Investigation into the deadly plane-helicopter crash. And, way forward for nuclear testing

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In the present day’s high tales

Federal investigators have retrieved the cockpit voice and flight information recorders from the American Airways jet that collided with an Military Black Hawk helicopter Wednesday evening. The collision occurred mid-air over the Potomac River because the jet tried to land at Ronald Reagan Washington Nationwide Airport. All 67 folks on each plane have been killed. Here is the newest.

• 🎧 It’s unclear how the 2 plane that have been imagined to cross at a secure distance ended up in the identical place on the similar time, NPR’s Frank Langfitt tells Up First. Investigators will use the regional jet’s black bins to look at the ultimate conversations within the cockpit, the aircraft’s efficiency and information factors equivalent to its altitude proper earlier than the collision. Authorities will even want the recorder from the Military Black Hawk, which remains to be within the river, to check. Federal investigators emphasised that they’d watch out to substantiate info earlier than releasing them and {that a} preliminary report needs to be accomplished in 30 days.
• ➡️ A minimum of a dozen elite determine skaters, coaches and their relations have been aboard the aircraft.
• ➡️ Crowded airspace has been a concern on the D.C.-area airport. Greater than 23,000 flight operations happened there every month final yr.
• ➡️ Here is what number of near-misses have occurred at Reagan Airport, in line with the FAA.

A push to limit immigration in Germany has erupted right into a fierce debate over the diploma to which a rustic ought to enable its excessive political parts into mainstream politics. On the heart of the controversy is Friedrich Merz, the person who’s the frontrunner to develop into Germany’s subsequent chancellor. Merz heads the Christian Democratic Union, a center-right celebration that is forward within the polls.

• 🎧 The movement comes on the heels of latest lethal assaults dedicated by migrants, NPR’s Rob Schmitz says. Not one of the mainstream events have been taken with voting with Merz’s celebration on the proposal, however the AfD, the Various for Germany celebration, was. The AfD has advocated deporting all Germans with a migration background, some members use Nazi slogans and the celebration is underneath home surveillance for the risk it poses to the nation’s democracy. Merz has now signaled he is open to cooperating with the AfD on the immigration movement.

Goal is scaling again its range, fairness and inclusion efforts, a promise that appeared vital to the corporate headquartered the place the homicide of George Floyd in 2020 by a police officer set off waves of protests. With DEI initiatives underneath assault by the Trump administration, firms equivalent to Walmart, McDonald’s and Meta have determined to curtail or remove these applications. With Goal falling in line, activists known as for a boycott of the shop. Nonetheless, Black enterprise house owners promoting merchandise at Goal say it might harm their enterprise. Morning Version host Michel Martin spoke to April Showers, founder and CEO of Afro Unicorn, whose merchandise embody attire, hair merchandise and books, are offered at Goal, about her ideas on the boycott and a potential compromise for these collaborating.

Deep dive

1000’s of ft underground, in a laboratory northwest of Las Vegas, the U.S. conducts a few of its most delicate nuclear weapons analysis. Nuclear testing looks as if a Chilly Struggle relic, however amid rising tensions, Russia, China and the U.S. are upgrading their testing services. The Nationwide Nuclear Safety Administration, the civilian company sustaining America’s nuclear stockpile, allowed journalists, together with NPR, to tour a secretive laboratory.

• 💥 Within the early Nineteen Sixties, nuclear assessments went underground to guard folks and the surroundings from the harmful radioactive fallout.
• 💥 The stockpile program, a approach to check nukes with out setting them off, consists of supercomputers on the labs used to conduct large-scale digital simulations of nuclear weapons from “button to boom.”
• 💥 Challenge 2025, a conservative agenda revealed by the Heritage Basis, says the federal government ought to find a way “to conduct nuclear tests in response to adversary nuclear developments if necessary.”

Here is a look contained in the lab.

Weekend picks

Citizen Sleeper 2’s android protagonist, in a scene from the sport’s trailer.

Fellow Traveler

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Fellow Traveler

Take a look at what NPR is watching, studying and listening to this weekend:

🍿 Films: In Presence, a household strikes right into a haunted home, however what units this movie aside is that it is advised from the ghost’s perspective.

📺 TV: Hospital drama The Pitt, starring Noah Wyle, takes parts frequent to the medical style and mixes them with up to date serious about well being care and an creative episode construction.

📚 Books: As we welcome the 12 months of the Snake, listed here are two Lunar New 12 months romances so as to add to your to-read record.

🎵 Music: Jazz vocalist Christie Dashiell’s sophomore album, Journey in Black, earned her a Grammy nomination for the primary time. The music displays “the expansiveness of the Black experience.”

🎮 Video games: Citizen Sleeper 2,out as we speak, places you within the sneakers of an android who’s escaped a dystopian company. The sci-fi sport grapples with trauma and communities in disaster.

🍚 Meals: Dumplings are a dish NPR readers simply cannot go with out for the Lunar New 12 months. Here is a no-fuss Chinese language dumpling recipe you possibly can strive.

❓ Quiz: If this have been faculty, I’d have scored a B. I’ll take it. Do you assume you possibly can obtain an “A”?

3 issues to know earlier than you go

English singer Marianne Faithfull in her Kensington flat in 1965.

Stephan C Archetti/Getty Photos/Hulton Archive

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Stephan C Archetti/Getty Photos/Hulton Archive

1. British musician and actress Marianne Faithfull, whose 1964 model of “As Tears Go By” made her a music star, died yesterday on the age of 78.
2. Brendan Carr, the newly appointed head of the Federal Communications Fee, has opened an investigation of NPR and PBS for allegedly operating commercials, which public broadcasting stations are prohibited from doing.
3. The U.S. financial system grew at an annual price of two.3% in October, November and December of 2024 as shoppers ramped up their spending.

This text was edited by Obed Manuel.