LUBBOCK — The Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum has long stood as a landmark in the small town of Canyon. The museum, nearly as old as the city itself, is home to the largest collection of historical materials in Texas.
It’s now at risk of closing its doors for good, putting the future of more than 2 million historical artifacts in jeopardy.
Last month, West Texas A&M University, which owns the museum building, informed the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society that the university could no longer provide long-term funding to maintain the building.
University President Walter V. Wendler later said the school formally asked the society to develop a plan to relocate its vast collection, blaming decades of mounting operational costs, a decline in state funding and a laundry list of fire code violations found by the Texas State Fire Marshal.
With the museum closed since March for safety reasons, Wendler requested a written plan from the society by Feb. 1 to outline how artifacts will be transferred to a new location.
The news devastated the Panhandle region. Social media was quickly flooded with people recalling visits to the museum with family or as part of a school group. Others questioned whether they were told the real reasons for closing an important piece of Panhandle history.
It all came to a head Tuesday at the City of Canyon Commission meeting. Residents filled the room, with many holding “Save our museum” signs. Some people left voluntarily so outgoing state Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, and his team could enter the room without causing a fire code violation. City officials, Wendler and Smithee spoke about how to resolve the issue between the university and the historical society.
“I wouldn’t say this marriage is over, but it has been somewhat on the rocks lately,” Smithee said. “We got to get the commitment on both sides to make this happen. It breaks my heart, everybody else’s hearts, to drive by there and see that sign out in front of the door.”
During the meeting, Canyon Mayor Gary Hinders emphasized that he wants to keep the museum in the city, and for the university and historical society to work it out together. Hinders said the museum is a major driver of tourism and revenue for the city of just over 15,000 people.
While the city does not have a formal partnership with either the museum or the society, Canyon offers local tax funds to support it, primarily through advertising. The museum also received funding from the state Legislature, but Wendler said that has declined by 65% since 1984.
City officials discussed a number of possible solutions Tuesday — from exploring state, federal and private funding to designating the museum as a convention or visitor center to use more local tax money, which would require a public election.
“We’ve come to a dead end with the A&M system and funds there. I think there’s been nothing forthcoming there,” Hinders said. “But bottom line is, I think to get there, it’s going to take both what we can get from some of those state funds that we can get help with, then it’s also going to take private money.”
Regardless of which avenue the city takes, the museum is going to have a hefty price tag. Smithee estimated it could cost between $20 million and $40 million to reopen the museum where it is now, and $250 million to fund a new building. Smithee said the higher amount was a nonstarter for the Legislature, adding that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told him he didn’t think they could justify spending that much money even if the Alamo in San Antonio was falling down.
While the next legislative session won’t begin until January 2027, Smithee said the committees that work on the Texas House and Senate budgets will begin meeting this summer to set the next budget. He said they needed to start early on a plan to request a one-time appropriation in the range of $20 million to $40 million.
“I’m not running again, so somebody else is going to have to get this money a year from now,” Smithee reminded the commission. “But I do think I can help in laying the groundwork to get it done.”
University President Walter V. Wendler prepares to help with the hooding of a graduating student during the West Texas A&M University Commencement program at the WTAMU campus in Canyon on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023. Mark Rogers for The Texas Tribune
Wendler told the commission that he hasn’t given up on finding a solution. However, he said the state fire marshal requested the building be vacated as it’s believed to be “dangerous.”
According to Wendler, it costs about $100,000 a month to operate the building, including modest maintenance. However, the university system does not have a funding stream because it’s not considered an “education and general building.” In a 1932 lease agreement, West Texas A&M assumed responsibility for maintaining the building, which some in the audience said the university system was violating.
Wendler insisted the society and the university are not divided on the issue and said everyone is equally frustrated by the complexities. He said the other two museums on Texas college campuses — the Stone Fort Museum at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches and the National Ranching Heritage Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock — have experienced the same challenges, but they are “miniscule” compared with the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum.
“This is the most robust history museum in the state of Texas,” Wendler said. “I think the burden of what it costs to upgrade the building and address the fire and safety concerns are remarkable and beyond most people’s imagination.”
The commission opened the floor for audience comments and questions. Many of the speakers insisted the museum belongs in Canyon because of the history it holds from the nearby Palo Duro Canyon, and because area residents donated family artifacts that had been passed down by generations. Others feared the collection would move to Amarillo or Lubbock, saying neither city “deserved” the museum.
Mary Bearden, a former president for the historical society, told the commission she felt encouraged by the ideas presented at the meeting.
“I was worried the parties would not be able to find middle ground,” Bearden said. “So I hope, based on what we hear today and what the Legislature, A&M and the society can do, that we can keep the Panhandle-Plains Museum,” she said.
Disclosure: Texas Tech University and West Texas A&M University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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The internet holds vast amounts of trustworthy information on many issues, but also huge volumes of false and misleading content, especially about climate change.
Vincent: “Right now we are seeing a lot of mis- and disinformation about climate solutions … electric vehicles, renewable energy.”
Climate scientist Emmanuel Vincent is the founder of Science Feedback.
The group includes a network of scientists who review some of the climate-related stories and myths spreading online, such as the false claim that wind turbines do not work in the cold. In fact, they do operate in low temperatures and have systems to prevent ice buildup.
Vincent: “So we have about 500 scientists … to help us verify when there is a prominent claim whether it is true or false, whether it is based on sound science and in agreement with the data. … We also go and read the scientific literature.”
They summarize their findings in free articles at science.feedback.org. The resources are written for a general audience and include links to other studies and resources that provide more in-depth information.
So the initiative provides reliable information about climate change and climate solutions – helping people separate fact from fiction.
Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media
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The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to health care. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.
Iraq
+ Child marriage rates rise after changes to Iraq’s Personal Status Law
Nearly a year after Iraq amended its Personal Status Law, Baghdad’s wedding industry is booming, fueled in part by a rise in underage marriages. Vendors in Baghdad’s “Bridal Boulevard” told TheSunday Times that the surge is driven by child bride clients.
For decades, Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law provided strong legal protections against child marriage. But in February, parliament amended the law, allowing families to choose between it or a new Personal Status Code to be developed by the Shia Ja’afari school of Islamic jurisprudence. In August, parliament approved the new Ja’fari Personal Status Code, reviving 8th-century religious jurisprudence for Shias, the religious majority in Southern Iraq, and expanding male authority over marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody.
Despite civil law setting the legal marriage age at 15, the Ja’fari Personal Status Code allows judges to make exceptions by approving marriages based on a child’s perceived “maturity and physical capacity,” a loophole critics say has led to girls reportedly as young as nine being married.
Human rights activists in Iraq warn the amendment has effectively opened a black market, where families can trade daughters for money or social standing without consequence. Coalition 188, a group of prominent female lawyers, journalists and activists in Iraq, has spent the past year opposing the law. “We will continue to fight. The coalition will not be silenced. Even if the state continues attacks,” said founding member Jannat al-Ghezi. “We must be brave because someone needs to protect Iraq’s girls.”
Activists demonstrate against female child marriages in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad on July 28, 2024, amid parliamentary discussion over a proposed amendment to the Iraqi Personal Status Law. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images)
Jamaica
+ Women in Jamaica carry the emotional and physical burdens as the country rebuilds
The third-strongest Atlantic hurricane in recorded history struck Jamaica on Oct. 28, 2025. It killed 45 people, and affected 1.5 million more, leaving over 90,000 people displaced and 150,000 buildings damaged. Almost half of the country still does not have electricity. Flooding and debris have led to the outbreak of a rare bacterial illness of leptospirosis. The emotional impact of the storm has also persisted—and the weeks since have shown the emotional and physical impact that Jamaicans are experiencing.
Displacement, a loss of livelihood, and damaged or destroyed social services are key issues in a crisis that has already caused so much emotional harm. Anxiety, PTSD and depression often follow climate catastrophes especially due to displacement. Coupled with Hurricane Beryl, which hit Jamaica in 2024, financial support helps but cannot undo the emotional trauma of climate catastrophe.
According to U.N. Women, more than half of those evacuated in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Cuba were women, and thousands of women and girls were sheltering in unsafe or unstable situations.
The Jamaica Gleaner explains the unique experience of women during Hurricane Melissa who typically care for the physical and emotional safety of children and the elderly as well as their own wellbeing. For pregnant women and women with small children, lifesaving and immediate healthcare can be incredibly difficult to access—and are sometimes impossible to access—leading to complications or even death during childbirth.
Cambodia and Thailand
+ Before second ceasefire, hundreds of thousands flee fighting at border between Cambodia and Thailand
2025 saw border clashes and months of fighting between Cambodia and Thailand due to a century-old border dispute. The dispute has continued over contested sovereignty of various points of their land border. However, their second ceasefire of this year went into effect Dec. 27, and has held since.
On both sides of the most recent conflict, tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homes near recent fighting. A 27-year-old Cambodian woman, Suang Sreang, told Reuters that she feared she would have to give birth in a displacement camp at nine months pregnant.
“When the fighting started I put my difficulties aside and took my children and ran away fast,” Sreang told Reuters. “My priority was to save myself, my children’s lives.” As of Dec. 14, as reported by Reuters, there were about 130,000 people in evacuation centers across Cambodia, who faced food, shelter and water shortages. According to The New York Times, the second wave of conflict has killed more than 10, and displaced hundreds of thousands on both sides.
European Union
+ EU votes to expand abortion access in historic vote
The European Parliament voted in a historic ballot to expand abortion access across Europe in an initiative called “My Voice, My Choice.” Parliament members voted in favor of a fund that would provide a voluntary financial mechanism—backed with EU funding—to help women who cannot access abortion in their own country travel to access it in another European country.
The fund will help close the gap in discrepancy of access on a country-by-country basis. There are near-total and total bans in EU member countries such as Malta and Poland, whose citizens will now be supported in accessing the care available in more abortion-progressive countries such as France.
A picture of a woman who died after being denied an abortion is held during a protest in front of the Law and Justice (PiS) ruling party office against the abortion ban in Krakow, Poland on January 26, 2022. (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The vote highlights the growing backlash against women’s rights, and abortion specifically, as well as the high cost on certain countries that had already been providing services for people to access cross-border healthcare. Supporters argued that it will reduce the health risks that come with inaccessible or delayed reproductive healthcare services. Additionally, it directly addresses the many individuals who cannot afford to travel for abortion and the discrepancy in access based on socio-economic factors as well.
Belgium/U.S.
+ Additional USAID birth control meant for Africa discovered; stockpile continues to waste away in Belgium
The contraceptives have been stranded in Belgium for months, following the Trump administration’s suspension of U.S. foreign aid programs that covered their distribution in January 2025. The stockpile includes birth control pills, intrauterine devices and other implants or injectables intended for use in five African countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Mali.
Rather than allowing the supplies to be distributed or bought, the Trump administration initially ordered USAID to incinerate the contraceptives in June, at an additional $167,000 cost to U.S. taxpayers. Belgian regulations did not permit the destruction, and multiple aid organizations, including the Belgian government itself, offered to purchase and distribute the supplies. The U.S. government rejected all such proposals.
Public health experts estimate that the failure to deliver these contraceptives could result in 362,000 unintended pregnancies, 110,000 unsafe abortions and 718 preventable maternal deaths, further exacerbating maternal mortality rates across much of the continent. On Dec.15, The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State, citing its refusal to disclose plans regarding the destruction of at least $10 million worth of unexpired, taxpayer-funded contraceptives.
India
+ Indian states implement direct payments to women for household work
Across India, about 118 million adult women in 12 states are now able to receive unconditional monthly payments from their state governments. These payments, typically between 1,000-2,500 rupees ($12-$30) a month, acknowledge the unpaid labor women perform to sustain households, from cooking and cleaning to caring for children and the elderly. By the end of December 2025, the 12 participating states are expected to have spent about $18 billion (around 200 thousand USD) on payouts throughout the year.
The initiative has enabled women to become a powerful voting group. In Bihar state’s November elections, the state transferred additional funds to women right before the election, and female turnout surpassed that of men. While some called the move vote buying, its supporters argued it signaled long-overdue recognition of women’s economic contributions.
Although critics warn that the policy could reinforce gender roles, early research suggests otherwise. Studies indicate the transfers have increased women’s financial autonomy and bargaining power without reducing participation in paid work. “If the transfers are coupled with messaging on the recognition of women’s unpaid work,” said Prabha Kotiswaran, a professor of law and social justice at King’s College London, “they could potentially disrupt the gendered division of labour when paid employment opportunities become available.”
England
+ England records first year where C-sections outnumber unassisted births
For the first time, more babies in England are being delivered by caesarean section than through unassisted vaginal birth. According to National Health Service (NHS) childbirth data from 2024-25, 45 percent of births were by C-section, compared with 44 percent classified as “spontaneous,” the term used to describe an unassisted vaginal birth. Another 11 percent required additional interventions.
Nearly half of these C-sections were planned ahead of time. These procedures may be scheduled for medical or personal reasons, or performed as or as an emergency measure, due to complications during labor. The NHS attributes the rise to several overlapping factors: These include more women opting for cesarean delivery, higher rates of pre-existing conditions such as diabetes and obesity and an increase in the average age at pregnancy.
But Soo Downe, a professor of midwifery studies at the University of Lancashire, explains that circumstantial factors alone do not fully account for the steady increase in cesareans over the past decade. For many women, the decision is a choice of autonomy and control. England’s maternity services have come under intense scrutiny, with 14 NHS hospital trusts that provide maternal and neonatal care currently undergoing reviews. Downe paints a picture of women who increasingly see C-sections as the “least worst option,” with their choices borne from concerns that they will not receive adequate support for a “safe straightforward positive labour.”
Namibia
+ UNESCO Office meets in Namibia to call out online attacks on women journalists
In Windhoek, Namibia, the UNESCO Office met on Dec. 9 with the U.N. Gender Theme Group to bring attention to the digital risks women in media face. On the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, 50 participants held an event titled “Chat GBV: Raising Awareness on AI Facilitated Gender Based Violence Against Women Journalists.”
Eunice Smith, the UNESCO Head of Office and Representative to Namibia, said “Technology is now used to harass journalists, especially female practitioners, and as synthetic media tools become more accessible, the threats grow more sophisticated, and the consequences more severe. And yet, despite these escalating threats, impunity remains one of the greatest obstacles to justice.”
There has been an increased amount of attacks on women journalists, especially when reporting on gender and politics, that are often sexualized or threatening in nature. A majority of women online experience online violence, especially journalists, simultaneously targeted by AI deepfakes and manipulation. The conference stressed that when women are targeted, silenced and discredited, society loses an important measure of accountability.
Great Job Olivia Mccabe & the Team @ Ms. Magazine Source link for sharing this story.
LODGE GRASS, Mont. — Brothers Lonny and Teyon Fritzler walked amid the tall grass and cottonwood trees surrounding their boarded-up childhood home near the Little Bighorn River and daydreamed about ways to rebuild.
The rolling prairie outside the single-story clapboard home is where Lonny learned from their grandfather how to break horses. It’s where Teyon learned from their grandmother how to harvest buffalo berries. It’s also where they watched their father get addicted to meth.
Teyon, now 34, began using the drug at 15 with their dad. Lonny, 41, started after college, which he said was partly due to the stress of caring for their grandfather with dementia. Their own addictions to meth persisted for years, outlasting the lives of both their father and grandfather.
It took leaving their home in Lodge Grass, a town of about 500 people on the Crow Indian Reservation, to recover. Here, methamphetamine use is widespread.
The brothers stayed with an aunt in Oklahoma as they learned to live without meth. Their family property has sat empty for years — the horse corral’s beams are broken and its roof caved in, the garage tilts, and the house needs extensive repairs. Such crumbling structures are common in this Native American community, hammered by the effects of meth addiction. Lonny said some homes in disrepair would cost too much to fix. It’s typical for multiple generations to crowd under one roof, sometimes for cultural reasons but also due to the area’s housing shortage.
“We have broken-down houses, a burnt one over here, a lot of houses that are not livable,” Lonny said as he described the few neighboring homes.
In Lodge Grass, an estimated 60% of the residents age 14 and older struggle with drug or alcohol addictions, according to a local survey contracted by the Mountain Shadow Association, a local, Native-led nonprofit. For many in the community, the buildings in disrepair are symbols of that struggle. But signs of renewal are emerging. In recent years, the town has torn down more than two dozen abandoned buildings. Now, for the first time in decades, new businesses are going up and have become new symbols — those of the town’s effort to recover from the effects of meth.
One of those new buildings, a day care center, arrived in October 2024. A parade of people followed the small, wooden building through town as it was delivered on the back of a truck. It replaced a formerly abandoned home that had tested positive for traces of meth.
“People were crying,” said Megkian Doyle, who heads the Mountain Shadow Association, which opened the center. “It was the first time that you could see new and tangible things that pulled into town.”
The nonprofit is also behind the town’s latest construction project: a place where families together can heal from addiction. The plan is to build an entire campus in town that provides mental health resources, housing for kids whose parents need treatment elsewhere, and housing for families working to live without drugs and alcohol.
Though the project is years away from completion, locals often stop by to watch the progress.
“There is a ground-level swell of hope that’s starting to come up around your ankles,” Doyle said.
Two of the builders on that project are Lonny and Teyon Fritzler. They see the work as a chance to help rebuild their community within the Apsáalooke Nation, also known as the Crow Tribe.
“When I got into construction work, I actually thought God was punishing me,” Lonny said. “But now, coming back, building these walls, I’m like, ‘Wow. This is ours now.’”
Meth ‘Never Left’
Meth use is a long-standing public health epidemic throughout the U.S. and a growing contributor to the nation’s overdose crisis. The drug had been devastating in Indian Country, a term that encompasses tribal jurisdictions and certain areas with Native American populations.
“Meth has never left our communities,” said A.C. Locklear, CEO of the National Indian Health Board, a nonprofit that works to improve health in Indian Country.
LeeAnn Bruised Head, a recently retired public health adviser with the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, said that despite the challenges, tribal nations have developed strong survival skills drawing from their traditions. For example, Crow people have held onto their nation’s language; neighbors are often family, or considered such; and many tribal members rely on their clans to mentor children, who eventually become mentors themselves for the next generation.
“The strength here, the support here,” said Bruised Head, who is part of the Crow Tribe. “You can’t get that anywhere else.”
Signs of Rebuilding
On a fall day, Quincy Dabney greeted people arriving for lunch at the Lodge Grass drop-in center. The center recently opened in a former church as a place where people can come for help to stay sober or for a free meal. Dabney volunteers at the center. He’s also the town’s mayor.
Dabney helped organize community cleanup days starting in 2017, during which people picked up trash in yards and alongside roads. The focus eventually shifted to tearing down empty, condemned houses, which Dabney said had become spots to sell, distribute, and use meth, often during the day as children played nearby.
“There was nothing stopping it here,” Dabney said.
The problem hasn’t disappeared, though. In 2024, officials broke up a multistate trafficking operation based on the Crow reservation that distributed drugs to other Montana reservations. It was one example of how drug traffickers have targeted tribal nations as sales and distribution hubs.
A few blocks from where Dabney spoke stood the remains of a stone building where someone had spray-painted “Stop Meth” on its roofless walls. Still, there are signs of change, he said.
Dabney pointed across the street to a field where a trailer had sat empty for years before the town removed it. The town was halfway through tearing down another home in disrepair on the next block. Another house on the same street was being cleaned up for an incoming renter: a new mental health worker at the drop-in center.
Just down the road, work was underway on the new campus for addiction recovery, called Kaala’s Village. Kaala means “grandmother” in Crow.
The site’s first building going up is a therapeutic foster home. Plans include housing to gradually reunite families, a community garden, and a place to hold ceremonies. Doyle said the goal is that, eventually, residents can help build their own small homes, working with experienced builders trained to provide mental health support.
She said one of the most important aspects of this work “is that we finish it.”
Tribal citizens and organizations have said the political chaos of Trump’s first year back in office shows the problem with relying on federal programs. It underscores the need for more grassroots efforts, like what’s unfolding in Lodge Grass. But a reliable system to fund those efforts still doesn’t exist. Last year’s federal grant and program cuts also fueled competition for philanthropic dollars.
Kaala’s Village is expected to cost $5 million. The association is building in phases as money comes in. Doyle said the group hopes to open the foster home by spring, and family housing the following year.
The site is a few minutes’ drive from Lonny and Teyon’s childhood home. In addition to building the new facility’s walls, they’re getting training to offer mental health support. Eventually, they hope to work alongside people who come home to Kaala’s Village.
As for their own home, they hope to restore it — one room at a time.
“Just piece by piece,” Lonny said. “We’ve got to do something. We’ve got these young ones watching.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
When I asked him how bad things really were, Clarke looked at me with a sigh. “Look, I’ve been at this a long time. This is the worst shortage I’ve ever seen. Demand is way ahead of supply. And it’s driven by AI. It’s driven by infrastructure. You’ve seen the spot market price—it’s up to five times from September. That will manifest. It already has in contract pricing.”
While the average person can buy straight from a retailer, laptop manufacturers have to negotiate contracts on DRAM. According to an analyst from Citrini Research, prices on DRAM increased by around 40 percent in the final quarter of 2025. It’s not slowing down; it’s escalating. Prices will be up to 60 percent higher in the first quarter of this year. From everyone I talked to this week, I got the impression that the memory shortage would last not months but years.
So, if waiting this one out isn’t the solution, what is? As it turns out, there are some very clever people in the world with some incredible ideas, all based around reducing our dependency on AI in the cloud.
The Real AI PC
You may not have heard of Phison, but the multibillion-dollar Taiwanese company has been building critical controllers for NAND flash memory chips for decades and even claims to be the inventor of the original removable USB flash drive. The founder and CEO of the company, Pua Khein-Seng, has been outspoken for months about warning about the coming memory shortage.
Pua explained to me that the current storage shortage isn’t necessarily about revenue. It’s about storytelling. “Every CEO, every company—they want to increase valuation,” he says. “Stock price is storytelling. Memory companies need a story.”
From his perspective, that’s how we ended up where we are. But at CES, Pua didn’t just bring more concern and warnings. He brought a solution. The product is called aiDAPTIV, an add-in SSD cache for laptops that can “expand” the memory bandwidth of your PC’s GPU. Flash memory, such as what’s found in an SSD, is typically used for long-term storage, leaving the DRAM for the fast, temporary storage that your system needs to function. AiDAPTIV, which is built using a specialized SSD design and an “advanced NAND correction algorithm” can, Phison claims, effectively expand the available memory bandwidth for AI tasks, which are currently bottlenecked.
What does all that have to do with solving the memory shortage issue? Well, while enabling more AI is what aiDAPTIV was originally developed for, Pua also positioned it as a solution to the DRAM shortage. As he explained, manufacturers could lower the DRAM capacity of laptops, going from 32 GB to 16, without reducing the PC’s capabilities. That sounds like a great deal, especially since it’s what Dell, HP, and Lenovo were planning to do anyway.
One of the great advantages of aiDAPTIV is that it doesn’t require any internal changes to the existing hardware. It just slots into an open PCIe slot. MSI and Intel have announced early support, and theoretically, things could begin to shift rather quickly. We might all have to accept laptops with less DRAM, but if Phison’s claims are true, that might not matter in practice as much as we used to think.
The Hail Mary
Ventiva’s cooling design.
I also spoke to Carl Schlachte, the CEO of a company called Ventiva, which has invented a novel thermal approach that replaced laptop fans with a specialized iconic cooling engine. No fans, just a solid-state thermal solution that ionizes air to create a silent way of moving air. That’s fascinating on its own, but again, there’s a way this new technology also addresses the long-term problem of the memory shortage. Once you remove fans from a system, it opens up lots of extra space for other things, such as extra memory.
Great Job Luke Larsen & the Team @ WIRED Source link for sharing this story.
It’s not every day you see a comic with the phrase “gay snakes.” But that’s exactly what happened when I attended the Houston Zine Fest in November and came across Chris Kill, one of over 50 vendors at the cornucopia of weird and wonderful self-published comic strips and books too underground for the mainstream.
Gay Snakes (now up to three volumes with fans clamoring for a fourth) is exactly what it says on the xeroxed, tract-sized paper. Kill has an instantly accessible absurdist humor. One snake curled around a clutch of eggs offers to be an egg donor for a same-sex snake couple, who are appropriately grateful. Another couple share a moment in the bathroom where one assures the other that early molting bald spots don’t make his husband less perfect. It’s downright wholesome, if admittedly strange.
“There was a Friday night that . . . you know after a hard day at work I had a couple drinks, and I drew two snakes kind of sniffing at each other’s tails, and I just wrote down the phrase ‘gay snakes,’” said Kill in a phone interview. “The next day in the sobering light of Saturday, I looked at them. I just felt like that’s such a funny idea, and it has become the most popular thing I’ve ever produced.”
While wholesome, it’s also one of the reasons that Kill publishes under a pseudonym. His day job is as a Texas middle school art teacher. In the current environment, publishing something called Gay Snakes, no matter how sweet and innocuous, could be a problem.
Though Kill has always liked art, he never saw himself becoming a comic strip artist. Two creators changed his outlook on the medium. One was Jeffrey Brown. These days, he’s most famous for his books re-imagining Star Wars as a Family Circus-style strip, but before that he wrote largely autobiographical work.
The same is true for Kill’s other main influence, Ben Snakepit, who has been putting out comic strips about his day-to-day life for more than two decades. Snakepit in particular has become a mentor to Kill, who launched his career with a zine about having multiple sclerosis.
“There’s a very raw quality to Chris’ work that makes the reader empathize with him,” said Snakepit in an email interview. “He needs to tell his story, and he’s not going to let his technical limitations stop him.”
Kill is more than Gay Snakes. One of his other popular series is S*** My Art Students Say, two collections of the wit and wisdom of seventh graders that will make you cheer and weep for the next generation. He also recently published a polaroid photo zine focused on gravestones and roadside crosses.
Kill says that his students often know that he self-publishes art and sometimes try to track him down. While it’s always flattering to be the cool teacher, he keeps his work separate and uses their interest as an educational tool instead.
“I do sometimes show the students work that I’ve done, especially more in recent years as as I wrote them with young people in mind,” said Kill. “Of course, the kids will inevitably ask, well, where can I buy this book? A lot of the time, you can also just sort of redirect it to them and be like, Well, show me what you can do. I want to see what you do. And they’ll draw you their pictures, and you can kind of try to bring up the next generation of artists.
Like most teachers, Kill has a small collection of art current and former students have trusted him with. Even when it’s very silly, the art reflects the artist. As Snakepit says, the biographical and the visual resonates with young minds.
“Comics are very simple and easy to understand in just a few seconds,” Snakepit said. “The reader isn’t afraid to invest that small amount of time, and that gives the artist a chance to convey their message instantly, whether the reader wants it or not.”
Meanwhile, Kill continues happily. He has no aspirations of becoming a full-time comic artist, preferring to work when and wear he can and using venues like Zine Fest to find new audiences on his terms. Creating regular strips is hard work; and he’s in it for the art.
It also lets him keep focusing on subjects he wants to. His graveside collection, Memento Mori, isn’t the kind of thing that will reach a wide audience, but it made him happy to collect the images after the passing of his own mother. Even Gay Snakes, ridiculous as it is, is a potent commentary in a state where LGBTQ+ organizations are banned at public schools. Whether drawing on in the classroom, Kill is teaching.
“I want to be able to be myself, but also do my duty of being a good educator and being a contributor to the community, which is why I like teaching in the first place,” said Kill. “I like getting out there and helping out. I don’t have children of my own, so helping the youth and bringing up creative minds? I think is a good way to contribute to the world.”
Great Job Jef Rouner & the Team @ The Texas Signal for sharing this story.
President Donald Trump seemed intent on dodging a question during his return flight from Mar-a-Lago — a brief pause that looked like restraint. It didn’t last. What followed was a rapid shift in tone, as a familiar fixation resurfaced and the moment began slipping out of his control.
When a reporter asked him a question about his intentions for Greenland, the semi-autonomous island nation, he at first played coy pretending as if he didn’t want to talk about it, but when Trump’s cronies started cackling over the question, he couldn’t help himself and took the bait.
PALM BEACH, FLORIDA – DECEMBER 22: U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions as he announced the creation of the “Trump-class” battleship during a statement to the media at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on December 22, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump announced the new class of ship will become the centerpiece of his “Golden Fleet” program to rebuild and strengthen the U.S. shipbuilding industry. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
That’s when his plan slipped out with Trump insisting the United States needs Greenland due to “national security” issues and that he plans to reveal more details in “about two months.”
Then he quickly backtracked and said he’d talk more about it in “20 days,” but even then he couldn’t help himself.
“I will say this about Greenland. We need Greenland from a national security situation. It’s so strategic,” he insisted, before making a claim that just can’t be verified, which may have been the intention.
“Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place,” he declared.
“We need Greenland, from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you, to boost up security in Greenland,” Trump contended, then tried to make a joke.
“They added one more dog sled. It’s true,” he said as his lackeys, including Sen. Lindsey Graham and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, laughed again.
The reporter jumped back in, “What would the justification be for a claim to Greenland?”
“I just say this, we need Greenland, from the standpoint of national security, and the European Union needs us to have it,” he shockingly asserted.
This Threads user couldn’t understand why the Trumpsters on the plane found questions about the President’s underhanded plans for Greenland so funny.
“Why are they laughing like that?” they asked. “Because they’re vile, disgusting pieces of shit,” responded another.
Another commented on the cackling, too. “Nothing like a rich white mans taunting laugh.”
Other social media user were just plain angry about Trump’s insanity surrounding Greenland.
“Take that pea brain demented donny and drop him out of airplane with a parachute bag, FULL OF RAGS,” Threads user Timbear100 stated.
“He is out of control and needs to be removed immediately,” another proclaimed.
“Are you kidding? Someone tell him he can’t just run around taking countries. He has caused a huge problem for us,” wrote another.
“Greenland as part of Denmark is a founding member of NATO … Does Trump understand the consequences of his words or actions?” another wondered.
Some speculate the real reason why Trump wants Greenland is because of their minerals.
It didn’t take long for Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to correct the brash-talking Trump, reiterating Greenland is “not for sale.”
“The United States has no legal basis to annex one of the three countries of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Kingdom of Denmark — and thus Greenland — is a member of NATO and is therefore covered by the Alliance’s collective security guarantee,” Frederiksen warned in a video statement.
“I therefore strongly urge the United States to stop its threats against a historic, close ally, and against another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” she added forcefully.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, which the U.S. is a part of, would be forced to respond if Trump took military action against Greenland.
Tensions have been flaring between Denmark, Greenland and the U.S. as Trump continues to threaten to annex the mineral rich Greenland. Just last month he announced he appointed a special envoy to Greenland and stated again that “Russian and Chinese ships are all over the place.”
After those comments, European Union President Ursula von der Leyen said Greenland is a “key priority” for the block and noted that “territorial integrity and sovereignty are fundamental principles of international law.”
“We stand in full solidarity with Denmark and the people of Greenland,” she said at the time.
It doesn’t sound like the EU is willing to give up Greenland in response to Trump’s threats. The real question is whether Trump is actually willing to use military force against a longtime key ally to invade a sovereign territory.
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Good morning. The current travails of Saks Global, the one-year old holding company of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, are a timely reminder that the key to success in business is often quite simple: focus on your core business, not on financial engineering.
In late 2024, Saks Global executive chair and controlling shareholder Richard Baker, a real estate scion, landed his dream trophy in Neiman Marcus (which also owned Bergdorf), achieving his long-held ambition to combine the U.S.’s fanciest luxury department stores into one company. To pull this off, Saks Global borrowed $2.7 billion, an untenable debt load that has put the company on the precipice of a bankruptcy protection filing, or at least a major refinancing. (No one thinks Saks Global is going under, but this can only hurt its prospects as a retailer.)
The Saks-Neiman tie-up was the culmination of a plan Baker hatched in 2005 to snap up retailers with valuable real estate. Over the years, different iterations of the company, known for years as HBC, have included Lord & Taylor (his first big acquisition), and Canada’s Hudson’s Bay.
His bet was that the value of iconic properties like the Saks and Lord & Taylor flagships in Manhattan or The Bay in Toronto could be monetized so long as the underlying retail business remained steady.
But nothing about retail, especially department stores, has been stable. Lord & Taylor shut all its stores in 2019 after HBC sold the weakened retailer, and Hudson’s Bay in Canada liquidated last year, ending its 355-year run.
To be fair, Baker has made some good deals in the world of retail. (He sold Target the locations of its ill-fated Canadian expansion in 2011.) And department stores have been cratering for decades.
But a constant churn of financial maneuvers (spinning off Saks’ e-commerce, creating co-working spaces in underutilized stores, all while being highly leveraged) brought some benefit but never obviated the need to invest more in basics. Saks Global has said it’s poured tons of money into its retailers, but it has not been enough. Its cash crunch has led some vendors to stop shipping to Saks: it’s very hard to sell merchandise you don’t have, ergo a 13% drop in sales last quarter.
A few months ago, I chronicled the comebacks at Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom (all benefiting from Saks’ problems) alongside the consistent performance of Belk and Dillard’s. Such retailers have improved customer service, renovated stores, and stocked ample and new merchandise. A strong business boosts the value of their underlying real estate.
All that will be key for Baker to consider since he’s just become the new CEO of Saks Global, giving him a direct hand in running the company, not just yanking its financial levers. You can read my full story on the Saks saga here.
Video of an ICE agent shooting and killing a woman during an encounter in Minnesota spread rapidly online Wednesday. The incident stoked national tensions over the Trump administration’s immigration raids and sparked protests as far away as New York City.
JPMorgan’s proxy platform
JPMorgan’s asset management unit, one of the world’s largest with more than $7 trillion in client assets, is ditching proxy-advisory firms in favor of an internal AI-enabled platform called Proxy IQ that will help cast votes on shareholder resolutions.
Trump goes after big single-family home investors
In a post on Truth Social Wednesday, President Trump suggested that he will ban institutional investors and Wall Street firms from buying single-family homes as young people are finding it harder and harder to purchase homes. Analysts say the biggest investors in the space collectively own hundreds of thousands of homes.
Accessing Greenland’s minerals could take decades—and billions
Alexander Gray, who worked in President Trump’s first administration, recently told Fortune that the president’s threats to take over Greenland should be taken very seriously. Mineral experts, on the other hand, say that targeting the island’s natural resources will take billions of dollars across decades to see any return.
The great private equity consolidation
Nearly half of all U.S. private equity capital raised last year through September went to the top 10 funds, their largest share in a decade, as institutional investors favor the top managers amid weak distributions.
Are layoffs really because of AI?
A new report from Oxford Economics suggests that companies aren’t laying off workers and replacing them with AI, instead using the technology as a cover for standard headcount reductions. “We suspect some firms are trying to dress up layoffs as a good news story rather than bad news, such as past over-hiring,” the authors of the report wrote.
The markets
S&P 500 futures were down 0.2% this morning. The last session closed down 0.34%. STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.3% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.33% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.63%. China’s CSI 300 was down o.82%. The South Korea KOSPI was flat. India’s NIFTY 50 was down 1.01%. Bitcoin was down to $90K.
SAN ANTONIO – Keldon Johnson had 27 points, Victor Wembanyama added 16 points and 14 rebounds, and the San Antonio Spurs overcame 38 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists from Luka Doncic to beat the Los Angeles Lakers 107-91 on Wednesday night.
San Antonio moved into second place in the Western Conference despite shooting 4 for 25 on 3-pointers.
LeBron James didn’t play due to arthritis and sciatica as Los Angeles’ three-game winning streak came to an end.
Calf strains also sidelined Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura for the Lakers.
Jake LaRavia, with 16 points, and Jaxson Hayes, with 10, were the only other Lakers to score in double figures against the Spurs.
Wembanyama was listed as questionable after returning Tuesday from a two-game absence due to a hyperextended left knee. He had 30 points in 20 minutes in a 106-105 loss at Memphis and followed that up with his 15th double-double this season.
San Antonio went on an 11-4 run midway through the third quarter for a 71-59 lead. Johnson and Stephon Castle combined for nine points in the run.
Castle finished with 15 points and De’Aaron Fox added 14.
Both teams were on the second night of a back-to-back game.
The Lakers disrupted alley-oop attempts to Castle and Luke Kornet in the opening minutes.
While the Spurs struggled to complete what has become a go-to move this season, Hayes threw in a reverse dunk in front of Wembanyama off a half-court, alley-oop pass from Doncic.
Doncic had 22 points, seven rebounds and seven assists while playing all but four minutes in the first half. He finished with his 86th career triple-double in the regular season, which is seventh in league history.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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When SpaceX CEO Elon Musk chose a remote Texas outpost on the Gulf Coast to develop his company’s ambitious Starship, he put the 400-foot rocket on a collision course with the commercial airline industry.
Each time SpaceX did a test run of Starship and its booster, dubbed Super Heavy, the megarocket’s flight path would take it soaring over busy Caribbean airspace before it reached the relative safety of the open Atlantic Ocean. The company planned as many as five such launches a year as it perfected the craft, a version of which is supposed to one day land on the moon.
The FAA, which also oversees commercial space launches, predicted the impact to the national airspace would be “minor or minimal,” akin to a weather event, the agency’s 2022 approval shows. No airport would need to close and no airplane would be denied access for “an extended period of time.”
But the reality has been far different. Last year, three of Starship’s five launches exploded at unexpected points on their flight paths, twice raining flaming debris over congested commercial airways and disrupting flights. And while no aircraft collided with rocket parts, pilots were forced to scramble for safety.
A ProPublica investigation, based on agency documents, interviews with pilots and passengers, air traffic control recordings and photos and videos of the events, found that by authorizing SpaceX to test its experimental rocket over busy airspace, the FAA accepted the inherent risk that the rocket might put airplane passengers in danger.
And once the rocket failed spectacularly and that risk became real, neither the FAA nor Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy sought to revoke or suspend Starship’s license to launch, a move that is permitted when “necessary to protect the public health and safety.” Instead, the FAA allowed SpaceX to test even more prototypes over the same airspace, adding stress to the already-taxed air traffic control system each time it launched.
The first two Starship explosions last year forced the FAA to make real-time calls on where to clear airspace and for how long. Such emergency closures camewith little or no warning, ProPublica found, forcing pilots to suddenly upend their flight plans and change course in heavily trafficked airspace to get out of the way of falling debris. In one case, a plane with 283 people aboard ran low on fuel, prompting its pilot to declare an emergency and cross a designated debris zone to reach an airport.
The world’s largest pilots union told the FAA in October that such events call into question whether “a suitable process” is in place to respond to unexpected rocket mishaps.
“There is high potential for debris striking an aircraft resulting in devastating loss of the aircraft, flight crew, and passengers,” wrote Steve Jangelis, a pilot and aviation safety chair.
The FAA said in response to questions that it “limits the number of aircraft exposed to the hazards, making the likelihood of a catastrophic event extremely improbable.”
Yet for the public and the press, gauging that danger has been difficult. In fact, nearly a year after last January’s explosion, it remains unclear just how close Starship’s wreckage came to airplanes. SpaceX estimated where debris fell after each incident and reported that information to the federal government. But the company didn’t respond to ProPublica’s requests for that data, and the federal agencies that have seen it, including the FAA, haven’t released it. The agency told us that it was unaware of any other publicly available data on Starship debris.
In public remarks, Musk downplayed the risk posed by Starship. To caption a video of flaming debris in January, he wrote, “Entertainment is guaranteed!” and, after the March explosion, he posted, “Rockets are hard.” The company has been more measured, saying it learns from mistakes, which “help us improve Starship’s reliability.”
For airplanes traveling at high speeds, there is little margin for error. Research shows as little as 300 grams of debris — or two-thirds of a pound — “could catastrophically destroy an aircraft,” said Aaron Boley, a professor at the University of British Columbia who has studied the danger space objects pose to airplanes. Photographs of Starship pieces that washed up on beaches show items much bigger than that, including large, intact tanks.
Debris washed up on a beach in Mexico following a SpaceX explosion.Courtesy of Jesus Elias Ibarra Rodriguez
“It doesn’t actually take that much material to cause a major problem to an aircraft,” Boley said.
In response to growing alarm over the rocket’s repeated failures, the FAA has expanded prelaunch airspace closures and offered pilots more warning of potential trouble spots. The agency said it also required SpaceX to conduct investigations into the incidents and to “implement numerous corrective actions to enhance public safety.” An FAA spokesperson referred ProPublica’s questions about what those corrective actions were to SpaceX, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Experts say the FAA’s shifting approach telegraphs a disquieting truth about air safety as private companies increasingly push to use the skies as their laboratories: Regulators are learning as they go.
During last year’s Starship launches, the FAA was under pressure to fulfill a dual mandate: to regulate and promote the commercial space industry while keeping the flying public safe, ProPublica found. In his October letter, Jangelis called the arrangement “a direct conflict of interest.”
In an interview, Kelvin Coleman, who was head of FAA’s commercial space office during the launches, said his office determined that the risk from the mishaps “was within the acceptable limits of our regulations.”
But, he said, “as more launches are starting to take place, I think we have to take a real hard look at the tools that we have in place and how do we better integrate space launch into the airspace.”
“We Need to Protect the Airspace”
On Jan. 16, 2025, as SpaceX prepared to launch Starship 7 from Boca Chica, Texas, the government had to address the possibility the giant rocket would break up unexpectedly.
Using debris modeling and simulations, the U.S. Space Force, the branch of the military that deals with the nation’s space interests, helped the FAA draw the contours of theoretical “debris response areas” — no-fly zones that could be activated if Starship exploded.
With those plans in place, Starship Flight 7 lifted off at 5:37 p.m. EST. About seven minutes later, it achieved a notable feat: Its reusable booster rocket separated, flipped and returned to Earth, where giant mechanical arms caught it as SpaceX employees cheered.
But about 90 seconds later, as Starship’s upper stage continued to climb, SpaceX lost contact with it. The craft caught fire and exploded, far above Earth’s surface.
A pilot on a flight from Miami to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, recorded video of space debris visible from the cockpit while flying at 37,000 feet.Provided to ProPublica
Air traffic control’s communications came alive with surprised pilots who saw the accident, some of whom took photos and shot videos of the flaming streaks in the sky:
Another controller warned a different pilot of debris in the area:
Two FAA safety inspectors were in Boca Chica to watch the launch at SpaceX’s mission control, said Coleman, who, for Flight 7, was on his laptop in Washington, D.C., receiving updates.
As wreckage descended rapidly toward airplanes’ flight paths over the Caribbean, the FAA activated a no-fly zone based on the vehicle’s last known position and prelaunch calculations. Air traffic controllers warned pilots to avoid the area, which stretched hundreds of miles over a ribbon of ocean roughly from the Bahamas to just east of St. Martin, covering portions of populated islands, including all of Turks and Caicos. While the U.S. controls some airspace in the region, it relies on other countries to cooperate when it recommends a closure.
The FAA also cordoned off a triangular zone south of Key West.
When a pilot asked when planes would be able to proceed through the area, a controller replied:
There were at least 11 planes in the closed airspace when Starship exploded, and flight tracking data shows they hurried to move out of the way, clearing the area within 15 minutes. Such maneuvers aren’t without risk. “If many aircraft need to suddenly change their routing plans,” Boley said, “then it could cause additional stress” on an already taxed air traffic control system, “which can lead to errors.”
That wasn’t the end of the disruption though. The FAA kept the debris response area, or DRA, active for another 71 minutes, leaving some flights in a holding pattern over the Caribbean. Several began running low on fuel and some informed air traffic controllers that they needed to land.
“We haven’t got enough fuel to wait,” said one pilot for Iberia airlines who was en route from Madrid with 283 people on board.
The controller warned him that if he proceeded across the closed airspace, it would be at his own risk:
The plane landed safely in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Iberia did not respond to requests for comment, but in statements to ProPublica, other airlines downplayed the launch fallout. Delta, for example, said the incident “had minimal impact to our operation and no aircraft damage.” The company’s “safety management system and our safety culture help us address potential issues to reinforce that air transportation remains the safest form of travel in the world,” a spokesperson said.
After the incident, some pilots registered concerns with the FAA, which was also considering a request from SpaceX to increase the number of annual Starship launches from five to 25.
“Last night’s Space X rocket explosion, which caused the diversion of several flights operating over the Gulf of Mexico, was pretty eye opening and scary,” wrote Steve Kriese in comments to the FAA, saying he was a captain for a major airline and often flew over the Gulf. “I do not support the increase of rocket launches by Space X, until a thorough review can be conducted on the disaster that occurred last night, and safety measures can be put in place that keeps the flying public safe.”
Kriese could not be reached for comment.
The Air Line Pilots Association urged the FAA to suspend Starship testing until the root cause of the failure could be investigated and corrected. A letter from the group, which represents more than 80,000 pilots flying for 43 airlines, said flight crews traveling in the Caribbean didn’t know where planes might be at risk from rocket debris until after the explosion.
“By that time, it’s much too late for crews who are flying in the vicinity of the rocket operation, to be able to make a decision for the safe outcome of the flight,” wrote Jangelis, the pilot and aviation safety chair for the group. The explosion, he said, “raises additional concerns about whether the FAA is providing adequate separation of space operations from airline flights.”
In response, the FAA said it would “review existing processes and determine whether additional measures can be taken to improve situational awareness for flight crews prior to launch.”
According to FAA documents, the explosion propelled Starship fragments across an area nearly the size of New Jersey. Debris landed on beaches and roadways in Turks and Caicos. It also damaged a car. No one was injured.
Three months later, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which was evaluating potential impacts to marine life, sent the FAA a report with a map of where debris from an explosion could fall during future Starship failures. The estimate, which incorporated SpaceX’s own data from the Starship 7 incident, depicted an area more than three times the size of the airspace closed by the FAA.
In a statement, an FAA spokesperson said NOAA’s map was “intended to cover multiple potential operations,” while the FAA’s safety analysis is for a “single actual launch.” A NOAA spokesperson said that the map reflects “the general area where mishaps could occur” and is not directly comparable with the FAA’s no-fly zones.
Nevertheless Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas, said the illustration suggested the no-fly zones the FAA activated may not fully capture how far and wide debris spreads after a rocket breakup. The current predictive science, he said, “carries significant uncertainty.”
Debris from the Jan. 16, 2025, Starship rocket explosion left a trail of fire and smoke visible from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.Reuters/via Reuters TV
At an industry conference a few weeks after the January explosion, Shana Diez, a SpaceX executive, acknowledged the FAA’s challenges in overseeing commercial launches.
“The biggest thing that we really would like to work with them on in the future is improving their real time awareness of where the launch vehicles are and where the launch vehicles’ debris could end up,” she said.
“We’re Too Close to the Debris”
On Feb. 26 of last year, with the investigation into Starship Flight 7 still open, the FAA cleared Flight 8 to proceed, saying it “determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements.”
The action was allowed under a practice that began during the first Trump administration, known as “expedited return-to-flight,” that permitted commercial space companies to launch again even before the investigation into a prior problematic flight was complete, as long as safety systems were working properly.
Coleman, who took a voluntary separation offer last year, said that before granting approval, the FAA confirmed that “safety critical systems,” such as the rocket’s ability to self-destruct if it went off course, worked as designed during Flight 7.
By March 6, SpaceX was ready to launch again. This time the FAA gave pilots a heads-up an hour and 40 minutes before liftoff.
“In the event of a debris-generating space launch vehicle mishap, there is the potential for debris falling within an area,” the advisory said, again listing coordinates for two zones in the Gulf and Caribbean.
The FAA said a prelaunch safety analysis, which includes planning for potential debris, “incorporates lessons learned from previous flights.” The zone described in the agency’s advisory for the Caribbean was wider and longer than the previous one, while the area over the Gulf was significantly expanded.
Flight 8 launched at 6:30 p.m. EST and its booster returned to the launchpad as planned. But a little more than eight minutes into the flight, some of Starship’s engines cut out. The craft went into a spin and about 90 seconds later SpaceX lost touch with it and it exploded.
SpaceX’s eighth Starship test launched from a launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas, on March 6, 2025, before blowing up 90 miles above Earth.Joe Skipper/Reuters
The FAA activated the no-fly zones less than two minutes later, using the same coordinates it had released prelaunch.
Even with the advance warning, data shows at least five planes were in the debris zones at the time of the explosion, and they all cleared the airspace in a matter of minutes.
A pilot on one of those planes, Frontier Flight 081, told passengers they could see the rocket explosion out the right-side windows. Dane Siler and Mariah Davenport, who were heading home to the Midwest after vacationing in the Dominican Republic, lifted the window shade and saw debris blazing across the sky, with one spot brighter than the rest.
“It literally looked like the sun coming out,” Siler told ProPublica. “It was super bright.”
They and other passengers shot videos, marveling at what looked like fireworks, the couple said. The Starship fragments appeared to be higher than the plane, many miles off. But before long, the pilot announced “I’m sorry to report that we have to turn around because we’re too close to the debris,” Siler said.
Cuba
Dominican Republic
Haiti
Caribbean Sea
FAA’s Debris Zone
Cellphone video from passengers aboard Frontier Flight 081 shows debris in the sky about a minute after the FAA alerted the flight crew to exit the debris zone on March 6, 2025.
Sources: Flight data from OpenSky Network. Video courtesy of Dane Siler and Mariah Davenport.
Frontier did not respond to requests for comment.
The FAA lifted the restriction on planes flying through the debris zone about 30 minutes after Starship exploded, much sooner than it had in January. The agency said that the Space Force had “notified the FAA that all debris was down approximately 30 minutes after the Starship Flight 8 anomaly.”
But in response to ProPublica’s questions, the Space Force acknowledged that it did not track the debris in real time. Instead, it said “computational modeling,” along with other scientific measures, allowed the agency to “predict and mitigate risks effectively.” The FAA said “the aircraft were not at risk” during the aftermath of Flight 8.
Experts told ProPublica that the science underlying such modeling is far from settled, and the government’s ability to anticipate how debris will behave after an explosion like Starship’s is limited. “You’re not going to find anybody who’s going to be able to answer that question with any precision,” said John Crassidis, an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Buffalo. “At best, you have an educated guess. At worst, it’s just a potshot.”
Where pieces fall — and how long they take to land — depends on many factors, including atmospheric winds and the size, shape and type of material involved, experts said.
During the breakup of Flight 7, the FAA kept airspace closed for roughly 86 minutes. However, Diez, the SpaceX executive, told attendees at the industry conference that, in fact, it had taken “hours” for all the debris to reach the ground. The FAA, SpaceX and Diez did not respond to follow-up questions about her remarks.
It’s unclear how accurate the FAA’s debris projections were for the March explosion. The agency acknowledged that debris fell in the Bahamas, but it did not provide ProPublica the exact location, making it impossible to determine whether the wreckage landed where the FAA expected. While some of the country’s islands were within the boundaries of the designated debris zone, most were not. Calls and emails to Bahamas officials were not returned.
The FAA said no injuries or serious property damage occurred.
FAA Greenlights More Launches
By May, after months of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency slashing spending and firing workers at federal agencies across Washington, the FAA granted SpaceX’s request to exponentially increase the number of Starship launches from Texas.
Starship is key to “delivering greater access to space and enabling cost-effective delivery of cargo and people to the Moon and Mars,” the FAA found. The agency said it will make sure parties involved “are taking steps to ensure the safe, efficient, and equitable use” of national airspace.
The U.S. is in a race to beat China to the lunar surface — a priority set by Trump’s first administration and continued under President Joe Biden. Supporters say the moon can be mined for resources like water and rare earth metals, and can offer a place to test new technologies. It could also serve as a stepping stone for more distant destinations, enabling Musk to achieve his longstanding goal of bringing humans to Mars.
Trump pledged last January that the U.S. will “pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”
But with experimental launches like Starship’s, Jangelis said, the FAA should be “as conservative as possible” when managing the airspace below them.
“We expect the FAA to make sure our aircraft and our passengers stay safe,” he said. “There has to be a balance between the for-profit space business and the for-profit airlines and commerce.”
A More Conservative Approach
Crowds flocked to South Padre Island, Texas, to watch Starship’s ninth test launch on May 27.Gabriel V. Cardenas/Reuters
In mid-May, United Kingdom officials sent a letter to their U.S. counterparts, asking that SpaceX and the FAA change Starship’s flight path or take other precautions because they were worried about the safety of their Caribbean territories.
The following day, the FAA announced in a news release that it had approved the next Starship launch, pending either the agency’s closure of the investigation into Flight 8 or granting of a “return to flight” determination.
A week later, with the investigation into Flight 8 still open, the agency said SpaceX had “satisfactorily addressed” the causes of the mishap. The FAA did not detail what those causes were at the time but said it would verify that the company implemented all necessary “corrective actions.”
This time the FAA was more aggressive on air safety.
The agency preventively closed an extensive swath of airspace extending 1,600 nautical miles from the launch site, across the Gulf of Mexico and through part of the Caribbean. The FAA said that 175 flights or more could be affected, and it advised Turks and Caicos’ Providenciales International Airport to close during the launch.
The FAA Closed a Heavily Trafficked Air Corridor Prior to Flight 9
Flight data from the day before Starship Flight 9’s launch shows just how busy the area around the FAA’s no-fly zone could be around the time of the launch.
Visual description: A red area labeled “FAA’s no-fly zone for Starship Flight 9” is overlaid on a map of the portion of the Caribbean directly north of Haiti and Cuba. A timestamp starts at 7:00 p.m. and animates to 8:00 p.m. over the course of 20 seconds. As the time advances, dozens of lines representing flight paths are drawn across the screen.
FAA’s No-Fly Zone for Starship Flight 9
Cuba
Dominican Republic
Haiti
Puerto Rico
Caribbean Sea
Replay
Note: ProPublica connected gaps in some flight paths to create continuous lines.
Source: OpenSky Network
The agency said the move was driven in part by an “updated flight safety analysis” and SpaceX’s decision to reuse a previously launched Super Heavy booster — something the company had never tried before. The agency also said it was “in close contact and collaboration with the United Kingdom, Turks & Caicos Islands, Bahamas, Mexico, and Cuba.”
Coleman told ProPublica that the concerns of the Caribbean countries, along with Starship’s prior failures, helped convince the FAA to close more airspace ahead of Flight 9.
On May 27, the craft lifted off at 7:36 p.m. EDT, an hour later than in March and two hours later than in January. The FAA said it required the launch window to be scheduled during “non-peak transit periods.”
This mission, too, ended in failure.
Starship’s Super Heavy booster blew up over the Gulf of Mexico, where it was supposed to have made what’s called a “hard splashdown.”
In response, the FAA again activated an emergency no-fly zone. Most aircraft had already been rerouted around the closed airspace, but the agency said it diverted one plane and put another in a holding pattern for 24 minutes. The FAA did not provide additional details on the flights.
According to the agency, no debris fell outside the hazard area where the FAA had closed airspace. Pieces from the booster eventually washed up on Mexico’s beaches.
Starship’s upper stage reached the highest planned point in its flight path, but it went into a spin on the way down, blowing up over the Indian Ocean.
The Path Ahead
A map released by the FAA shows potential no-fly zones planned for future Starship launches that would cross over a portion of Florida. Air hazard areas — the AHAs on this map — are paths that would be cleared of air traffic before launches. Federal Aviation Administration
SpaceX launched Starship again in August and October. Unlike the prior flights, both went off without incident, and the company said it was turning its focus to the next generation of Starship to provide “service to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.”
But about a week later, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he would open up SpaceX’s multibillion-dollar contract for a crewed lunar lander to rival companies. SpaceX is “an amazing company,” he said on CNBC. “The problem is, they’re behind.”
Musk pushed back, saying on X that “SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry.” He insulted Duffy, calling him “Sean Dummy” and saying “The personresponsible for America’s space program can’t have a 2 digit IQ.”
The Department of Transportation did not respond to a request for comment or make Duffy available.
In a web post on Oct. 30, SpaceX said it was proposing “a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations” that would “result in a faster return to the Moon while simultaneously improving crew safety.”
SpaceX is now seeking FAA approval to add new trajectories as Starship strives to reach orbit. Under the plan, the rocket would fly over land in Florida and Mexico, as well as the airspace of Cuba, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, likely disrupting hundreds of flights.
In its letter, the pilots’ union told the FAA that testing Starship “over a densely populated area should not be allowed (given the dubious failure record)” until the craft becomes more reliable. The planned air closures could prove “crippling” for the Central Florida aviation network, it added.
Still, SpaceX is undeterred.
Diez, the company executive, said on X in October, “We are putting in the work to make 2026 an epic year for Starship.”
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