Tacoma Police officers investigate after multiple people were injured in a stabbing at Foss High School, on April 30, 2026, in Tacoma, Washington
| Photo Credit: AP

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Washington:

Donald Trump said the federal government should “take over Washington DC,” as the US president complained about crime, graffiti and “too many tents on the lawns.”

Trump has had a contentious relationship with the nation’s capital’s Democratic mayor, Muriel Bowser, since his first term in office.

“I think that we should govern the District of Columbia… I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely flawless,” he told journalists late Wednesday on Air Force One.

“The federal government should take over the governance of DC And run it really, really properly.”

Trump said he likes the mayor and gets along “great” with her. “But they’re not doing the job — too much crime, too much graffiti, too many tents on the lawns.”

The Republican leader said he wanted to make the city safe because people were “getting killed” and “being hurt.”

He also raised the issue of homelessness, saying: “It’s a sad thing, homeless people all over the place.

“We’ve got to take care of the homeless, but we can’t have that in Washington, DC.”

Trump raised concerns over welcoming foreign leaders to the city given the situation, including French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and China’s Xi Jinping.

“You can’t let that be, you just can’t let that happen.

“You can’t have tents over your once magnificent plazas and lawns.” 

Washington, with a population of around 700,000, is a federal district rather than a state.

Two Republican lawmakers introduced a bill in early February to repeal the city’s Home Rule Act, which would effectively strip the mayor and city council of their authority.

“The corruption, crime, and incompetence of the DC government has been an embarrassment to our nation’s capital for decades,” said Senator Mike Lee, adding Congress should restore “honor and integrity” to the city.

Bowser has not directly responded to the president but stated on X that Washington “is a world-class city.”

She also stated it is the only place in the United States where you can see pandas for free.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

An American Airlines regional passenger jet was involved in a mid-air collision on Wednesday night with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan Washington National Airport, officials said.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said on social media that “we know there are fatalities,” though he did not say how many.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said a PSA Airlines regional jet collided midair with a Black Hawk helicopter while on approach to Reagan. A U.S. Army official confirmed that one of its helicopters was involved in the crash.

PSA was operating Flight 5342 for American Airlines, which had departed from Wichita, Kansas, according to the FAA. According to American Airlines’ website, the jet can carry up to 65 passengers.

Police said multiple agencies were involved in a search and rescue operation in the Potomac River, which borders the airport.

MPD is responding to an apparent air crash in the Potomac River. Multiple agencies are responding. Details to come.

— DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) January 30, 2025

The airport said late on Wednesday that all takeoffs and landings had been halted as emergency personnel responded to an aircraft incident.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was gathering more information on the incident.

There has not been a fatal U.S. passenger airplane accident since February 2009, but a series of near-miss incidents in recent years have raised serious safety concerns.

American Airlines said on social media that it was “aware of reports that American Eagle flight 5342, operated by PSA, with service from Wichita, Kansas (ICT) to Washington Reagan National Airport (DCA) has been involved in an incident.”

American Airlines said it would provide more information as it became available to the company.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

A pioneering private crew made history Thursday by performing the first commercial spacewalk, with NASA hailing it as “a giant leap forward” for the space industry.

The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, led by fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman, launched Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, journeying deeper into the cosmos than any humans in half a century, since the Apollo era.

With the four-member crew’s Dragon spacecraft adjusted to an orbit with a high of 434 miles (700 kilometers), pure oxygen began flowing into their suits Thursday, marking the official start of their extravehicular activity (EVA) at 1012 GMT.

A short time later, Isaacman swung open the hatch and climbed through, gripping the hand and footholds of a structure known as “Skywalker,” as a breathtaking view of Earth unfolded below him.

“SpaceX, back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world,” he told mission control in Hawthorne, California, where teams erupted in applause.

It was yet another major milestone for SpaceX, the company founded by Elon Musk in 2002.

Since then, SpaceX has grown into a powerhouse that in 2020 beat aerospace giant Boeing in delivering a spaceship to provide rides for NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

“Today’s success represents a giant leap forward for the commercial space industry and NASA’s long-term goal to build a vibrant US space economy,” NASA chief Bill Nelson wrote on X.

Suit tests

Prior to the hatch opening, the crew underwent a “prebreathe” procedure to remove nitrogen from their bloodstream, preventing decompression sickness. Cabin pressure was then gradually lowered to align with the vacuum of space.

Isaacman and crewmate Sarah Gillis, a SpaceX engineer, took turns outside the vehicle, spending a few minutes performing mobility tests on SpaceX’s next-generation suits that boast heads-up displays, helmet cameras and enhanced joint mobility systems — before returning inside.

Extravehicular activity officially ended after an hour and 46 minutes, following cabin re-pressurization.

While it marked a first for the commercial sector, the spacewalk fell short of the daring feats from the early space era.

Early spacewalkers, including the first, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov in 1965, floated tethered to their spacecraft, while a select few Space Shuttle astronauts used jetpacks to fly completely untethered.

Since Dragon doesn’t have an airlock, the entire crew were exposed to the vacuum of space. Mission pilot Scott Poteet and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon remained strapped in throughout as they monitored vital support systems.

“The risk is greater than zero, that’s for sure, and it’s certainly higher than anything that has been accomplished on a commercial basis,” former NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe told AFP.

First of three Polaris missions

The spacewalk followed an audacious first phase of the mission, during which the Dragon spacecraft reached a peak altitude of 870 miles — three times higher than the International Space Station, in a region teeming with dangerous, high-energy particles.

All four underwent more than two years of training in preparation for the landmark mission, logging hundreds of hours on simulators as well as skydiving, scuba diving and summiting an Ecuadoran volcano.

Upcoming tasks include testing laser-based satellite communications between the spacecraft and the vast Starlink satellite constellation, and completing dozens of experiments, including tests on contact lenses with embedded microelectronics to monitor changes in eye pressure and shape in space.

Polaris Dawn is the first of three missions under the Polaris program, a collaboration between Isaacman and SpaceX.

Financial terms of the partnership remain under wraps, but Isaacman, the 41-year-old founder and CEO of Shift4Payments, reportedly poured $200 million of his fortune into leading the 2021 all-civilian SpaceX Inspiration4 orbital mission.

The final Polaris mission aims to be the first crewed flight of SpaceX’s Starship, a prototype next-generation rocket that is key to founder Musk’s ambitions of colonizing Mars.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi, India:

A six-foot-tall wax statue of former US President Abraham Lincoln in Washington melted as the capital city’s temperatures soared over the weekend.

The temperatures, which reportedly touched 37 degrees Celsius, disfigured the wax structure at the site of Camp Barker, a Civil War-era refugee camp that housed formerly enslaved and freed African Americans.

The statue’s head was the first to surrender to the scorching heat, followed by the legs, BBC reported. Authorities are now repairing the sculpture.

WE CAN NOT WITH THIS HEAT EITHER, LINCOLN
Our project, “40 ACRES: Camp Barker” by Sandy Williams IV has gone viral (for innocent reasons and some not so innocent ones). Read the articles for yourself: https://t.co/NfRc0CaLQI
Check out our website for updates. #waxlincolnpic.twitter.com/688QcBUAj2

— Cultural_DC (@Cultural_DC) June 25, 2024

The structure was a candle and a wax structure with a plaque that said, “Please blow out your wick within 1-2 minutes.”

The replica, commissioned by the non-profit organisation CulturalDC, was scheduled to be placed at the site till September 2024.

The organisation also commented on the incident and said, “Whether it’s the state of the union, the upcoming election, or this record-level heat, we are all over it!

The statue was created by US-based artist Sandy Williams as part of the Wax Monument Series. It was placed at the site of Camp Barker, which now houses an elementary school.

A dog in United States’ Washington has undergone a successful surgery to remove a volleyball-sized tumour and is now living with its new family. The 5-year-old Pitbull named Libby was brought to the Humane Society of Tacoma-Pierce County along with 40 other neglected animals, according to Fox13. Libby arrived at the animal shelter on August 17 with a 10-pound tumour on the bone of its upper right leg that left the dog unable to move, the outlet further said. 

Two parakeets, five geckos, one bearded dragon, eight snakes, four rabbits and one kitten were the other animals that were handed over to the society for care.

After Libby’s surgery, the centre held a christening ceremony and changed its name to ‘Wiggles’. While the tumour was removed, the dog’s leg was also amputated.

However, it was diagnosed with aggressive bone cancer and veterinarians gave her a shirt life expectancy.

Wiggles was adopted by one of the veterinary technicians who had cared for the dog during surgery. The woman hopes to give the dog a comfortable life now.

The technician told Fox13 that Wiggles loves playing with other dogs and taking naps on the couch wrapped in blankets.

Last month, an animal shelter in Ohio took in more than 80 rescued dogs from what investigators described as “the most horrible conditions”.

The dogs were rescued from another shelter where at least 30 dead canines were in refrigerators and freezers.

Others were discovered in cages filled with urine and faeces.

The animals were held at two structures in Madison Township, which is north of Cincinnati.