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Six stories, zero dull moments: today’s rundown will make you check your seatbelt, your Pentagon org chart, and your power bill.
Buckle up, because today’s Sixpack opens with an actual mid-air crisis. A flydubai flight bound for Tel Aviv nearly ended in catastrophe when one pilot allegedly stabbed the other and tried to seize the cockpit. The Boeing 737 MAX 8, carrying 174 passengers, dropped from roughly 34,000 feet to about 15,400 feet in just 12 minutes before crew and passengers wrestled back control. Israeli fighter jets scrambled, bloodied passengers filmed the chaos, and the plane eventually landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, with Israeli officials investigating the incident as suspected terrorism. Source: New York Post
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is preparing to cut 20% of the military’s general and admiral positions in his latest shake-up of the Pentagon’s top ranks. The move builds on cuts he ordered in 2025 and comes as at least 20 senior military and civilian leaders have already been fired or resigned under his watch. Supporters say it trims bureaucracy and speeds decision-making; critics, including Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, argue it strips away decades of hard-won leadership experience the military can’t easily replace. Source: CBS News
A nuclear startup wants to build 456 small reactors on more than 9,000 acres of federal land in Utah, and it would dwarf the state’s current power output. Valar Atomics’ “Project Beehive” would generate about 9.6 gigawatts, more than double what Utah currently produces, to feed data centers, nuclear-fuel production, and waste storage all on one sprawling site. The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing the application, and environmental advocates are already raising alarms about the precedent of putting reactors and nuclear waste on public land at this scale. Source: NPR
A explosive lawsuit accusing seven Cornell fraternity members of sexual assault has reignited America’s long-running fight over consent, due process, and how colleges investigate misconduct. The 101-page complaint details a 2024 incident, but Tompkins County’s district attorney says the accuser’s original account described the encounter as consensual, a discrepancy that led his office to reopen the case. Attorneys for the accused deny the allegations, Cornell has barred the fraternity from campus, and social media has already assigned guilt long before any court has weighed in. Source: CNN
Florida executed 77-year-old Curtis Beasley on Tuesday for a 1995 hammer murder, marking the state’s 16th execution this year. Beasley always maintained his innocence, pointing to the absence of eyewitnesses, fingerprints, or a confession, but prosecutors cited blood evidence tying him to the killing of Carolyn Monfort. Gov. Ron DeSantis declined to intervene despite appeals from Catholic leaders and death-penalty opponents, and Florida is now just three executions shy of the state record it set last year. Source: UPI
The Supreme Court has temporarily cleared the way for the Trump administration to resume rapid deportations to third countries without the advance notice a lower court had required. The justices agreed to hear the underlying legal fight in December, but for now, migrants can be removed to countries other than their own with less opportunity to object, a policy that has already affected an estimated 25,000 people. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissented, and immigrant-rights attorneys warn the stay could mean people are removed before they can even raise a fear of persecution. Source: ABC News
From cockpits to courtrooms to control rooms full of reactors, today’s news proves the sky, quite literally, is not the limit on chaos.
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