Author: News Room

More than 90 percent of the country’s 313 air traffic control facilities operate below the Federal Aviation Administration’s recommended staffing levels, according to an analysis of staffing data from the union representing controllers obtained by The New York Times.As of earlier this month, 285 facilities — which include traffic control towers and other locations — were below staffing thresholds set by the F.A.A. and the union. At 73 of those facilities, staffing is so low that at least a quarter of the work force is missing.The U.S. air travel system remains among the safest in the world. But persistent staff…

For the last decade, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has been a favorite foil of President Trump, who has subjected her to persistent name-calling and taunting as he tried to make the progressive Democrat the face of the “radical left.”But with Mr. Trump back in the White House and Democrats reeling from the rejection of the Biden administration’s economic agenda, Ms. Warren is forging a new strategy for the second Trump era. She is looking for areas of potential collaboration with a Republican president who has succeeded in taking the mantle of economic populism from Democrats.“I have to say I’m…

Before the deadly plane crash on Wednesday night near Ronald Reagan National Airport, there were at least 10 close calls at the Washington airport in the last three years that were documented in government records reviewed by The New York Times.One of the most alarming came last April, when a Southwest Airlines flight was instructed to cross the same runway that a JetBlue Airways plane was cleared by a controller to take off from. The JetBlue plane abruptly aborted its takeoff after a controller yelled at its pilots to stop. The jet came within 312 feet of the Southwest plane,…

In the latest effort to put his stamp on the federal work force, President Trump on Friday issued a memorandum invalidating government labor contracts finalized in the last 30 days before a presidential inauguration.The policy applies to certain contracts negotiated toward the end of the Biden administration, the memo says. Such “last-minute, lame-duck” agreements, it states, “are purposefully designed to circumvent the will of the people” and “inhibit the President’s authority to manage the executive branch.”Unions at several agencies rushed to negotiate collective bargaining agreements ahead of Mr. Trump’s inauguration to preserve some practices of the previous administration, like remote…

Wichita might be the country’s smallest big city. Or perhaps the country’s largest town. It is both big, with nearly 400,000 residents, and 550,000 in the larger metro area; and small, the type of place where you know your banker and bump into a friend while running errands.In recent years, Wichita has dreamed of national recognition, bidding to host major sporting events and vying for new nonstop flights, often by touting Wichita’s legacy as the center of the country’s aviation industry.Last week, the city fulfilled those two ambitions, hosting the U.S. Figure Skating Championships for the first time, with many…

CBS News plans to comply with a request from the Federal Communications Commission for the unedited transcript of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris that aired last year and became the subject of a lawsuit brought against the network by President Trump.The network’s news division received a letter of inquiry from the F.C.C., which is led by a Trump appointee, Brendan Carr, on Wednesday evening. The commission requested “the full, unedited transcript and camera feeds” from the interview with Ms. Harris, which aired on “60 Minutes” in October.“We are working to comply with that inquiry as we are legally…

The Federal Aviation Administration has closed off most helicopter access to Ronald Reagan National Airport’s airspace after a deadly collision on Wednesday night involving an Army helicopter, officials said.The closures, which were announced to the airspace’s approved users about 12 hours after the crash, effectively close off helicopter access to the north and south of the airport, said a helicopter pilot who was briefed on the decision by an F.A.A. email alert but requested anonymity in order to discuss what was described as an “eyes-only” message from the aviation agency. Sean Duffy, the new secretary of transportation, confirmed the closure…

Years ago, Mr. Cox said, he was descending in a Boeing 737 over Orlando International Airport when the system alerted him and his co-pilot to traffic nearby. The pilots looked around for another aircraft, but saw nothing. Then, TCAS provided an urgent instruction: “Climb.” Mr. Cox said they did so and later saw a smaller aircraft beneath them. A collision would have been catastrophic, he said.After a series of collisions, culminating in the 1986 crash of a passenger jet and smaller aircraft near Cerritos, Calif., that killed 82 people, Congress instructed the Federal Aviation Administration to require TCAS on all…

Chuck Todd, the former “Meet the Press” moderator and a longtime fixture of NBC’s political coverage, told colleagues on Friday that he was leaving the network.A nearly two-decade veteran of NBC, Mr. Todd said that Friday would be his last day at NBC.“There’s never a perfect time to leave a place that’s been a professional home for so long, but I’m pretty excited about a few new projects that are on the cusp of going from ‘pie in the sky’ to ‘near reality,’” he wrote to colleagues. “So I’m grateful for the chance to get a jump start on my…

The Trump administration plans to move forward with imposing stiff tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China on Saturday, in an attempt to further pressure America’s largest trading partners to accept deportees and stop the flow of migrants and drugs into the country.In a press briefing on Friday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the president would put in place a 25 percent tariff on goods from Mexico, a 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada and a 10 percent tariff on goods from China.Ms. Leavitt said the president had chosen to impose tariffs because the three countries “have…