Northeast

Blue state governor demands private airlines stop providing ICE flights after deadly Minneapolis shooting

Published

2 months ago

January 12, 2026

Blue state governor demands private airlines stop providing ICE flights after deadly Minneapolis shooting

ICE-involved shooting prompts mass protests

Fox News correspondent Alexis McAdams and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons join ‘America’s Newsroom’ to discuss the mass backlash surrounding the fatal shooting of a woman by an ICE agent.

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Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Thursday demanded that two private airline companies stop providing flights for ICE to quickly remove illegal immigrants who have been detained, citing the recent ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis.

In a letter to top executives of GlobalX Airlines and Eastern Air Express, Healey criticized the companies for “sever[ing illegal immigrants] from their family, friends, community, and legal counsel without due process of law.”

“They are hard-working, productive, and beloved members of our community who have been indiscriminately targeted for deportation proceedings,” Healey wrote. “Some have been United States citizens. Some have been children. And as we have seen in our communities and, most recently, in Minnesota, ICE’s tactics are increasingly chaotic, brutal, and even deadly. This doesn’t make our communities safer — it, in fact, makes us all less safe.”

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey is urging private airlines to cut ties with ICE. (Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

DEM SENATE CANDIDATE MOCKED AFTER CLAIM ABOUT DISMANTLING ICE GOES VIRAL: ‘UNMASK THESE THUGS’

Twin Cities resident Renee Nicole Good, 37, was shot and killed Wednesday by an ICE agent after she allegedly accelerated her car toward him during an immigration operation.

Healey also alleged the Trump administration’s use of private jets for ICE activity is costing taxpayers, while private airlines profit.

“On behalf of American taxpayers, I also find it incomprehensible that the Trump administration is choosing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on private jets to obstruct people’s due process at a time when they are denying hunger benefits, cutting health care access, and raising costs on everyone through costly tariffs,” she wrote.

“This is not the justice we believe in or stand for in Massachusetts or as Americans. I hope your company agrees.”

ICE is conducting flights to remove illegal immigrants from the U.S. and back to their home countries. (ICE Seattle)

WALZ PREPARES NATIONAL GUARD AFTER WOMAN KILLED IN ICE OPERATION: ‘NEVER BEEN AT WAR’ WITH FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

The letter comes after Healey demanded that ICE halt ICE flights out of Hanscom Field airport, which is located roughly 20 miles outside Boston in Bedford, Massachusetts.

Avelo Airlines, a company that was previously chartering flights for ICE in Massachusetts, recently announced it had cut ties with the administration.

Migrants released from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center wear ankle monitors while waiting to board flights in Shreveport, La. (Wayan Barre/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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“One of your peer companies recently cut ties with ICE. It’s time for you to do the same,” Healey wrote in the letter.

Healey’s office, GlobalX Airlines and Eastern Air Express did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

Alexandra Koch is a Fox News Digital journalist who covers breaking news, with a focus on high-impact events that shape national conversation.

She has covered major national crises, including the L.A. wildfires, Potomac and Hudson River aviation disasters, Boulder terror attack, and Texas Hill Country floods.

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Maine

NECEC conservation plan will not protect Maine’s mature forests | Opinion

Published

34 minutes ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

NECEC conservation plan will not protect Maine’s mature forests | Opinion

Robert Bryan is a licensed forester from Harpswell and author or co-author of numerous publications on managing forests for wildlife. Paul Larrivee is a licensed forester from New Gloucester who manages both private and public lands, and a former Maine Forest Service forester.

In November 2025, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) approved a conservation plan and forest management plan as mitigation for impacts from the NECEC transmission corridor that runs from the Quebec border 53 miles to central Maine.

As professional foresters, we were astonished by the lack of scientific credibility in the definition of “mature forest habitat” that was approved by DEP, and the business-as-usual commercial forestry proposed for over 80% of the conservation area.

The DEP’s approval requires NECEC to establish and protect 50,000 acres to be managed for mature-forest wildlife species and wildlife travel corridors along riparian areas and between mature forest habitats. The conservation plan will establish an area adjacent to the new transmission corridor to be protected under a conservation easement held by the state. Under this plan, 50% of the area will be managed as mature forest habitat.

Under the forest management plan, a typical even-aged stand will qualify as “mature forest habitat” once 50 feet tall, which is only about 50 years old. These stands will lack large trees that provide wildlife denning and nesting sites, multiple vegetation layers that mature-forest birds use for nesting and feeding habitats and large decaying trees and downed logs that provide habitat for insects, fungi and small mammals, which in turn benefit larger predators.

Another major concern is that contrary to the earlier DEP order, the final approval allows standard sustainable forestry operations on the 84% of the forest located outside the stream buffers and special habitats. These stands may be harvested as soon as they achieve the “mature forest habitat” definition, as long as 50% of the conserved land is maintained as “mature.”

After the mature forest goal is reached, clearcutting or other heavy harvesting could occur on thousands of acres every 10 years. Because the landowner — Weyerhaeuser — owns several hundred thousand acres in the vicinity, any reductions in harvesting within the conservation area can simply be offset by cutting more heavily nearby. As a result, the net
mature-forest benefit of the conservation area will be close to zero.

Third, because some mature stands will be cut before the 50% mature forest goal is reached, it will take 40 years — longer than necessary — to reach the goal.

In the near future the Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) will consider an appeal from environmental organizations of the plan approval. To ensure that ecologically mature forest develops in a manner that meets the intent of the DEP/BEP orders, several things need to change.

First and most important, to ensure that characteristics of mature forest habitat have time to develop it is critical that the definition include clear requirements for the minimum number of large-diameter (hence more mature) trees, adjusted by forest type. At least half the stocking of an area of mature forest habitat should be in trees at least 10 inches in diameter, and at least 20% of stands beyond the riparian buffers should have half the stocking in trees greater than or equal to 16 inches in diameter.

Current research as well as guidelines for defining ecologically mature forests, such as those in Maine Audubon’s Forestry for Maine Birds, should be followed.

Second, limits should be placed on the size and distribution of clearcut or “shelterwood” harvest patches so that even-aged harvests are similar in size to those created by typical natural forest disturbance patterns. These changes will help ensure that the mature-forest block and connectivity requirements of the orders are met.

Third, because the forest impacts have already occurred, no cutting should be allowed in the few stands that meet or exceed the DEP-approved definition — which needs to be revised as described above — until the 50% or greater mature-forest goal is reached.

If allowed to stand, the definitions and management described in the forest management plan would set a terrible precedent for conserving mature forests in Maine. The BEP should uphold the appeal and establish standards for truly mature forest habitat.

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Massachusetts

Foul play suspected after human remains found in water in Shirley

Published

52 minutes ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

Foul play suspected after human remains found in water in Shirley

Human remains were discovered Wednesday in the water in Shirley, Massachusetts, and authorities suspect foul play.

Police in Shirley said in a social media post at 7:15 p.m. that they responded to “a suspicious object in the water near the Maritime Veterans Memorial Bridge on Shaker Road.” Massachusetts State Police later said the object was believed to be human remains.

The bridge crosses Catacoonamug Brook near Phoenix Pond.

The office of Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said a group of young people was walking in the area around 5:30 p.m. and “reported seeing what appeared to be something consistent with a body part in the water.”

Foul play is suspected, Ryan’s office said.

Authorities will continue investigating overnight into Thursday, and an increased police presence is expected in the area.

No further information was immediately available.

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