News Brief #8: Trump’s action against Ukraine and plane crashes

(Joshua Goetz)

Asteroid YR4

Last week, concern arose across the world as chances of a cataclysmic asteroid impact on Earth rose drastically. The asteroid, named 2024 YR4, was projected to have a possible impact in 2032. Although it only was estimated to be around 300 feet wide in size at the maximum, that size was enough to have it dubbed by experts as a “city killer.”

Bruce Betts, chief scientist of The Planetary Society, claimed that the asteroid was enough to completely annihilate a city the size of New York, London, or Paris, with a force hundreds of times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The asteroid was given a 3.1% chance of striking the Earth - an alarmingly high chance for something with the power to wipe out an entire city. It was rated a three on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale, which is a scale used by scientists to measure the danger of extraplanetary objects.

Fortunately, on Jan. 25, the chances of an impact sharply fell again to “near zero chance of impact,” as new calculations came in. NASA declared an all-clear and the Torino scale marked the asteroid down as a rank zero, signifying no threat to the Earth.

(Joshua Goetz)

Frequent Plane Crashes

Despite airplane fear being listed as a major fear for 40% of the U.S. population, it’s actually one of the safest forms of travel, with less than a one in two million chance of any sort of accident. However, since the beginning of 2025, there have been fifteen fatal airplane crashes — and no correlation between any of them. Even more concerning, there haven’t been any fatal commercial airline crashes for over the past decade and a half, until now. This year, there have been four.

The biggest and most famous incident this year so far was the plane crash over the Potomac River, where a military Black Hawk helicopter crashed into an American Airlines flight, which killed 67 people and left no survivors. The plane and helicopter went down into the frozen Potomac River only three miles south of the White House.

Only two days later, a medical jet crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood, killing all the plane’s passengers and one person on the ground. More American planes went down above Alaska, then two in Arizona. Another large commercial plane went down over Jeju in South Korea in the final days of 2024, being even deadlier than all of the 2025 crashes with a death toll of 179 and only two survivors.

More recently, in Sudan, a military jet crashed into a neighborhood near the city of Omdurman and killed 46 people on the 25th. The cause of the crash is unknown. One of those killed was Sudan’s Major General, Bahr Ahmed.

(Joshua Goetz)

Trump’s Policy on Ukraine

Three years have passed since the war in Ukraine began again when Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24, 2022. The U.S has been a staunch ally of Ukraine, supplying it with weapons and aid to defend itself from their Russian invaders and deploying heavy sanctions on Russia.

Though this aid has been effective in repelling the Russians from taking the country, President Trump looks to put an end to the war, as he’s said he’d end the war on day one — although his decisions seem to be significantly anti-Ukraine.

Trump began peace talks with Putin over Ukraine and worked out a peace treaty — but has faced criticism for not including any Ukrainians in the negotiations. Trump’s plan thus far consists of a ceasefire by Easter and the removal of all Ukrainian troops from the Russian city of Kursk.

However, it not only bars Ukraine from ever being a member of NATO, but also allows Russia to keep all territory that it seized from Ukraine. Trump has been called out for essentially negotiating a surrender for Ukraine as opposed to a peace deal, as this deal heavily favors Russia’s interests and gives up Ukrainian land.

U.S. support of Ukraine has dwindled not only in the manner of negotiations, but also in open votes in the United Nations as well as public statements. Trump made a post on Truth Social last week, claiming that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy shouldn’t have gone into the war, despite being the one that was invaded.

He also called Zelenskyy a dictator and fraud, but refused to label Putin as such. The USA has joined Russia, Belarus, and North Korea in being one of the only nations to vote “nay” on whether or not Russia should have to remove all troops from Ukraine.

(Joshua Goetz)

Trump’s Aid Policies

Furthering Washington’s change in stance on global policies, Trump has implemented new policies restricting U.S aid. In fact, the policy goes much farther than restricting aid — there’s been a total shutdown of outgoing aid to any foreign organization, and a dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

There is a current 90-day freeze on all aid going to other countries, which will directly affect many countries in need. Ukrainian humanitarian organizations are operating at around 40% of their previous budget due to the U.S cutting aid, meaning they won’t be able to adequately support people displaced by Russian shelling.

Meanwhile, security aid has also been slashed in Taiwan, making them significantly more vulnerable to Chinese influence and causing panic among their government. Israel’s security budget has been exempted from this cut, but humanitarian aid was slashed.

So far, the Trump administration has fired over 2,000 USAID workers and put the remainder on paid leave, with intentions in the future to finish the dissolution of the organization.

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News Brief #8: Trump’s action against Ukraine and plane crashes

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