Raphael Stevens

The bodies of all 67 people killed in the midair collision between a regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter have been recovered, and 66 of them have been identified, officials said.
Investigators are still probing the cause of the collision, which occurred as the American Airlines jet was moments away from landing at Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Key lines of questioning include the altitude of the airplane and the helicopter, among other factors.

Family members visit the crash site on the banks of the Potomac River, where American Airlines flight 5342 collided with a US Army military helicopter, at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, on February 2, 2025. 
Tasos Katopodis | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The remains of all 67 people killed in Wednesday’s collision of an American Airlines regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River have been recovered, officials said Tuesday. Sixty-six of them have been identified, the D.C. Fire and EMS department said.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation, said Tuesday that the air traffic control tower display showed the helicopter at about 300 feet at the time of the collision. That is above the maximum altitude of 200 feet helicopters in the area are authorized to fly at under Federal Aviation Administration rules, but the NTSB cautioned it needs more information that will come from the Black Hawk once it’s recovered from the water.

Rescue responders had been working over the past several days to remove wreckage from the airplane, a Bombardier CRJ-700. Crews have so far lifted out the right wing, center fuselage, parts of the front of the cabin, tail cone and other parts.
American Airlines Flight 5342, operated by its regional subsidiary PSA Airlines, was seconds away from landing at Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport when it collided with the helicopter, killing all 64 people on board the plane and three military crew on the Black Hawk. The helicopter was on a training mission, officials said.
It was the deadliest U.S. air crash since 2001 and the first deadly major passenger airline crash in the U.S. in nearly 16 years.
Investigators are still probing the cause of the collision. The NTSB said it has interviewed air traffic controllers on duty that night, including the person who was working at the time of the collision.
The NTSB has recovered the two data recorders from the American plane as well as the recorder from the Black Hawk.

“NTSB investigators continue to transcribe the cockpit voice recorders for both aircraft,” the NTSB said Tuesday. “Synchronization work for the Black Hawk flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder is ongoing.​​”
The FAA on Friday restricted helicopters from flying in the area near the airport indefinitely.
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told employees in a note Tuesday that the company would hold a moment of silence Wednesday to mark a week since the crash.
“Caring for and supporting everyone affected by this tragedy remains our top priority,” said Isom, who traveled to Wichita, Kansas, where the flight originated, to visit with local employees and officials.
While air crashes are extremely rare, American said it operates a so-called CARE Team for such rare disasters.
The team is made up of about 2,000 employees who volunteer from across the company, according to the airline. They are trained by the carrier’s emergency planning and response teams to help victims’ family members and provide information from the company. They also coordinate travel arrangements; arrange child, elder or pet care; assist with logistics, such as getting changes of clothing, toiletries and transportation; and listen to affected family members, the airline said.
American’s COO David Seymour and other operations staff members were in Washington, D.C., this week to support that team, Isom said.
“Our CARE Team has stepped up in a significant way in the wake of this unimaginable tragedy, and I’m so proud of everything they are doing,” he wrote. More

Walmart has bought a mall in the Pittsburgh area.
The purchase was an all-cash $34 million deal, according to CBL, a shopping mall owner that sold the property.
It’s another example of the creative ways that malls have transformed, as some have become apartments, hockey rinks or even Amazon fulfillment centers.

A Walmart Supercenter during Walmart’s multiweek Annual Deals Shopping Event in Burbank, California, on Nov. 21, 2024.
Allen J. Schaben | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Walmart is now a mall owner.
On Tuesday, the big-box retailer confirmed that it bought Monroeville Mall, which is roughly 12 miles east of Pittsburgh.

In a statement, Walmart said it “is very interested in being part of any future redevelopment of this site.” It declined to share specific plans for the future of the mall.
CBL Properties sold the mall in a $34 million all-cash deal, according to a news release from the Tennessee-based mall owner in late January. The company did not name the buyer at the time.
Walmart’s purchase is an example of the unexpected ways that malls are being redeveloped and repurposed. Shopping centers have added new restaurants, turned former stores into apartments or gotten demolished for completely new uses, as mall anchors like Sears have shuttered and others like Macy’s are downsizing.

Some malls have changed to reflect evolving buying habits, becoming Amazon fulfillment centers where workers pack up purchases and send them to shoppers’ doors.
Tenants at Monroeville Mall include department stores Macy’s and JCPenney, specialty retailers like Claire’s, Victoria’s Secret and American Eagle, and a Cinemark movie theater, according to Monroeville Mall’s website. The mall is on a 186-acre site.
Walmart’s real estate deal was previously reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Walmart’s previous deals have been more retail related, including the $3.3 billion acquisition of e-commerce startup Jet.com. But it also acquired smart TV maker Vizio last year in a $2.3 billion deal, as it bulks up its advertising business.
Walmart hired Texas-based Cypress Equities to manage the property and oversee the redevelopment of the mall, where the horror classic “Dawn of the Dead” was filmed.
Chris Maguire, CEO of Cypress Equities, said the company has worked with the discounter before to find new sites, build stores or close older locations. But he said Walmart’s interest in a mall caught him by surprise.
Walmart brought Cypress in to look at the project in early October, Maguire said. Now, he said, the project is “shifting into planning mode,” and a design and architecture team will work on a master plan for the mall. 
“This is going to be a retail-driven, mixed-use project,” he said.
He said there’s a need for more entertainment and food and beverage concepts in the area. And he said the company has spoken to the city about turning some of the site into housing.
Walmart has more than 4,600 stores and about 600 locations of Sam’s Club, its membership-based warehouse club, in the U.S. Both stores, Walmart and Sam’s Club, have been expanding.
Two years ago, Sam’s Club announced that it planned to open more than 30 stores in the U.S. over a five-year period. Walmart said early last year that it expected to build more than 150 stores over the next five years, with some of those locations being a conversion from a smaller to a larger-format store.
Walmart opened three stores last year in North Carolina, Florida and Georgia, and it plans to open a dozen more locations over the next 12 months, Hunter Hart, senior vice president of Walmart Realty, said in an interview in late January. Many of those stores will open in high-growth parts of the country, such as North Texas or Houston, he said.
It’s also made a more aggressive push to refresh its big-box stores with features like brighter lighting and more spacious aisles. Over the past three years, it has remodeled more than 2,000 stores, Hart said.
Going forward, Hart said Walmart plans to remodel about 650 locations per year — a step up from its typical cadence of 450 to 500 per year.
Walmart did not say if it is considering any other mall purchases.
Cypress’ Maguire said Walmart’s deal could inspire other similar projects. 
“As we all know, there’s a lot of malls out there in the U.S. that aren’t going to operate as an enclosed mall,” he said. “So hopefully things like this are going to happen in other markets with properties that have really deteriorated over a long period of time and need a new vision.”

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Shares of vaccine companies fell after a Senate panel voted to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services to the full chamber. 
Moderna’s stock fell more than 4%, shares of BioNTech dropped 3% and shares of Novavax and GSK both fell around 1%.
Pfizer’s stock fell almost 2%, even after the company reported fourth-quarter results that topped expectations. 
Kennedy, 71, is a notorious vaccine skeptic, making false claims that they are linked to autism despite decades of studies that debunk that association.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of Health and Human Services, testifies before a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Jan. 30, 2025.
Nathan Howard | Reuters

Shares of vaccine companies fell on Tuesday after a Senate panel voted to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services to the full chamber. 
The committee voted 14 to 13 to advance Kennedy in a party-line vote around 10:30 a.m. ET.

Moderna’s stock closed about 6% lower and shares of BioNTech dropped nearly 2%. Pfizer’s stock closed more than 1% lower, even after the company reported fourth-quarter results that topped expectations. Their shares initially fell by larger margins following the Senate committee vote, then regained some ground.
Kennedy, 71, is a notorious vaccine skeptic, making false claims that they are linked to autism despite decades of studies that debunk that association. But Kennedy, during Senate confirmation hearings last week, contended that he is not “anti-vaccine.” 
Kennedy is also the founder of the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, the most well-funded anti-vaccine organization in the U.S. In a government ethics agreement last month, he said he stopped serving as chairman or chief legal counsel for the organization as of December.
If confirmed by the Senate, Kennedy would oversee federal health agencies that regulate vaccines and other drugs. Some health policy experts have raised concerns about Kennedy using his new potential platform to spread anti-vaccine rhetoric and deter Americans from receiving recommended shots at a time when vaccination rates are already falling, especially among children.
During an industry conference in January, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Kennedy’s anti-vaccine rhetoric is in “complete contradiction” with what the company, regulators and the medical and scientific community believe.

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General Motors is laying off roughly half its employees who remain at its discontinued Cruise robotaxi business.
The plans come two months after GM said it would no longer fund Cruise after spending more than $10 billion on the robotaxi unit since acquiring it in 2016.
GM cited the increasingly competitive robotaxi market, capital allocation priorities and the considerable time and resources necessary to grow the business as reasons for its decision.

A robot car of the General Motors subsidiary Cruise is on a test drive.
Andrej Sokolow | picture alliance | Getty Images

General Motors is laying off roughly half the employees who remain at its discontinued Cruise robotaxi business.
The plans come two months after GM said it would no longer fund Cruise after spending more than $10 billion since acquiring the self-driving car business in 2016.

“Today, Cruise shared the difficult decision to part ways with approximately 50% of its workforce,” Cruise said in an emailed statement. “We are grateful for their passion and contributions to help us reach this stage, and our focus is on supporting them into their next chapter with severance packages and career support.”
Cruise had nearly 2,300 employees as of the end of last year, a GM spokesman previously told CNBC.
In an internal email sent Tuesday morning to all Cruise employees, which was viewed by CNBC, Cruise President and Chief Administrative Officer Craig Glidden wrote that the 50% reduction came “as a result of the change in strategy we announced in December.”
“With our move away from the ride-hail business and toward providing autonomous vehicles to customers alongside GM, our staffing and resource needs have dramatically changed,” Glidden wrote.
He added that a string of executives will also depart this week, including Marc Whitten, CEO; Nilka Thomas, chief human resources officer; Steve Kenner, chief safety officer; and Rob Grant, chief government affairs officer. Mo Elshenawy, president and chief technology officer, will stay on at Cruise through the end of April to help with transition duties, Glidden wrote.

The Cruise layoffs, which were first reported by TechCrunch, were expected, but executives had previously declined to speculate on the amount.
The job cuts were announced in conjunction with the Detroit automaker reporting the completion of Cruise becoming a wholly owned subsidiary within GM, which is now focusing on “personal autonomous vehicles” rather than robotaxis.
About 88% of remaining employees are in engineering or related roles, and affected employees were given 60 days’ notice, according to the company.
During the remainder of their time with Cruise, the affected employees will receive full base pay, as well as eight weeks severance. Employees who had been with Cruise for more than three years will receive an additional two weeks pay for every additional year spent at Cruise, the company said.
“While not an easy decision, we are focused on combining efforts with General Motors to accelerate autonomy at scale on personal autonomous vehicles,” Cruise said.
GM’s Cruise was considered a leader in the business along with Alphabet-backed Waymo until the company grounded its robotaxi fleet and announced the end of its commercial operations late last year. That came after an October 2023 accident in which external probes found the company misled or deceived regulators about the incident.
In January 2024, a third-party probe into Cruise revealed that culture issues, ineptitude and poor leadership were at the center of regulatory oversights and cover-up concerns that had plagued the company.
The report addressed, in part, controversy that had swirled around Cruise since an Oct. 2, 2023, accident in which a pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise robotaxi after being struck by a separate vehicle. Results of the investigation, which reviewed whether Cruise representatives misled investigators or members of the media in discussing the incident, were published months later in a 105-page report.

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Boeing’s losses on its Starliner spacecraft topped $2 billion and counting after a rough year.
Last summer, Boeing’s first crew flight went awry after part of the capsule’s propulsion system malfunctioned and NASA decided to return Starliner empty.
Since 2014, when NASA awarded Boeing with a nearly $5 billion fixed-price contract to develop Starliner, the company has recorded losses on the program almost every year.

Boeing spacecraft Starliner is seen from the window of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule “Endeavour” on July 3, 2024, while docked with the International Space Station during the crew flight test.

Boeing has lost more than $2 billion and counting on its Starliner spacecraft after a rough year in which the capsule’s first astronaut flight turned into a headache for NASA.
The Starliner program reported charges of $523 million for 2024 — its largest single-year loss to date — Boeing reported in a filing on Monday. The company noted that Starliner is under a fixed-price contract from NASA, so “there is ongoing risk that similar losses may have to be recognized in future periods.”

Since 2014, when NASA awarded Boeing with a nearly $5 billion fixed-price contract to develop Starliner, the company has recorded losses on the program almost every year.

Boeing’s program competes with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has flown 10 crew missions for NASA and counting on its Dragon capsules.

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Last summer, Boeing’s first crew flight went awry after part of the capsule’s propulsion system malfunctioned. While Starliner delivered astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station, NASA made the decision to bring Starliner back empty and use SpaceX to return the crew early this year — an agency choice that recently became politicized.
Neither Boeing nor NASA have provided details on how or when they plan to resolve the Starliner propulsion issue.
Boeing last week confirmed that Starliner Vice President Mark Nappi was leaving his role, Reuters reported, with the company’s ISS program manager John Mulholland named as his replacement. Mullholland previously led the Starliner program from 2011 to 2020.

Nearly four months ago, NASA said it was keeping “windows of opportunity for a potential Starliner flight in 2025,” but scheduled SpaceX to fly both its crews on missions launching in spring and late summer. NASA then specified that “the timing and configuration of Starliner’s next flight will be determined once a better understanding of Boeing’s path to system certification is established.”
The agency has not given an update on Starliner since making those comments in October. More

Fox is planning to launch a direct-to-consumer streaming service by the end of the year, said CEO Lachlan Murdoch.
Fox has so far been on the sidelines of streaming, with the exception of its free, ad-supported service Tubi.
The move comes after Fox and its partners dropped efforts to launch a joint venture sports streaming app called Venu.

A Fox News sign is seen on a television vehicle outside the News Corporation building in New York City, Nov. 8, 2017.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

Fox Corp. is finally getting into the direct-to-consumer streaming game.
The company known for its news and sports TV content said Tuesday it’s aiming to launch a subscription streaming service by the end of the year.

The streaming service is not meant to upend Fox’s place in the traditional bundle, CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on the company’s quarterly earnings call. Murdoch offered few details on the streaming service beyond the high-level announcement. He said the company is designing the app now, and further information will be released in the coming months.
Fox’s upcoming streaming option is expected to include both its sports and news content, Murdoch said.
Unlike its legacy media competitors, Fox has so far been on the sidelines of streaming, with the exception of the Fox Nation streaming app, which includes exclusive programming to the service and on-demand Fox News primetime shows, and its free, ad-supported service Tubi. Fox, which will broadcast the Super Bowl on Sunday, is also offering the NFL’s biggest game on Tubi for the first time ever.
However, the late move into subscription-based streaming comes after Fox, alongside Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney, in January dropped efforts to launch a joint venture sports streaming app called Venu.
The three companies had planned to pool together all of their sports content and offer it on the Venu streaming service. However, following legal hurdles that delayed the original fall 2024 launch date, the companies called off their plans.

Out of the three partners, Fox was the only one without another option to offer its sports content outside of the cable TV bundle. Warner Bros. Discovery offers its live sports content on streamer Max. Disney’s ESPN has its ESPN+ app and is developing a separate direct-to-consumer ESPN streamer. The company is targeting an August launch of ESPN “Flagship,” the unofficial name of the all-inclusive ESPN service.
Fox’s Murdoch referred to the end of Venu as the company’s “only disappointment in sports.”
Fox has focused its strategy on sports and news content after selling its entertainment assets to Disney in 2019. The company has reported stable viewership and advertising revenue, even during the recent ad market slump. Live sports and news remain the highest-rated content in the traditional TV bundle, even as consumers cut the cord for streaming alternatives.
“We’re huge supporters of the traditional cable bundle, and we always will be,” Murdoch said on Tuesday’s call. “But having said that, we do want to reach consumers wherever they are, and there’s a large population, obviously, that are now outside of the traditional cable bundle.”
He said the company’s subscriber expectations “will be modest, and we’re going to price the service accordingly.” He added Fox doesn’t intend to convert any traditional cable TV customers into streaming customers with the app.
Murdoch said the company doesn’t “expect to have any exclusive rights costs or additional incremental rights costs” and will simply package its existing content. This means the costs of creating and distributing the platform will be “relatively low,” especially when compared with competitors.
In addition to shelling out billions for original entertainment programming, media companies have been spending big on exclusive sports media rights for their streaming platforms. In many cases, exclusive live sports have helped to drive subscriber and ad revenue growth for streamers.
On Tuesday, Murdoch also noted the recent rise of so-called skinny packages from traditional pay TV distributors, saying it bodes well for Fox’s portfolio since those packages most often consist of mainly sports and news content.
“We’re very pleased with this trend of the bundle. It’s financially, economically positive for us,” said Murdoch on Tuesday. “We would hope that this bundle will be attractive to the cordless customers — the cord-cutters and cord-nevers.” More