Michael Novakhov - SharedNewsLinks

FBI Agents Association Urges Congress To Protect Members

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 09:54:24 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The Pinnacle Gazette.

Calls for job protection amid scrutiny of January 6 investigations raise urgent concerns within the Bureau.

Christie: Trump FBI purge ‘incredibly dangerous’ to national security - NewsBreak

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 09:24:44 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Sunday that President Trump’s purge of the FBI is “incredibly dangerous” to national security.

In an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” Christie described the lengthy process of onboarding FBI agents and said the country cannot afford to lose good agents.

“Understand how long it takes to get a new FBI agent on board. If you fire hundreds — if not thousands, and it would be thousands on this list of FBI agents — it takes 12-18 months to get them on board. By the time you go through the interviewing process, the vetting process, then they go to Quantico for their training, and then become onboarded as a brand new FBI agent,” Christie said.

“In the threat assessment we have right now across the world, to lose that many agents, and then take a year to a year-and-a-half to try to replace them, is incredibly dangerous for our national security,” Christie continued. “And for what? Because they did their jobs.”

The Trump administration forced out a number of FBI officials Friday, removing agents who worked on Trump’s criminal cases as well as the heads of various field offices.

A source familiar told The Hill that agents who had worked on the Mar-a-Lago and Jan. 6 investigations were escorted out of the Washington Field Office and that officials in charge of the Washington, D.C., Miami, Seattle, New Orleans and Las Vegas field offices were removed.

The Hill reported earlier Friday that the five executive assistant directors of the bureau were notified they would be demoted. That move targeted the band of top officials who oversee the FBI’s five internal branches and are among the highest-ranking career positions in the bureau.

The removals follow a similar purge at the Justice Department, where prosecutors who worked on Trump’s two federal criminal investigations were also fired .

The attorneys were told specifically that they were removed due to their work on the cases, blaming the Biden administration for a “systemic campaign against its perceived political opponents.”

Christie, a former prosecutor, said he’s hearing from sources around the FBI that “they are stunned by what’s happening.”

Christie noted that the FBI agents who worked on Trump’s criminal cases are civil servants, not political appointees.

“None of these agents who worked on the Jan. 6 cases volunteered. That’s not the way it works,” Christie said. “In fact, at the FBI, they do the opposite. They don’t want you volunteering and self-selecting for an investigation, because that may mean you bring some bias to it. You go and you select these people.”

“So they were instructed by their bosses to work on the Jan. 6 cases, and what happened as a result of that? Hundreds of convictions in front of juries, in front of judges that were appointed by both Republican and Democratic administrations,” Christe said.

“And so if the president wants to pardon those people, that’s his right to do, but it’s not then his right to fire these folks,” Christie added.

Christie, a former Trump ally, has become one of the president’s most vocal GOP critics in recent years, especially during the 2024 presidential election season, when they both sought the GOP nomination.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.

Reports: FBI Agents to "Protest" Firings Today; Insubordinates Say "Dig-in"

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 08:00:12 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

OP-ED I and other former FBI-related people are expecting an employment-termination "bloodbath" at FBI today and tomorrow.

My guess is acting FBI director Brian Driscoll will be gone by this evening for defying a direct order seeking names of FBI employees—perhaps more than 6,000—involved in Jan 6 cases.

It is hard for me to see how James Dennehy, who runs the NY field office, keeps his job after sending defiant email to colleagues over the weekend promising to “dig in” and not step down or follow orders.

The NYT obtained the email. Dennehy: “Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the F.B.I. and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and F.B.I. policy,” Dennehy wrote.

“Good people” my ass. This FBI needs to be abolished or purged. Sounds like Trump is going the route of the purge. Let’s just hope the purge is thorough and complete. I have no empathy for the members of the FBI that allowed themselves to be used as a weapon against a political enemy of the last administration.

And his people also “did their job?” Were they also "doing their job" when they ignored the ANTIFA and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots and violence in the summer of 2020…?

Did their job? That remark is so absurd, so utterly out of touch and fraudulent, cartoons are being made of it:

I seem to remember a common phrase spoken at the Nuremberg Trials "I was just following orders". Didn't work out too well then. Let's hope it does not work out well here.

Dennehy also said the removal of top officials including at Miami and Washington field offices have caused “fear and angst within the F.B.I. ranks.”

Just imagine the fear and angst those innocent J6ers and their families felt when raided at dawn by FBI swat teams!

Can't be worse than the "fear and angst" that we the people have felt for the past decade watching our government turn against us!!!

The FBI under Democratic Party rule became a full-blown Deep State cartel - protecting cronies, crushing dissent, and weaponizing justice against political enemies. Now, as the rot gets exposed, the insubordinate foot soldiers are squealing about ‘fear and angst.’ Sorry Dennehy, you’re not a war hero, you’re just another bureaucratic thug who thought his badge made him untouchable. Pack your shit and get out.

It seems to me that if the FBI live in fear of pissing off the American People, things are proceeding as they should.

Dennehy then compared his insubordination . . . to being a Marine “in the early 1990s, . . . when he dug a small foxhole five feet deep and hunkered down for safety. “It sucked,” he wrote. “But it worked.”

Perhaps part of Dennehy's "foxhole" over these ongoing FBI Firings is one of the factors leading to what is reportedly going to be some type of large FBI Agent protest in Washington, DC, over the J6 firings.

One wonders if the FBI will be using it's typical Protestor Uniforms:

You remember those "protesters" don't you? Turned out to be mostly FBI agents masquerading as "Patriot Front" to arrest folks they lured-in to the allegedly patriotic group!

Now guys like Dennehy are trying to pretend they're the good guys. Or maybe he's not pretending? Maybe he actually believes his own bullcrap?

The hubris of the deep state has always been its greatest weakness. They really do believe they run the world and the voters are their subjects.

I don’t believe this is going to end well for Mr. Dennehy; If someone tells him he's fired, he's still fired whether he has dug a foxhole or not.

And if he is among those being fired (purged) then that's fine with me. I say oust him and everyone who acted like him.

It should serve to remind everyone ELSE at FBI (and other federal agencies) they work for us. We don't work for them. They serve us, we don't serve them.

We keep the Constitution to safeguard our rights. If they violate it, they get fired. Period. Full stop.

Arresting people for memes, making personal visits to private citizen homes over "remarks on Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/X etc." . . . is not what we pay FBI to do.

Today seems to be a sort of Reckoning; the Trump Administration on behalf of the American people, seems poised to clean house.

Mr. President, please "get to it" expeditiously.

FBI’s top New York official urges personnel to ‘dig in’ for ‘battle’ with White House

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:08:35 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from intelNews.org.

THE HEAD OF THE Federal Bureau of Investigation’s largest field office sent an email to his staff last night, urging them to “dig in” for “battle” after the White House began scrutinizing the Bureau’s investigation into the January 6 riots. James E. Dennehy, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York field office, sent a defiant email to FBI employees just hours after the Department of Justice (DOJ) began compiling the names of Bureau personnel who participated in the probe of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

On January 31, President Donald Trump’s administration summarily dismissed nine senior FBI officials. The following day, the Bureau’s interim leadership received a DOJ directive instructing them to provide information on all employees involved in the January 6 investigation. This request applies not only to special agents but also to thousands of FBI personnel who provided support services for what remains the largest investigation in the agency’s history.

Approximately 15% of the FBI’s workforce —an estimated 6,000 employees— was involved in the investigation. On Sunday, around 4,000 of them received an email from the Department of Justice asking them to voluntarily disclose their role in the probe. Reports indicate that recipients must submit the requested information by 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time today. Many within the FBI fear this inquiry is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to remove rank-and-file employees who worked on January 6 cases.

In response, Dennehy, a former U.S. Marine who joined the FBI after seven years in the Corps, sent an email on Sunday afternoon to personnel in the New York field office, delivering what appears to be a message of defiance. “Today,” he wrote, “we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the FBI and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and FBI policy.”

Dennehy praised the Bureau’s interim leaders, Brian Driscoll and Robert C. Kissane, for resisting DOJ requests to provide lists of FBI personnel, calling them “warriors.” He also recounted his Marine Corps experience, describing a time when he had to dig a five-foot-deep foxhole to survive, stating he would “dig in” similarly now. He emphasized that he had no plans to resign from the FBI or step down from his current position.

Dennehy’s remarks mark a potentially significant escalation in the growing conflict between the Trump administration and the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. The FBI’s New York field office —the largest in the country— employs over 1,100 special agents and another 1,000 support staff, making up roughly 10% of the Bureau’s entire personnel. The New York field office is also influential and often leads the way on matters of personnel policy and action. FBI leaders in other field offices across the U.S. may follow Dennehy’s lead in the coming hours.

Just before Dennehy’s email, former FBI Director James Comey, who led the Bureau from 2013 until Trump dismissed him in 2017, urged FBI employees to “fight for the rule of law.” In a social media post, Comey advised Bureau personnel to “fight […] to protect your country and to keep your jobs.” He added: “Don’t let the darkness of bad people steal the joy of public service.”

Also on Sunday night, the FBI Agents Association addressed the DOJ’s questionnaire in an email to its members. The message acknowledged, “We understand that this feels like agents and employees are being targeted,” but assured members that “the FBI has a long-standing and robust process that aims to provide due process in accordance with policies and law.” The association further stated that “FBI employees carrying out their duties to investigate allegations of criminal activity with integrity and within the rule of law should never be treated as those who have engaged in actual misconduct.”

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 03 February 2025 | Permalink

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Brian Driscoll, Donald Trump, FBI, FBI New York Field Office, James Dennehy, News, politicization, Robert Kissane, US Department of Justice

About intelNews
Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying, by Dr. Joseph Fitsanakis and Ian Allen.

Trump Administration Purges at FBI Spark Revolt Among FBI Personnel

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 14:36:55 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Over the weekend, the Trump administration intensified its efforts to identify and target for retaliation FBI personnel connected to the now-closed investigations into Trump’s role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, and his absconding with dozens of classified documents he was not entitled to retain per the Presidential Records Act.

In the wake of the administration’s Friday mass purge of senior FBI leaders in Washington and elsewhere across the country, ABC News reported on February 2 that a 12-question survey was sent to FBI personnel “asking about their work related to investigating the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.” The FBI Agents Association (FBIAA) apparently provided the tip to ABC and told the network that,

Employees carrying out their duties to investigate allegations of criminal activity with integrity and within the rule of law should never be treated as those who have engaged in actual misconduct.

This morning, the Washington Times reported that Acting FBI Director and former FBI Newark Field Office head Brian Driscoll had apparently refused an order by Acting Attorney General Emile Bove “to compile a list of all current and former FBI employees assigned ‘at any time’ to the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol for review ‘to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.’

The Times also reported that,

The FBI told The Washington Times that Mr. Driscoll is still the acting director, but there is speculation among current and former FBI agents over whether he will remain in that position after refusing Mr. Bove’s order.

Sources said that Mr. Driscoll’s team drove him to Newark, New Jersey, where he previously headed the field office.

It’s that last sentence that really caught my attention.

Maybe Driscoll needed to visit the Newark office in connection with one or more ongoing investigations. But the fact that the Times’ sources made a point of noting that Driscoll’s “team” drove him to Newark means that he’s got subordinates with guns at his side for a very different reason.

The Times also reported that “a protest by employees and former employees Monday at the Washington Field Office and headquarters is in the planning stages.”

I cannot recall a time in FBI history when current or former employees have planned to gather in numbers to protest on federal property a sitting chief executive’s personnel actions. At the same time, no prior president has attempted a Stalinist-like purge of career federal law enforcement officers at any point in US history.

It’s also worth noting that the abrupt removal of hundreds or even thousands of FBI personnel will inevitably jeopardize ongoing counterintelligence, counterterrorism, cyber, and child sexual trafficking investigations, among many others, something former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R‑NJ) also noted over the weekend.

On January 23, 2025, the FBIAA issued a statement condemning Trump’s mass pardons and sentence commutations of those convicted or pled out for their role in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. A request to FBIAA for comment on these latest administration personnel actions targeting FBI employees was not answered prior to the publication of this piece.

Shocker at Patel Hearing: Sen Confirms FBI, DOJ Obstructed Investigation of Trump Assassination Attempt

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 08:51:58 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Comments on: Shocker at Patel Hearing: Sen Confirms FBI, DOJ Obstructed Investigation of Trump Assassination Attempt.

Top F.B.I. Agent in New York Vows to ‘Dig In’ After Removals at Agency

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 08:39:27 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

What went wrong in the Philly jet crash that killed seven people

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 03:13:07 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Investigators are early into their investigation of the plane crash in Northeast Philadelphia that killed seven people.

The big picture: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which has been on the ground since Friday, says it'll take several days — or potentially weeks — to collect and analyze evidence from the sprawling crash site.

The latest: Investigators have recovered the jet's black box, the NTSB said Sunday night.

They found it 8 feet underground, along with an enhanced ground proximity warning system that could contain flight data. They also found the plane's engines.

The parts are being sent to the agency's lab in Washington, D.C. to be analyzed.

Investigators also obtained surveillance footage and several statements from witnesses. They encouraged the public to email NTSB with video and photos of the crash.

The agency said it expects to have a preliminary report done within 30 days.

But a final report with a probable cause won't come for 1-2 years.

Zoom in: The medical jet climbed to about 1,500 feet before descending at a 45-degree angle and crashing on Cottman Avenue about 3.5 miles away from the airport, according to city and federal officials.

The crew didn't send any distress messages from the cockpit and didn't respond to a transmission from air traffic control, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said.
The jet was in the air for less than a minute.

"It looks like a rocket that comes straight down," David Evans, an airline transport pilot and flight instructor, told the Inquirer. "Even a Lear has some sort of glide capability. It just looks so highly unusual."

Based on air traffic control recordings, the weather at the time of the incident and publicly available flight path data, the two most likely culprits are either spatial disorientation in a low overcast cloud layer immediately after takeoff, or some catastrophic mechanical failure, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick — a pilot — tells us.

Juan Browne, a commercial pilot and aviation accident expert, tells Axios spatial disorientation is more common at night when pilots are reliant on their instruments to help them fly.
The lack of a distress call and the steep, rapid decline suggest the pilots were "110 percent task saturated" trying to safely navigate, Browne says. "We call it 'helmet fire' in the industry."

Caveat: Only after the official investigation may we have a full understanding of what happened.

That the aircraft impacted the ground so violently will no doubt complicate investigators' work, given the state of the physical evidence, Axios' Fitzpatrick adds.

What they're saying: Tammy Duffy, a 59-year-old pharmaceutical representative from Hamilton, New Jersey, tells Axios she was stuck in rush-hour traffic near Cottman Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard when the plane struck.

The explosion and a fiery mushroom cloud sent people running for their lives.
"Time froze," says Duffy, who shut her vents to keep acrid smoke from entering her car. "It reminded me of 9/11."

Commissioner Lisa Deeley said on X the tragedy has shaken the neighborhood where she grew up: "You see these things on TV, but it's totally different when it is in your own backyard," Deeley wrote.

Heather Long, who lives near the crash site, told Axios residents are worried about how they'll get to work this week — since many streets are still barricaded with police officers preventing traffic from entering or leaving.

"We don't have any answers," Long said. "I want to know when we can leave."

What's next

"Long-term recovery": That's what the city's Managing Director Adam Thiel is warning residents to brace for as the massive effort to restore normalcy to the neighborhood gets underway.

The crash site along Cottman Avenue — a busy corridor with a mix of homes and businesses — stretches at least a half-mile between Bustleton Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard.

Aerial footage shows a deep crater in the ground there, and a debris field that officials said likely spans several miles.
The full extent of the damage isn't even known yet, officials said: They'll only be able to assess it after the crash investigation.

Mike's thought bubble: I went down to the site Sunday and saw the usually bustling, noisy hub brought to a standstill — a surreal feeling.

The scene was eerily quiet even though there were police, investigators and onlookers everywhere, and I watched investigators use an excavator to hoist the charred remains of abandoned cars onto a tow truck.

State of play: Roosevelt Boulevard is expected to open by rush hour Monday morning, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said Sunday.

The Roosevelt Mall is expected to reopen on Tuesday, Kristen Moore, a spokesperson for mall owner Brixmore Property Group tells Axios.
PECO has restored services to the neighborhood, except for some buildings that were impacted by the crash.
It's not clear when Cottman Avenue will reopen to traffic.

What we're watching: The city is still working to figure out exactly how many people were displaced or missing due to the crash.

"It is possible there are still people … that we don't know about," Thiel said Sunday.

Officials will hold a town hall meeting at 7pm on Wednesday to answer residents' questions and share more resources. The location is TBD.

The city is partnering with three organizations so residents can soon donate to people impacted by the crash.

Get a free daily digest of the most important news in your backyard with Axios Philadelphia.

Will the DOJ really dismantle Google? Here’s what happens next. - POLITICO

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 02:52:33 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

The Google trial faces a long series of filing dates, court hearings and likely challenges that will drag any meaningful changes out for years. | Jeff Chiu/AP

The Department of Justice’s landmark proposal to dismantle Google’s search monopoly offers the first clear window into how Washington’s accelerating antitrust effort could clip the wings of Big Tech giants — and also highlights political questions about how long the push will survive.

Unlike European regulators targeting the same firms, President Joe Biden’s enforcers are swinging for the fences, proposing a radical restructuring of how Google works rather than chipping away at the company with fines.

“What is remarkable is the breadth of the proposal,” said Cristina Caffarra, co-founder of the Competition Research Policy Network and an adviser to regulators and plaintiffs going after Google on both sides of the Atlantic.

The DOJ’s proposal, filed late Tuesday night, comes after a judge found in August that the company illegally monopolized the online search and advertising markets. The potential remedies being proposed by the government are sweeping: From limits on new deals with phone or computer makers to restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence and even a full-scale restructuring, virtually everything is under consideration. A final proposal is due late next month.

But as America’s competition enforcers ratchet up their fight with top tech firms — Apple, Amazon and Meta are also facing lawsuits, and Google is embroiled in a separate DOJ fight — they’re expected to hit a series of hurdles.

The Google trial, first through the process, faces a long series of filing dates, court hearings and likely challenges that will drag any meaningful changes out for years. And all the cases could encounter skeptical judges worried about overly invasive remedies to monopoly power.

With a new administration poised to take the White House next year, presidential politics could also undercut any broader push against the tech giants. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are both under pressure to replace Biden’s hard-charging antitrust enforcers — particularly Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan.

“Neither candidate has been very clear about their antitrust priorities,” said Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust expert at Vanderbilt Law School.

Spokespeople for the Harris campaign declined to comment on whether the vice president supports a Google breakup, or would maintain Biden’s antitrust stance on tech if elected president. Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said that while the GOP nominee has assembled a transition leadership group, “formal discussions of who will serve in a second Trump Administration [are] premature.”

It’s possible that specifics could change as the DOJ finalizes its requests over the next month. But its aggressive proposal to cut Google down to size is already seen by antitrust experts as a signal of what could be coming for Big Tech — with America’s antitrust enforcers increasingly willing to take big shots at the most powerful companies on the planet.

Florian Ederer, an economist at Boston University who specializes in competition policy, said the tentative proposal to spin off key Google products like Chrome or Android “would mark a historic moment in [digital] antitrust enforcement.” He said such a breakup “could have profound economic impacts, not only for Google but for the broader tech ecosystem.”

Caffarra called it “a world away from the European approach,” which she framed as far too cautious.

“That U.S. enforcement went from being way behind Europe — comatose until 2019 — to this in five years is a testament that antitrust is mainly about posture and drive, and regulators getting their act together,” Caffarra said.

In addition to the DOJ, the Google search case was joined by the attorneys general of dozens of states, which remain co-plaintiffs.

In a statement, Google attacked the DOJ’s “radical and sweeping proposals” and warned of “unintended consequences” — including weakened consumer privacy, the collapse of popular Google products and a decline in American AI innovation “at a critical moment.”

The tech lobby largely echoed Google’s complaints. Chris Mohr, president of the Software and Information Industry Association, said in a Wednesday statement that the DOJ “seeks to punish Google for its continued innovation” and that its proposal “will make the internet less safe for Americans ... kneecap AI development and undermine broader U.S. national interests.”

Google noted that Tuesday’s DOJ proposal is “the start of a long process.” The company plans to appeal the underlying decision that it has an illegal monopoly, a process that will likely take years to fully resolve. It pledged to respond to the DOJ’s final remedies “as we make our case in court next year.”

It’s possible that the DOJ’s antitrust enforcers will ultimately back away from a Google breakup or other more aggressive fixes to its monopoly.

Allensworth said many of the DOJ’s asks already “push the envelope in terms of being stronger than what antitrust has, for the last 40 years anyway, imposed in monopolization cases.” And if the agency keeps its foot on the gas, she said, there’s a strong chance that federal judges will reject its more intrusive changes to the company — especially any plans to spin off Android, Chrome or Play.

“This I view as a very unlikely remedy for the judge to grant, because breakups are seen as an unusually invasive remedy that would need a strong justification,” Allensworth said. She added that Google’s control over those three products is largely ancillary to this specific case.

The DOJ’s antitrust enforcers will also be under new leadership in the White House come January. Jonathan Kanter, head of the agency’s Antitrust Division, would almost certainly step down if Trump wins, and the former president would face significant pressure from orthodox conservatives to replace him with a softer touch. Harris is under her own pressure from tech billionaires — including some bankrolling her presidential campaign — to fire aggressive antitrust enforcers like Khan.

“All bets are off if Trump wins,” said Caffarra, adding that it’s also “really unclear” who Harris will pick to lead the DOJ and its antitrust wing.

But other experts don’t anticipate a major change once Biden leaves office.

In the specific case of Google’s search monopoly, the horse has largely left the barn: the DOJ will have already filed its final remedies by the time a new president takes over, teeing up a lengthy appeals process.

Bill Kovacic, a former FTC chair and antitrust professor at George Washington University Law School, said he suspects Trump “will not tamper with” the case, which was initially filed in 2020, toward the end of his administration.

“Trump brought the Google search case! That’s his case,” Kovacic said. “He doesn’t like these companies. He has no sympathy for them. So I imagine he would tell his assistant attorney general, ‘Keep up the good work, full speed ahead.’”

Despite clamoring from billionaires, Kovacic said Harris is also unlikely to dump Biden’s pugnacious approach to Big Tech’s market power. He noted a large fanbase for antitrust enforcement in Washington and beyond that worries Harris will cave to Silicon Valley, where she started her career.

“She would pay a significant price if she were to back off in any way in these big, visible, high-profile cases,” Kovacic said.

Despite the many hurdles and open questions, the former FTC chair said Tuesday’s preliminary DOJ proposal is less a high-water mark than a sign of things to come.

“It’s going to give confidence to the plaintiffs in the other cases that they can prevail against a formidable, dominant firm in this field,” said Kovacic. “It shows it can be done. You see people scaling the highest mountains, and you think ‘I can climb, too.’”

Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.

The Cost of Russia’s Friendship With Azerbaijan

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 11:32:27 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Azerbaijan has managed to achieve something thought to be impossible in the post-Soviet space: the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers ahead of time, and seemingly without angering Moscow. In fact, even as peacekeepers were leaving the long-disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh that was seized by Baku following a one-day war with Armenia in 2023, Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev was visiting Moscow. Neither Russian officials nor Russian propaganda outlets have accused Baku of pushing Russia out of the South Caucasus. Instead, they blame Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for recognizing Azerbaijan’s 1991 borders and placing too much trust in Brussels and Washington.

Nevertheless, the warm rhetoric between Baku and Moscow does not mean that they are now close allies. It likely indicates the Kremlin has realized the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh is resolved, and that it does not want to jeopardize relations with Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan has shown that, with a certain combination of military and diplomatic effort, it is possible to both resolve a territorial conflict in defiance of Moscow, and eject the Russian military. For a long time, the conventional wisdom was that once Russia deploys peacekeepers, they will remain in place for a long time—like in the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, or Moldova’s pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria. But Nagorno-Karabakh has bucked this trend. Even if Russia had wanted to see its peacekeepers stationed there for many years, in the end they were obliged to leave in short order having achieved very little.

The withdrawal represents the final failure of Russia’s model for a solution to the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh, which envisaged peacekeepers staying there more or less permanently. When Azerbaijan seized the region and the local Karabakh Armenians fled en masse to Armenia, Moscow initially tried to find a new role for its peacekeepers. One option was for them to be based in Armenia as part of a mission from the Moscow-led security bloc, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. However, with many in Armenia blaming Moscow for Azerbaijan’s victory in Nagorno-Karabakh, Pashinyan publicly refused to accept Russian peacekeepers.

Russia even tried to argue that the peacekeepers needed to stay in Nagorno-Karabakh to help with de-mining. But de-mining obviously does not require 2,000 soldiers and 400 vehicles. Most of Russia’s 15th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Alexandria Brigade, which provided the peacekeepers, is already fighting in Ukraine, and the rest will now likely join them.

Even having withdrawn its peacekeepers without winning any concessions from Baku, Moscow remains frozen out of Armenia–Azerbaijan negotiations. Moscow and Baku may both criticize Yerevan for its attempts to cozy up to the West, but there is no sign of Russian diplomacy in the South Caucasus intensifying, or of Moscow working closely with Baku. Instead, Yerevan and Baku have recently entered into a direct dialogue—and so far quite successfully.

A recent deal between Yerevan and Baku to transfer control of four border villages to Azerbaijan, and the erection of the first border markers between the two countries took place without any Russian participation. The “no Russia, no West” approach in Armenia–Azerbaijan relations that was adopted last year is already looking like it could be workable.

In particular, a consensus that the two sides will seek to agree on a common border based on the Alma-Ata Protocols of 1991 (which regulated the breakup of the Soviet Union) is cause for optimism. This should prevent Azerbaijan from seeking to impose a border based on maps from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s when the Azerbaijan republic within the Soviet Union was somewhat larger.

On the other hand, Azerbaijan continues to criticize Armenia for trying to strengthen its armed forces, and the topic of the so-called Zangezur Corridor—a proposed transport route through Armenia connecting Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhchivan—remains a flashpoint. In other words, while Yerevan and Baku have managed to reach agreement on something without external mediation, it could turn out to be temporary window dressing. Either way, though, it’s unlikely Russia will be able to return to its previous role as an influential intermediary.

Russian pro-war Telegram channels regularly criticize Baku for pro-Kyiv sympathies—and even pro-regime media outlets in Azerbaijan have published articles about Azerbaijani volunteers fighting against Russia in Ukraine. There is also much anger in Russia over rumors that Azerbaijan is supplying weapons to Ukraine. But Moscow is trying hard to avoid any friction in relations with Azerbaijan.

One of the main reasons Moscow was unable—or unwilling—to extract something from Baku in exchange for the withdrawal of its peacekeepers was that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s subsequent international isolation has significantly reduced Moscow’s leverage. It is now less willing to risk jeopardizing relations with its neighbors.

For example, Russian exports of oil and gas through Azerbaijan rose significantly after Russia lost access to much of the European market following the invasion of Ukraine. This means that in winter, Azerbaijan can export more of its own gas and meet internal demand with Russian gas. Similarly, Russian oil exports to Azerbaijan quadrupled in 2023. In both cases, the total volume of exports is not huge, but the war in Ukraine means it is of disproportionate significance for Moscow.

Azerbaijan has also become an irreplaceable partner for Russia when it comes to transporting goods to and from Iran and the ports of the Persian Gulf. It’s no coincidence that transport along the North–South Corridor was one of the main points of discussion between Putin and Aliyev at their April 22 meeting in Moscow.

It would be illogical for Moscow to risk all this by picking a fight with Baku, particularly as the issue of peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh was one of principle. Even if the Russian soldiers had stayed in the region until 2025 or even 2030, they would not have been able to change the facts on the ground. On the contrary, they would only have been a reminder of how Moscow has been sidelined from the negotiations between Yerevan and Baku.

US restricts helicopter flights after Washington crash, 'black boxes' recovered

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 15:04:15 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Summary
Companies

Black boxes recovered from plane, helicopter
Investigators interview air traffic controller
Deadliest US air disaster in two decades
Trump said helicopter was flying too high

WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - U.S. authorities restricted helicopter flights near Reagan Washington National Airport on Friday, after a midair collision between an American Airlines

(AAL.O), opens new tab

passenger jet and a military helicopter killed 67 people this week.

Investigators were able on Friday to recover the helicopter's black box, which captures flight data and voices in the cockpit, National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said at an afternoon briefing.

The information from the box, along with the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the CRJ700 airplane, could help authorities piece together what happened just before the two aircraft collided on Wednesday night and plunged into Washington's freezing Potomac River in the deadliest U.S. air disaster in two decades.

The board has also conducted interviews with air traffic controllers, Inman said, including the lone controller working inside Reagan's tower at the time of the crash on Wednesday.

Authorities have not identified a cause, and Inman said the board would not engage in speculation before completing its investigation.

"The NTSB is an independent, bipartisan board - 58 years as the gold standard. Our job is to find the facts, but more importantly, our job is to make sure this tragedy doesn't happen again, regardless of what anyone may be saying," Inman said, adding that he had not spoken to President Donald Trump or anyone at the White House.

Separately, a medevac plane crashed near a shopping mall in Philadelphia on Friday evening with a child and five others aboard, the plane's air ambulance company said, adding that it had not confirmed any survivors.

Following the Washington crash, the FAA sharply restricted helicopter flights near Reagan to reduce the risk of another collision, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said earlier on Friday, confirming news first reported by Reuters.

Duffy said the decision "will immediately help secure the airspace near Reagan Airport, ensuring the safety of airplane and helicopter traffic."

The FAA is barring most helicopters from parts of two routes near the airport and only allowing police and medical helicopters, air defense and presidential air transport in the area between the airport and nearby bridges.

The restrictions will last at least until the NTSB releases a preliminary report into the fatal collision, which typically takes 30 days. At that point they will be reviewed, Duffy said.

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said the airline would work with the government "to make our aviation system even safer."

Crews have recovered 41 bodies thus far, officials said.

Pulling the debris from the Potomac River will begin "in earnest" on Sunday, Inman said, an effort that will likely last all week.

Washington, D.C., Fire Chief John Donnelly told reporters that 28 bodies have been positively identified and that he expected all victims would eventually be recovered.

Item 1 of 7 An American Eagle plane departs the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, as search and rescue teams work nearby, in the aftermath of the collision of American Eagle flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the Potomac River, in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., January 31, 2025. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

[1/7]An American Eagle plane departs the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, as search and rescue teams work nearby, in the aftermath of the collision of American Eagle flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the Potomac River, in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., January 31, 2025.... Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more

The American Airlines plane was trying to land when it collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter, killing all 60 passengers and four crew members aboard. Two of the three service members killed in the helicopter were identified Friday.

QUESTIONS ABOUT SAFETY

The crash has shone a spotlight on concerns about air safety and a shortage of tower controllers at the heavily congested airport that serves the U.S. capital.

The FAA is about 3,000 controllers behind staffing targets. The agency said in 2023 that it had 10,700 certified controllers, about the same as a year earlier.

One controller rather than two was handling local plane and helicopter traffic on Wednesday at the airport, a situation deemed "not normal" but considered adequate for lower volumes of traffic, according to a person briefed on the matter. Duffy on Thursday vowed to reform the FAA.

Airspace is crowded around the Washington area, home to three commercial airports, multiple military bases and some senior government officials who are ferried around by helicopter.

Over a three-year period ending in 2019, there was an average of 80 helicopter flights per day within 30 miles (48 km) of Reagan National Airport, with the majority either military or law enforcement flights, according to a 2021 Government Accountability Office report.

The helicopter's path has also drawn scrutiny. The military said the maximum altitude for the route the helicopter was taking is 200 feet (61 meters) but the collision occurred at an altitude of around 300 feet, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24.

Trump weighed in on Friday, saying that the helicopter involved in the crash was flying too high.

"The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot. It was far above the 200 foot limit" Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Senator Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, questioned the safety of military and commercial flights separated by as little as 350 feet (107 m) vertically and horizontally.

Radio communications showed that air traffic controllers alerted the helicopter about the approaching jet and ordered it to change course.

The pilot of the American Eagle Flight 5342 had about six years of flying experience, according to the airline's CEO. The Bombardier jet was operated by PSA Airlines, a regional subsidiary.

Terry Liercke, vice president of Reagan National, said two of the airport's three runways were expected to remain closed for a week. The main runway at Reagan, which will stay open, handles about 90% of the airport's flights and is the busiest single runway in the United States.

The crash victims included people from Russia, China, Germany and the Philippines, as well as young figure skaters returning from an elite national training camp in Kansas, the state from which the passenger flight took off.

Get weekly news and analysis on U.S. politics and how it matters to the world with the Reuters Politics U.S. newsletter. Sign up here.

Reporting by David Shepardson, Jeff Mason, Steve Holland and Costas Pitas; Additional reporting by Joseph Ax, Bianca Flowers and Brad Brooks; Editing by Scott Malone, Gerry Doyle, Mark Porter, Nia Williams, Sandra Maler and Himani Sarkar

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

'We have a lost aircraft': Philadelphia air traffic control detected problem before crash

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 14:41:50 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Air traffic controllers knew there was a problem moments before the deadly Friday night crash of a Medevac jet in Philadelphia that also injured over a dozen people on the ground.

The cause for the crash is not yet known. The Learjet 55 departed Northeast Philadelphia Airport at about 6:30 p.m. ET bound for Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri, and the pilot did not mention any problems in recorded air traffic control communications.

But the air traffic control tower caught on that there was an issue, the recordings suggest. “Medevac med service zero-five-six, northeast tower, are you on frequency?” a controller asks almost four minutes after the jet's takeoff from Northeast Philadelphia Airport in an audio file downloaded from liveatc.net.Then, a request for response from the aircraft is repeated by the controller. About five minutes later, another voice comes on the radio asking, "What's going on down there?""We have a lost aircraft," the operator responds. "We're not exactly sure what happened, so we're trying to figure it out. For now, the field is going to be closed, so no inbounds or outbounds, probably," the operator responds.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators were arriving at the crash site, said the Federal Aviation Administration, which will assist with the probe.

DC plane crash:Search for bodies continues; officials to remove aircraft from Potomac

Philadelphia plane crash victims

Aboard the plane was one pediatric patient, the child's mother and four crew members, Jet Rescue Air Ambulance said. All six were from Mexico and were reported dead, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Saturday morning on X.

The plane crashed near the Roosevelt Mall at Cottman Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard, a busy hub with dozens of businesses and hundreds of homes. The crash caused an explosion scatting debris, setting some homes and cars on fire and injuring some people on the ground, officials said.

Officials on Saturday morning confirmed an additional fatality: One person who was in their car when the medical flight crashed to the ground. At the time, they said 19 others have been injured but there could be others.

Philadelphia plane crash: Air traffic control recording hints at problem

The audio file on the air traffic broadcasting website includes more than 30 minutes of communications between the tower employees and crew on the plane. Air traffic controllers can be heard giving the plane approval to depart.

Tower employees give instructions to switch frequencies after the successful takeoff. A pilot acknowledges and switches radio frequencies.

Approximately a minute later, one controller makes another request for the plane to contact the tower, followed by about 30 seconds of silence. Within minutes, they realize there is an issue and shut down the airfield.

Where was the Medevac jet that crashed headed?

The aircraft with four crew members and two passengers – a young girl, who had been treated at Shriners Children's Philadelphia, and her mother – were headed to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri.

The child was on her way home with a final destination of Tijuana, Shai Gold, who works on corporate strategy with Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, told CNN on Friday.

(This story has been updated with new information.)

Contributing: Minnah Arshad, Shane Brennan, Jo Ciavaglia and Karissa Waddick; and Reuters.

Follow Mike Snider on Threads, Bluesky and X: mikegsnider &@mikegsnider.bsky.social &@mikesnider.

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What we know about the victims of the medical jet crash in Northeast Philly

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 10:56:21 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from NBC10 Philadelphia.

A medical transport jet carrying a child patient, her mother and four others slammed into a Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, creating a massive explosion that caused fires and damage throughout the area.

The plane crashed 30 seconds after takeoff from Northeast Philadelphia airport, which primarily serves business jets and charter flights.

While officials have not yet released the identities of the victims of the crash, they did reveal more details about who they were and why they were on the aircraft.

The plane was headed to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Springfield, Missouri. From there it would have traveled to Tijuana, Mexico, for its final destination.

Shai Gold, a spokesperson for Jet Rescue Air Ambulance – the plane’s operator – told NBC10 the six people on board included a girl, her mother, a pilot, copilot, doctor and paramedic.

The child who was on board had received treatment at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia for a life-threatening condition, Gold said.

"All I can say is, the patient was sponsored by a third-partner charity to undergo life-saving treatment in the U.S.," Gold said. "She did her course of care. She was going home. She fought quite a lot to survive, and unfortunately, this tragedy on the way home."

Local

Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.

NBC10's Claudia Vargas spoke with Jet Rescue Air Ambulance about the small plane that crashed in Northeast Philadelphia on Friday.

Shriners spokesperson Mel Bower told NBC10 the girl had just been released from the hospital on Friday.

“I know that the team there in Philadelphia today had a sendoff for her,” he said. “It’s always a meaningful but yet emotional time for us. It’s really just been compounded by the tragic ending.”

Due to privacy laws, neither Gold nor Bower could reveal the child’s identity. Bower spoke about the impact the crash has had on the hospital’s staff, however.

“It’s devastating news. All of our patients are like family to us. It’s not just about the care that they received. It is the whole experience of working with them and their families,” he said. “The care that they receive is much more than just clinical. It is very devastating to us. All of our patients are very dear to us and to have such a tragedy happen, it’s just so hard for all of us. Every child deserves to live their best life and that’s our goal. And to see one end so tragically is just heartbreaking.”

In addition to the six people on board the jet, six others who were on the ground were injured during the crash. They were all taken to Temple University Hospital's Jeanes Campus. Three of those victims were treated and released while three others remain in the hospital, a source told NBC10. Officials have not yet revealed their conditions.

The victims include an 11-year-old boy who suffered head injuries, a 31-year-old man who suffered head injuries and a 30-year-old woman who suffered facial injuries, according to the source.

All six victims of Philly plane crash were Mexican citizens, Mexican president says

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 10:52:10 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from [Untitled].

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New view of destruction as investigation begins into deadly Northeast Philadelphia plane crash

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 10:48:47 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from 6abc RSS Feed.

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The crash and resulting explosion of a medical transport jet in Northeast Philadelphia left a massive impact on the surrounding neighborhood, and the scope of the devastation started to become more clear on Saturday.

All six people on board the plane are dead and an unknown number of people on the ground were injured after Friday's crash.

Action News is getting a new view of the destruction after a deadly plane crash in Northeast Philadelphia

A large fire burned in the wake of the crash, prompting a significant response. Vehicles, homes and even people in the area could be seen on fire.

Action News is getting a new look Saturday morning at the destruction that spans several blocks. A crater can be seen in the roadway where the medical jet made impact.

Chopper 6 was overhead, where charred vehicles and burned buildings could be seen as federal investigators arrived to examine the scene.

Video of the crash quickly began circulating on social media, many showing graphic images from the scene.

Debris from the crash is being found up to a quarter mile away from the impact site.

New video even shows one man sitting inside a diner being struck by debris.

Video from inside a diner show people ducking for cover as debris flies from the plane crash in Northeast Philadelphia.

Mayor Cherelle Parker is urging residents to stay away from the scene and to call 911 if they find any debris.

"We're just asking for prayers," she told reporters.

The plane was carrying a child, her mother and four other people, went down near the Roosevelt Mall around 6:10 p.m.

The Learjet 55 crashed near Cottman Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard after departing from Northeast Philadelphia Airport, according to authorities. The flight was en route to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri with a final destination in Mexico when it went down.

Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, confirmed Saturday that all six on board the plane were killed.

"I regret the death of six Mexicans in the plane crash in Philadelphia, United States. The consular authorities are in permanent contact with the families; I have asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to support them in whatever way is required. My solidarity with their loved ones and friends," she said in a post on X.

Shriners Children's Hospital confirmed to Action News that the child on board had received care from the hospital and was being taken back to her home country of Mexico, along with her mother, when the crash happened.

A shelter is available for residents at Samuel Fels High School located on the 5500 block of Langdon Street, the mayor said.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating.

An NTSB investigator arrived at the scene Friday night with additional team members expected to arrive Saturday.

Speaking at a follow-up press briefing Friday night, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said dozens of state troopers and other state personnel were on hand to offer help and praised local responders and community members.

"We saw neighbor helping neighbor. We saw Pennsylvanians looking out for one another," he said.

Moment of impact: Plane crash caught on multiple videos in Northeast Philadelphia

Multiple cameras captured the plane crash and explosion in Northeast Philadelphia on Friday night.

In a statement posted to social media platform Truth Social, President Donald Trump said: "So sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More innocent souls lost. Our people are totally engaged. First Responders are already being given credit for doing a great job. More to follow. God Bless you all."

There was a temporary ground stop after the crash but that has since been lifted. However, Atlantic Aviation is closed.

The Philadelphia plane crash comes just days after 67 people died after an American Airlines plane and Black Hawk helicopter crashed near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington D.C. The DC plane crash marks the first major commercial crash in the U.S. in more than 15 years.

Army refuses to identify female Black Hawk pilot killed in DC collision

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 10:07:50 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from [Untitled].

Disturbing new clips reveal clearest view yet of DC plane crash

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The Army is refusing to name the female pilot killed aboard the military helicopter that collided with a passenger jet flying into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday.

In an announcement Friday, the Army, which disclosed the names of the two other soldiers in the chopper who died, said the woman’s family requested her identity be withheld from the public.

“At the request of the family, the name of the third Soldier will not be released at this time,” the Army Public Affairs wrote on their website.

The unidentified soldier was an experienced pilot with more than 500 hours of flying experience, the Telegraph reported, citing Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff of the army’s aviation directorate.

The Army on Friday formally identified Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, as the two other service members who were on the Black Hawk helicopter when it went down in the fiery crash into the Potomac River.

The bodies of Eaves and the female pilot have not yet been recovered, the Army said.

At a press conference Thursday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth described the crew of the UH-60 Black Hawk crew “fairly experienced.”

Eaves, the instructor pilot on the flight, is reported to have logged more than 1,000 hours of flight time, Koziol said, according to the Telegraph.

Koziol further dismissed claims that DEI policies were to blame for the crash — something that was suggested by President Trump Thursday.

“Both pilots had flown this specific route before at night — this wasn’t something new to either one of them,” Koziol said.

Hegseth announced Thursday that the Army is investigating whether the Black Hawk was flying at an appropriate elevation.

The midair collision between the helicopter and an American Airlines jet claimed the lives of 67 people.

“Our deepest condolences go out to all the families and friends impacted during this tragedy, and we will support them through this difficult time,” Major General Trevor J. Bredenkamp said in a statement, adding that

Our Favorite News Aggregators of 2025

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 09:44:41 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Lifewire | Tech News, Reviews, Help & How-Tos.

Millions of people use news aggregators daily to catch up on what's happening worldwide, but which ones are worth your time? Here are some of the best news aggregator apps you should check out.

If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation.

Best Aggregator For a Balanced Perspective: SmartNews

What We Like

SmartView mode for slower connections.
Get top trending news stories globally.
Colorful, simple interface.

What We Don't Like

Emphasizes discovery over personalization.
You may see stories you're not interested in.

SmartNews claims to analyze millions of articles every day to deliver the top trending news stories from around the world. It favors discovery over personalization, offering a "both sides" perspective to the latest trending topics.

Users can then choose channels, which are articles grouped by publications or by themes like politics, science, or entertainment, and how often they receive headlines as notifications.

The app's interface is simple, yet colorful, and its SmartView mode promises to tune out distractions and improve readability, a handy feature for people with slower connections.

Download For:

iOS

Android

Social News Aggregator With an Active Community: Reddit

What We Like

Active community for practically any topic.
Contribute your own photos, memes, and stories.
Tailor your news feed.

What We Don't Like

Toxic political forums.

Yes, Reddit has a reputation for housing some terrible internet content, but there's good there as well. If you're looking for a blend of interesting news, memes, and community chat, it's worth checking out.

Tailor your news feed by subscribing to various subreddits or contribute your own photos, memes, and stories. Reddit has a pretty engaged community, meaning there's always something worth reading or discussing. Plus, the official app offers some new features like community group chat, a night mode, and more.

Download For:

iOS

Android

Best For No-Nonsense Reporting: AP News

What We Like

Its no-nonsense approach to news reporting.
Photo galleries are beautiful.

What We Don't Like

Design is a bit plain compared to other apps on this list.

While various news outlets have mobile apps, AP News is the place to go if you're looking for the facts. The Associated Press is an independent, nonprofit news cooperative providing content to other outlets. The organization has won 52 Pulitzer Prizes since the award was established in 1917.

Although the app isn't as fancy as others on this list, it's clean, readable, and full of beautiful photo galleries from the AP's award-winning photojournalists.

Download For:

iOS

Android

Best News Aggregator For In-Depth Reporting: Google News

What We Like

Personal briefing snapshots day's biggest stories.
Polished format.
Easy to subscribe to publications you like.

What We Don't Like

Not every article in feed will be relevant to your interests.

Google Reader might be gone, but the technology behemoth still has a popular news aggregator in the form of Google News. Like other apps on this list, it pulls thousands of articles from credible online news organizations, blogs, and magazines and presents them in a polished format.

Google News gives you the option to set up a personal briefing that updates throughout the day with relevant stories, or you can choose to get full coverage about a topic, including different perspectives, a timeline of key events, and more.

Additionally, Google makes it easy to subscribe to newspapers and magazines with a single tap, so you can support the publications you love.

Download For:

iOS

Android

Chrome

Best News Aggregator With a Sense of Humor: Fark

What We Like

Quirky headlines.
Find news stories you may not see anywhere else.

What We Don't Like

There's currently no Android version.

Fark is a good place to find news of a more peculiar variety. Created by Drew Curtis in 1999, community members submit potential news stories to the website on a daily basis, and the Fark team chooses around 100 to display on the homepage. Articles are categorized with tags like awkward, creepy, ironic, or Florida.

Fark is further broken up over several tabs for entertainment, sports, politics, and more. There's also a mobile app called Hey! On <a href="http://Fark.com" rel="nofollow">Fark.com</a> for iOS. However, Android users will have to stick with the mobile version of the website for now.

Download for iOS

Best Aggregator (Likely) Already Installed: Apple News

What We Like

It looks great.
Articles optimized for your platform.
Save articles for offline viewing.
Easily find, download, and manage subscriptions.

What We Don't Like

Hampered by being part of a closed ecosystem.

Apple News comes preloaded on every iOS device, so it's a good place to start if you're an iPhone or iPad owner looking to catch up on the day's news. The app features a clean format with beautiful photography, and articles are optimized for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, so readers are guaranteed a good reading experience on any device.

Apple News offers a wide selection of news organizations and indie publications, and Apple promises it will get better at understanding a user's interests the more they use it. It also features a daily, curated digest and the ability to save articles for offline viewing.

With the iOS 14.5 update, Apple News introduced a streamlined search function to make it easier to find the topics, channels, and stories that interest you.

Download for iOS

Prettiest News Aggregator: Flipboard

What We Like

Its magazine-style format is beautiful to look at.
Creates personalized digital magazines.
Wide swath of topics to choose from.

What We Don't Like

Coverage of trending stories can get repetitive.

Flipboard is a popular news aggregator known for its lovely magazine-style layout. Available via web browsers or on iOS and Android, it takes content from news sources and social media, presents it as a personalized digital magazine, and lets users "flip" through it.

Flipboard claims to offer a "curated experience with a plurality of voices," meaning odds are good you'll find something worth reading every time you open the app.

Download For:

iOS

Android

Best For Saving Your Favorite News Articles: Pocket

What We Like

Bookmarks online articles.
Makes recommendations based on your interests.
Share stories easily.

What We Don't Like

Missing notable categories like sports and politics.

Pocket is a great tool for bookmarking and managing lists of internet articles you want to read later, and it's also a good place to find stories. All you do is select the Recommended or Explore links to find a variety of trending articles on the Pocket network.

Recommendations are partly based on previous articles you saved, so there's a good chance you'll find something matching your interests.

Pocket is available for mobile and web browsers, and it's integrated into over 500 applications, which makes it simple to save and share your favorite stories.

Download For:

iOS

Android

Best News Aggregator With Cloud Sync: Feedly

What We Like

Works across a variety of platforms and browsers.
Works on browsers, iOS, and Android.
Hide unwanted topics or keywords.

What We Don't Like

It's less user-friendly than other apps on this list.

Available for browsers, iOS, and Android, Feedly lets you subscribe to content feeds from websites covering a wide range of topics from sports to politics to entertainment. It has multiple layout options, tagging, keyboard shortcuts, and more. A mute filters feature lets you fine-tune your feeds by hiding unwanted topics or keywords.

Best of all, its cloud-syncing feature lets you save and read articles across devices or share them on social media, so you'll never be without something to read whether you're at home or on the go.

Download For:

iOS

Android

Chrome

Best Aggregator for Foreign Language Articles: Inoreader

What We Like

Article translations for international news.
Save articles to Dropbox or Evernote.

What We Don't Like

Puts some features behind a paywall.

Inoreader is an RSS reader with a vibrant community of content curators, a Discovery mode, user-generated subscription bundles, and more.

It offers a free plan where people can subscribe to unlimited news feeds and folders and read them on any device. There are also day and night reading modes, free search and archiving of all your subs, and the ability to save articles to third-party tools like Dropbox or Evernote.

The upgraded Pro plan is paid for and includes push notifications, offline mode, article translation, and more.

Download For:

iOS

Android

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FBI purges top officials, agents who worked on Trump’s criminal cases

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 06:44:07 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The Hill News.

The Trump administration forced out a number of FBI officials Friday, removing agents who worked on the criminal cases into President Trump as well as the heads of various field offices.

A source familiar said agents who had worked on the Mar-a-Lago and Jan. 6 investigations were escorted out of the Washington Field Office.

The same source said officials in charge of the Washington, D.C., Miami, Seattle, New Orleans and Las Vegas field offices were removed.

The full scope of the removals remains unclear but has sparked concerns from members of Congress.

A statement from Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, indicated the move may have impacted “dozens” of agents.

“It is deeply alarming that the Trump administration appears to be purging dozens of the most experienced agents who are our nation’s first line of defense,” he said.

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“All Americans who support law enforcement and the rule of law should be deeply concerned by reports that Donald Trump is seeking to fire large numbers of FBI agents, ranging from senior officials to agents assigned to cases against him,” said Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

“These actions would undermine our ability to protect Americans from national security and criminal threats, and — just as damaging — they would undermine the independence of our justice system. Pam Bondi and Kash Patel both committed to protecting the Department of Justice and the FBI from politics and weaponization. If these reports are true, it’s clear they misled the Senate.”

The slew of removals comes the day after Patel, Trump’s nominee to lead the agency, was specifically asked about potential removals of agents that worked on Trump’s cases, saying he knew nothing of the plans but would respect processes for removing federal employees.

“I don’t know what’s going on right now over there, but I’m committed to you, Senator, and your colleagues, that I will honor the internal review process of the FBI,” Patel said.

The FBI Agents Association blasted reports that those who worked on Trump’s criminal cases were being removed.

“If true, these outrageous actions by acting officials are fundamentally at odds with the law enforcement objectives outlined by President Trump and his support for FBI Agents,” the group said in a statement.

“These actions also contradict the commitments that Attorney General-nominee Pam Bondi and Director-nominee Kash Patel made during their nomination hearings before the United States Senate. They also run counter to the commitment that Director-nominee Patel made to the FBI Agents Association, where during our meeting he said that Agents would be afforded appropriate process and review and not face retribution based solely on the cases to which they were assigned.”

The removals follow a similar playbook at the Justice Department where all prosecutors who worked on Trump’s two criminal investigations were also fired.

The attorneys were told specifically that they were removed due to their work on the case, blaming the Biden administration for a “systemic campaign against its perceived political opponents.”

“Nowhere was that effort more salient than in the unprecedented prosecutions the Department of Justice pursued against President Trump himself,” acting Attorney General James McHenry wrote, adding “I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) described the FBI firing as an unprecedented purge.

“These unprecedented purges of hundreds of prosecutors, staff and experienced law enforcement agents will undermine the government’s power to protect our country against national security, cyber, and criminal threats,” he said in a statement.

“The loyal friend of autocrats, kleptocrats, oligarchs and broligarchs, Trump doesn’t care about the requirements of democracy, national security and public safety,” Raskin continued. “His agenda is vengeance and retribution. If allowed to proceed, Trump’s purge of our federal law enforcement workforce will expose America to authoritarianism and dictatorship.”

Updated at 6:21 p.m. EST

Trump administration fires prosecutors involved in Jan. 6 cases and moves toward ousting FBI agents

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 22:35:25 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

How did the DC plane crash happen? Experts tell The Post what may have caused the accident

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 10:42:06 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from [Untitled].

WASHINGTON — A series of grave miscommunications in one of the most crowded and complex patches of sky in the US likely caused Wednesday night’s deadly midair crash between an American Airlines passenger plane and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan National Airport, The Post can reveal.

The crash, which killed all 64 people aboard the packed Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas — plus three people on the chopper — is the deadliest US air disaster since 2001.

Less than 20 seconds before the collision, an air traffic controller warned the chopper that it was getting too close to the CRJ-700 passenger jet, and the experienced helicopter pilot acknowledged.

However, experts believe the helicopter pilot may have maneuvered to avoid the wrong plane — a jet of the same model that was taking off farther away — and never saw the American Airlines flight until it was too late.

The Black Hawk helicopter was apparently flying too high — at about 400 feet — when it collided with the American Airlines jet, which was rapidly descending after it was cleared for landing, experts said.

However, because of the close quarters around Reagan National — there is just 50 feet separating the maximum allowable altitude for helicopters and the minimum altitude for planes that are landing in the spot — leaving almost no room for error.

Officials have not yet offered a possible cause for the crash, however, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday that the tragedy was “absolutely” preventable.

The Post spoke to several aviation experts about a number of factors that may have contributed to the fatal collision.

Originally built to shuffle VIPs into the nation’s capital on private or government jets, Reagan is a smaller airport than Dulles or Baltimore/Washington International — the other two airports in the region.

With a runway nearly half as long as the standard 13,000-foot runways of other airports built to accommodate large commercial jets, landing is tricky for incoming planes, former DC-based American Airlines pilot John Wright said.

“When it was originally built [in 1941,] there weren’t jet airplanes, which need to take a lot more space than propeller-driven airplanes,” he said.

The shorter runway makes the descent difficult, creating the need for pilots to be intensely focused, Wright said.

“The first few times you fly there, you usually are with [a fellow pilot] who’s really experienced. He’s kind of talking through it, too,” he told The Post.

Follow the NYP’s coverage of the deadly DC plane collision

“Where you land on [runways] that are 13,000 feet long, you’ve got plenty of room to play with. But at [Reagan] it’s only 7,000 feet.”

There are two flight paths in the area — one for helicopters and another for airplanes — that converge near the Reagan airport, according to an official flight map.

Air traffic controller audio captured operators warning the military helicopter that it was getting close to American Airlines Flight 5342 and directing it to pass behind the passenger plane, which would have had the right of way for the trickier landing.

“It’s such a challenging airport to land a jet airplane, as your focus is really on your airspeed, your altitude, your rate of descent,” he said, adding that “the last thing you’re looking for is to see if somebody’s crossing in your path.”

Still, he insisted, “it’s totally possible to operate safely at Reagan International — I did it for 50 years, of course.”

Another complicating factor could be the too-general nature of the air traffic controller’s language to the Black Hawk. In video of the collision taken from the Kennedy Center, a second jet is seen in the sky taking off at the same time as the DC-bound flight was attempting to land.

Instead of providing specific information of where the Wichita airplane was, the controller only asked the military pilot if he saw the “CRJ” — the type of airplane — in the sky, without indicating where it was.

“The language is usually more along the lines of … ‘Black Hawk, hey, do you see the aircraft at your 11 o’clock, five miles out, moving north?’ or something along those lines,” retired Blackhawk pilot Lt. Col. Darin Gaub told The Post.

He added: “That may be something that’s going to have to get looked at, because in my experience, those kinds of calls and warnings are made very specifically to clock direction, distance and altitudes and in route of travel.”

But former Air Force pilot and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Calif.) claimed in a video posted to X on Thursday that “air traffic control did its job” by merely alerting the helicopter of the CRJ’s approach.

“If you listen to the audio, the [commercial jet] was coming in on approach [when air traffic control] called out to [the army helicopter, ‘look for the [jet] on approach — that’s air traffic control’s job,” Kinzinger explained. “[The helicopter] evidently saw the wrong target — this is the theory — and said, ‘I see the [airplane.]’”

Visibility was likely also a factor, though it was a clear night at the time of the crash. Gaub said there are typically two soldiers on board a Black Hawk who help spot area aircraft for helicopter pilots — but Thursday’s flight had just one.

“There are normally two crew chiefs in back, both looking sideways 90 degrees off from the front two pilots, and each one of them is a set of eyes that can see a whole lot more, in some cases, than the pilots can,” he told Fox News on Thursday.

“If you’re down to [crew members] — which is normal, by the way, for a training mission — that one side has less eyes looking out and looking for other aircraft or obstacles than you would have with four.”

Another issue that may have been a factor in the helicopter crew’s visibility was their possible use of night-vision goggles, Gaub said.

“[Night vision] takes your normal field of vision from what you see normally to down to about a 40-degree [angle,] and that affects each pilot in the front.

He noted that commercial aircraft’s lights may have “blended into the lights of the city, and it can make an aircraft difficult to pick out.

“I’ve had it happen to me before,” he told The Post. “I know exactly how it looks, and you can lose an entire 747 in the lights of a big city.”

The helicopter’s altitude may also have played a role in the collision, as helicopters are directed to fly no higher than 200 feet in their path — and the collision happened at roughly 300 feet.

“If the helicopter was flying at an altitude that was higher than what is prescribed and dictated by procedure through that airspace corridor … they could have been looking at an aircraft that was … potentially even below their own altitude,” Gaub told The Post.

Even if the helicopter had been at its 200-foot maximum altitude, aircraft aviation attorney and former pilot Jim Brauchle explained that there still would not have been much space between it and the commercial jet descending from its 500-foot ceiling.

“You’ve got intersecting routes that are apparently de-conflicted by, you know, only several hundred feet — which is not a lot of room for a margin of error.”

What’s more, Federal Aviation Administration rules allow pilots a standard 75-foot deviation from the prescribed altitudes, which could potentially drop that margin even lower, Brauchle said.

Regardless, Wright said the helicopter “should not have been crossing the flight path at any altitude at that time.”

“Somehow something broke down between the helicopter’s clearance to be there and the air traffic control tower,” the former pilot surmised.

“It kind of seems like a very preventable accident that shouldn’t have happened if normal procedures were followed.”

'Helicopter was up to something': Conspiracy theorists claim Black Hawk crash with jet was 'deliberate'

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 07:06:03 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

Published on : 00:25 PST, Jan 31, 2025

WASHINGTON, DC: The crash between a military Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines jet, which occurred on January 29, 2025, has ignited a firestorm of conspiracy theories across social media.

The deadly collision, which caused both aircraft falling into the Potomac River, has led to wild speculation that the incident was no accident but a deliberate act.

Tragedy strikes near DC as American Airlines flight collides with Black Hawk helicopter

The crash took place when American Airlines Flight 5342, a Bombardier aircraft, was approaching Washington’s Reagan National Airport.

The plane, with four crew members and 60 passengers aboard, collided mid-air with a Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers on a routine training mission. All involved in the crash are presumed dead, though authorities have recovered 28 bodies so far.

The investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing, but the incident has raised many questions about how such a tragedy could happen in the heavily monitored airspace around Washington, DC.

Given that modern collision-avoidance technology is in place for commercial flights and air traffic controllers were present, many are puzzled by the circumstances surrounding the crash.

Conspiracy theories flood social media as users speculate crash was deliberate

Almost immediately after news of the crash broke, conspiracy theorists began to flood social media platforms with unsubstantiated claims that the incident was intentional.

Some suggested that the helicopter may have "chased" the passenger plane, with one social media user comparing the event to a "1970s-style assassination." The user further asked, "Who were the people on that plane??? That helicopter was up to something."

Others speculated that the crash could have been a "targeted hit." One user posted, "Aviation expert and navy seal here, helicopters are typically not supposed to crash into airplanes."

Another added, "This plane crash is so strange… something is off.. a Blackhawk not having alarms going, 3 soldiers not seeing a effin commercial plane? A army pilot who doesn’t understand how to navigate close to an airport? Even if training? Yeah this smells bad."

"Helicopters do not crash into airplanes helicopters do not crash into airplanes. Airplanes do not crash into helicopters airplanes do not crash into helicopters. Ain't no way. Somebody needs to check who was on that plane or who was allegedly in that helicopter. This smells BAD," said one.

A person said, "This looks deliberate to me. Watch this clip especially the slow motion part, the plane is coming in to land and the helicopter comes in from the left and flies right into it"

An X user claimed, "This was not an accident.. Blackhawk Helicopters don’t fly into jets."

Other chimed in, "Military helicopters just don’t “accidentally” crash into passenger airplanes. There are things we don’t know and may never know and THAT is scary AF! "

Despite the wild theories circulating online, there has been no official confirmation to support any of the claims. Authorities have remained tight-lipped about the cause of the crash, Daily Mail reported. President Donald Trump without evidence claimed that the crash was related to DEI hires.

The Army and the Department of Defense have launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the collision, but no evidence has emerged to suggest that the crash was deliberate.

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online

Conspiracy Theories Erupt Over American Airlines Mid-Air Crash

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 17:24:24 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from RadarOnline.

What We Know About the Plane and Helicopter Crash Near Washington

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 13:24:37 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

US Army Black Hawk reportedly failed to respond to warnings before DC crash

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 11:39:44 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

An investigation is underway to establish the cause of a crash between a US Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger plane after the helicopter apparently failed to respond to proximity warnings.

The crash happened near Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington DC, with all 67 onboard the two aircraft feared dead.

According to Sky News, audio shows air traffic control asking the Black Hawk crew if they have visual of the civilian aircraft and asking them to manoeuvre behind it

"PAT25 [military helicopter], do you have a CRJ [American Airlines] in sight? PAT25, pass behind the CRJ," the controller is quoted as having said.

It appears there was no response from the Black Hawk to any of the warnings.

Video footage shows two sets of aircraft lights in the area behind the Lincoln Memorial, eventually crossing paths before an explosion is seen in mid-air.

According to flight tracking information from the passenger plane's radio transponder, the American Airlines flight is believed to have been travelling at 140mph at 400ft when it suffered a rapid loss of altitude.

The passenger plane broke into two pieces and ended up in 7ft of water in the Potomac River, while the Black Hawk was upside down in the water.

A US official confirmed there were three soldiers on the Black Hawk helicopter, which was taking part in a training flight.

The audio was released by ATC, a site that focuses on aviation communications for more than 1,200 airports.

After the crash, an unidentified voice could be heard asking: "Did you see that?"

They then ask: "Black Jack Three, can you return to base?

"Black Jack Three, proceed directly... I need you to land.

"I need you to land immediately."

Black Jack is the callsign for US Coastguard helicopters.

In another clip, an air traffic controller says: "Crash, crash, crash, this is an alert three."

An alert three indicates that an aircraft has crashed on or off the airport, there is a high probability an aircraft will crash, or a pilot will have to crash land.

President Donald Trump said he had been "fully briefed on the terrible accident".

"May God Bless their souls," he said.

Mr Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to ask why the helicopter didn't change course.

"The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport," the post read.

"The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time.

"It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn't the helicopter go up or down, or turn?

"Why didn't the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane?

"This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!"

The flight had been travelling from Wichita in Kansas to Washington DC.

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom confirmed there were four crew on board American Eagle flight 5342, operated by PSA Airlines, along with 60 passengers.

He said it was a "difficult day for all of us at American Airlines".

"Our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of our passengers, crew members, partners, first responders, along with their families and loved ones," he said.

"Please know that we'll continue to share accurate and timely information as soon as we can, but anything we must report must be accurate, we owe that to everyone involved.

"Our team of highly trained professionals will be working around the clock to support our passengers, crew and their families however we can and we will update you as soon as we can."

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Trump says collision between American Airlines jet and Army helicopter ‘looks like it should have been prevented’

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 09:50:10 -0500

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Trump Fuels Crazy D.C. Plane Crash Theories With Insult to Army Pilots

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 09:49:23 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from The Daily Beast Latest Articles.

Politics

Though little is known about the collision, the president said it could have been prevented.

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Inside Oct. 7's fateful hours: How chaos crippled the General Staff

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 05:34:54 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from www.israelhayom.com.

The IDF's investigation into the October 7 Hamas attack reveals a complex picture of decision-making and response under unprecedented circumstances. While then brigade commander Major General Shlomi Binder, head of the Operations Division, is credited with making correct decisions during the crisis, questions remain about the critical hours leading up to the attack and the army's overall preparedness for such a massive infiltration.

The investigation examining the Operations Division's actions during the events of October 7 concluded that the division's head at the time, Major General Shlomi Binder (then a brigadier general) made correct decisions, acted calmly, and utilized all resources at his disposal.

However, this comprehensive investigation, based on footage and recordings from "the Pit" (IDF's underground command center in Tel Aviv), only begins at 6:29 a.m.. What happened the night before the attack was not examined with the same level of detail, but only as part of a general investigation conducted by a senior officer in the Operations Directorate. The fact that this officer holds a position parallel to Binder's raises questions about the objectivity of the examination.

It's worth noting that Binder's appointment as head of the Intelligence Directorate during the war faced sharp criticism both within and outside the army. IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi was accused of promoting a close associate and confidant who was head of the Operations Division on the morning of the massacre. Halevi claimed that initial findings from the investigation into the Operations Division did not prevent the appointment. However, as mentioned, the fact that the investigation looks at the events after the war was launched at 6:29 may skew the picture, and so far, no integration has been performed between the investigations.

The investigations conducted so far reveal that Major General Binder was not familiar with the "Jericho Wall" plan for a case of mass infiltration by terrorists. The most dangerous scenario he prepared for, based on intelligence assessments, was rocket fire and targeted infiltrations.

At 2:30 a.m., Binder received the first information about an unusual occurrence – from the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and not from a military intelligence source or the Southern Command. Although the information did not indicate immediate warning, Binder held a series of conversations with his subordinates and with Israeli Air Force and Navy officers.

At 4:30 a.m., a situation assessment was conducted by the head of the Operations Directorate and the chief of staff, which was brought forward from the planned morning assessment. As a result, Binder sent the head of the Southern Arena (a lieutenant colonel) to the Kirya (IDF headquarters) to prepare the situation assessment.

However, despite the accumulating intelligence signs, Binder did not conduct a comprehensive situation assessment that night, which should have preceded his commanders' consultations. In these consultations, as is known, no one assessed that an unusual event was expected. In military jargon, no "immediacy" was identified for a warning or occurrence in the Gaza Strip, but more comprehensive situation assessments and consultations in the Intelligence Directorate might have led to a different conclusion.

One of the central claims concerns Binder's late arrival at "the Pit." According to the main points of the investigation obtained by Israel Hayom, he was caught on camera entering the Supreme Command Post (HaMatzpe) only at 8:47 a.m., more than two hours after the terror attack began. The explanation given in the investigation is that Major General Binder lives in the Golan Heights, and from time to time he had to delay to give orders – as cellular reception in the descents from the Heights is disrupted. The investigation determined that his decision in this context was reasonable.

According to the investigation, when the attack began at 6:29 a.m., "the Pit" at the General Staff in the Kirya was only at basic readiness. The battle manager was a major, but due to the night's events, the head of the Southern Arena, a lieutenant colonel, also arrived to prepare materials for the planned morning situation assessment.

Despite reports of a shortage of forces in the Gaza Division, the investigation found that in practice, there was one more company than the required standard in the sector. While one can argue whether the order of forces was appropriate, there was no shortage of forces on the ground. With the start of the Hamas attack with a barrage of rockets, the Operations Division activated the forces on high alert: special units and several battalions, including a Givati battalion from the north, Battalion 450 of the NCO School, and the Gefen Battalion of Training Base 1.

At 6:36 a.m., a conversation took place involving (among others) the chief of staff, the head of the Operations Directorate, the Israeli Air Force commander, and the GOC Southern Command , where it was decided to activate the army in the broadest possible manner. By 7:30 a.m., all regular army forces and some reserve forces were activated.

The investigation, based on real-time cameras from "the Pit," shows that the television screens were operational, and there was no significant gap between the OSINT (open-source intelligence) situation picture and the information in the Pit (the claim about turned-off screens relates to other command centers in the army).

The declaration of "Hannibal" – the emergency order for a case of hostile infiltration – moved up the chain of command: the Gaza Division declared it at 6:37 a.m., the Command at 6:43 a.m., and "the Pit" at 6:48 a.m. The order gives the sector commander all the authority to deal with the infiltration, including activating air fire and special units.

The first report of an infiltration was received in "the Pit" at 6:48 a.m. in the northern sector. The reports continued to multiply: at 7:10 a.m., the Southern Command reported 8 infiltrations, and by 7:30 a.m., 15 infiltrations along the Strip were already known. Later, dozens more infiltrations were recorded, some reported and some not.

A few minutes after the attack began, a continuous video call was opened between the Southern Command and "the Pit,"where they also watched footage from additional sources. This prevented a gap in the situation picture between the General Staff and HaMatzpe. At 6:55 a.m., the head of the Southern Arena identified a sea infiltration and updated the Southern Command's operations officer, who reported to the division. In the first minutes, the chief of staff was heard reporting on the infiltration of paragliders after the then-commander of the 146th Division, Brigadier General Israel Shomer, a resident of Kfar Aza, saw it with his own eyes.

One of the central questions regarding the functioning of the Operations Division concerns the manner of allocating forces to dozens of event locations. The investigation reveals that the Gaza Division, Southern Command, and the General Staff's "Pit" struggled to form an accurate picture of the situation, partly because the reports of infiltrations seemed identical.

According to the investigation, by 7:30 a.m., the Operations Division had activated all available forces. The General Staff, through the Division, allocated forces to the Southern Command, which transferred them to the Division according to the orderly chain of command. The regional command and the division were responsible for sending forces to various points.

Around 8:00 a.m., after the chief of staff's situation assessment, the head of the Operations Directorate, Major General Oded Basiuk, entered the Pit and instructed to transition to war. He released all remaining restrictions and approved reserve mobilization. At 9:07 a.m., the Operations Division activated the "Gal" (National Mobilization) system – even before the political echelon's approval.

To the important and significant question – why the forces didn't arrive faster, the investigation found that there were physical constraints of time, organization, and travel. Most forces arrived between 9:30 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. The arrival, according to the investigation, was indeed not fast enough, but the IDF wasn't prepared for a scenario of hundreds and thousands of terrorists infiltrating simultaneously at dozens of points, and assumed there would be a warning allowing appropriate preparation of the order of battle.

The investigation also answers the question "Where was the army?". The answer is simple – the IDF got stuck in Sderot. The forces that arrived south positioned themselves in Ofakim and Sderot for several reasons: The situation picture, influenced among other things by the video of the armed pickup truck in Sderot – indicated fighting in the city. Many forces were directed there despite Nirim, for example, having ten times more terrorists. The assessment was that the potential for damage was greater in populated cities. Additionally, Sderot constituted a geographical bottleneck that delayed the forces' advancement southward until almost 11:00 a.m..

Painfully, forces were sent to places that managed to "cry out" louder for help. To Nirim, for example, forces arrived only after the last terrorist had left. At the Nova music festival, the army didn't understand the magnitude of the catastrophe until a late stage.

The investigation also examined why the General Staff didn't intervene more in force allocation – despite the catastrophic and chaotic situation. The main answer lies in the IDF's command structure: Southern Command was functioning, and the Gaza Division under Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld projected control of the situation – despite actually collapsing. In such a situation, according to the investigation, and considering the need to prepare for other fronts (mainly in the north), there was no justification for excessive intervention by the General Staff. Deviation from the rules of command and control, it is argued, would have created chaos.

Nevertheless, there were cases where the General Staff did intervene, but did so in cooperation with the command, not over its head. In one case, for example, it can be seen that the head of the Operations Division, Major General Binder, directs forces and commanders to communities together with the Southern Command's operations officer.

Despite the cruel and painful result of the massacre, the investigation determines that under the existing alert conditions and in the absence of intelligence warning, the conduct in the General Staff's "Pit" was generally good. However, areas for improvement were identified: better formulation of the situation picture, better utilization of multi-organizational capabilities (Shin Bet, Mossad, and other organizations that were present), faster activation of forces, and maintaining a rapid readiness array including transportation systems and helicopters.

However, the question arises whether the chosen investigation methodology is correct. The separation between night events and day events raises doubts, as decisions – or their absence – during the night substantially affected the day's events and the ability to prevent or reduce the catastrophe. An investigation of the Operations Division starting at 6:29 a.m. cannot be complete without synchronization with an examination of its conduct during the night.

The IDF Spokesperson responded with the following statement: "The IDF is in the midst of the operational debriefing process of the events of October 7 and what preceded them. The details presented in the article do not constitute the official summary of the investigation. The investigation has not yet been concluded, and when it is, it will be presented transparently to the public."

The sacred fire that ignited Azerbaijan’s spring holiday Novruz – Aze.Media

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 13:26:44 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story from Aze.Media.

Yet, the traditions of Nowruz are older than all of modern society and extend into the ancient past of the Caucasus. Nowruz’s earliest traditions came from the most sacred holiday of the Zoroastrian religion.

Over time, and with the coming of first Islam and then secularism in the region, the traditions of Nowruz have changed significantly and are no longer defined exclusively by their roots in the “fire-worship” religion.

“Novruz is also a holy day for Sufis, Ismailis, Alawites, Babis, and adherents of the Baha’i faith,” writes “The Real Azerbaijan” author, noting how sacred significance in ancient Novruz traditions has crossed lines of religious affiliation.

In the book “The Real Azerbaijan” the Novruz holiday is described as that which “marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year in the Iranian calendar.” The book describes that the festival is celebrated “the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day” which has been recorded to the fine “t” since ancient times and shaped the tradition of Novruz by both those races who emerged out of what is modern Iran. Novruz is a national holiday of Azerbaijan, which bears its name from the ancient presence of Zoroastrians. The word “Azerbaijan” means “land of sacred fire” in the ancient local dialects. The word has been translated from the Persian word azer meaning “fire” by modern linguistics.The Women’s Roundtable also met up with former U.S. State Department staffer and activist against antisemitism Ellie Cohanim. Cohanim explains the targeting and human rights abuses in Iran, as well as the lingering and struggling demographic of Iranian Jews.

Despite the association to Persian dialects, Azerbaijan is predominantly Turkic in ethnic origin and the Azerbaijani language is a primarily Turkic dialect. The Persian word for “fire” became associated with Azerbaijan in part because of the religious presence of Zoroastrians, and in part, citing the works of Thomas Reiss about Kurban Said, because of the nation’s natural oil deposits, which have in the past caused landmarks to burst into flame from natural causes.

The book “the Real Azerbaijan” states that the Novruz holiday is believed to have been created by Zoroaster himself. Zoroaster was the prophet of the religion that bears his name, which predates Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The book describes how, since the Achaemenid era, the new year begins with the New Day, when the heavens are equal. It is worthy of note that there are some politicized discrepancies to this explanation of the holiday. The ancient and Middle Ages calendar of Iran was heavily influenced by the presence of Azerbaijani in Iran before the Islamic revolution. The Azerbaijani of Iran is referred to today as “the Southern Azerbaijani” and resides in what is now Tabriz, Iran. Tabriz was the capital region of Shah Ismayil’s Iran. So, while Novruz as an Azerbaijani tradition shares the same calendar as the Iranian calendar, Iran is composed of multiple ethnicities, including Azerbaijanis, Persians, Ahwazi Arabs, and Jews.

“It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical Northward equinox, which usually occurs on March 21,” the book continues. In truth, many of the aspects of the cultural connection with fire are seen in Novruz. Every year, a great pyre is lit, and traditional dancers perform.

Today, there are an estimated fewer than 200,000 Zoroastrians. Most of them live in India, and faith-keepers are part of an ethnic group called Parsis. However, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are likewise believed to have a tiny demographic from this ancient religion.

The author of the book “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star” Paul Theroux noted that Zoroastrian traditions continued in the region “despite being heresies” in more traditional times. This account in this book of the life of Zarathustra, a.k.a. Zoroaster, recalls how the ancient mystic “flourished and was persecuted” 3,500 years ago. This account in this book of the life of Zarathustra, a.k.a. Zoroaster, recalls how the ancient mystic “flourished and was persecuted” 3,500 years ago. Zarathustra was described in this account to have resided in the regions that are now known as Afghanistan and Iran, yet his tradition has left its remnants on the Land of Fire. Zarathustra believed in equality of sexes and denounced both the establishment of a priesthood due to corruptibility and the use of the name of God for power.

Due to his mystic regard for light and fire, springtime and sunshine are core elemental virtues of his faith. Sunlight is an elemental aspect of Novruz as it was celebrated religiously. The religious roots of Novruz have been condemned in some nations across the Muslim world as “pagan” as some aspects, such as the painted eggs which represented fertility in Zoroastrianism, are considered pagan by the purists of Abrahamic religions. Azerbaijan has adopted the holiday in part due to its secularized society and in part due to the adopted spirituality of the festival.

Local politicization of ethnicity and culture over the last century of human history has led to some disagreements in academics over the origins of Novruz, or the association with Zarathustra. As Azerbaijan endures as a nation, Novruz is expected to adapt to the “new day” of modernity, with contemporary events further contributing to the shape of this ancient spring tradition.

Three Eastern Partnership neighbours in the South Caucasus | Fact Sheets on the European Union | European Parliament

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 12:39:21 -0500

Michael_Novakhov shared this story .

The EU’s Eastern Partnership policy, initiated in 2009, covers six post-Soviet states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. It was created to support political, social and economic reform efforts in these countries with the aim of increasing democratisation and good governance, energy security, environmental protection, and economic and social development. All the participating countries (except Belarus whose membership is suspended) send delegations to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly.

In addition to the work of the competent committees on foreign affairs and international trade, the European Parliament has a standing delegation for relations with the South Caucasus (DSCA), which oversees EU relations with the three South Caucasus states under the frameworks of the Parliamentary Association Committee (PAC) with Georgia, the Parliamentary Partnership Committee (PPC) with Armenia and the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee (PCC) with Azerbaijan, and monitors the work of the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia.

Georgia

The EU-Georgia Association Agreement, including a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), entered into force in July 2016. Georgia has made significant efforts in terms of aligning its legislation with EU standards, which has led, inter alia, to visa waivers for short stays in the Schengen area as of March 2017. The EU is Georgia’s main trading partner, with a 20.5% share of its total trade (2022). The EU is also the largest provider of financial assistance to Georgia. For 2021-2024, EUR 340 million in funding has been allocated for Georgia. The priority areas cover the economy, institutions, the rule of law, security, the environment and climate resilience, digital transformation, gender equality and inclusive society. The EU-Georgia Association Council, which supervises the implementation of the Association Agreement, held its last meeting on 20 February 2024 in Brussels.

Georgia’s political and economic transformation, which began in 1989, has been marked by civil war, territorial conflicts and severe economic downturns. Faced with Russia’s occupation of Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia, Georgians have pinned their hopes on moving closer to the EU and NATO. Following Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union, Georgia (alongside the Republic of Moldova) submitted its own application for candidate status on 3 March 2022. On 14 December 2023, the European Council decided to grant the status of candidate country to Georgia, on the understanding that the relevant steps set out in the Commission recommendation of 8 November 2023 are taken. In March 2024, the government approved the 2024 action plan for Georgia’s integration into the EU.

The EU has repeatedly underlined its unwavering support for Georgia’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders, as underlined in the European Parliament resolution of 14 June 2018 on Georgian occupied territories 10 years after the Russian invasion and in its latest resolution of 28 February 2024 on the implementation of the common foreign and security policy.

The EU supports the conflict resolution efforts made through the work of the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, the EU Monitoring Mission and the EU Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace, thus complementing the Geneva International Discussions. The annual EU-Georgia Strategic Security Dialogue is a sign of trust in relations between the two sides. Georgia has also made significant contributions to several EU common security and defence policy operations, based on a framework agreement for Georgia’s participation, which entered into force in 2014. On the other hand, Georgia has not aligned with EU-led sanctions against Russia and Belarus. In May 2023, the Georgian Government’s decision to resume flights to Russia raised doubts about its commitment to align with the EU.

Georgia’s political and media landscapes remain extremely polarised. A series of questionable developments over the past couple of years have pointed to democratic backsliding and undermining of civil liberties. These include the shortcomings and instances of malpractices observed during the 2020 legislative elections and 2021 municipal elections, as well as several instances of verbal or physical assaults against journalists and media workers. Most recently, Georgia’s ruling party has re-introduced legislation that would tighten restrictions on civil society, despite human rights watchdogs and international partners expressing concern, including the EU and the US. If adopted, the proposed legislation would oblige civil society organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from external sources to declare that they are ‘pursuing the interests of a foreign power’. Mass demonstrations have taken place in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, where demonstrators have demanded that the draft law be withdrawn, as they see it as seeking to discredit independent, foreign-funded organisations and media and as a move steering the country away from Europe and towards Russia. Constant tensions between the ruling majority and the opposition and a lack of transparency and inclusiveness have also often hampered the reform process. In October 2024, parliamentary elections are due to be held in Georgia, which will be a major test for Georgian democracy. The EU is concerned by a number of actions by the ruling majority, including ignoring recommendations of the Venice Commission on election law, its repeated attempts to pass a ‘foreign agents’ law and seemingly establishing closer relations with Russia while distancing itself from the West. At the same time, according to opinion polls, Georgian society largely supports Georgia joining the EU, even at the expense of cutting trade relations with Russia. Therefore, the upcoming elections are seen as pivotal for Georgia’s future.

A. The European Parliament’s position and interparliamentary cooperation

The European Parliament has always been a strong supporter of the Georgian people’s European aspirations. It has stressed the importance of implementing the relevant steps set out in the Commission recommendation of 8 November 2023, including those on fighting disinformation, aligning with the common foreign and security policy, improving the implementation of parliamentary oversight and addressing political polarisation, de-oligarchisation and anti-corruption. Additionally, on 9 June 2022, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on violations of media freedom and the safety of journalists in Georgia. In this document, Members denounced state capture by the Georgian Dream party and its founder, the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, and deplored the significant deterioration of the media situation in the country.

Bilateral inter-parliamentary relations are developed in the context of the Parliamentary Partnership Committee, which held its latest meeting on 8 June 2023. The participants acknowledged progress on harmonisation in technical areas, but Members of the European Parliament deplored the backsliding trend with respect to the rule of law, the independence and efficiency of the judiciary, labour law and non-discrimination. They called on their Georgian counterparts to work together, with civil society stakeholders, in order to tackle the 12 key priorities identified by the European Commission. They also took note of the further deterioration of the human rights situation in the occupied regions.

On 14 December 2022, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the implementation of the EU Association Agreement with Georgia based on a report drafted by the standing rapporteur, MEP Sven Mikser (S&D, Estonia). While taking note of Georgia’s continued reforms, Members called for the more systematic involvement of civil society actors in decision-making and deplored the backsliding trends with respect to the rule of law, in particular the cases of politicised justice.

The European Parliament also adopted two critical resolutions: on violations of media freedom and the safety of journalists in Georgia (9 June 2022) and on the situation of the former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili (15 February 2023).

When it comes to Parliament’s democracy support activities, Georgia has been a priority country since 2017. Georgia has, however, repeatedly refused to engage in a cooperation programme on the use of the parliamentary oversight mechanism, or in a Jean Monnet Dialogue to address the issue of chronic political polarisation, which has forced Parliament to scale down its ambitions until the parliamentary majority adopts a more constructive attitude.

B. Election observation

Georgia has hosted missions from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), monitoring the country’s parliamentary, presidential and local elections since 1995. As usual in the OSCE area, European Parliament observers have been embedded in the OSCE ODIHR missions. The latest election observation mission was conducted in 2021 to observe the local elections. The international observers found that the local elections were generally well administered but were held against the backdrop of a protracted political crisis and characterised by hardened polarisation. They were also marred by widespread and consistent allegations of intimidation, vote-buying, pressure on candidates and voters, and an uneven playing field.

Armenia

Armenia’s relations with the EU are based on the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which was signed in November 2017 and fully entered into force on 1 March 2021. The CEPA, which replaced the previous Partnership and Cooperation Agreement of 1999, deepens bilateral relations in a range of areas, while ensuring compatibility with Armenia’s membership of the Eurasian Economic Union. Accounting for about 16% of Armenia’s total trade (2022), the EU-27 is the country’s second-biggest trading partner after Russia. Reflecting the dynamic development of EU-Armenia relations and the mutual interest in deepening relations based on common values, both sides agreed in February 2024 to launch work on a new EU-Armenia Partnership Agenda for more ambitious cooperation across all areas.

The political situation in Armenia changed radically in May 2018, when peaceful street protests brought the opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan to power (the ‘Velvet Revolution’) and the new government embarked on an ambitious reform agenda, including in the areas of the rule of law, transparency and the fight against corruption. The early parliamentary elections of June 2021 reconfirmed this course, with the ruling Civil Contract party garnering 54% of the vote, despite the domestic political backlash and significant humanitarian challenges stemming from the country’s defeat in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020.

The six-week war, triggered by Azerbaijan, was the greatest eruption of violence in the protracted conflict since the 1994 ceasefire. Ending with a Russia-mediated ceasefire on 9 November 2020, it saw Armenians lose control over a part of Nagorno-Karabakh – a formerly autonomous entity within Soviet Azerbaijan, with an ethnic Armenian population and an unrecognised de facto state since the dissolution of the Soviet Union – and the adjacent Azerbaijani districts that they had occupied for 26 years. Tensions reached a new peak following Azerbaijani attacks on targets within the Republic of Armenia’s territory (i.e. not Nagorno-Karabakh) in September 2022. On 19 September 2023, after blockading Nagorno-Karabakh for nine months, leading to a dire humanitarian situation, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive against the region, leaving hundreds of dead and resulting in the defeat of the de facto state and its eventual dismantling. The entire local population of over 100 000 Karabakh Armenians fled to Armenia within a few days.

The EU has been steadily increasing its engagement with Armenia and has stepped up assistance to help the country deal, in particular, with the numerous conflict-related challenges, including the refugee situation. EU support to Armenia is mainly provided under the ‘Global Europe’ instrument, with about EUR 180 million allocated for the 2021-2024 period. This has a particular focus on building resilience, as well as on continued support to aid the country’s reforms in order to strengthen democracy and the rule of law. Part of this funding contributes to the EU’s Economic and Investment Plan for Armenia, which includes a package of grants, loans and guarantees with the potential to mobilise some EUR 2.6 billion in public and private investments. Reaffirming its unwavering support for Armenia’s sovereignty, democracy, territorial integrity and socio-economic resilience, the EU has pledged to put forward a resilience and growth plan for Armenia worth EUR 270 million for the period 2024-2027.

Through mediation by the President of the European Council, the EU has been actively involved in efforts to reach a negotiated solution to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, stressing that it needs to be based on the principles of the mutual recognition of territorial integrity and the inviolability of internationally recognised borders based on the 1991 Almaty Declaration. It also underlines the need for Azerbaijan to ensure that the rights and security of the Karabakh Armenians are protected, in order to enable their voluntary and safe return. Since February 2023, based on Armenia’s invitation, EU civilian observers have been deployed along the border with Azerbaijan as part of the EU Mission in Armenia, which has proven to be crucial for security on the ground.

A. The European Parliament’s position and interparliamentary cooperation

The European Parliament has stood firmly on the side of Armenian democracy and a peaceful resolution to the long-standing conflict with Azerbaijan. In March 2023, Parliament adopted a comprehensive resolution on EU-Armenia relations, sending a strong message of support for the democratic reforms in the country, the deepening of bilateral relations and increased EU engagement in security, in particular through the EU Mission in Armenia and mediation efforts. In October 2023, Parliament ‘condemned in the strongest terms the pre-planned and unjustified military attack by Azerbaijan’ against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh and called for a substantial increase in EU assistance to Armenia in response to the influx of refugees, Azerbaijan’s threats and Russia’s destabilisation attempts. It also demanded a resolute EU response to Azerbaijan’s actions, including targeted sanctions and a comprehensive review of relations. In March 2024, Parliament strongly welcomed Armenia’s interest in closer ties with the EU, noting that ‘should Armenia be interested in applying for candidate status and continuing on its path of sustained reforms consolidating its democracy, this could set the stage for a transformative phase in EU-Armenia relations’. In earlier resolutions, in January 2023, Parliament strongly condemned the ‘military aggression by Azerbaijan’ of September 2022, as well as ‘Azerbaijan’s illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor’, deploring its humanitarian consequences. In a March 2022 resolution, Parliament ‘strongly condemned Azerbaijan’s continued policy of erasing and denying the Armenian cultural heritage in and around Nagorno-Karabakh’. In May 2021, Parliament adopted a resolution calling, in particular, for the immediate and unconditional release of all Armenian prisoners of war and other captives still detained by Azerbaijan. Following the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, Parliament passed a resolution in January 2021 in which it expressed its regret that ‘changes to the status quo were made through military force’ and stressed that ‘a lasting settlement still remains to be found’. It also reiterated that negotiations for a lasting solution should be based on the principles of the non-use of force, territorial integrity and the equal rights and self-determination of peoples, which underpin the OSCE Minsk Group basic principles. In 2015, the European Parliament passed a resolution on the centenary of the Armenian genocide.

Bilateral inter-parliamentary relations are developed in the context of the Parliamentary Partnership Committee, which held its latest meeting in March 2023. Leading MEPs following the situation in Armenia have released a series of statements, insisting, in particular, on the need for a negotiated comprehensive settlement of the conflict and raising concerns over issues such as Azerbaijan’s blockade and military takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, border incidents and attacks, Armenian captives, landmines, inflammatory rhetoric, humanitarian access and the protection of cultural heritage.

B. Election observation

Armenia has hosted Members of the European Parliament – as part of OSCE ODIHR election observation missions – on a number of occasions, including the country’s snap parliamentary elections in 2018. The 2018 elections were judged positively, as being well organised and with

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