Flagship

Dozens feared dead in US plane crash

A passenger jet collided with a US Army helicopter over Washington, DC, with at least 19 bodies recovered and more feared dead. American Airlines Flight 5342 was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport with 60 passengers on board at around 9pm local time Wednesday when it collided with a Black Hawk helicopter, with both falling into the Potomac River. Divers worked through the night in freezing, dangerous conditions in the hope of rescuing survivors, with American and Russian ice-skating teams reported to be among the passengers. It is the first major commercial air crash in the US since 2009, when 49 people died in an accident in Buffalo, New York. President Donald Trump said the crash “looks like it should have been prevented.”

RFK Jr questioned over vaccine stance

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s nomination for US health secretary, was grilled in the Senate over his stance on vaccines but is likely to be confirmed. Democrats asked Kennedy about a group he ran which linked vaccines to autism, and his 2023 comment that there is “no vaccine that is safe and effective”: He insisted he was pro-immunization. But he appeared to have done enough to soothe wavering Republicans: If so, he will have enough votes given the GOP’s Senate majority. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, has her confirmation hearing today, where she is expected to face questions over her relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and with the now-deposed president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.

AI bosses shrug off DeepSeek fears

Tech bosses shrugged off panic over Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek’s new model. The revelation that the R1 chatbot appears to perform as well as cutting-edge AIs while using a fraction of the computing power sparked a market selloff over fears that demand for chips and data centers would crater. But Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg signaled he would continue to invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” in AI infrastructure, while Anthropic’s CEO called DeepSeek’s innovations “genuine and impressive,” but not as groundbreaking as reports suggested. Semafor’s tech editor Reed Albergotti argued that the DeepSeek “freakout” showed “how little the market understands the AI industry” — efficiency gains were a given, and appetite for AI remains insatiable.

ECB rate cuts expected

The European Central Bank is widely expected to cut interest rates today as policymakers attempt to revive weak economic growth in the bloc. Despite inflation in the EU remaining above the bank’s target, policymakers are expected to prioritize growth by committing to lower rates for longer. France’s GDP grew just 1% last year, while Germany, the EU’s biggest economy, didn’t grow at all. Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president has heightened growth concerns: European leaders fear the White House could impose tariffs in a bid to redress a widening trade deficit. “The data paint an unfavourable picture for the euro area,” The Economist reported.

China’s latest renewables record

China broke its own records for renewable energy installation in 2024, boosting its solar capacity by 45.2% after an already breakneck 2023. Wind capacity leaped by 18%, also a record. It means Beijing surpassed its 2030 renewables target six years early. China emits the most carbon of any country, but scientists believe its emissions may have peaked, and its renewable energy production is expected to outstrip coal within five years. While the US has also been rolling out large amounts of renewables, the industry “is facing headwinds” from President Donald Trump’s administration, The Associated Press reported: One analyst said China, the world’s biggest supplier of batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines, is “poised to lead the world in the energy transition.”

Reducing Africa’s electricity shortfall

Investors pledged more than $8 billion for an initiative to provide millions of Africans with electricity before the end of the decade. The funding is part of a $90 billion project led by the World Bank and the African Development Bank to connect the more than 600 million people in Africa who lack access to electricity. Sluggish economic growth and high debt-servicing costs have delayed electrification across large swaths of Africa, in turn preventing much-needed investment. “It’s not just about energy transition, this is about dignity. Africa must develop with dignity and pride,” the head of the AfDB said.

Mauritania’s gas boost hopes

Gas discoveries in Mauritania may make it a key energy hub. The large but sparsely populated North African country is among the world’s poorest, and “doesn’t make the news very often,” the Financial Times noted. But this month the oil giant BP began producing gas from its huge, newly discovered reserves for the first time, propping up its economy as production of iron and gold — its other mainstays — continue to decline. There are pitfalls ahead, though: The offshore gas fields are shared with Senegal, with which Mauritania has a tense and often non-functional working relationship. Dakar remains angry over the historically poor treatment of Black citizens in Mauritania, the last country to abolish slavery.

Haiti plans 2025 elections

Haiti’s leader said long-awaited elections would be held later this year, although experts questioned whether the plan is realistic. The Western hemisphere’s poorest nation has descended into chaos after months of fighting between government forces and powerful gangs, which control most of the capital Port-au-Prince. The conflict has led to one of the gravest humanitarian crises in the world, with almost half the population going hungry. Despite a recent deployment of Kenyan police officers under a UN- and US-backed plan, violence remains rampant throughout the island nation, with the country’s foreign minister saying that gangs threaten “the very survival of our state.”

Asteroid defenses triggered

An asteroid the size of an apartment building is set to possibly collide with Earth in 2032, triggering planetary defense procedures for the first time. The 2024 YR4 asteroid measures 300 feet across — big enough to destroy a city — and has an estimated 1.3% chance of hitting Earth. In 2022, a NASA spacecraft successfully redirected an asteroid for the first time, leading protocols for diverting Earth-bound space rocks to be put in place, and 2024 YR4 is being monitored for their potential use. Separately, scientists studying samples of an asteroid retrieved by a NASA spacecraft revealed they were full of organic molecules in a study published this week, suggesting the materials for life may be more widespread than previously believed.

Congress tech is out of date

The US Congress runs on severely outdated communications technology. The equipment used “doesn’t match that of most businesses and even many homes,” Gizmodo reported: Congressional district offices “only got connected to secure Wi-Fi internet service in 2023″ and many workers still rely on the free, 40-minute-limited version of Zoom. Only the COVID-19 pandemic pushed it into allowing online hearings, and electronic signatures were barred for congresspeople more than two decades after they allowed them elsewhere. The country spends $10 million a year on tech innovation in the House, just “1% of the amount theater fans have spent to see ‘Hamilton’ on Broadway since 2015.”

• The International Olympic Committee selects a new leader.
• France publishes GDP figures for Q4.
• World Rugby confirms the venues for the 2027 World Cup in Australia.

The population of Palmyra in Syria, down from more than 100,000 before the country’s civil war. The city — including its Roman ruins, part of a World Heritage site — has been devastated after more than a decade of conflict. Now former residents are starting to trickle back, many of them seeing the devastation for the first time. “Honestly, I shed more tears for the historical landmarks than for what used to be my own house,” a member of the city’s new interim administration told The Wall Street Journal. “The destruction is massive. It’s not easy to look at it.”

The Brutalist, Brady Corbet. The multi-Oscar-nominated film about a postwar Jewish architect lives up to the hype, reported Empire magazine, placing it on a par with venerated movies such as Citizen Kane and The Godfather. It is an “austere, novelistic, self-consciously important film,” addressing “weighty themes of Jewish identity, immigration, privilege, culture-versus-commerce and the thin lines between inspiration and insanity, ambition and crushing egotism.” But it never feels like homework, Empire wrote — instead, it “soars.” See The Brutalist at your local theater.

A gathering of House Republicans in Florida solidified the state’s status as the GOP’s center of gravity, Semafor’s Kadia Goba reported. After Donald Trump’s decision in 2019 to shift his court from New York to Mar-a-Lago, Floridians are increasingly vying for the party’s topmost roles. Whoever rises from a deep Republican bench to succeed the term-limited Ron DeSantis in the state governor’s office is likely to capture national prominence almost immediately, Goba wrote.