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Donald Trump blames Democrats and DEI for fatal Washington mid-air collision

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Donald Trump blames Democrats and DEI for fatal Washington mid-air collision

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Donald Trump blamed Democrats and diversity, equity and inclusion policies for a collision between a commercial jet and military helicopter that killed 67 people just outside of Washington.

Without citing evidence, the president said that his “common sense” assessment was that the accident was caused by lax safety standards as a result of DEI policies introduced by his predecessors.

“There are no survivors,” Trump told reporters on Thursday as he took to the podium in the White House press briefing room for the first time in his second presidency.

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The regional American Airlines flight, which was operated by its subsidiary PSA Airlines, had originated in Wichita, Kansas. The Bombardier CRJ700 jet was making its approach into Washington Reagan National Airport on Wednesday night when it collided with a US army Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk helicopter, plunging into the Potomac River.

The fuselage of the commercial jet was found in three pieces in the water. The American flight had 60 passengers and four crew members on board, while three soldiers were in the Black Hawk.

Trump, who was flanked by his vice-president and newly sworn in secretaries of defence and transportation, began his remarks with an appeal for unity in “a moment of anguish”, when “the differences between Americans fade to nothing”.

But he quickly launched into a political attack against Democrats, saying that ex-presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden had lowered standards for who was allowed to qualify to be an air traffic controller.

“I put safety first, Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first . . . and their politics was even worse.”

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He said that “for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that’s psychologically superior,” adding that “I don’t think” people with “severe disabilities” should be air traffic controllers.

After appearing to blame air traffic controllers for the accident, he then turned his attention to the crew of the Black Hawk.

“You had a pilot problem from the standpoint of the helicopter, because it was visual. It was very clear night . . . the American Airlines plane had lights blazing”, Trump said.

“I have helicopters. You can stop a helicopter very quickly. It had the ability to go up or down, had the ability to turn, and the turn it made was not the correct one”, he added.

US defence officials said the Black Hawk was being flown by an experienced crew on routine training.

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Trump said that investigators were trying to determine whether the troops were using night vision equipment, which “may change your view” from the cockpit. A defence official said the army could not confirm whether the crew was wearing the night vision goggles.

Defence secretary Pete Hegseth said the three soldiers in the helicopter “were on a routine annual night flight retraining on a standard corridor for a continuity of government mission”.

“Tragically, last night, a mistake was made . . . there was some sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating at the DoD and army level,” he said, adding that what happened was “absolutely unacceptable”.

Earlier on Thursday, officials said responders had recovered 28 bodies from the American flight and one body from the Black Hawk so far.

Trump said that Russian citizens were aboard the flight and that the US would facilitate the repatriation of their bodies. There has been no direct air travel between the US and Russia since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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Serious aviation accidents are rare in the US. The last major crash involving a US commercial aircraft was in 2009, when 49 people were killed on board a Colgan Air flight which crashed into a house near Buffalo, New York.

Trump urged people to keep flying.

Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington

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Top shale boss says US oil companies will not flock back to Russia

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Top shale boss says US oil companies will not flock back to Russia

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US oil producers are not going to rush back into Russia following any peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv because they have been badly burnt in the past, according to US shale magnate Harold Hamm.  

The Continental Resources’ founder and prominent donor to Donald Trump’s election campaign told the Financial Times that Russia had been a tough place to work for decades and he was thankful he had not followed others who ploughed money into the world’s third-largest oil producing nation.

“A lot of people lost a whole lot of money over there. I think they’re going to be very reticent to want to go back. Once in a while, peace breaks out over there, but not very often,” said Hamm in an interview.

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The start of talks between US and Russian officials this week fuelled speculation that American companies could return to Russia, if a peace deal can be agreed and sanctions are relaxed on Moscow. Russian officials specifically flagged the potential for joint investments in hydrocarbons by US and Russian companies, including in the Arctic.  

“We know there are US oil companies which would like to return to Russia,” said Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, who attended the talks with US officials in Riyadh.

ExxonMobil and Chevron, the two largest American oil companies, declined to comment.

Exxon has a long history of investing in Russia but has pulled back following the imposition of western sanctions following Moscow’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The company pulled the plug on a joint venture with oil company Rosneft to explore Arctic waters in 2018. Four years later Exxon took a $3.4bn impairment charge when it wrote down the value of its stake in the Sakhalin-1 oil project in Russia’s far north-east.

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Other western companies got hit harder. BP reported a nearly $25bn writedown linked to its shareholding in Rosneft and other businesses while Shell made a $5bn writedown on its Russian assets in 2022.

Most analysts agree with Hamm that US oil majors will think long and hard before investing following any peace deal due to the geopolitical risks, and opportunities elsewhere.

“Political risks remain sky-high — sanctions relief could be reversed with a US administration change. Companies won’t rush back into a market where rules shift overnight,” said Tatiana Mitrova, a research fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

Hamm, who co-ordinated fundraising among oil and gas interests during Trump’s election campaign worth at least $75mn, said the president had a big decision to make on whether to lift sanctions.

“They can be very effective. Particularly with secondary sanctions, which apply to anyone who transports or handles or trades,” he said.

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Hamm said US liquefied natural gas exports would continue to play a critical role in ensuring Europe’s energy security. Europe could depend on the US, despite tensions over Ukraine, he said, adding that the continent’s leaders would be “silly” if they went back to relying on Russian piped gas.

“Europe, those countries are allies, and we’ve always stood up for them. I think they generally stood up for America. I think they should trust President Trump to look out after their best interests as well . . . We’re a country with a rule of law,” said Hamm.

He rejected allegations made by Democrats and other critics that Trump was ignoring the rule of law through some of his actions, which include curtailing birthright citizenship and giving Elon Musk access to government departments to slash spending and jobs.

“Obviously, [Musk] is doing a tremendous service. You know we have had runaway government for the last four years,” he said.

Hamm said Trump was the “most consequential president in modern history” by accomplishing so much in his first 30 days, including exiting the Paris climate accord and slashing environmental rules restricting industry.

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Despite concerns within the oil industry that Trump’s threat to impose steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico would raise costs and increase petrol prices, he said they were necessary to tackle other problems.

“The border was number one consideration. Immigration and we had to stop the flow of drugs into this country,” said Hamm. “With Mexico and Canada, the tariffs are probably not going to be big factors if they will co-operate in the future.”

Asked if he thought Trump might try to seek a third term in office, even though this ran contrary to the US constitution, he said he could not contemplate such a thing.

“Thank God we have someone standing up there beside the president — JD Vance. I think he is looking forward to the next term.”       

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Trump administration plans mass firing at office that funds homelessness programs

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Trump administration plans mass firing at office that funds homelessness programs

A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco in 2023. The Trump administration plans to cut most federal staff in the HUD office that funds homelessness programs at a time when the number of people in the U.S. without housing is at a record high.

Jeff Chiu/AP


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Jeff Chiu/AP

The federal office that funds housing and other support for homeless people across the country is slated to shrink dramatically, a prospect that advocates warn would make record-high homelessness even worse.

The Office of Community and Planning Development, within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is slated to lose 84% of its staff, according to a document seen by NPR. That target is the deepest of any office in the agency.

“That proposed cut is massive. And the potential for adverse impact at the community level and at the national level is also massive,” said Ann Oliva, who spent a decade at HUD and is now CEO at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

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Have information you want to share about ongoing changes at HUD? NPR’s Jennifer Ludden can be contacted through encrypted communications on Signal at jenniferludden.20.

The same office also funds disaster recovery and programs that help local communities build affordable housing.

Overall, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, an entity known as DOGE and overseen by Elon Musk, plans to reduce HUD’s staffing by about half.

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The Community and Planning Development office at HUD disperses more than $3.6 billion in federal funding for rental assistance, mental health and substance use treatment, and outreach to try and get those living outside into shelter or housing. “It’s the “backbone” of local communities’ response to homelessness, Oliva said, “in blue states and red states alike.”

Cutting so much staff would mean firing not only people at headquarters in Washington, D.C., but also those in field offices around the country, she said. And that means it would likely take longer to get funding to the thousands of local nonprofits who provide housing and other support.

“Grants need to be processed,” said one HUD employee, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. They said the prospect of major staff cuts, combined with deferred resignations, are a “huge worry” that threatens to disrupt work.

So far, HUD has not addressed such concerns in detail.

“HUD is following direction from the administration while also ensuring the department continues to deliver on its critical functions,” a HUD spokesperson said in a statement. They said that includes the agency’s “mission to serve rural, tribal and urban communities and statutory responsibilities.”

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There’s concern about whether homelessness funding will be sent out as usual

The Biden administration approved the next wave of homelessness funding in its last days in power in January. The money has not yet been distributed. Advocates say it could be taking longer simply because of the transition to a new administration. But there’s also worry that it’s more than that.

In late January, the Trump administration issued a memo freezing spending on federal loans and grants. That was rescinded, and then paused in court after a legal challenge, but a federal judge found some funds were still frozen.

A lawsuit challenging the freeze noted that many local nonprofits that partner with federal agencies rely heavily on government funding, and the loss of it could be devastating. In a recent memo, the National Council of Nonprofits said many groups were still having trouble accessing funds, “causing them to stop programs, furlough employees, and question multi-year budgets.”

“I’m increasingly concerned that money is paused in a way that’s illegal,” said Peggy Bailey, a former senior adviser at HUD who’s now with the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

She also said this pause, and the proposed staff cuts, appear to be part of a larger push to shrink HUD. Republicans in Congress have proposed major budget cuts for the agency. The conservative agenda laid out by Trump allies in Project 2025 calls for moving some HUD functions to other agencies, states or localities.

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Republicans want to change how federal homelessness funding is spent

There’s also been growing Republican opposition to the way federal homelessness funding is spent.

Current longtime bipartisan policy prioritizes getting people into housing and then providing support for those who want addiction or mental health treatment. Supporters say it has a proven track record of keeping people off the street.

But Republicans argue that this policy, or what’s called Housing First, has actually made homelessness worse.

Project 2025 calls for ending it. The Cicero Institute, a conservative Texas think tank founded by a Trump ally, has been pushing states to require substance abuse and mental health treatment as a condition for federally funded housing. Researchers at the conservative Manhattan Institute recently proposed shifting homelessness funding to a block-grant system, giving states greater control over how to spend it.

Whatever happens, advocate Ann Oliva said this is a crucial time for tackling homelessness. A record number of people in the U.S. struggle to afford rent or mortgage. And she would expect that number to rise if the office in charge of homelessness prevention was effectively gutted.

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“Possibly, construction would stop on affordable housing that’s already in the pipeline,” she said. “Ultimately, I think the risk is that we will see people falling into homelessness even quicker than we’ve already seen over the last few years.”

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Video: Maine Governor and Trump Clash Over Trans Rights

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Video: Maine Governor and Trump Clash Over Trans Rights

new video loaded: Maine Governor and Trump Clash Over Trans Rights

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Maine Governor and Trump Clash Over Trans Rights

Gov. Janet Mills of Maine threatened legal action after President Trump said he would withhold funding to her state unless she complied with the executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s sports.

“The NCAA has complied immediately, by the way. That’s good, but I understand Maine — is Maine here? The governor of Maine.” “Yeah, I’m here.” “Are you not going to comply with it?” “I’m complying with state and federal laws.” “Well, we are the federal law. Well, you better do it. You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t. And by the way, your population, even though it’s somewhat liberal — although I did very well there — your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports. So you better you better comply because otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding.” “See you in court.” “Every state — good, I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one.”

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