Happy New Year 2025

Tag: SEC

Army sec nominee questions whether military pilots should do flight training near Washington airport

Army secretary nominee Daniel Driscoll questioned whether Army helicopters should be flying training missions in one of the nation’s most congested flight paths after Wednesday’s tragic Washington, D.C.-area collision.

“It’s an accident that seems to be preventable,” Driscoll, an Army veteran, said during a Thursday confirmation hearing at the Armed Services Committee.

“There are appropriate times to take risk and inappropriate times to take risk,” he said. “I think we need to look at where is an appropriate time to take training risk, and it may not be at an airport like Reagan.”

Sixty-four people were aboard the American Airlines flight inbound from Wichita, Kan., which collided with an Army Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk helicopter just before it was set to touch down at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Authorities do not believe anyone survived.

BLACK HAWK CHOPPER UNIT WAS ON ANNUAL PROFICIENCY TRAINING FLIGHT, HEGSETH SAYS

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed the three soldiers who were aboard the chopper were a “fairly experienced crew” doing a “required annual night evaluation.”

Dan. Driscoll questioned whether Army helicopters should be flying training missions in one of the nation’s most congested flight paths after the Jan. 29, 2025, Washington, D.C.-area flight collision. (Screenshot Pool)

“We anticipate that the investigation will quickly be able to determine whether the aircraft was in the quarter at the right altitude at the time of the incident,” he said.

In a blunt Truth Social post, President Donald Trump called the crash “a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented.”

AMERICAN FIGURE SKATER SAYS HE WAS BARRED FROM FLIGHT THAT COLLIDED WITH ARMY HELICOPTER

“The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time,” Trump wrote. “It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane.”

An Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair with an American Airlines jet at Ronald Reagan Washington National airport near Washington. (EarthCam)

The following day emergency response units search the crash site of an American Airlines plane after it crashed on approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Jan. 29, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Ronald Reagan Washington National, an airport owned by the federal government, has been the subject of debate for years. It has one of the shortest runways in the industry, yet Congress approved additional flight slots in 2024 as part of its Federal Aviation Administration bill. The flight from Wichita, Kan., had just been added in 2024.

The airport faces complicated aviation logistics near hyperprotected airspace near the Pentagon, White House and Capitol, but lawmakers have pushed to keep it open due to the convenience of its proximity to D.C.

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“We’re gonna have to work together to make sure that never happens again,” Driscoll said in his Thursday confirmation hearing, promising to take a hard look at what training was needed, particularly amid the Army’s increased use of its vertical lift aircraft.

Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked a helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight, according to air traffic control audio. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later, saying “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ” — apparently telling the chopper to wait for the Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine jet to pass. There was no reply. Seconds after that, the aircraft collided.

Military helicopters regularly cross over the D.C.-area airport’s flight paths to ferry senior government officials over the Potomac River into D.C. No senior officials were on board the downed Black Hawk, according to the Army.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

January 30, 2025
Sec. Noem says Homeland Security will freeze grants to non-governmental organizations

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Wednesday the department has stopped all grant funding to nonprofits that operate outside of government control, saying they have been “perverted into a shadow government” that feeds illegal immigration.

Noem said some non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which receive millions in federal grants, have been facilitating illegal immigration by helping aliens cross the U.S. border.

“Many of these NGOs actually have infrastructure and operations set up in Mexico, on that side of the border, and are telling those illegal immigrants to come to them, and they will get them across the border,” Noem said on Fox News Channel’s Will Cain Show. “So they’re not just operating in the United States, they’re operating outside the United States to help make it easier for those who want to break our laws.”

Homeland Security Kristi Noem joins an ICE raid in New York City on Tuesday. Noem said communities will be safer because of targeted raids that go after criminal illegal immigrants. (Department of Homeland Security)

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TOUTS 969 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ARRESTS IN ONE DAY: ‘HERE ARE SOME OF THE WORST’

The first step to curbing the issue is to freeze the funds, reevaluate them, and make sure taxpayer dollars are going toward safe causes, she said.

“I think people are curious [to see how] grants that are given out by federal agencies [are] utilized,” Noem said.

Until an evaluation is completed, Noem said the department is “not spending another dime to help the destruction of this country.”

This photo shows migrants at the southern border encountered in Arizona. (U.S. Border Patrol)

She added not all NGOs are what they appear to be, and some could be a risk to national security.

“When somebody said NGO to me, I thought that [was] a nonprofit telling somebody about Jesus or spreading faith and salvation…,” Noem said. “Then I realized over the years, it’s been perverted into this shadow government.”

Noem explained that NGOs create an entity to use taxpayer dollars, funding an operation the federal government cannot legally implement itself.

TRUMP-ERA SOUTHERN BORDER SEES MIGRANT ENCOUNTERS PLUMMET BY OVER 60% AS NEW POLICIES KICK IN

Recently, she said they have been used to undermine the country’s national security.

Approximately 1.5 million NGOs operate in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of State.

A sign is posted at the U.S. Border Patrol station where lawyers reported that detained migrant children had been held unbathed and hungry on June 26, 2019, in Clint, Texas. Nearly 100 children were sent back to the troubled facility yesterday after it had been cleared of 249 children just days earlier. Acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) John Sanders submitted his resignation in the wake of the scandal. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

NGOs can range from political advocacy groups, to religious volunteer organizations or labor unions.

There are no laws prohibiting foreign funding of NGOs, whether that be from other governments or non-government sources, according to the State Department.

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In 2024, the U.S. spent more than $380 million on sheltering and service programs for illegal immigrants.

Alexandra Koch is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital. Prior to joining Fox News, Alexandra covered breaking news, crime, religion, and the military in the southeast.

January 29, 2025
Trump State Sec Rubio announces US prisoner released from Belarus amid election

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday announced the release of a U.S. citizen who had been imprisoned in Belarus as controversy looms over the Eastern European nation’s ongoing election.

Crediting President Donald Trump’s leadership, Rubio said in a post on X that “Belarus just unilaterally released an innocent American, ANASTASSIA Nuhfer, who was taken under JOE BIDEN!”

Rubio added that Christopher Smith, State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Eastern Europe and Policy and Regional Affairs, “from our team did a great job on this.”

“PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH,” Rubio, who served 14 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before he was sworn in as Trump’s new Secretary of State last week, wrote.

RUBIO DEMANDS ANSWERS WITH 2 MORE AMERICANS REPORTEDLY HELD BY TALIBAN

Marco Rubio during his swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (Oliver Contreras/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

No further information was immediately released about Nuhfer or her release, as some social media users marveled about not knowing an American had been jailed in Belarus during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Meanwhile, Belarus is holding its national election on Sunday. President Alexander Lukashenko, a loyalist of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, only faces token opposition and is expected to get another term on top of his three decades in power.

Lukashenko’s more consequential opponents, many of whom are imprisoned or exiled abroad by his unrelenting crackdown on dissent and free speech, are calling the election a sham – much like the last one in 2020 that triggered months of protests that were unprecedented in the history of the country of 9 million people.

The crackdown saw more than 65,000 arrests, with thousands beaten, bringing condemnation and sanctions from the West, according to the Associated Press.

The country holds nearly 1,300 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, founder of the Viasna Human Rights Center.

Since July, Lukashenko has pardoned more than 250 people. At the same time, authorities have sought to uproot dissent by arresting hundreds more in raids targeting relatives and friends of political prisoners.

Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, center, visits the Minsk Automobile Plant in Minsk, Belarus, on Jan. 21, 2025. (Belarus’ Presidential Press Service via AP, File)

Authorities detained 188 people last month alone, Viasna said. Activists and those who donated money to opposition groups have been summoned by police and forced to sign papers saying they were warned against participating in unsanctioned demonstrations, rights advocates said, according to the AP.

HAMAS RELEASES 4 FEMALE HOSTAGES AS PART OF ISRAEL CEASEFIRE DEAL

Opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus under government pressure after challenging the president in 2020, told the AP that Sunday’s election was “a senseless farce, a Lukashenko ritual.”

Voters should cross off everyone on the ballot, she said, and world leaders shouldn’t recognize the result from a country “where all independent media and opposition parties have been destroyed and prisons are filled by political prisoners.”

“The repressions have become even more brutal as this vote without choice has approached, but Lukashenko acts as though hundreds of thousands of people are still standing outside his palace,” she said.

The European Parliament urged the European Union to reject the election outcome. EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas called the vote “a blatant affront to democracy.”

Belarus’ exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya pauses as she speaks during a press conference, on the day of Belarus’ presidential election, before the start of the “March of the Belarusians” in Warsaw, Poland, on Jan. 26, 2025. (Agencja Wyborcza.pl/Robert Kowalewski via REUTERS )

Shortly after voting in Minsk on Sunday, Lukashenko told journalists that he did not seek recognition or approval from the EU.

“The main thing for me is that Belarusians recognize these elections and that they end peacefully, as they began,” he said.

Media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders filed a complaint against Lukashenko with the International Criminal Court over his crackdown on free speech that saw 397 journalists arrested since 2020. It said that 43 are in prison.

Two years after the demise of the Soviet Union, Lukashenko took office in 1994 and has earned the nickname of “Europe’s Last Dictator.” His iron-fisted rule had been cemented through subsidies and political support from Russia, a close ally.

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He let Moscow use his territory to invade Ukraine in 2022, and even hosts some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons, but he still campaigned with the slogan “Peace and security,” arguing he has saved Belarus from being drawn into war.

“It’s better to have a dictatorship like in Belarus than a democracy like Ukraine,” Lukashenko said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Danielle Wallace is a breaking news and politics reporter at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on X: @danimwallace.

January 26, 2025
SEC launches crypto task force to create regulatory clarity

Circle Squared Alternative Investments founder Jeff Sica analyzes the cryptocurrency market and explains why it’s important for Trump to save TikTok on ‘Varney & Co.’

The relationship between Wall Street’s top cop and the U.S. cryptocurrency industry is on the mend following more than four years of friction.

On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced it is spearheading efforts to establish a regulatory framework for digital assets with the creation of a new crypto task force.

The initiative, which will be led by Republican commissioner Hester Peirce, was acting chair Mark Uyeda’s first official action following his appointment to the position by President Trump on Monday. Uyeda, a Republican commissioner, will serve in the role until Paul Atkins, Trump’s permanent pick to lead the agency, is confirmed by the Senate.

FOX Business was first to report in November that the task force was a possibility and that Peirce, often referred to as “Crypto Mom,” had expressed interest in leading such a group.

PRESIDENT TRUMP APPOINTS MARK UYEDA ACTING SEC CHAIR

SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda speaks during the 2024 Financial Markets Quality Conference at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 17, 2024. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

As FOX Business previously reported, the task force will work closely with industry players to create an open dialogue that will allow for a friendlier regulatory environment.

Tuesday’s announcement stated the task force will focus on helping the commission draw clear regulatory lines, provide realistic paths to registration, craft sensible disclosure frameworks, and deploy enforcement resources judiciously. It will also coordinate with other federal agencies, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is poised to take on a larger role in crypto regulation.

The SEC, under the leadership of Biden’s chair Gary Gensler, brought more than 100 legal actions against crypto players over the last four years as the commission has attempted to bring the sector into compliance using enforcement. Many of the lawsuits were brought over credible allegations of fraud and manipulation, but others centered around companies failing to register their sales of digital assets as securities.

Industry participants have long complained that the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology they run on disqualifies them from being regulated like traditional securities, i.e. stocks and bonds. They have frequently called on regulators and Congress to develop a new regulatory framework specific to digital assets.

Gensler, however, believed traditional securities laws were enough to properly regulate the industry and that most digital assets aside from bitcoin are securities, suing companies that challenged this view by refusing to register with the commission.

PRESIDENT TRUMP LAUNCHES OWN CRYPTOCURRENCY MEME COIN AHEAD OF INAUGURATION

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler participates in a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council at the U.S. Treasury on July 28, 2023 in Washington, DC. The council met to deliver an update on the Council’s Climate-related Financial Risk Committee a (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images / Getty Images)

President Trump has promised a lighter regulatory touch that will benefit developing industries like artificial intelligence and crypto. Since his election on November 5, he’s appointed a handful of industry advocates to key leadership positions at the Treasury, SEC and CFTC, and named venture capitalist David Sacks the first ever crypto and AI ‘czar’.

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Peirce and the crypto task force are already welcoming input on regulation from the public via email and will hold roundtables with industry participants in the future.

“This undertaking will take time, patience, and much hard work…,” Peirce said in a press release announcing the initiative. “We look forward to working hand-in-hand with the public to foster a regulatory environment that protects investors, facilitates capital formation, fosters market integrity, and supports innovation.”

January 23, 2025