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Sean Duffy proposes big plans to upgrade air traffic control systems, use AI to find ‘hot spots’

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Sean Duffy proposes big plans to upgrade air traffic control systems, use AI to find ‘hot spots’

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced plans to bolster airport air traffic control systems with the latest technology over the next four years, while also using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify “hot spots” where close encounters between aircraft occur frequently.

The announcement came after an update on an investigation into a crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, when a U.S. Army helicopter and an American Airlines-operated passenger jet collided over the Potomac River Jan. 29.

“We’re here because 67 souls lost their lives on Jan. 29,” Duffy told reporters Tuesday, noting that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) unveiled its preliminary findings into the crash earlier in the day.

The findings noted that, over the last 2½ years, there have been 85 near misses or close calls at Reagan National. Close calls were identified as incidents when there are less than 200 feet of vertical separation and 1,500 feet of lateral separation between aircraft.

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The Potomac River and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., Jan. 30. (Leigh Green for Fox News Digital)

Appearing shocked at the findings, Duffy questioned how the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not know about the “hot spot,” where near misses happen frequently.

“We’re having near misses, and if we don’t change our way, we’re going to lose lives,” he said. “That wasn’t done. Maybe there was a focus on something other than safety, but in this administration, we are focusing on safety.”

The FAA has deployed AI tools to sift through data and find additional hot spots in U.S. airspace near airports to find similar situations to what has been happening at Reagan National.

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Sean Duffy

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy holds a briefing on the deadly Jan. 29 midair plane crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. (Fox News/Pool)

Once the hot spots are identified, Duffy’s team will implement changes to reduce the close encounters between aircraft.

Duffy also said he has learned that air traffic control systems across the country are 25 to 30 years old, and some of them even use floppy disks as if they were stuck in the 1980s.

While the system is antiquated, the secretary stressed it was safe. Despite the system being safe, Duffy said it needs to be upgraded.

“This should have happened four years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago,” he said. “But, right now, we’re at a point where we can actually do it. And we can do it really fast.”

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Sean Duffy Presser

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy holds a briefing on the deadly Jan. 29 midair plane crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport that killed 67 people. (Fox News/Pool)

Duffy said the task could take up to four years to complete.

The job entails bringing in a brand-new air traffic control system, switching from copper wires to a combination of fiber, wireless and satellite systems.

The current radar system from the 1970s or early 1980s works, but Duffy wants to put state-of-the-art radar in place and terminals with the right screens and the best technology.

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Air traffic controllers

The Stansted Airport control tower in the United Kingdom (NATS U.K.)

“We’re going to deploy resources for runway safety — new technology that will allow our air traffic controllers not to use binoculars in the tower to see where aircraft are at, but to actually have ground radar sensors at our airports that will allow air traffic controllers to see where airplanes are at,” he said. 

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“We’ve heard a lot of new stories of just near misses on the tarmac. And how do you alleviate that? Take away the binoculars and give them technology so they can see on their screens where every aircraft is located.

“By doing this, we are going to greatly improve our safety in the system.” 

Technology, on the other hand, is not cheap, which the secretary acknowledged.

In an environment in which the Department of Government Efficiency is looking for ways to cut costs and save money, Duffy explained making upgrades in the name of safety is worth the investment.

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Over the next couple of weeks, Duffy said, he plans to introduce his plan to Congress and take in their feedback.

Once he goes through the feedback, Duffy said he plans to return to Congress and ask for the money up front to expedite the process of upgrading the air traffic control systems.

“It’s not that the FAA didn’t want to do the upgrades,” he said. “It just takes too long. So, they have to give us the money. We’re going to later lay out our plan to actually do it really quickly.”

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Trump Says He Will Call Putin to Discuss Ending Ukraine War

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Trump Says He Will Call Putin to Discuss Ending Ukraine War

President Trump said he would speak with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Tuesday, as he continued to express optimism that Russia would agree to a proposal to halt fighting in Ukraine for 30 days.

“We want to see if we can bring that war to an end,” Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening. “Maybe we can. Maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance.”

Mr. Trump said that progress on negotiations had been made over the weekend, and there have been ongoing discussions about “dividing up certain assets,” specifically mentioning concessions over land and power plants.

“I think we’ll be talking about land, it’s a lot of land. It’s a lot different than it was before the war, as you know,” Mr. Trump said.

He added: “We’ll be talking about power plants. That’s a big question. But I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides — Ukraine and Russia.”

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Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East who has been involved in the peace talks, said Sunday on CNN that he had a positive meeting with Mr. Putin last week that lasted three to four hours. He declined to share the specifics of their conversation, but he said the two sides had “narrowed the differences between them.”

Ukraine has already agreed to support the U.S.-backed cease-fire, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has accused Mr. Putin of purposely delaying negotiations while trying to trap Ukrainian forces to improve his position in the cease-fire talks.

Mr. Putin had demanded on Friday that Ukraine’s troops in the Kursk region of Russia surrender. But by the weekend, after fierce fighting, the Ukrainians had withdrawn from most of the region, leaving them controlling a sliver of land in Russia.

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Minnesota Republicans to introduce bill defining 'Trump derangement syndrome' as mental illness

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Minnesota Republicans to introduce bill defining 'Trump derangement syndrome' as mental illness

A group of Minnesota Republican lawmakers plan to propose legislation requiring the state to include “Trump derangement syndrome” under its definition of mental illness.

Five GOP lawmakers are set to introduce the bill in the state’s Senate on Monday and refer it to the Health and Human Services committee, according to Fox 9. The bill aims to specifically add “Trump derangement syndrome” to the state’s definition of mental illness.

“Trump derangement syndrome” is defined as “acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump,” according to the bill.

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A group of Minnesota Republican senators plan to propose a bill to define “Trump derangement syndrome” as a mental illness. (Carl Court – Pool/Getty Images)

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“Symptoms may include Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump’s behavior,” the proposal reads.

With a split state legislature, the bill is unlikely to be approved.

Mental illness is defined as a disorder or other issue that is included in a diagnostic codes list. “Trump derangement syndrome” is not recognized as a mental illness anywhere.

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The bill is unlikely to be approved in a split legislature. (AP/Ben Curtis)

President Donald Trump and his supporters have used the term “Trump derangement syndrome” to criticize political opponents who they believe have a biased obsession against the president and his policies.

While the “derangement syndrome” as a political phrase has been made popular in recent years to mock critics of Trump, the term was actually coined in 2003 by the late political commentator Charles Krauthammer to describe critics of then-President George W. Bush.

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Minnesota state capitol building

The bill defines “Trump derangement syndrome” as “acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump.” (Getty Images)

The Minnesota proposal features the same phrasing Krauthammer used to describe “Bush derangement syndrome,” which was defined as “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency—nay—the very existence of George W. Bush.”

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Trump and recent gains give the California Republican Party hope

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Trump and recent gains give the California Republican Party hope

A caravan of pickup trucks waving large President Trump flags circled the California Republican Party’s convention this weekend, with drivers occasionally hopping out to dance to the Village People song “Y.M.C.A.,” a favorite tune at the president’s rallies.

Inside, delegates posed with giant cutouts of Trump, wore glittery gold-sequined jackets emblazoned with “Trump the Golden Era” and snapped up “MAGA” rhinestone jewelry.

Republicans attend the CAGOP spring organizing convention at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center in Sacramento on Sunday.

(Lezlie Sterling/TNS)

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Once dominated by Reagan-era Republicans who favored traditional conservative policies including opposing the Russia-led Soviet Union and favoring free trade, the California GOP is being reshaped by Trump’s populism.

“Just like Reagan was transformational figure in the political world, Donald Trump is a transformational figure,” said former state GOP chairman Jim Brulte.

For a party that has long been largely irrelevant in California politics — having last elected a statewide candidate nearly two decades ago — there were some bright spots in the November election. Republicans increased their representation in both houses of the state Legislature, the first time the GOP has done so in a presidential election year since 1980.

Though Trump lost the state by 20 points to former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee and Californian, the Republican received more votes in November here than he did in the last two presidential elections.

Trump also did better with Latinos across the nation, winning 43% of their votes, according to the Associated Press. In California, Republicans increased their support from this voting bloc as well, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report as well as GOP officials.

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“Here’s the secret sauce. You ready for it?” Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-Texas) told California Republicans at the party’s Saturday luncheon. “You have to show up. Step one, show up. Show up early. Show up often. Don’t speak a little bit of broken Spanish. Don’t throw up an ad and then call it good two weeks at the tail end of election.”

Gonzalez, whose district has the most border miles of any congressional district in the nation, said Latino voters care about the same issues as most voters — the economy, safety and the education of their children.

“Be genuine,” he added. “You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to tell them what you think they want to hear.”

Assemblywoman Leticia Castillo, a Republican elected in November to represent a Democratic district with that includes swaths of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, said in addition to constant door-knocking, she reached out to Latinos in unconventional ways. She advertised about her parents’ immigrant roots and her priorities in popular local Spanish-language magazines that focus on soccer and quinceañeras.

“We’re talking about values, and we’re talking about what your beliefs are. And it was not that difficult to get people on board. They want the message, but they don’t know there’s a message that they need until you bring it to them,” she said.

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State GOP leaders said such legislative gains were prompted by structural changes, including registering 1 million additional Republican voters over the last six years and focusing on early voting, ballot harvesting and other election day tactics long embraced by Democrats. The party also launched a concerted effort to appeal to Latino voters more consistently and aggressively than prior decades.

“I don’t think it happened overnight,” state Republican Party chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson, whose tenure just ended, told reporters Saturday.

Describing Latinos as a community that had been previously “neglected” by the party, she added: “In 2019 we started going to farms and talking to farm workers, and we were talking about the things that were important to my community, and that was making sure you have a good job. It was making sure your kids got a great education so they could have a better life than you. It was making sure that you had safe streets.”

Though she argued that Democrats had failed on such issues, she acknowledged that they had long been a presence in Latino communities. “Democrats showed up, and Democrats made them feel like they cared about their problems,” Millan Patterson said.

Trump also did better among Latino and Black voters than other recent Republican presidential nominees, so it’s unclear whether California Republicans’ improved performance is part of a fundamental realignment of the base of the political parties or whether it’s specific to Trump and evaporates once he leaves office.

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Getting Trump voters to turn out in elections when he is not on the ballot can be challenging, Millan Patterson added. That became evident during the failed recall election against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, she said. Over a million more Californians voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election than voted to recall Newsom in 2021.

Trump’s influence, and imprint, on the current California Republican Party was clear throughout the three-day convention in Sacramento.

Panels at the Hyatt Regency and the convention center in Sacramento focused on issues such as “lawfare,” a practice Trump supporters argue weaponized the legal system against him and his goals. Republicans also touted a potential 2026 California ballot measure to require voter ID and proof of citizenship for anyone casting ballots, which Trump demanded the state adopt in exchange for federal disaster relief in the aftermath of the deadly Los Angeles-area wildfires this year.

The most prominent speaker was Riley Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer who has railed against transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, a focus during Trump’s second election campaign.

“I do believe the issue of allowing men into women’s sports, it was the sleeper issue of the election,” she told the Republican crowd. “I believe, of course, that people turned up to the polls to embrace Donald Trump, to embrace the America first agenda … but more so, I believe that people turned up to the polls to reject absurdity, and that is what the Democratic Party has become.”

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Republicans Robin Ellis, left, Sharie Abajian, center, and Barbara Moore take selfies.

Republicans Robin Ellis, left, Sharie Abajian, center, and Barbara Moore take selfies at the CAGOP spring convention in Sacramento on Sunday.

(Lezlie Sterling/TNS)

The shifting voting dynamics in the state could have ramifications in next year’s midterm elections, where Californians are expected to play a major role in deciding which party wins control of the House.

The midterm elections are likely to be rocky for Republicans because the party that wins the White House frequently takes a beating in congressional elections two years later. And in 2024, congressional races were a weak point for the GOP even as the party was victorious in House races across much of the country.

Millan Patterson said the loss of three Republican congressional incumbents in 2024 was prompted by the competitiveness of their districts and a lack of resources. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), who was one of the most prodigious fundraisers in Congress and lavished money on California Republicans, left office in 2023.

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This speaks to a broader fundraising problem facing the party. Millan Patterson was a McCarthy protege. The last party chairman, former legislative leader Brulte, had an Rolodex teeming with donors. The party’s future fundraising prospects are uncertain.

But the face of the party is clearly changing, as evidenced at a celebration of party leaders Friday evening. Eight former chairs, all older white men, took the stage to Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town.” They saluted Millan Patterson, the party’s first Latina, female and millennial leader, who left the stage to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl.”

On Sunday, the party elected its new chair, Corrin Rankin. She’s the state party’s first Black leader.

“Change is coming to California. It’s time to end the Democrats’ one-party rule and make California great again,” she told delegates after winning the leadership post. “We’re going on the offense. We need to expand the battlefield and to take the fight to every corner of our state.”

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