…

…

WASHINGTON — The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said late on Sunday the “key missing component” from the Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet involved in an Alaska Airlines emergency landing had been recovered from the backyard of a suburban home.

The plug door tore off the left side of an Alaska Airlines jet on Friday following takeoff from Portland, Oregon, en route to Ontario, California, depressurizing the plane and forcing pilots to turn back and land safely with all 171 passengers and six crew on board.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday ordered the temporary grounding of 171 Boeing MAX 9 jets installed with the same panel, which weighs about 27 kg and covers an optional exit door mainly used by low-cost airlines.

The missing plug door was recovered on Sunday by a Portland school teacher identified only as “Bob” in the Cedar Hills neighborhood who found it in his backyard, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said, saying she was “very relieved” it had been found.

She had earlier told reporters the aircraft part was a “key missing component” to determine why the accident occurred.

“Our structures team will want to look at everything on the door – all of the components on the door to see to look at witness marks, to look at any paint transfer, what shape the door was in when found. That can tell them a lot about what occurred,” she said.

The force from the loss of the plug door was strong enough to blow open the cockpit door during flight, said Homendy, who said it must have been a “terrifying event” to experience.

“They heard a bang,” Homendy said of the pilots, who were interviewed by investigators.

A quick reference laminated checklist flew out the door, while the first officer lost her headset, she said. “Communication was a serious issue… It was described as chaos.”

Homendy said the cockpit voice recorder did not capture any data because it had been overwritten and again called on regulators to mandate retrofitting existing planes with recorders that capture 25 hours of data, up from the two hours required at present.

Earlier pressurization issues

Homendy said the auto pressurization fail light illuminated on the same Alaska Airlines aircraft on Dec. 7, Jan. 3 and Jan. 4, but it was unclear if there was any connection between those incidents and the accident.

Alaska Airlines made a decision after the warnings to restrict the aircraft from making long flights over water to Hawaii so that it could return quickly to an airport if needed, Homendy said.

The Seattle-based carrier said earlier in response to questions about the warning lights that aircraft pressurization system write-ups were typical in commercial aviation operations with large planes.

The airline said, “in every case, the write up was fully evaluated and resolved per approved maintenance procedures and in full compliance with all applicable FAA regulations.”

Alaska Airlines added it has an internal policy to restrict aircraft with multiple maintenance write-ups on some systems from long flights over water that was not required by the FAA.

Planes grounded

The FAA said on Sunday the affected fleet of Boeing MAX 9 planes, including those operated by other carriers such as United Airlines, would remain grounded until the regulator was satisfied they were safe.

The FAA initially said on Saturday the required inspections would take four to eight hours, leading many in the industry to assume the planes could very quickly return to service.

But criteria for the checks have yet to be agreed between the FAA and Boeing, meaning airlines have yet to receive detailed instructions, people familiar with the matter said.

The FAA must approve Boeing’s inspection criteria before the checks can be completed and planes can resume flights. Alaska Airlines said late on Sunday it had still not received instructions from Boeing.

Alaska Airlines canceled 170 flights on Sunday and a further 60 on Monday and said travel disruptions from the grounding were expected to last through at least midweek. United, which has grounded its 79 MAX 9s, canceled 230 flights on Sunday, or 8% of scheduled departures.

The accident has put Boeing back under scrutiny as it awaits certification of its smaller MAX 7 as well as the larger MAX 10, which is needed to compete with a key Airbus model.

In 2019, global authorities subjected all MAX planes to a wider grounding that lasted 20 months after crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia linked to poorly designed cockpit software killed a total of 346 people.
…

Cape Canaveral, Florida — The first American spacecraft to attempt to land on the Moon in more than half a century is poised to blast off early Monday — but this time, private industry is leading the charge.  

A brand-new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur, should lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:18 a.m. (7:18 GMT) for its maiden voyage, carrying Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lunar Lander. The weather so far appears favorable.

If all goes to plan, Peregrine will touch down on a mid-latitude region of the Moon called Sinus Viscositatis, or Bay of Stickiness, on February 23.

“Leading America back to the surface of the Moon for the first time since Apollo is a momentous honor,” Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic’s CEO John Thornton said ahead of the launch.

Until now, a soft landing on Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor has only been accomplished by a handful of national space agencies: the Soviet Union was first, in 1966, followed by the United States, which is still the only country to put people on the Moon.  

China has successfully landed three times over the past decade, while India was the most recent to achieve the feat on its second attempt, last year.

Now, the United States is turning to the commercial sector to stimulate a broader lunar economy and ship its own hardware at a fraction of the cost, under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

A challenging task  

The space agency has paid Astrobotic more than $100 million for the task, while another contracted company, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is looking to launch in February and land near the south pole.

“We think that it’s going to allow… more cost effective and more rapidly accomplished trips to the lunar surface to prepare for Artemis,” said NASA’s Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration.

Artemis is the NASA-led program to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade, in preparation for future missions to Mars.

Controlled touchdown on the Moon is a challenging undertaking, with roughly half of all attempts ending in failure. Absent an atmosphere that would allow the use of parachutes, a spacecraft must navigate through treacherous terrain using only its thrusters to slow descent.

Private missions by Israel and Japan, as well as a recent attempt by the Russian space agency have all ended in failure — though the Japanese Space Agency is targeting mid-January for the touchdown of its SLIM lander launched last September.

Making matters more fraught is the fact it is the first launch for ULA’s Vulcan, although the company boasts it has a 100 percent success rate in its more than 150 prior launches.

ULA’s new rocket is planned to have reusable first stage booster engines, which the company, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, expects will help it achieve cost savings.

Science instruments, human remains

On board Peregrine are a suite of scientific instruments that will probe radiation and surface composition, helping to pave the way for the return of astronauts.

But it also contains more colorful cargo, including a shoebox-sized rover built by Carnegie Mellon University, a physical Bitcoin, and, somewhat controversially, cremated remains and DNA, including those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, legendary sci-fi author and scientist Arthur C. Clarke, and a dog.

The Navajo Nation, America’s largest Indigenous tribe, has said sending these to the Moon desecrates a body that is sacred to their culture and have pleaded for the cargo’s removal. Though they were granted a last-ditch meeting with the White House, NASA and other officials, their objections have been ignored.  

The Vulcan rocket’s upper stage, which will circle the Sun after it deploys the lander, is meanwhile carrying more late cast members of Star Trek, as well as hair samples of presidents George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.  
…

Atlanta, Georgia — Election integrity activists want a federal judge to order Georgia to stop using its current election system, saying it’s vulnerable to attack and has operational issues that could cost voters their right to cast a vote and have it accurately counted.

During a trial set to start Tuesday, activists plan to argue that the Dominion Voting Systems touchscreen voting machines are so flawed they are unconstitutional. Election officials insist the system is secure and reliable and say it is up to the state to decide how it conducts elections.

Georgia has become a pivotal electoral battleground in recent years with national attention focused on its elections. The election system used statewide by nearly all in-person voters includes touchscreen voting machines that print ballots with a human-readable summary of voters’ selections and a QR code that a scanner reads to count the votes.

The activists say the state should switch to hand-marked paper ballots tallied by scanners and needs much more robust post-election audits than are currently in place. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg, who’s overseeing the long-running case, said in an October order that she cannot order the state to use hand-marked paper ballots. But activists say prohibiting the use of the touchscreen machines would effectively force the use of hand-marked paper ballots because that’s the emergency backup provided for in state law.

Wild conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines proliferated in the wake of the 2020 election, spread by allies of former President Donald Trump who said they were used to steal the election from him. The election equipment company has fought back aggressively with litigation, notably reaching a $787 million settlement with Fox News in April.

The trial set to begin Tuesday stems from a lawsuit that long predates those claims. It was originally filed in 2017 by several individual voters and the Coalition for Good Governance, which advocates for election integrity, and targeted the outdated, paperless voting system used at the time.

Totenberg in August 2019 prohibited the state from using the antiquated machines beyond that year. The state had agreed to purchase new voting machines from Dominion a few weeks earlier and scrambled to deploy them ahead of the 2020 election cycle. Before the machines were distributed statewide, the activists amended their lawsuit to take aim at the new system.

They argue the system has serious security vulnerabilities that could be exploited without detection and that the state has done little to address those problems.

Additionally, voters cannot be sure their votes are accurately recorded because they cannot read the QR code, they say. And the voting machines’ large, upright screens make it easy to see a voter’s selections, violating the right to ballot secrecy, they say.

Lawyers for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wrote in a recent court filing that he “vigorously disputes” the activists’ claims and “strongly believes” their case is “legally and factually meritless.”

Experts engaged by the activists have said they’ve seen no evidence that any vulnerabilities have been exploited to change the outcome of an election, but they say the concerns need to be addressed immediately to protect future elections.

One of them, University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman, examined a machine from Georgia and wrote a lengthy report detailing vulnerabilities that he said bad actors could use to attack the system. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, in June 2022 released an advisory based on Halderman’s findings that urged jurisdictions that use the machines to quickly mitigate the vulnerabilities.

During a hearing in May, a lawyer for the state told the judge physical security elements recommended by CISA were “largely in place.” But the secretary of state’s office has said a software update from Dominion is too cumbersome to install before the 2024 elections.

The fact that the voting system software and data was uploaded to a server and shared with an unknown number of people after unauthorized people accessed election equipment in January 2021 makes it even easier to plan an attack on the system, Halderman has said. That breach at the elections office in rural Coffee County was uncovered and exposed by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

A sprawling Fulton County racketeering indictment against Trump and 18 others included charges against four people related to Coffee County. Two of them, including Trump-allied lawyer Sidney Powell, have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors.

In several rulings during the litigation, Totenberg has made clear that she has concerns about the voting system. But she wrote in October that the activists “carry a heavy burden to establish a constitutional violation” connected to the voting system or its implementation.

David Cross, a lawyer for some of the individual voters, said the judge has only seen a sliver of their evidence so far. He said he believes she’ll find in their favor, but he doesn’t expect to see any changes before Georgia’s presidential primary in March. He said changes might be possible before the general election in November if Totenberg rules quickly.

“We’re hopeful but we recognize it’s an uphill fight for 2024, just on the timing,” he said, acknowledging the likelihood that the state would appeal any ruling in the activists’ favor.

Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, was similarly optimistic ahead of trial: “We have the facts and the science and the law on our side, and really the state has no defense.”

A representative for Raffensperger didn’t respond to multiple requests to interview someone in his office ahead of the trial.

The activists had planned to call the secretary of state to testify. They wanted to ask why he chose a voting system that uses QR codes that aren’t readable by voters. They also believe his office has failed to investigate or to implement proper safeguards after the Coffee County breach and wanted to ask him about it under oath.

The judge ordered him to appear over the objections of his lawyers. But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled he doesn’t have to testify, citing his status as a top official and saying the plaintiffs didn’t show his testimony was necessary.

“This trial bears heavily on the public interest, and voters deserve to hear from Secretary Raffensperger in the trial. It’s a travesty that they won’t,” Cross said. “And it’s unfair to our clients who need answers to questions at trial that only he can provide.”
…

BEIJING — China announced sanctions Sunday on five American defense-related companies in response to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and U.S sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals.

The sanctions will freeze any property the companies have in China and prohibit organizations and individuals in China from doing business with them, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted online.

It was unclear what impact, if any, the sanctions would have on the companies, BAE Systems Land and Armaments, Alliant Techsystems Operations, AeroVironment, ViaSat and Data Link Solutions. Such sanctions are often mostly symbolic as American defense contractors generally don’t sell to China.

The Foreign Ministry said the U.S. moves harmed China’s sovereignty and security interests, undermined peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and violated the rights and interests of Chinese companies and individuals.

“The Chinese government remains unwavering in our resolve to safeguard national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity and protect the lawful rights and interests of Chinese companies and citizens,” the ministry statement said.

The announcement was made less than a week ahead of a presidential election in Taiwan that is being contested in large part over how the government should manage its relationship with China, which claims the self-governing island as its territory and says it must come under its rule.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not specify which arms deal or which U.S. sanctions China was responding to, though spokesperson Wang Wenbin had warned three weeks ago that China would take countermeasures following the U.S. government’s approval of a $300 million military package for Taiwan in December.

The deal includes equipment, training and equipment repair to maintain Taiwan’s command, control and military communications capabilities.

The U.S. said the sale would support the modernization of Taiwan’s armed forces and the maintenance of a credible defense. “The proposed sale will improve the recipient’s capability to meet current and future threats by enhancing operational readiness,” a news release from the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.

Taiwan is a major flashpoint in U.S.-China relations that analysts worry could explode into military conflict between the two powers. China says that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are interference in its domestic affairs.

The Chinese military regularly sends fighter planes and ships into and over the waters around Taiwan, in part to deter the island’s government from declaring formal independence. An invasion doesn’t appear imminent, but the constant military activity serves as a reminder that the threat is ever-present.

The U.S. switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, but it is bound by its own laws to ensure that Taiwan has the ability to defend itself. America and its allies sail warships through the Taiwan Strait, a 160-kilometer-wide waterway that separates the island from China.
…

NEWTON, Iowa — Former President Donald Trump, campaigning in Iowa on Saturday, marked the third anniversary of the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by casting the migrant surge on the southern border as the “real” insurrection.

Just over a week before the Republican nomination process begins with Iowa’s kickoff caucuses, Trump did not explicitly acknowledge the date. But he continued to claim that countries have been emptying jails and mental institutions to fuel a record number of migrant crossings, even though there is no evidence that is the case.

“When you talk about insurrection, what they’re doing, that’s the real deal. That’s the real deal. Not patriotically and peacefully — peacefully and patriotically,” Trump said, quoting from his speech on January 6, before a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol as part of a desperate bid to keep him in power after his 2020 election loss.

Trump’s remarks in Newton in central Iowa came a day after Biden delivered a speech near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where he cast Trump as a grave threat to democracy and called January 6 a day when “we nearly lost America — lost it all.”

With a likely rematch of the 2020 election looming, both Biden and Trump have frequently invoked January 6 on the campaign trail. Trump, who is under federal indictment for his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, has consistently downplayed or spread conspiracy theories about a riot in which his supporters — spurred by his lies about election fraud — tried to disrupt the certification of Biden’s win.

Trump also continued to bemoan the treatment of those who have been jailed for participating in the riot, again labeling them “hostages.” More than 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes connected to the violence, including assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy.

“They ought to release the J6 hostages. They’ve suffered enough,” he said in Clinton, in the state’s far east. “Release the J6 hostages, Joe. Release ’em, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe,” he said.

Trump was holding the commit-to-caucus events just over a week before voting will begin on January 15. He arrived at his last event nearly three-and-a-half hours late due to what he said was a mechanical issue with a rented plane.

After Trump spoke in Newton, he signed hats and other items people in the crowd passed to him, including a copy of a Playboy magazine that featured him on the cover.

One man in the crowd, Dick Green, was standing about 15 feet away, weeping after the former president autographed his white “Trump Country” hat and shook his hand.

“It’ll never get sold. It will be in my family,” Green said of the hat.

A caucus captain and a pastor in Brighton, Iowa, Green said he had prayed for four years to meet Trump.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “It’s just the beginning of his next presidency.”

Trump spent much of the day assailing Biden, casting him as incompetent and the real threat to democracy. But he also attacked fellow Republicans, including the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona, whose “no” vote derailed GOP efforts to repeal former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.

“John McCain, for some reason, couldn’t get his arm up that day,” said Trump of McCain, who was shot down over Vietnam in 1967 and spent 5½ years as a prisoner of war. The injuries he suffered left him unable to lift his arms over his head for the rest of his life. His daughter, Meghan McCain, responded on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, calling Trump an expletive and her father an “American hero.”

Earlier Saturday, Trump courted young conservative activists in Des Moines, speaking to members of Run GenZ, an organization that encourages young conservatives to run for office.

Trump’s campaign is hoping to turn out thousands of supporters who have never caucused before as part of a show of force aimed at denying his rivals momentum and demonstrating his organizing prowess heading into the general election.

His chief rivals, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, were also campaigning in the state as they battle for second place in hopes of emerging as the most viable alternative to Trump, who is leading by wide margins in early state and national polls.

Trump has used the trip to step up his attacks against Haley, who has been gaining ground. He again cast her Saturday as insufficiently conservative and a “globalist” beholden to Wall Street donors, and accused her of being disloyal for running against him.

“Nikki will sell you out just like she sold me out,” he charged.

On Friday, Trump had highlighted several recent Haley statements that drew criticism, including her comment that voters in New Hampshire correct Iowa’s mistakes (“You don’t have to be corrected,” he said.) and her failure to mention slavery when asked what had caused the Civil War.

“I don’t know if it’s going to have an impact, but you know like … slavery’s sort of the obvious answer as opposed to her three paragraphs of bulls—,” he told a crowd Friday.

In Newton, he said that he was fascinated by the “horrible” war, which he suggested he could have prevented.

“It’s so fascinating,” he said. “It’s just different. I just find it… I’m so attracted to seeing it… So many mistakes were made. See that was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you.”

Haley’s campaign has pointed to his escalating attention, including a new attack ad, as evidence Trump is worried about her momentum.

“God bless President Trump, he’s been on a temper tantrum every day about me … and everything he’s saying is not true,” Haley told a crowd Saturday in North Liberty, Iowa.  
…

…

…

Focusing heavily on the threat he says former US President Donald Trump poses to American democracy, President Joe Biden kicked off his reelection campaign by pledging to make the defense of the country’s democratic system the central theme of his 2024 campaign and potential second term. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
…

new york — The longtime head of the National Rifle Association said Friday he is resigning, just days before the start of a civil trial over allegations he diverted millions of dollars from the powerful gun rights organization to pay for personal travel, private security and other lavish perks.

Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president and chief executive officer, said his departure is effective Jan. 31. The trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against him, the NRA and others who’ve served as executives is scheduled to start Monday. LaPierre is among the witnesses expected to testify. The NRA said it will continue to fight the lawsuit.

“With pride in all that we have accomplished, I am announcing my resignation from the NRA,” LaPierre said in a statement released by the organization, which said he was exiting for health reasons. “I’ve been a card-carrying member of this organization for most of my adult life, and I will never stop supporting the NRA and its fight to defend Second Amendment freedom. My passion for our cause burns as deeply as ever.”

James, a Democrat, called LaPierre’s resignation an “important victory in our case” and confirmed that the trial will go on as scheduled. His exit “validates our claims against him, but it will not insulate him or the NRA from accountability,” James said in a statement.

Andrew Arulanandam, a top NRA lieutenant who has served as LaPierre’s spokesperson, will assume his roles on an interim basis, the organization said.

LaPierre, 74, has led the NRA’s day-to-day operations since 1991, acting as the face and vehement voice of its gun-rights agenda and becoming one of the most influential figures in shaping U.S. gun policy. He once warned of “jack-booted government thugs” busting down doors to seize guns, called for armed guards in every school after a spate of shootings, and condemned gun control advocates as “opportunists” who “exploit tragedy for gain.”

In recent years though, the NRA has been beset by financial troubles, dwindling membership and infighting among its 76-member board, along with lingering questions about LaPierre’s leadership and spending. In 2021, at LaPierre’s direction, the NRA filed for bankruptcy and sought to incorporate in Texas instead of New York — but a judge rejected the move, saying it was a transparent attempt to avoid culpability in James’ lawsuit.

Gun control advocates lauded LaPierre’s resignation, mocking his oft-repeated talking point in the wake of myriad mass shootings over the years.

“Thoughts and prayers to Wayne LaPierre,” said Kris Brown, president of the gun control advocacy group Brady. “He’s going to need them to be able to sleep at night. Wayne LaPierre spent three decades peddling the Big Lie that more guns make us safer — all at the expense of countless lives. He has blood on his hands, and I won’t miss him.”

James’ lawsuit accuses LaPierre and other executives of abusing their power and spending tens of millions of dollars in organization funds on personal trips, no-show contracts and other questionable expenditures.

The suit claims LaPierre spent millions on private jet flights and personal security and accepting expensive gifts — such as African safaris and use of a 32-meter yacht — from vendors.

He is also accused of setting himself up with a $17 million contract with the NRA if he were to exit the organization, spending NRA money on travel consultants, luxury car services, and private jet flights for himself and his family.

Phillip Journey, an ex-NRA board member who clashed with LaPierre and is expected to testify at the New York trial, said LaPierre’s resignation doesn’t resolve open questions before the court or fix persistent rot within the organization.

“Honestly, the grifters are a snake with many heads and this is just one,” said Journey, a Kansas judge who is running to rejoin the NRA board.

Journey also testified at the NRA’s bankruptcy trial in Texas and said he anticipates there is enough evidence for James to prove her case.

James is seeking to ban LaPierre and the other executives from serving in leadership positions of any not-for-profit or charitable organization conducting business in New York, which would effectively remove them from any involvement with the NRA.

Though now headquartered in Virginia, the NRA was chartered as a nonprofit charity in New York in 1871 by returning Union Army officers who sought to improve marksmanship among soldiers. It remains incorporated in the state.
…

…