Plane crash victims; Target boycott; Nuclear tests : NPR

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At this time’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 evening. 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 had been killed. Here’s the latest.

• 🎧 It’s unclear how the 2 plane that had been alleged to cross at a protected 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 packing containers to look at the ultimate conversations within the cockpit, the airplane’s efficiency and knowledge factors similar to its altitude proper earlier than the collision. Authorities can even need the recorder from the Army Black Hawk, which continues to be within the river, to check. Federal investigators emphasised that they might watch out to substantiate information earlier than releasing them and {that a} preliminary report needs to be accomplished in 30 days.
• ➡️ Not less than a dozen elite figure skaters, coaches and their family members had been aboard the airplane.
• ➡️ Crowded airspace has been a concern at the D.C.-area airport. Greater than 23,000 flight operations befell there every month final 12 months.
• ➡️ This is what number of near-misses have happened at Reagan Airport, in response to 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 middle of the controversy 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 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 had 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 below home surveillance for the risk it poses to the nation’s democracy. Merz has now signaled he’s open to cooperating with the AfD on the immigration movement.

Goal is scaling again its variety, fairness and inclusion efforts, a promise that appeared essential 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, firms similar to Walmart, McDonald’s and Meta have decided to curtail or remove these packages. With Goal falling in line, activists known as for a boycott of the shop. Nevertheless, Black enterprise house owners 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 embrace attire, hair merchandise and books, are bought at Goal, about her ideas on the boycott and a possible compromise for those participating.

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 Battle 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, including NPR, to tour a secretive laboratory.

• 💥 Within the early Sixties, nuclear checks went underground to guard individuals and the setting from the harmful radioactive fallout.
• 💥 The stockpile program, a option to take a look at 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 increase.”
• 💥 Undertaking 2025, a conservative agenda revealed by the Heritage Basis, says the federal government ought to have the opportunity “to conduct nuclear checks in response to adversary nuclear developments if mandatory.”

This is a look inside 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

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 parts frequent to the medical style and mixes them with up to date occupied with well being care and an creative episode construction.

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

🎵 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 in the present day, places you within the footwear 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 Yr. This is a no-fuss Chinese dumpling recipe you may strive.

❓ Quiz: If this had been college, I’d have scored a B. I’ll take it. Do you think you can achieve an “A”?

3 issues to know earlier than you go

English singer Marianne Faithfull in her Kensington flat in 1965.

Stephan C Archetti/Getty Photographs/Hulton Archive

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Stephan C Archetti/Getty Photographs/Hulton Archive

1. British musician and actress Marianne Faithfull, whose 1964 model of “As Tears Go By” made her a music star, died yesterday at 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. economic system grew at an annual rate of 2.3% in October, November and December of 2024 as shoppers ramped up their spending.

This article was edited by Obed Manuel.