Thought of the Day
Rome was not built in a day.
February 18th 2025
Delta jet flips upside down on a snowy Toronto runway and all 80 aboard survive
By JOHN WAWROW and MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press
TORONTO (AP) — A Delta Air Lines jet flipped on its roof while landing Monday at Toronto’s Pearson Airport, but all 80 people on board survived and those hurt had relatively minor injuries, the airport’s chief executive said.
Snow was being blown by winds gusting to 40 mph (65 kph) when the flight from Minneapolis carrying 76 passengers and four crew attempted to land at around 2:15 p.m. Communications between the tower and pilot were normal on approach and it’s not clear what went so drastically wrong when the plane touched down.
Canadian authorities held two brief news conferences but provided no details on the crash. Video posted to social media only showed the aftermath with the Mitsubishi CRJ-900LR overturned, the fuselage seemingly intact and firefighters dousing what was left of the fire as passengers climbed out and walked across the tarmac.
“We are very grateful there was no loss of life and relatively minor injuries,” Deborah Flint, CEO of Greater Toronto Airports Authority, told reporters.
Toronto Pearson Fire Chief Todd Aitken said 18 passengers were taken to the hospital. Earlier in the day, Ornge air ambulance said it was transporting one pediatric patient to Toronto’s SickKids hospital and two injured adults to other hospitals in the city.
Emergency personnel reached the plane within a few minutes and Aitken said the response “went as planned.” He said “the runway was dry and there was no cross-wind conditions.”
The crash was the fourth major aviation accident in North America in the past three weeks. A commercial jetliner and an Army helicopter collided near Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29, killing 67 people. A medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on Jan. 31, killing the six people on board and another person on the ground. And on Feb. 6, 10 people were killed in a plane crash in Alaska.
The last major crash at Pearson was on Aug. 2, 2005, when an Airbus A340 landing from Paris skidded off the runway and burst into flames amid stormy weather. All 309 passengers and crew aboard Air France Flight 358 survived the crash.
On Monday, Pearson was experiencing blowing snow and winds of 32 mph (51 kph) gusting to 40 mph (65 kph), according to the Meteorological Service of Canada. The temperature was about 16.5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 8.6 degrees Celsius).
The Delta flight was cleared to land at about 2:10 p.m. Audio recordings show the control tower warned the pilots of a possible air flow “bump” on the approach.
“It sounds to me like a controller trying to be helpful, meaning the wind is going to give you a bumpy ride coming down, that you’re going to be up and down through the glide path,” said John Cox, CEO of aviation safety consulting firm Safety Operating Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida.
“So it was windy. But the airplanes are designed and certified to handle that,” Cox said. “The pilots are trained and experienced to handle that.”
The plane came to a rest at the intersection of Runways 23 and 15L, not far from the start of the runway. Just after the crash, tower controllers spoke with the crew of a medical helicopter that had just left Pearson and was returning to help.
“Just so you’re aware, there’s people outside walking around the aircraft there,” a controller said.
“Yeah, we’ve got it. The aircraft is upside down and burning,” the medical helicopter pilot responded.
Cox, who flew for U.S. Air for 25 years and has worked on U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigations, said the CRJ-900 aircraft is a proven aircraft that’s been in service for decades and does a good job of handling inclement weather.
He said it’s unusual for a plane to end up on its roof.
“We’ve seen a couple of cases of takeoffs where airplanes have ended up inverted, but it’s pretty rare,” Cox said.
Among the questions that need to be answered, Cox said, is why the crashed plane was missing its right wing.
“If one wing is missing, it’s going to have a tendency to roll over,” he said. “Those are going to be central questions as to what happened to the wing and the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. They will be found, if not today, tomorrow, and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada will read them out and they will have a very good understanding of what actually occurred here.”
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada would head up the investigation and provide any updates. The NTSB in the U.S. said it is leading a team to assist in the Canadian investigation.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement that “the hearts of the entire global Delta family are with those affected by today’s incident at Toronto-Pearson International Airport.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he has been in touch with Delta about the crash.
Endeavor Air, based in Minneapolis, is a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines and the world’s largest operator of CRJ-900 aircraft. The airline operates 130 regional jets on 700 daily flights to over 126 cities in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, according to the company’s website.
The CRJ-900, a popular regional jet, was developed by Canadian aerospace company Bombardier. It’s in the same family of aircraft as the CRJ-700, the type of plane involved in the midair collision near Reagan National Airport on Jan. 29.
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Casey reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press journalists Michael Sisak in New York, Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, Alex Veiga in Los Angeles, and Jim Morris in Vancouver, British Columbia, contributed reporting.
Mexico awaits new response from Google on dispute over Gulf of Mexico name before filing lawsuit
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico said Monday it’s awaiting a new response from Google to its request that the tech company fully restore the name Gulf of Mexico to its Google Maps service before filing a lawsuit.
President Claudia Sheinbaum shared a letter addressed to her government from Cris Turner, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy. It says that Google will not change the policy it outlined after U.S. President Donald Trump declared the body of water the Gulf of America.
“We will wait for Google’s response and if not, we will proceed to court,” Sheinbaum said Monday during a morning press briefing.
As it stands, the gulf appears in Google Maps as Gulf of America within the United States, as Gulf of Mexico within Mexico and Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America) elsewhere. Turner in his letter said the company was using Gulf of America to follow “longstanding maps policies impartially and consistently across all regions” and that the company was willing to meet in person with the Mexican government.
“While international treaties and conventions are not intended to regulate how private mapping providers represent geographic features, it is our consistent policy to consult multiple authoritative sources to provide the most up to date and accurate representation of the world,” he wrote.
Mexico has argued that the mapping policy violates Mexican sovereignty because the U.S. only has jurisdiction over around 46% of the Gulf. The rest is controlled by Mexico, which controls 49% and Cuba, which controls around 5%. The name Gulf of Mexico dates back to 1607 and is recognized by the United Nations.
In response to Google’s letter, Mexican authorities said they would take legal action, writing that “under no circumstance will Mexico accept the renaming of a geographic zone within its own territory and under its jurisdiction.”
The renaming of the body of water by Trump has flared tensions between Mexico and the U.S. at a pivotal time for the neighboring allies.
Sheinbaum has had to walk a fine line with Trump amid threats of tariffs and Mexico and other Latin American countries have braced themselves for promised mass deportations, the brunt of which has still not been felt.
Along with the legal threat to Google, the Mexican president also announced Monday that Mexico and the U.S. would hold high-level meetings this week on trade and security in an effort to maintain a “long-term plan of collaboration” between the two countries.
It’s the latest round of talks between the two countries in which Mexico hopes to hold off a larger geopolitical crisis.
The renaming of the water body has fueled strife within the U.S. as well.
Last week, the White House barred Associated Press reporters from several events, including some in the Oval Office, saying it was because of the news agency’s policy on the name. The AP is using Gulf of Mexico to ensure that names of geographical features are recognizable around the world but also acknowledging Trump’s renaming of it as well.
Other journalistic organizations such as the White House Correspondents’ Organization and the New York Times have echoed the AP in raising alarm about press freedom violations.
Trump begins firings of FAA staff just weeks after fatal DC plane crash
By TARA COPP Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees, upending staff on a busy air travel weekend and just weeks after a January fatal midair collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Probationary workers were targeted in late-night emails Friday notifying them they had been fired, David Spero, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, said in a statement.
The impacted workers include personnel hired for FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, one air traffic controller told The Associated Press. The air traffic controller was not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A Transportation Department official told the AP late Monday that no air traffic controllers were affected by the cuts, and that the agency has “retained employees who perform critical safety functions.” In a follow-up query the agency said they would have to look into whether the radar, landing and navigational aid workers affected were considered to handle critical safety functions.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a brief statement Monday it was “analyzing the effect of the reported federal employee terminations on aviation safety, the national airspace system and our members.”
Other FAA employees who were fired were working on an urgent and classified early warning radar system the Air Force had announced in 2023 for Hawaii to detect incoming cruise missiles, through a program that was in part funded by the Defense Department. It’s one of several programs that the FAA’s National Defense Program manages that involve radars providing longer-range detection around the country’s borders.
Due to the nature of their work, staff in that office typically provide an extensive knowledge transfer before retiring to make sure no institutional knowledge is lost, said Charles Spitzer-Stadtlander, one of the employees in that branch who was terminated.
The Hawaii radar and the FAA National Defense Program office working on it are “about protecting national security,” Spitzer-Stadtlander said. “I don’t think they even knew what NDP does, they just thought, oh no big deal, he just works for the FAA.”
“This is about protecting national security, and I’m scared to death,” Spitzer-Stadtlander said. “And the American public should be scared too.”
Spero said messages began arriving after 7 p.m. Friday and continued late into the night. More might be notified over the long weekend or barred from entering FAA buildings Tuesday, he said.
The employees were fired “without cause nor based on performance or conduct,” Spero said, and the emails were “from an ‘exec order’ Microsoft email address” — not a government email address. A copy of the termination email that was provided to the AP shows the sending address “[email protected].”
The firings hit the FAA as it is facing a shortfall in controllers. Federal officials have been raising concerns about an overtaxed and understaffed air traffic control system for years, especially after a series of close calls between planes at U.S. airports. Among the reasons they have cited for staffing shortages are uncompetitive pay, long shifts, intensive training and mandatory retirements.
In the Jan. 29 fatal crash between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines passenger jet, which is still under investigation, one controller was handing both commercial airline and helicopter traffic at the busy airport.
Just days before the collision, President Donald Trump had already fired all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, a panel mandated by Congress after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The committee is charged with examining safety issues at airlines and airports.
Spitzer-Stadtlander suggested he was targeted for firing for his views on Tesla and X, formerly Twitter, not as part of a general probationary-level sweep. Both companies are owned by Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency is leading Trump’s effort to cut the federal government.
Spitzer-Stadtlander is Jewish and was angered by Musk’s straight-arm gesture at Trump’s inauguration. On his personal Facebook page he urged friends to get rid of their Teslas and X accounts in response.
Spitzer-Stadtlander said that post drew the attention of a Facebook account labeled “Department of Government Efficiency,” which reacted with a laughing emoji. Soon after, he saw the same account reacting to much older posts through his personal Facebook feed.
There are at least a half-dozen Facebook accounts labeled “Department of Government Efficiency,” and it’s unclear who operates any of them. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt wrote Monday on X, “DOGE doesn’t even have a Facebook page.”
Spitzer-Stadtlander said he was supposed to be exempted from the probationary firings because the FAA office he worked in focused on national security threats such as attacks on the national airspace by drones.
“Less than a week later, I was fired, despite my position allegedly being exempted due to national security,” Spitzer-Stadtlander wrote in a post over the weekend on LinkedIn.
He added, “When DOGE fired me, they turned off my computer and wiped all of my files without warning.”
DOGE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The firings were first reported by CNN.
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Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeyer contributed from Washington.
What is a polar vortex? US gets a taste of the Arctic this week
The term “polar vortex” usually refers to the gigantic circular upper air weather pattern in the Arctic region. It is a normal pattern that is stronger in the winter and keeps some of the coldest weather bottled up near the North Pole.
But at times some of the vortex can break off or move south, bringing unusually cold weather south and permitting warmer weather to creep up north.
This week, parts of the U.S. are experiencing the 10th and coldest polar vortex event this season. Weather forces in the Arctic are combining to push the chilly air into the U.S. and Europe.
With record snow in New Orleans last month and drought and destructive wildfires in Southern California, this winter has not been normal.
The latest projected cold outbreak will bring bone-chilling temperatures to the Northern and Central Plains for several days, starting Sunday.
Wind chills dropped to minus 60 Fahrenheit (minus 51 Celsius) in parts of North Dakota Monday and minus 50 F (minus 46 C) in parts of Montana. Wind chills were expected to dip even lower Tuesday morning.
“Frostbite and hypothermia will occur if unprotected skin is exposed to these temperatures. An extended period of freezing temperatures could cause ruptured water pipes,” the NWS warned Monday.
Meteorologists expect strong winds to make the cold feel even worse. Every U.S. state but Hawaii, California and Florida have some or all parts forecast to have a good chance of windchills of 20 degrees or below sometime next week, the National Weather Service predicted.
Some experts say disruptions to polar vortexes are happening more frequently because of a warming world. A warmer Artic gives more energy to atmospheric waves that can drive weather patterns, making the waves more likely to disrupt the vortex and move colder air south into lower latitudes.
Despite the unusually cold winter across the U.S., the world remains in an overall warming pattern. Earth’s average overall temperature set yet another monthly heat record in January. It was the 18th month of the last 19 that the world hit or passed the internationally agreed upon warming limit of 1.5 C (2.7 F) above pre-industrial times.
February 17th 2025
Thought of the Day
“When death finds you, may it find you alive.” – Michael Meade
“Yes” Foods for Dogs
Human foods that are okay for dogs
Humans have discovered and made some of the most delicious foods throughout history and we have shared our delicacies with many cultures around the world. Thankfully we know of some really good foods we can share with man’s best friend. Here is a short list of human foods that dogs can eat:
- Cheese- Dogs love cheese. This is a great treat as a reward or even good dog food topper. Just make sure your dog doesn’t have a problem with cheese or has a lactose intolerant.
- Bread– Who doesn’t love bread, as long as it doesn’t have any spices or raisins (raisins are dried grapes which are VERY toxic to dogs) in it, its a fine treat for dogs. Though if you are thinking about giving your dog bread, homemade is better than store-bought.
- Ham– Ham is a good meat to give to dogs but just limit how much fat you are giving your dog. Since ham is so high in sodium just make sure you just giving your pooch small amounts and not often.
There are so many foods that your dog can have and this list provided by the American Kennel Club is a great source of information.
February 16th 2025
Thought of the Day
Good mind, good find.
February 15th 2025
Thought of the Day
The sage points at the moon and the fool looks at his finger.
Furry Friday: Meet Cobbler!
Are you an introvert who loves cuddling? Want someone around while you watch TV or play video games? Prefer to be inside where it’s comfy? We could be friends! I’ve been in my foster home for a while and they’ve learned I love sleeping on the couch, chewing a bone on the dog bed, and like humans more than dogs. Sometimes I’ll play with the other dogs, but I really enjoy hanging out with people. I need time to know other dogs are cool.
I have a big bark and spook easily so I’m looking for a home that likes things low key. Catch all my naps on Instagram @fosterofdogs!
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