Plane crash victims; Target boycott; Nuclear tests : NPR

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As we speak’s high tales

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

🎧 It’s unclear how the 2 plane that have been presupposed to cross at a protected distance ended up in the identical place on the identical time, NPR’s Frank Langfitt tells Up First. Investigators will use the regional jet’s black packing containers to look at the ultimate conversations within the cockpit, the airplane’s efficiency and knowledge factors resembling its altitude proper earlier than the collision. Authorities can 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 verify information earlier than releasing them and {that a} preliminary report ought to be accomplished in 30 days.➡️ Not less than a dozen elite determine skaters, coaches and their relations have been aboard the airplane.➡️ Crowded airspace has been a priority on the D.C.-area airport. Greater than 23,000 flight operations happened there every month final 12 months.➡️ This is what number of near-misses have occurred at Reagan Airport, in keeping 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 permit its excessive political components into mainstream politics. On the middle of the talk is Friedrich Merz, the person who’s the frontrunner to change into Germany’s subsequent chancellor. Merz heads the Christian Democratic Union, a center-right occasion that is forward within the polls.

🎧 The movement comes on the heels of current lethal assaults dedicated by migrants, NPR’s Rob Schmitz says. Not one of the mainstream events have been taken with voting with Merz’s occasion on the proposal, however the AfD, the Various for Germany occasion, was. The AfD has advocated deporting all Germans with a migration background, some members use Nazi slogans and the occasion is below home surveillance for the menace 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 necessary 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 below assault by the Trump administration, corporations resembling Walmart, McDonald’s and Meta have determined to curtail or get rid of these packages. With Goal falling in line, activists known as for a boycott of the shop. Nevertheless, Black enterprise homeowners promoting merchandise at Goal say it may 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 taking part.

Deep dive

Hundreds of toes 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 amenities. 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 Sixties, nuclear checks went underground to guard individuals 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 growth.”💥 Challenge 2025, a conservative agenda printed by the Heritage Basis, says the federal government ought to have the opportunity “to conduct nuclear checks in response to adversary nuclear developments if crucial.”

This is a glance contained in the lab.

Weekend picks

Try what NPR is watching, studying and listening to this weekend:

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

📺 TV: Hospital drama The Pitt, starring Noah Wyle, takes components widespread to the medical style and mixes them with up to date fascinated about well being care and an ingenious episode construction.

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

🎵 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 expertise.”

🎮 Video games: Citizen Sleeper 2,out at this time, places you within the sneakers of an android who’s escaped a dystopian company. The sci-fi recreation 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. This is a no-fuss Chinese language dumpling recipe you possibly can attempt.

❓ Quiz: If this have been faculty, I might 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

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.Brendan Carr, the newly appointed head of the Federal Communications Fee, has opened an investigation of NPR and PBS for allegedly working commercials, which public broadcasting stations are prohibited from doing.The U.S. financial system grew at an annual fee of two.3% in October, November and December of 2024 as customers ramped up their spending.

This article was edited by Obed Manuel.