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All 10 people aboard a small plane that went missing and was later discovered crashed in Alaska have been confirmed dead.  Officials have said the Bering Air Cessna Caravan took off from Unalakleet, on the east coast of Norton Sound in western Alaska, and was headed to Nome around 140 miles away.

According to Alaska State Troopers, the bodies of nine passengers and one pilot who died in the Bering Air caravan crash in Alaska on Thursday have now been recovered from the wreckage, with the Alaska Department of Public Safety sharing in a statement that they have positively identified all the victims on the plane after they were recovered and brought to Nome.

The dead were identified as pilot Chad Antill, 34, of Nome; Liane Ryan, 52, of Wasilla; Donnell Erickson, 58, of Nome; Andrew Gonzalez, 30, of Wasilla; Kameron Hartvigson, 41, of Anchorage; Rhone Baumgartner, 46, of Anchorage; Jadee Moncur, 52, of Eagle River; Ian Hofmann, 45, of Anchorage; Talaluk Katchatag, 34, of Unalakleet; and Carol Mooers, 48; of Unalakleet.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference that the NTSB — which was investigating the crash — and responding agencies would work on recovering the wreckage.  The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium said in a statement that two of its employees — Rhone Baumgartner and Kameron Hartvigson — died in the crash. The company said the pair had traveled to Unalakleet “to service a heat recovery system that is critical to the community’s water plant.”

Bering Air Director of Operations David Olson told NBC affiliate KTUU of Anchorage that the plane took off at 2:37 p.m. Thursday. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin McIntyre-Coble said at a news briefing that at around 3:18 p.m., radar analysis showed “this aircraft experienced some kind of event which caused them to experience a rapid loss in elevation and a rapid loss in speed. The wreckage was found about 34 miles southeast of Nome, according to the U.S. Coast Guard said.

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Two people have been charged in connection to last year’s stabbing death of U.S. Army Private First Class Katia Dueñas Aguilar, 23.

Per CNN, Sofia Rodas, 35, has been charged with first-degree murder and tampering with evidence in the death of Aguilar, the Clarksville Police Department said in a news release.  In addition, Aguilar’s husband, 40-year-old Reynaldo Salinas Cruz, was charged with tampering with evidence. Both Rodas and Cruz had been held on unrelated federal charges before they were extradited to Clarksville on Friday and served their sealed indictments at the Montgomery County Jail, according to police.

Aguilar — a private first class who had been stationed at Fort Campbell in Kentucky — was found dead at her home in Clarksville, Tennessee, on May 18, 2024, according to the Clarksville Police Department. She was found with 68 stab wounds, mostly to the neck, according to an autopsy report obtained by Nashville ABC affiliate WKRN. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death a homicide due to sharp-force injuries to the neck.

Police said in a news release that the case remains an open and active investigation: “The successful progression of this case highlights the critical partnership between local law enforcement and military authorities in addressing severe crimes that impact service members and their families.”

Aguilar, of Mesquite, Texas, enlisted in the Army in 2018 before arriving at Fort Campbell, located on the Tennessee-Kentucky border, a year later. She was a member of the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division.

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On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with congressional leaders on Capitol Hill, coming shortly after his meeting with President Trump in which it was announced at a joint press conference that the United States plans to “take over” the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu met Thursday with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and a bipartisan group of senators. “We had a good discussion about Israel security and about the imperative of the return of the rest of the hostages,” said Thune who also told reporters that the president “wants to bring a more peaceful and secure Middle East, and he’s putting some ideas out there. ” Appearing alongside the group of senators before the meeting,  Netanyahu simply replied “no” when asked whether U.S. troops are needed in Gaza,

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who also met with Netanyahu at the Capitol on Thursday, has defended Trump’s Gaza proposal, stating that the announcement “was greeted by surprise by many, but cheer by I think people all around the world. He’s taking bold decisive action to try to ensure the peace of that region, ” adding that “we’ve got to stand unequivocally” with Israel.

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A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s offer of buyouts to federal workers, after labor unions challenged it. US District Judge George O’Toole said in the brief hearing that the pause will allow both sides to submit arguments. Thursday, February 6 was the deadline for employees to accept the controversial packages; workers will now have until Monday, February 10 to accept the deal, giving more time to weigh the offer.

Per NBC NEWS, the pause stems from a lawsuit that the American Federation of Government Employees and several other unions filed in US District Court in Massachusetts on Tuesday seeking a temporary restraining order to halt the February 6 deadline. The unions also want to “require the government to articulate a policy that is lawful, rather than an arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum which workers may not be able to enforce.”

The buyouts promises employees eight months of pay and benefits in exchange for leaving the federal workforce; but numerous provisions in the contract for the offer undercut those claims, saying employees could still have to work and may be barred from outside employment. More than 60,000 federal workers have already accepted the package, an administration official told CNN on Thursday.

American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) president Everett Kelley said in a statement: “We are pleased the court temporarily paused this deadline while arguments are heard about the legality of the deferred resignation program. We continue to believe this program violates the law, and we will continue to aggressively defend our members’ rights.”

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Authorities confirmed that the suspect in the shooting at an Ohio warehouse that killed one person and wounded five was arrested Wednesday morning.  The suspect, Bruce Reginald Foster III, was arrested at a home in nearby Columbus on Wednesday morning. Foster was turned over to police in New Albany (about 15 miles northeast of downtown Columbus) where the shooting took place Tuesday night around 10:30 p.m. at the KDC/One cosmetics facility, where authorities say the suspect worked. (per CNN).

Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Dan Deville said:  “Normally what we prefer to do is have people come out and surrender to us. He refused to come out. Our guys did have to make entry.”

New Albany Police Chief Greg Jones said during a Wednesday morning press conference the motive for the mass shooting was unknown, and there were no reports of any kind of confrontation or dispute that would have prompted the shooting.  Foster had been at work “for some time” before the shooting, which happened about 10:30 p.m., Jones said.

Police added that those injured had been taken to a local hospital, and family members of those involved were still being notified.  Jones said 150 workers were evacuated from the warehouse after the shooting, many of whom did not know what had happened until authorities ushered them into a neighboring, secure building.

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President Trump signed an executive order to ban transgender girls and women from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity. The measure, according to White House officials, is called the “No Men in Women’s Sports Executive Order.” Trump said from a podium at the White House, with dozens of women and girls standing behind him: “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”  

Wednesday’s order — titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” — coincides with National Girls and Women in Sports Day, and will involve how his administration will interpret Title IX, the law best known for its role in pursuing gender equity in athletics and preventing sexual harassment on campuses.  The order mandates that Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools, be interpreted as prohibiting the participation of transgender girls and women in female sports. Those not in compliance jeopardize any federal funding they receive and could face legal action, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt adding at Wednesday’s press briefing: “The policy of this administration is that there are only two sexes — male and female. Pretty simple.”

The White House official said transgender female athletes can compete on co-ed or male teams, and have argued that transgender girls and women athletes have biological advantages that are unfair and unsafe for other girls and women: “This is about preserving women’s sports for women, and that if you are not a woman, you should absolutely have opportunities in sports, but the burden should not always be on women to accommodate that.”

The executive order follows a Republican measure that passed the House last month, known as the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,” which would amend Title IX to recognize a person’s “sex” as “based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” Schools that allow “a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls” risk losing federal funding.

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