endanger lives’
The state department has reportedly ordered its outposts around the world to cancel all subscriptions to news and media outlets that are supposedly “non-mission critical” in another extraordinary Trump administration crackdown on normal information channels.
An email memo was circulated to embassies and consulates earlier this month explaining that the move was a further effort to cut costs by the federal government, the Washington Post reported late on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Fourteen Democratic-led states had sought temporary restraining order against body involved in worker layoffs
A federal judge refused on Tuesday to immediately block Elon Musk and the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) from accessing government data systems or participating in worker layoffs.
The US district judge Tanya Chutkan found that there were legitimate questions about the billionaire’s authority but said there was not enough evidence of grave legal harm to justify a temporary restraining order.
Continue reading...Officials who served in 1980s say Trump is opposing friends and supporting enemies: ‘It makes me sick what’s going on’
Republicans who served under President Ronald Reagan during the cold war have condemned Donald Trump’s move to soften relations with Russia and undermine the 75-year-old transatlantic alliance.
European leaders were left reeling last week when the US vice-president, JD Vance, told the Munich Security Conference that the greatest danger facing Europe was “the threat from within” and the “retreat from fundamental values”.
Continue reading...Pair spoke about each other in glowing terms, rejecting accusations of the billionaire usurping the president’s limelight – and power
Donald Trump and his wealthiest backer, the multi-billionaire Elon Musk, expressed gushing admiration for each other in a Fox News interview in which each accused a critical media of trying to drive them apart.
Interviewed together in the White House, the pair spoke of each other in such warm terms that the interviewer, Sean Hannity, was moved to say: “I feel like I’m interviewing two brothers here.”
Continue reading...President hits back at Ukraine’s complaint that it has been left out of US-Russia talks, saying it had years to make a deal ‘without the loss of much land’
President Donald Trump has criticised Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying he was “disappointed” that the Ukrainian leader complained about being left out of talks between the US and Russia over ending the Ukraine war.
Trump also seemed to blame Kyiv for Moscow’s invasion – even as he said he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks – claiming Ukraine could have “made a deal” to avert war.
Continue reading...