News briefs

Tribune News Service on Jan 30, 2025

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American Airlines CEO: ‘We don’t know why' Army helicopter crossed plane path

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said that Flight 5342 was on a normal approach to Reagan National Airport and that “we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the PSA aircraft,” one of the many questions the Fort Worth-based carrier is asking in the wake of the tragedy that took 67 lives.

Late Wednesday evening, an American Airlines regional jet operated by wholly owned subsidiary PSA Airlines collided with a U.S Army helicopter and both crashed into the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan National Airport.

There were 60 passengers and four crew aboard Flight 5342, and three soldiers aboard the U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk, all feared dead. This is likely to be the worst U.S. aviation disaster in almost a quarter century.

The PSA Airline aircraft, cleared to land at Reagan National’s Runway 33, was on a standard approach at the time of the crash.

—The Dallas Morning News

Poll: Most Americans think the government is inefficient — but few support DOGE

Though most Americans think government inefficiency is a major issue, President Donald Trump’s department created to attack the problem is not a popular solution, a new AP-NORC poll found.

Trump tapped tech billionaire Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to head the Department of Government Efficiency, tasking the agency with cutting costs at the federal level. Ramaswamy stepped down from the role in the Trump administration just hours after the inauguration, leaving Musk to lead DOGE on his own.

Sixty-five percent of Americans say government efficiency is an issue, but few said they supported DOGE, and fewer than half of those polled support the department’s head.

Fifty-two percent of Americans, asked ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration, had an unfavorable view of Musk, while 36% had a favorable view of him, according to the AP-NORC poll released on Jan. 24. And just 29% of Americans said they approved of the creation of DOGE.

—The Charlotte Observer

Stunning conjunction of Venus, crescent moon will be visible above Colorado Saturday

DENVER — A remarkable sight will appear in the southwestern sky an hour after sunset Saturday evening when Venus appears very close to a thin crescent moon.

This celestial phenomenon is called a conjunction, which means two or more heavenly bodies appear very close to each other. The moon Saturday night will be 15% illuminated, while Venus will be close to the brightest it gets, according to Jeff Hunt, a retired Illinois planetarium director whose website tracks interesting celestial events for amateur sky gazers.

The crescent moon may strike observers as slightly larger than normal. The moon will be at its monthly perigee — its closest approach to Earth in a given month — so Hunt is calling it a “super crescent moon.”

Monthly perigee distances vary, but for this one, the moon will be 228,000 miles from Earth, 10,500 miles closer than its average distance.

—The Denver Post

Palestinian Premier wants to rebuild Gaza with Trump’s help

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said his government plans to rebuild Gaza with help from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, a process he said would reshape the Middle East and require the removal of Hamas from power and Israel from the ground.

While expressing optimism about early contacts with aides of President Donald Trump, he rejected the U.S. leader’s notion of relocating most of the more than 2 million Gazans to countries like Egypt and Jordan during the postwar reconstruction.

“I have every reason to believe that this administration will actually help us all do the right deal, a balanced deal that could hopefully end the conflict in the region,” Mustafa, 70, told Bloomberg TV in his office in Ramallah, in the West Bank, on Wednesday.

A senior Palestinian official, Hussein al-Sheikh, met Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, in Riyadh on Tuesday. Asked about moving Gazans out, Mustafa said it shouldn’t happen even for a short period. “They’re determined to continue to live in Gaza,” the prime minister said. “We can fix the place without” moving them out.

—Bloomberg News