In our news wrap Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a letter of censure against Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, who retired from the Navy with a rank of Captain, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz dropped his bid for a third term, jury selection began in the first criminal trial over the slow law enforcement response to the Uvalde school shooting and Eva Schloss, the stepsister of Anne Frank, has died.

Geoff Bennett:

In the day’s other headlines: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a letter of censure today against Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, who retired from the Navy with a rank of captain. In a social media post, Hegseth said the proceedings could lead to a reduction in his retired grade, resulting in a corresponding reduction in retired pay. But the move stops short of recalling Kelly to active duty and prosecuting him.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ):

You can refuse illegal orders.

Geoff Bennett:

In November, Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers released a video calling on U.S. troops to resist what they called illegal orders.

Kelly called today’s decision outrageous, adding that: “Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump don’t get to decide what Americans in this country get to say about their government.”

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz says he’s dropping his bid for a third term. His decision comes amid a widening fraud scandal involving the state’s childcare programs. Walz has faced increasing scrutiny from President Trump and other top Republicans over his handling of the investigation.

Today, Walz, who was the Democratic vice presidential candidate back in 2024, said that, given the challenges Minnesota is facing, he, in his words, can’t give a political campaign his all.

Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN):

Every minute that I spend defending my own political interest would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who want to prey on our differences.

Geoff Bennett:

A person close to Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said today that she is considering a bid to replace Walz. She reportedly met with him over the weekend. About a dozen Republicans have already entered the race.

In Texas, jury selection began today in the first criminal trial over the slow law enforcement response to the Uvalde school shooting. Former Uvalde school officer Adrian Gonzales is charged with failing to protect children during the attack that killed 19 students and two teachers.

He was among the first of nearly 400 officers to arrive on the scene at Robb Elementary in 2022. They waited more than an hour before confronting the gunman. Gonzales faces 29 counts of child endangerment and abandonment. He’s pleaded not guilty.

In Ohio, the Secret Service says it has detained a man who attacked a home of Vice President J.D. Vance. Sources tell the Associated Press that agents heard a loud noise around midnight and found a person who had broken a window with a hammer and was trying to enter the house. A Secret Service vehicle was also damaged.

Court records show a 26-year-old from Kentucky is set to be arraigned tomorrow on misdemeanor charges of vandalism, criminal trespass and others. Vance and his family were not at home at the time.

Turning overseas now, Swiss police say they have identified all 116 people who were injured in last week’s New Year’s Eve fire in the resort town of Crans-Montana. More than 80 of them are still in the hospital. It comes a day after authorities said they had identified all 40 people who died in the blaze.

In Milan today, the bodies of some of the six Italian victims of the tragedy returned home. Swiss authorities say they have launched a criminal investigation into the managers of the bar. They face charges of involuntary homicide, among other charges.

On Wall Street today, stocks ended higher amid hopes that U.S. energy companies will soon be able to access Venezuela’s massive oil reserves. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped nearly 600 points to close at a new all-time high. The Nasdaq added around 160 points. The S&P 500 also ended higher on the day.

And Eva Schloss, Holocaust survivor and the stepsister of Anne Frank, has died. Schloss was born in Vienna in 1929. After Germany annexed Austria in 1938, she and her family fled to the Netherlands, where Schloss became friends with her neighbor, Anne Frank.

Their families both hid from the Nazis, but were eventually captured and sent to the Auschwitz death camp. Schloss and her mother were the only survivors in her family, a reality she was — quote — “never quite able to accept.” Schloss reflected on her personal tragedies in 2019.

Eva Schloss, Holocaust Survivor:

I realized that it is important that people should never, ever forget what has happened and how it came about. We have to learn from the histories and mistakes we have made and try to make a safer, better world for everybody.

Geoff Bennett:

After the war ended, Eva Schloss’ mother married Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father. In her later years, Schloss lived in the U.K. with her husband and three children and became a prominent Holocaust educator and author.

In a statement today, her family called her a remarkable woman. Eva Schloss was 96 years old.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday blamed Rob Reiner’s outspoken opposition to the president for the actor-director’s killing, delivering the unsubstantiated claim in a shocking post that seemed intent on decrying his opponents even in the face of a tragedy.

The statement, even for Trump, was a shocking comment that came as police were still investigating the deaths of the director and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, as an apparent homicide. The couple were found dead at their home Sunday in Los Angeles. Investigators believe they suffered stab wounds and the couple’s son Nick Reiner was in police custody early Monday.

READ MORE: Rob Reiner’s son Nick arrested after acclaimed director and his wife found dead in Los Angeles home, AP source says

Trump has a long track record of inflammatory remarks, but his comments in a social media post were a drastic departure from the role presidents typically play in offering a message of consolation or tribute after the death of a public figure. His message drew criticism even from conservatives and his supporters and laid bare Trump’s unwillingness to rise above political grievance in moments of crisis.

Trump, in a post on his social media network, said Reiner and his wife were killed “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”

He said Reiner “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness.”

READ MORE: How Rob Reiner is being remembered

The president did not mention his personal connection to Reiner’s wife, who was a photographer. Peter Osnos, the original publisher of “The Art of the Deal,” confirmed Monday that Michele Singer took the cover image of Trump’s 1987 bestseller.

Watch Trump’s full event in the video player below.

Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who has bucked much of his party’s lockstep agreement with the president, criticized Trump for the comment.

“Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered,” Massie wrote in a post on X. “I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican whom Trump branded a “traitor” for disagreeing with him, responded to Trump’s message by saying, “This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies.”

Republican Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma, who are not known for pushing back on the White House, also criticized Trump’s message.

Reiner — a director of beloved films like “The Princess Bride” and “When Harry Met Sally” — was one of the most active Democrats in the film industry and regularly campaigned on behalf of liberal causes and hosted fundraisers. He was a vocal critic of Trump, calling him in a 2017 interview with Variety “mentally unfit” to be president and “the single-most unqualified human being to ever assume the presidency of the United States.”

The White House, which shared the president’s post, did not respond to a message about the criticism it was receiving and calls for Trump to take it down.

Speaking at the White House to reporters later Monday, Trump doubled down on his criticism of Reiner when he was asked if he stood by his post. Using the third person, Trump said Reiner “was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned.”

“I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any way shape or form,” Trump said. “I thought he was very bad for our country.”

The unsympathetic message was the latest example of Trump’s unsparing prism through which he views those he perceives as enemies.

He made retribution against political enemies a prime focus of his campaign for the White House last year. And he has in the past made light of violence when it’s befallen those on the other side of the political aisle.

When Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked by an intruder looking for the former House speaker at the family’s San Francisco home in 2022 and beaten over the head with a hammer, Trump later mocked the attack.

That’s despite his comments after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this year. Trump said Kirk’s killing was “the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree.”

His administration then sought consequences for people who were critical of Kirk or even celebrated his killing.

Jenna Ellis, who was one of Trump’s lawyers and worked on his efforts in 2020 to overturn the results of the presidential election, pointed out Trump’s double standard and called his post “NOT the appropriate response.”

“The Right uniformly condemned political and celebratory responses to Charlie Kirk’s death. This is a horrible example from Trump (and surprising considering the two attempts on his own life) and should be condemned by everyone with any decency,” Ellis said in a post on X.

When Trump spoke at Kirk’s memorial service, he used his remarks to underline how he views his adversaries.

“I hate my opponent,” the president said.

Associated Press writer Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this report.

New York routinely issues commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants that may be valid long after they are legally authorized to be in the country, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday and he threatened to withhold $73 million in highway funds unless the system is fixed and any flawed licenses are revoked.

Watch Duffy’s remarks in the video player above.

State officials said they are following all the federal rules for the licenses and have been verifying drivers’ immigration status.

New York is the fourth state run by a Democratic governor Duffy has targeted in his effort to make sure truck and bus drivers are qualified to get commercial licenses. He launched the review after a truck driver who was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people in August. But the rules on these licenses have been in place for years.

The Transportation Department has said it is auditing these non-domiciled licenses nationwide, but so far no states run by Republican governors have been targeted. But Duffy said Friday that this effort is not political, and he hopes New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will take responsibility and work with him. He said it is about making sure everyone behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound truck is qualified and safe.

READ MORE: California revokes 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses for immigrants

“Let’s hold hands and sing Christmas music and fix your system,” Duffy said. Instead, he said the response appears to be trying to “dodge, divert and weave” without taking responsibility for the problems.

Duffy said federal investigators found that more than half of the 200 licenses they reviewed in New York were issued improperly with many of them defaulting to be valid for eight years regardless of when an immigrant’s work permit expires. And he said the state couldn’t prove it had verified these drivers’ immigration status for the 32,000 active non-domiciled commercial licenses it has issued. Plus, investigators found some examples of New York issuing licenses even when applicants’ work authorizations were already expired.

“When more than half of the licenses reviewed were issued illegally, it isn’t just a mistake — it is a dereliction of duty by state leadership. Gov. Hochul must immediately revoke these illegally issued licenses,” Duffy said.

WATCH: Duffy says states must withdraw commercial driver licenses from foreigners who overstay visas

New York has 30 days to respond to these concerns. State DMV spokesperson Walter McClure defended the state’s practices.

“Secretary Duffy is lying about New York State once again in a desperate attempt to distract from the failing, chaotic administration he represents. Here is the truth: Commercial Drivers Licenses are regulated by the Federal Government, and New York State DMV has, and will continue to, comply with federal rules,” McClure said.

Duffy has previously threatened to pull federal funding from New York if the state did not abandon its plan to charge drivers a congestion pricing fee in New York City and if crime on the subway system was not addressed. The Transportation Department also put $18 billion of funding on hold for two major infrastructure projects in New York, including a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey, because of concerns about whether the spending was based on unconstitutional diversity, equity and inclusion principles.

Immigrants account for about 20% of all truck drivers, but these non-domiciled licenses only represent about 5% of all commercial driver’s licenses. The Transportation Department also proposed new restrictions that would severely limit which noncitizens could get a license but a court put the new rules on hold.

Duffy has threatened to withhold millions from California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota after the audits found significant problems under the existing rules like commercial licenses being valid long after an immigrant truck driver’s work permit expired. That pressure prompted California to revoke 17,000 licenses.

President Donald Trump commented Sunday on the deadly shootings in Australia, Syria and Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Watch Trump’s remarks in the video player above.

As he arrived at the White House’s Christmas reception, Trump paid tribute to those killed and injured in the three attacks.

He first offered his condolences to the families of the two people killed in the Brown University shooting, before going on to honor those who died in Australia and Syria.

LIVE UPDATES: Deadly shooting at Brown University

“To the nine injured, get well fast, and to the families of those two that are no longer with us, I pay my deepest regards and respects,” Trump said in reference to the Brown University shooting.

A person of interest was in custody Sunday after the shooting during final exams at Brown University Saturday.

On the mass shooting in Sydney, Australia, Trump called it a terrible “anti-Semitic attack.”

At least 11 people were killed Sunday in the attack on a Hannukah celebration at Sydney’s famous Bondi beach. At least 29 were injured.

“We had an attack in Syria and we had three great patriots terminated by bad people, and not the Syrian government, it was ISIS. The Syrian government fought by our side,” said Trump of the Syria incident.

The man who carried out an attack in Syria that killed three U.S. citizens had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months earlier and was recently reassigned amid suspicions that he might be affiliated with the Islamic State group, a Syrian official told The Associated Press Sunday.

At least two people have been killed and eight critically wounded in a shooting Saturday at Brown University in Rhode Island.

Watch President Donald Trump’s remarks in the video player above.

Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said a shooter is not in custody. A shelter-in-place is in effect for the greater Brown University area.

READ MORE: At least 2 people killed, 8 injured in shooting at Brown University

Brown University Provost Frank Doyle said final exams were taking place in the engineering building Saturday afternoon when the shooter opened fire.

President Donald Trump said late in the afternoon that he had been briefed on the shooting.

“God bless the victims and the families of the victims!” he said on his social media site.

Smiley asked for prayers for the families of the victims, noting the coming Christmas holiday. “It’s going to be a difficult rest of the day, difficult days and months ahead as this community heals,” the mayor said.

The mayor declined to say whether the victims were students.

The Trump administration is arguing that requiring real-time American Sign Language interpretation of events like White House press briefings “would severely intrude on the President’s prerogative to control the image he presents to the public,” part of a lawsuit seeking to require the White House to provide the services.

Department of Justice attorneys haven’t elaborated on how doing so might hamper the portrayal President Donald Trump seeks to present to the public. But overturning policies encompassing diversity, equity and inclusion have become a hallmark of his second administration, starting with his very first week back in the White House.

WATCH: The history of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in America

The National Association for the Deaf sued the Trump administration in May, arguing that the cessation of American Sign Language interpretation — which the Biden administration had used regularly — represented “denying hundreds of thousands of deaf Americans meaningful access to the White House’s real-time communications on various issues of national and international import.” The group also sued during Trump’s first administration, seeking ASL interpretation for briefings related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a June court filing opposing the association’s request for a preliminary injunction, reported Thursday by Politico, attorneys for the Justice Department argued that being required to provide sign language interpretation for news conferences “would severely intrude on the President’s prerogative to control the image he presents to the public,” also writing that the president has “the prerogative to shape his Administration’s image and messaging as he sees fit.”

Government attorneys also argued that it provides the hard of hearing or Deaf community with other ways to access the president’s statements, like online transcripts of events, or closed captioning. The administration has also argued that it would be difficult to wrangle such services in the event that Trump spontaneously took questions from the press, rather than at a formal briefing.

A White House spokesperson did not immediately comment Friday on the ongoing lawsuit or answer questions about the administration’s argument regarding the damage of interpretation services to Trump’s “image.”

In their June filing, government attorneys questioned if other branches of government were being held to a similar standard if they didn’t provide the same interpretative services as sought by the association.

As home to Gallaudet University, the world’s premier college for the deaf and hard of hearing, Washington likely has an ample pool of trained ASL interpreters into which the White House could tap. Mayor Muriel Bowser has made ASL interpretation a mainstay of her appearances, including a pair of interpreters who swap in and out.

Last month, a federal judge rejected that and other objections from the government, issuing an order requiring the White House to provide American Sign Language interpreting for Trump and Leavitt’s remarks in real time. The White House has appealed the ruling, and while the administration has begun providing American Sign Language interpreting at some events, there’s disagreement over what services it has to supply.

On his first week back in office, Trump signed a sweeping executive order putting a stop to diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the U.S. government. In putting his own imprint on the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in January issued an order stating that DEI policies were “incompatible” with the department’s mission,

This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered diplomatic correspondence to return to the more traditional Times New Roman font, arguing that the Biden administration’s 2023 shift to the sans serif Calibri font had emerged from misguided diversity, equity and inclusion policies pursued by his predecessor.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A pair of lawsuits seeking to redraw congressional boundary lines that currently favor Republicans in Wisconsin are on track to be resolved after the 2026 midterms, even as attorneys for one case argued Friday in court that there’s still time to enact new maps for the November election.

Court hearings in both cases came the day after Indiana Republicans soundly rejected President Donald Trump’s demand that they redraw congressional lines in that deep red state. Trump is waging a national redistricting battle as he tries to preserve a slim Republican majority in the House in next year’s elections.

WATCH: Indiana Republican explains why he defied Trump and rejected congressional redistricting

An attorney for Democrats who brought one of the Wisconsin challenges argued for the panel to issue a ruling by around March 1, the deadline given by the state elections commission in order to have new maps in place.

“It’s absolutely possible,” Julie Zuckerbrod, an attorney with the liberal Elias Law Group, told a three-judge panel in support of the more aggressive timing.

But Dane County Circuit Judge Julie Genovese pushed back on the pressure to act quickly.

“We’ll decide them when we can decide them,” she said of the pending motions to issue a ruling or dismiss the case without further arguments.

Attorneys for Wisconsin’s six Republican congressmen and other conservative defendants pushed for a schedule that would not result in a trial until March 2027.

“Seeking relief in time for the 2026 election would be unfair,” said Kevin LeRoy, an attorney for the congressmen.

The three-judge panel in that case will first decide early next year whether to dismiss the case or rule in favor of those who brought it without further argument.

Both of the Wisconsin cases are before newly assigned three-judge panels, the first time that process has been used under a 2011 law enacted by Republicans. The dual hearings on Friday afternoon were two hours and two floors apart in the same courthouse, just blocks from the state Capitol.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court last month ordered that the redistricting cases be first heard by the three-judge panel over objections from Republicans.

The three-judge panel hearing the case brought by a bipartisan coalition of business leaders set a potential trial date for April 5, 2027, if the case survives a motion to dismiss.

Any final rulings of those panels on the merits of the cases can be appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is controlled 4-3 by liberal justices.

The Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy argues in its lawsuit that Wisconsin’s congressional maps are unconstitutional because they are an anti-competitive gerrymander. The lawsuit notes that the median margin of victory for candidates in the eight districts since the maps were enacted is close to 30 percentage points.

“In a 50-50 state, it makes no sense that 75% of Wisconsin seats in the House of Representatives are controlled by one party,” Law Forward said in a summary of its lawsuit on its website.

The other case, filed on behalf of Democratic voters, contends the current maps discriminate against Democrats. They do so by packing a substantial number of Democrats into two districts while breaking up other Democratic areas into six Republican-favorable districts.

In 2010, the year before Republicans redrew the congressional maps, Democrats held five seats compared with three for Republicans. Republicans hold six of the state’s eight U.S. House seats, but only two are considered competitive.

The current congressional maps, which were based on the ones drawn in 2010, were approved by the state Supreme Court when it was controlled by conservative judges. The U.S. Supreme Court in March 2022 declined to block them from taking effect.

A top target for Democrats is the western Wisconsin seat held by Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden. He won in 2022 after longtime Democratic Rep. Ron Kind retired. Van Orden won reelection in the 3rd District in 2024.

The other seat Democrats are hoping to make more competitive is southeastern Wisconsin’s 1st District, held by Republican Rep. Bryan Steil since 2019. The latest maps made that district more competitive while still favoring Republicans.

President Donald Trump was sued on Friday by preservationists asking a federal court to halt his White House ballroom project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and wins approval from Congress.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a privately funded group, is asking the U.S. District Court to block Trump’s White House ballroom project, which already has involved razing the East Wing, until it goes through comprehensive design reviews, environmental assessments, public comments and congressional debate and ratification.

READ MORE: White House expected to submit plans for new ballroom construction this month

Trump’s project has prompted criticism in the historic preservation and architectural communities, and among his political adversaries, but the lawsuit is the most tangible effort thus far to alter or stop the president’s plans for an addition that itself would be nearly twice the size of the White House before the East Wing’s demolition.

“No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever — not President Trump, not President Biden, and not anyone else,” the lawsuit states. “And no president is legally allowed to construct a ballroom on public property without giving the public the opportunity to weigh in.”

Additionally, the Trust wants the court to declare that Trump, by fast-tracking the project, has committed multiple violations of the Administrative Procedures Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, while also exceeding his constitutional authority by not consulting lawmakers.

WATCH: East Wing of White House torn down as Trump clears space for his ballroom

No more work should be done, the Trust argues, until administration officials “complete the required reviews — reviews that should have taken place before the Defendants demolished the East Wing, and before they began construction of the Ballroom.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not immediately respond to Associated Press questions about the lawsuit and the project, including whether the president had any intention of consulting Congress. Trump, a Republican, has emphasized since announcing the project that he’s doing it with private money, including his own. But that would not necessarily change how federal laws and procedures apply to what is still a U.S. government project.

The president already has bypassed the federal government’s usual building practices and historical reviews with the East Wing demolition. He recently added another architectural firm to the project.

Trump has long said a White House ballroom is overdue, complaining that events were held outside under a tent because the East Room and the State Dining Room could not accommodate bigger crowds. Trump, among other complaints, said guests get their feet wet if it rains during such events.

READ MORE: The East Wing of the White House has been demolished. Here’s a look at its history

The White House is expected to submit plans for Trump’s new ballroom to a federal planning commission before the year ends, about three months after construction began.

Will Scharf, who was named by Trump as chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, said at the panel’s monthly meeting last week that he was told by colleagues at the White House that the long-awaited plans would be filed in December.

“Once plans are submitted, that’s really when the role of this commission, and its professional staff, will begin,” said Scharf, who also is one of the Republican president’s top White House aides.

He said the review process would happen at a “normal and deliberative pace.”

Besides being too late, the Trust argues, that’s not nearly enough.

The Trust asserts that plans should have been submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts and Congress before any action. The lawsuit notes that the Trust wrote to those entities and the National Park Service on Oct. 21, after East Wing demolition began, urging a stop to the project and asking the administration to comply with federal law.

“The National Trust received no response,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit cites a litany of federal statutes and rules detailing the role the planning and fine arts commission and lawmakers play in U.S. government construction projects.

Among them is a statute: “A building or structure shall not be erected on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.”

The Trust notes also that the range design and environmental reviews, along with congressional deliberation, would involve public input.

“This public involvement, while important in all preservation matters, is particularly critical here, where the structure at issue is perhaps the most recognizable and historically significant building in the country,” the complaint says.

Besides the president, the lawsuit names as defendants the National Parks Service, the Department of the Interior, and the General Services Administration, along with leaders of those federal agencies.

After Republican legislators in Indiana joined with Democrats to vote down a plan to redraw the state’s congressional map on Thursday, President Donald Trump said he would support a primary against a GOP state Senate leader.

Watch Trump’s remarks in the video player above.

The 31-19 vote in the state Senate rejected the congressional redistricting effort that Trump has been pushing Republicans to support in order to help maintain their majority in the U.S. House after the 2026 midterm elections.

READ MORE: Indiana Republicans block new congressional map in rare break with Trump

Twenty-one Republicans joined 10 Democrats in opposing the new district lines that could have potentially given Republicans two more seats.

When PBS News Hour’s White House correspondent Liz Landers asked Trump for his reaction to the vote, the president criticized Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray.

“I heard he was against it,” Trump said. “He’ll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is. I hope he does, because he’s done a tremendous disservice.”

Trump added later that he would “certainly support anybody who wants to go against him.”

READ MORE: Violent threats pile up as Indiana Republicans confront pressure from Trump on redistricting

After the vote, Bray said in a statement that while Republicans in the state senate want to see a GOP majority in Congress in the 2026 midterm elections, “the issue before us today was how to get there, and many of my caucus members don’t think redrawing our Congressional map mid-cycle is a guaranteed way for Indiana – or our country – to achieve that outcome.”

Senators from both parties pushed Thursday for changes to a massive defense bill after crash investigators and victims’ families warned the legislation would undo key safety reforms stemming from a collision between an airliner and Army helicopter over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people.

The head of the National Transportation Safety Board investigating the crash, a group of the victims’ family members and senators on the Commerce Committee all said the bill the House advanced Wednesday would make America’s skies less safe. It would allow the military to operate essentially the same way as it did before the January crash, which was the deadliest in more than two decades, they said.

WATCH: NTSB finds Army chopper in fatal midair crash with plane was above altitude limit

Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell and Republican Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Cruz filed two amendments Thursday to strip out the worrisome helicopter safety provisions and replace them with a bill they introduced last summer to strengthen requirements, but it’s not clear if Republican leadership will allow the National Defense Authorization Act to be changed at this stage because that would delay its passage.

“We owe it to the families to put into law actual safety improvements, not give the Department of Defense bigger loopholes to exploit,” the senators said.

The bill would roll back reforms

Right now, the bill includes exceptions that would allow military helicopters to fly through the crowded airspace around the nation’s capital without using a key system called ADS-B to broadcast their locations just like they did before the January collision. The Federal Aviation Administration began requiring that in March. NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy called the bill a “significant safety setback” that is inviting a repeat of that disaster.

“It represents an unacceptable risk to the flying public, to commercial and military aircraft, crews and to the residents in the region,” Homendy said. “It’s also an unthinkable dismissal of our investigation and of 67 families … who lost loved ones in a tragedy that was entirely preventable. This is shameful.”

The biggest unions representing pilots, flight attendants and other transportation workers joined the chorus criticizing the bill on Thursday. Sara Nelson, who is president of the Association of Flight Attendants, questioned why this was proposed. She said these provisions are “not only reckless and indefensible, but also a direct undermining of the NTSB’s safety guidance.”

Congress may turn to another bill to fix the concerns

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he is looking into the concerns but thinks they can be addressed by quickly passing the aviation safety bill that Cruz and Cantwell proposed last summer that would require all aircraft operators to use both forms of ADS-B, or Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast, the technology to broadcast aircraft location data to other planes and air traffic controllers. Most aircraft today are equipped with ADS-B Out equipment but the airlines would have to add the more comprehensive ADS-B In technology to their planes.

That legislation would also revoke an exemption on ADS-B transmission requests for Department of Defense aircraft.

“I think that would resolve the concerns that people have about that provision, and hoping — we’ll see if we can find a pathway forward to get that bill done,” said Thune, a South Dakota Republican.

Military routinely flew without ADS-B turned on

The military used national security waivers before the crash to skirt FAA safety requirements on the grounds that they worried about the security risks of disclosing their helicopters’ locations. Tim and Sheri Lilley, whose son Sam was the first officer on the American Airlines jet, said this bill only adds “a window dressing fix that would continue to allow for the setting aside of requirements with nothing more than a cursory risk assessment.”

Military helicopters like the Black Hawk involved in the crash did send some location data to controllers through a transponder, but the FAA has said that ADS-B data is more precise and the NTSB has been recommending for decades that all aircraft be equipped with such systems. The Army was concerned about using those systems because anyone — including a plane enthusiast on the ground — can use them to know precisely where a helicopter or airplane is located.

Homendy said it would be ridiculous to entrust the military with assessing the safety risks when they aren’t the experts, and neither the Army nor the FAA noticed 85 close calls around Ronald Reagan National Airport in the years before the crash. She said the military doesn’t know how to do that kind of risk assessment, adding that no one writing the bill bothered to consult the experts at the NTSB who do know.

The NTSB’s final report on the cause of the D.C. crash won’t be released until next year, but investigators have already identified a number of factors that contributed, including that the helicopter was flying too high on a route that only provided scant separation between helicopters and planes landing on Reagan’s secondary runway.

Homendy said part of the investigation focuses on the limitations of the various systems that are designed to alert other pilots and air traffic controllers about the location of an aircraft. The pilots of the American jet that was flying into D.C. from Wichita, Kansas, did get a warning about traffic nearby 20 seconds before the collision. But at the low altitude the plane was traveling as it prepared to land, the basic collision avoidance system recommended by this bill was partly inhibited to prevent false alarms and because there is little room to maneuver.

The White House and military didn’t immediately respond Thursday to questions about these safety concerns in the bill. But earlier this week Trump made it clear that he wants to sign the National Defense Authorization Act because it advances a number of his priorities and provides a 3.8% pay raise for many military members.

The Senate is expected to take up the bill next week, and it appears unlikely that any final changes will be made. But Congress is leaving for a holiday break at the end of the week, and the defense bill is considered something that must pass by the end of the year.