Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
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We're starting to learn the identities of crew members on board the flights that collided just outside Washington, D.C. Cockpit recordings from the jet have also been recovered. What can they tell investigators about why this happened? I'm Michelle Martin, that's A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News.

The German parliament passed a motion to restrict immigration by turning back asylum seekers at the border. It narrowly passed with the support of the country's extremist far-right party. Lawmakers' cooperation with them broke a longstanding taboo against working with the far-right. What does it mean that these extremists are now participating in mainstream politics? And we pay a visit to a top-secret lab underneath the Nevada desert where nuclear weapons are tested and studied. Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day. ♪

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Federal investigators have retrieved the cockpit voice and flight data recorders from the American Airlines jet that collided with an Army helicopter Wednesday night. The crash, which occurred over the Potomac River, killed 67 people. We're also beginning to learn the identities of some of the crew on those aircraft. NPR's Frank Langfitt has been following this story. Frank, so what will investigators be hoping to find out from the black boxes of that regional jet?

Yeah, A, I think the final conversations in the cockpit, obviously before the two aircraft collided, also be able to see about the plane's performance, data points, and including, and I think this is really important, the altitude of the plane leading up to and at the time of the collision. It's not yet clear how these two aircraft, who are supposed, of course, to pass at a safe distance, how they ended up in the same place at the same time.

Of course, also going to need the Army Blackhawk black box to be able to compare. And a question that's really coming up, I think, particularly yesterday, talking to people at the NTSB is, was that helicopter on the right flight path? The Blackhawks recorder, as far as we know right now, is still in the river. But the National Transportation Safety Board, they're very confident they'll retrieve it. Okay. What do we know about the crew of the American Airlines jet?

Yeah, we've got some confirmations here. The pilot was Jonathan Campos. He was 34. The first officer, a man named Sam Lilly in his late 20s, both based in Charlotte, really avid flyers. And Lilly is a second-generation pilot. His father, Tim, used to fly for Air Wisconsin. And writing on Facebook yesterday, Tim Lilly wrote that Sam's career had been going very well, and he was engaged to be married in the fall. And he wrote this. He said, "'Now it hurts so bad, I can't even cry myself to sleep.'"

Now, later today, we should learn the identities of the three service members who were crewing the Black Hawk. Frank, there are reports that the Federal Aviation Administration has said that the controller handling helicopters was also instructing planes. That's a job normally done by two people. So did federal investigators have anything to say about that? Yeah, this was an FAA report that's been quoted by a number of news sources saying,

NTSB, this is one of the board members, a guy named Todd Inman spoke yesterday, and he said they had not reviewed any specific reports about the controllers, but said, of course, as a matter of course, you know, you're going to be looking at what was going on in the control room and with the controllers. This is what he said. Our investigators are continuing to pull all that information, their personnel records, their files, where they were at, whether they were fatigued. All that information will be part of that investigative process.

And, you know, A, that's not ideal, but analysts say it's also not unusual and not necessarily dangerous, depending on how much traffic is going on at the time.

All right. So today, another day of searching. What are people hoping to find out today? Yeah. I mean, just more information. You know, the NTSB yesterday down at Reagan National, you know, during the press conference, they didn't say very much. And they're planning another briefing today. And typically, it's the second day where you learn a bit more. You know, yesterday was just the first day the team was on the ground. And I'm actually looking at photos right now of NTSB workers opening up those black boxes from the airliners.

And federal investigators, what they're really emphasizing is they want to be really careful about confirming facts before they pass them on. And there should be a preliminary report on this accident should be completed in about 30 days. 30 days. Okay. That's NPR's Frank Langford. Frank, thank you. Good to talk to you.

What started as a motion to do more to restrict immigration to Germany has now become something bigger. It has erupted into a fierce national debate over the degree to which the country should allow its most extreme political elements into mainstream politics. And at the center of this debate is the man who is the frontrunner to become Germany's next chancellor. NPR's Berlin correspondent Rob Schmitz joins us to discuss this. So set the scene for us, Rob. How did all this start?

So this all started with a parliamentary motion to restrict immigration from Friedrich Merz. He's the head of the Christian Democratic Union, a center-right party that's ahead in the polls and will likely win the most votes in Germany's election next month. And that means Merz will likely be Germany's next chancellor. All right. So what did he do in parliament this week?

Well, he brought forth a motion to further restrict immigration to Germany, and this comes on the heels of recent deadly attacks committed by migrants. Now, on the face of it, there was nothing off about Merz's motion in Parliament about this, but it was how he was going to pass this motion that really upset much of Parliament and many Germans. Upset. So what was so upsetting to lawmakers about that?

Well, none of the mainstream parties were interested in voting with Merz's party on this proposal. But there was one party that was very keen to join him, and that's the AfD, the Alternative for Germany Party, which is considered by Germany's political establishment as an extremist right-wing party.

The AFD has advocated deporting all Germans with a migration background. Some of its members use Nazi slogans. And the party is under domestic surveillance for the threat that it poses to Germany's democracy. So, Rob, just a guess here, but because of Germany's history in World War II, I'd imagine that a party like AFD is probably worrying a lot of people.

Yeah, that's right. And since World War II, there's been a consensus among Germany's mainstream political parties that extremist parties must never be allowed in government again. And when the AFD first gained popularity a decade ago, Merz's party and Germany's other mainstream parties made a pact to never cooperate with the AFD. This was called the firewall.

But now Merz is signaling that he's open to cooperating with the AFD on this immigration motion. And here's how he defended his decision. And he's saying here that the right decision does not become wrong because the wrong people have made it. The decision, he said, is still right. OK, how are other mainstream parties responding to all this?

Lots of anger. As Merz defended himself, a yelling match began in Parliament and Chancellor Olaf Scholz finally took the podium. Here's what he said. Scholz said that three weeks ago, Merz promised never to cooperate with AFD and voters trusted him. What are these words worth now, he asked. Former Chancellor Angela Merkel, who's in the same party as Merz, also has criticized him for doing this. Any indication of why Merz did this? Well,

Well, there is an election in a few weeks and it's possible Merz is cooperating with the AFD on immigration because up to now, the AFD has owned this issue and it's led to high poll numbers. They're now in second place and Elon Musk has recently come out to support them. So the logic goes, if Merz's party can steal some of that spotlight, perhaps he can chip into that support and take some of those voters to his party instead.

But many are blaming him for playing a dangerous game with Germany's democracy on this. That's NPR's Berlin correspondent, Rob Schmitz. Rob, thanks. Thanks. Nuclear weapons testing might seem like a relic of the Cold War. Three, two, one.

But the world's major nuclear powers are eyeing each other with suspicion. Each believes the other might conduct a nuclear test soon. As all this is happening, NPR's Jeff Brumfield got an extraordinary look inside America's program to maintain its nuclear weapons. And he's with us now to tell us more about it. Jeff, good morning. Good morning. So just start off by telling us where you went and what you saw. Yeah, I went out to the Nevada National Security Site. It used to be the Nevada test site where America tested its nuclear warheads.

That hasn't happened since the 1990s, but scientists are still studying nuclear weapons down there in a top-secret lab that's deep underground. To get there, you have to step into this mining elevator. ♪

And it drops you nearly a thousand feet below the desert. At the bottom is a network of tunnels that's been carved out of an ancient lake bed. David Funk is overseeing upgrades to the labs, and he told me these tunnels were originally dug for underground nuclear detonations. Yeah, this was designed to be a nuclear test location originally, and now we do only subcritical experiments in this location.

Okay, he said subcritical experiments. Jeff, what does that mean? Well, subcritical experiments are experiments that use nuclear weapons material like plutonium, but they don't trigger a runaway nuclear chain reaction. That's the reaction that gives bombs their incredible power. The data from these experiments is fed into supercomputers that calculate how nuclear weapons are doing. Basically, they're simulating blowing up nukes inside these supercomputers.

Now, in the tunnels, I spoke to Don Haynes, a nuclear weapons scientist from Los Alamos National Lab. He says this whole system works. They don't need to do a full system test of a weapon. Our assessment is that there are no system questions that would be answered by a test.

that would be worth the expense and the effort and the time. But of course, Haynes is just a scientist. It's the politicians in general who are going to decide whether the U.S. conducts another test. To that point, though, do we know what the Trump administration plans to do with regards to nuclear testing?

So during the first Trump administration, there was some discussion of testing. And over the summer, his former national security advisor wrote that the U.S. should conduct a full nuclear test under Trump 2.0. And then there's Project 2025, a conservative agenda whose authors have close ties to Trump. It also says the president should have the option to do a test if he needs to. Well, Jeff, why would he need to?

Well, as we just heard, the scientists don't need to test, but there may be political reasons. You know, other countries might threaten the U.S. with nuclear weapons or the president might need to display his resolve. And one way to do that would be to conduct a test. So what would be the consequences of a return to testing? Arms control experts say this would be a huge mistake for America. And the reason is kind of interesting. Here's Jamie Kwong with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The U.S. has...

a technical advantage locked in by this moratorium on nuclear testing. And that's because the U.S. has done well over a thousand nuclear tests. Well, China has only done 45. So China will gain a lot more knowledge from test 46 than the U.S. will from its next test. That is NPR's Jeff Brumfield. Jeff, thank you. Thank you.

And that's Up First for Friday, January 31st. I'm E. Martinez. And I'm Michelle Martin. And just a reminder, Up First airs on weekends too. Ayesha Roscoe and Scott Simon will have the news. Look for it wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Denise Rios, Rylan Barton, Giselle Grayson, Jenea Williams, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Bocz, Nia Dumas, and Claire Murashim, also Chris Thomas. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent.

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